Hacker News: newyankee

New comment by newyankee in "FDA approves first gene therapy for treatment of genetic hearing loss"

newyankee — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 23:20:31 +0000

I do agree that FDA was quite risk averse before especially in areas where the risk - reward would be better for terminally ill or other patients. Having said that this is a different kind of risk reward treatment where the patient might themselves like to try it even if the risks were elevated compared to other post Phase 3 solutions.

AFAIK critics pointed this to be a form of regulatory capture as well.

New comment by newyankee in "FDA approves first gene therapy for treatment of genetic hearing loss"

newyankee — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:13:09 +0000

Fingers crossed. I thought the same when I had heard Stefan Heller at Stanford give a talk 15+ years back. I am sure progress is happening but Biology is hard and the hope is AI and other developments are giving it a push

New comment by newyankee in "FDA approves first gene therapy for treatment of genetic hearing loss"

newyankee — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:21:11 +0000

Actually I am unaware about what FDA policy changes helped this, can you elaborate ?

New comment by newyankee in "FDA approves first gene therapy for treatment of genetic hearing loss"

newyankee — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:12:59 +0000

Very positive news. I have something similar but in a much more difficult gene with different manifestation, but at least this gives me hope that something might come up in 1-2 decades.

New comment by newyankee in "Panipat: The rise of the Mughals"

newyankee — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 15:35:16 +0000

Also when discussing Mughals the most important elephant in the room is ignored. Their intention to totally Islamise India. But this is more about Indian history being editorialised by few communists and others as they hate the notion of a caste system filled India and prefer the Mughal & British rule in their sanitised version. The historic animosity in different groups exists and persists to this day and is reflected in these perspectives. The atrocities of Mughals are not only glossed over, they are completely whitewashed, especially their demolition of 1000s of temples, subjugation of native population and many other crimes are painted as something normal in their time when reality is much more complicated. This is to not even speak of the over romanticisation of Taj Mahal as something 'Indian' while ignoring numerous other architecture that still survives to this day. When pointed out that many mosques were built on top of temples whose basement still survives to this day that part of history is conveniently ignored.

New comment by newyankee in "Panipat: The rise of the Mughals"

newyankee — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 15:30:17 +0000

Actually there are many more interesting people in Indian history. From Chandragupta Maurya, Kanishka to even Shivaji and others. Mughals are overglorified if anything and their own primary texts are ignored in this process.

New comment by newyankee in "The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever. What If They Could?"

newyankee — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:11:44 +0000

I am sure people said the same 100 years back when they probably thought living beyond say 60 was too much. I know that in poorer countries due to high infant mortality rate and other issues just reaching 60 was a big milestone for the average person. The bigger question is how will the existing financial system adapt for such a scenario if even 10% of the population manages to extend from 82 to 100+

New comment by newyankee in "CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes"

newyankee — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 23:29:34 +0000

In an ideal world, yes. But the only way to move forward is somehow modifying the existing world for better, step by step.

New comment by newyankee in "CATL's new LFP battery can charge from 10 to 98% in less than 7 minutes"

newyankee — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:35:19 +0000

In a well designed urban environment where cars have space for 2-3 modular batteries with swapping capabilities, I see no reason why taxis etc. need to carry battery payload > 150 km of range needed for local use, which would mean better fuel efficiency as well. Battery swapping done right is integral to this

New comment by newyankee in "CEOs admit AI had no impact on employment or productivity"

newyankee — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 22:46:24 +0000

WE do have self driving cars with Waymo data showing it is clearly better than human drivers in certain markets like Phoenix. It is human regulations, laws and the general societal unease that is preventing a total rapid change. In fact a Robotaxis only urban area which is continuously mapped might be feasible today and probably could even reduce the no of cars needed for the population making it accessible to many more.

New comment by newyankee in "Why Japan has such good railways"

newyankee — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:24:40 +0000

The good thing that happened seems to be that China has essentially 10xed the Japan railways template. I wonder how bad a car centric China would've had been.

New comment by newyankee in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

newyankee — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:17:26 +0000

Well a lot of Eastern religions do talk about sustainability 1000s of years back. Just because it was never part of Abrahamic faiths and their offshoot cultures which took over the world, does not mean that humans did not think this way

New comment by newyankee in "Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection"

newyankee — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 15:13:13 +0000

The way I suspect they think is this. A pyramid is always going to be there, it is better we reinforce and consolidate our power at top with the friendlies below and make it sound like that is the best option for everyone.

New comment by newyankee in "I put all 8,642 Spanish laws in Git – every reform is a commit"

newyankee — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 15:02:20 +0000

and then we have people touting Jevon's paradox as outcome of AI disruption leading to more work. Before we create new work we need to figure out how to reduce incentive of people to unnecessarily complicate stuff and to be honest the answer is never clean or easy

New comment by newyankee in "The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI"

newyankee — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 15:15:58 +0000

the key part is 'more than ever', earlier the first world was happy with the status quo in general

New comment by newyankee in "Iran war energy crisis is a renewable energy wake-up call"

newyankee — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 23:50:35 +0000

Because the upside (with barely single digit margins if it exists) is mostly China and no one else being able to compete at that scale.

Something like skin in the game. US (low), EU(moderate), China (high), Global South (high with caveats to leapfrog but financing crunch always there)

Renewables need front loaded funding compared to Oil & Gas which are the incumbents that make them sticky.

Otherwise is a lot of US consumers were rational and only price minded they would've run TCO calculators on EV vs ICE for day to day use even without subsidies

New comment by newyankee in "The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild"

newyankee — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 23:14:24 +0000

Not just agriculture but highly water intensive agriculture like almonds. Also I read that a lot of laws about water in some US states contain so many grandfathered clauses that few people 'control' a lot of water use, not sure how much.

New comment by newyankee in "Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies"

newyankee — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:48:25 +0000

Civil Servants in India (with traces to British era) are considered the invisible rulers of the country. Getting selected is like becoming a local lord.

New comment by newyankee in "I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now"

newyankee — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 23:24:16 +0000

The algorithm rewards those guests who follow the trends, he rose the wave to be at the top very fast and now possibly has the leverage where the who's who in AI have to be on his podcast to broadcast their views

New comment by newyankee in "I'm glad the Anthropic fight is happening now"

newyankee — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 21:07:51 +0000

More than that the questions about space based solar vs land solar for data center calculations seemed hollow as they are easily verifiable. He let Elon get away with this admin does not like Solar as an answer instead of what he is doing to convince them otherwise