Hacker News: niels_olson

New comment by niels_olson in "Sikorsky X-Wing (2013)"

niels_olson — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 06:01:08 +0000

I interviewed at Sikorsky back in the day. Sort of wish I had pursued it, because the factory floor was amazing, but the manager reminded me of a guy from The Sopranos, and then I got into medical school. But that floor, man. Swashplates. Have you ever seen a swashplate, naked and alone on a pallet? Thin wall machining. I mean, goddamn, that was some sexy machine work. But they wanted me to run business analytics for government cost-accounting programs. Fuck. That. Also, medical school.

New comment by niels_olson in "The black hole photographs: Unpublished images from America’s great depression"

niels_olson — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 05:53:14 +0000

Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun for those of a certain age: https://youtu.be/3mbBbFH9fAg

New comment by niels_olson in "Americans overestimate social mobility in their country"

niels_olson — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 03:17:00 +0000

Actual paper here: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20162015

New comment by niels_olson in "Americans overestimate social mobility in their country"

niels_olson — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 03:16:12 +0000

You should probably read the actual analysis (free, 40+ page paper), they accounted for all sorts of things. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20162015

New comment by niels_olson in "Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results"

niels_olson — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 00:27:14 +0000

They’re going to do their version of “Other bets”.

New comment by niels_olson in "Naval Architecture"

niels_olson — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 01:54:45 +0000

My first job out of college was as a junior engineering officer on a ship. I had taken naval architecture and the daily draft report was part of my job. The fuel king had a spreadsheet where the engineering watch input all the tank levels overnight. I added a sheet that took that data and solved all the tank problems, bouncy, incline, etc, and printed the report. So instead of two hours of number crunching, or one of my enlisted guys doing what he did (which was basically copy forward and subtract an inch a day), the report was completely automated, with fore, aft, and center draft. With zero human effort.

Apparently the guy who took my job when I left had a nervous breakdown. I feel a little bad about that, but not really. He should have paid attention in class.

New comment by niels_olson in "Code.mil – An experiment in open source at the Department of Defense"

niels_olson — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 19:01:08 +0000

I believe socialism has a pretty specific definition: government ownership and control of the means of production. Which is easy to grasp for steel mills, power plants, and hospitals. A bit trickier in the creative economy and the gig economy.

New comment by niels_olson in "No link between eating dinner after 8pm, obesity in children"

niels_olson — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 21:04:06 +0000

Unfortunately, some people are going to read this wrong. For example: I know some folks who have "second dinner" after 8 pm. Their children are definitively obese, and I can see them citing this study as a reason to keep eating "a meal called dinner" after 8 pm.

New comment by niels_olson in "Ask HN: What is the most exciting development in your field right now?"

niels_olson — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 06:18:36 +0000

How do you propose to infect cells deep inside solid tumors?How do you target cells that have lost cell surface markers? Your example, p16, is used in many cells intermittently, or only in certain microenvironments . How do you deliver? IV, topical, tumor injection (if so, what about needle tract seeding)?

New comment by niels_olson in "Google, in Post-Obama Era, Aggressively Woos Republicans"

niels_olson — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 04:20:17 +0000

You may be interested in the FedRAMP marketplace: https://marketplace.fedramp.gov/#/products?status=FedRAMP%20...

New comment by niels_olson in "Mac sales declined nearly 10% last year as Lenovo, Dell and others gained ground"

niels_olson — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 00:23:58 +0000

I donated white 2007 to the local Lego robotics team and it's still winning.

New comment by niels_olson in "The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services"

niels_olson — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 04:26:32 +0000

There is: they are intertwined with other regimes:

  * The international banking regime
  * The US legal regime for corporate purposes
  * Many other national regimes for operating purposes

New comment by niels_olson in "The foundation of a more secure web: Google Trust Services"

niels_olson — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 21:00:16 +0000

> I can't think of a single other example of a single-purpose CA like this.

Department of Defense: http://www.disa.mil/enterprise-services/identity-and-access-...

New comment by niels_olson in "Timeline: Organisms that have had their genomes sequenced"

niels_olson — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 19:46:35 +0000

Look up Sanger sequencing.

New comment by niels_olson in "Timeline: Organisms that have had their genomes sequenced"

niels_olson — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 15:21:46 +0000

There are regions with sparse coverage due to higher concentrations of C-G bases. This can make alignment results less reliable. Plasmids may interfere with alignment or need to be isolated out before or during library prep. And you want to detect and discard any members of the population with any evidence of cancer, genetic disease, etc.

And you need good population coverage. What's a normal variant? Newer methods propose a graph alignment instead of just trying to build a single sequence reference genome.

New comment by niels_olson in "In Colorado, self-harm is leading cause of death in new mothers"

niels_olson — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 21:22:12 +0000

Personal opinion based on anecdotal evidence: population mobility has increased career opportunity at the expense of the opportunities afforded to young families through staying close to home. From newborn to age N, local gandparents can be a godsend. In any family's case, which grandparents are nearby may be crucial, but if you came from a nuturing home, moving to a different timezone has definitely negative, high stress consequences in the young home.

New comment by niels_olson in "Physicists taking jobs as Silicon Valley software engineers"

niels_olson — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 22:50:57 +0000

I'd go beyond "general problem-solving skills". Physics gives you high quality math training (albeit somewhat truncated with respect to number theory), coupled with demanding experimental methods, and a deep, principled understanding of the foundations of the universe. Nothing is beyond your reach. Any other quantitative or logical discipline is just laying there, waiting for you.

New comment by niels_olson in "Is this plane landing or departing?"

niels_olson — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 19:05:43 +0000

Theory vs experiment. More data always wins.

New comment by niels_olson in "Alphabet Says It Shut Down Titan Drone Internet Project"

niels_olson — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 19:28:35 +0000

Then please cite the better ones...

New comment by niels_olson in "Alphabet Says It Shut Down Titan Drone Internet Project"

niels_olson — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 14:34:45 +0000

Matt Cutts now works for Defense Digital Service....