Hacker News: montrose

New comment by montrose in "Earhart’s last calls: Research suggests dozens heard radioed cries for help"

montrose — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 11:12:05 +0000

This quote

"We're feeding it to the public in bite-sized chunks."

from a non-paywalled article

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/dozens-heard-amel...

makes it clear that this story is part of a carefully managed PR campaign. Not that that makes it false. But it means we should treat it with extra skepticism.

Russian Hackers Appear to Shift Focus to U.S. Power Grid

montrose — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 06:56:00 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/us/politics/russian-hackers-electric-grid-elections-.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17631977

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Why are Americans so loud?

montrose — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 06:37:02 +0000

Article URL: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/04/why-are-americans-so-loud.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17631918

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by montrose in "Worms frozen in permafrost for up to 42,000 years come back to life"

montrose — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 10:47:33 +0000

Does this make these worms the oldest living things?

How a German city changed how we read

montrose — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 11:23:36 +0000

Article URL: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180507-how-a-german-city-changed-how-we-read

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17616557

Points: 39

# Comments: 8

A Fear of Lawsuits Really Does Seem to Result in Extra Medical Tests

montrose — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 10:32:53 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/upshot/malpractice-lawsuits-medical-costs.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17616372

Points: 105

# Comments: 124

New comment by montrose in "How AT&T’s plan to become the new Facebook could be a privacy nightmare"

montrose — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 10:22:18 +0000

Privacy nightmare perhaps, but actual threat to SV cos, no.

New comment by montrose in "Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf]"

montrose — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 08:53:11 +0000

Reading this, I was reminded of Hardy's Mathematician's Apology. He mentions several of these points.

New comment by montrose in "The dream of driverless cars is dying"

montrose — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 08:43:19 +0000

Though this article sounds plausible, I became more skeptical when I noticed he put the word "facility" in scare quotes.

Optimising a Trebuchet [video]

montrose — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 18:23:26 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gn2RGPqe_A

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17531575

Points: 128

# Comments: 22

Project Revives Nazi Atrocities in Striking Color

montrose — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:41:07 +0000

Article URL: https://thevalemagazine.com/2018/06/26/project-revives-nazi-atrocities-in-striking-color/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17530510

Points: 46

# Comments: 30

New comment by montrose in "Ask HN: Do you have a home office (if you work from home)?"

montrose — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 13:45:45 +0000

I've worked at home for decades. In the beginning when I had small apartments, I used to put a table with my computer on it inside a closet. I'd open up the closet door, pull up a chair, and voila, office.

In those days, monitors were thick, and the web didn't exist. Now that monitors are thinner and computers have become many people's de facto TVs, there would be less advantage in doing this.

New comment by montrose in "What do you do if users don't want to pay for your product?"

montrose — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 07:15:52 +0000

Ask them what they would pay for.

Archaeologists in China Discover the Oldest Stone Tools Outside Africa

montrose — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 16:06:39 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/science/hominins-tools-china.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17524130

Points: 52

# Comments: 24

New comment by montrose in "Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College"

montrose — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 17:19:34 +0000

If this trend is real it will be really good for social mobility.

New comment by montrose in "Harvard University is fighting to keep its admissions process under wraps"

montrose — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 10:30:53 +0000

Than the general population possibly, but not than the applicant pool, which is the comparison that matters.

It seems more likely that in the applicant pool the non-legacy kids would be smarter. Imagine how confident of your ability you'd have to be to apply to Harvard as a random kid from a public high school in Iowa. Whereas if you'd grown up expecting to go there because your parents did, the threshold for applying would be pretty low.

New comment by montrose in "Harvard University is fighting to keep its admissions process under wraps"

montrose — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 06:33:48 +0000

"Legacy applicants, or students with a parent who attended Harvard, were accepted to the school at the rate of about 34%, according to data from six admissions cycles analyzed by an economist hired by the group suing the school. That’s compared to an admissions rate of about 6% of non-legacy students, according to an analysis of Harvard data."

New comment by montrose in "What life could be like for civilizations 1 trillion years from now"

montrose — Sat, 30 Jun 2018 12:09:56 +0000

How could they be moving faster than the speed of light?

Human life spans may not be limited

montrose — Sat, 30 Jun 2018 11:45:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2018/06/28/Human-life-spans-may-not-be-limited/5221530238867/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17430494

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by montrose in "I'm Scott Aaronson, quantum computing/computational complexity researcher. AMA"

montrose — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 16:35:25 +0000

Do you think the state of the art in quantum computing is already more advanced than we realize, in the same way that the state of the art in cryptography was when R, S, and A thought they had discovered RSA?