Hacker News: pdar4123

New comment by pdar4123 in "Heritability of human life span is ~50% when heritability is redefined"

pdar4123 — Wed, 13 May 2026 15:55:09 +0000

Heritability is the proportion of variance in a trait that can be ascribed to genetics. So if you increase or decrease the total variance in the population u change heritability by definition. Eg. Split the pop in half and give one half less food - that half will be smaller (eg shorter in humans) and variance will increase thus the heritability will necessarily decrease.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla"

pdar4123 — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 20:56:04 +0000

Seems like a great idea. The police should do this… bring back red light cameras and automated speed traps.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla"

pdar4123 — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 20:54:57 +0000

I have perhaps unpopular additional suggestion. If you break any traffic laws your tesla should automatically report u to the police. Shouldn’t a car w AI capabilities be committed to responsible, ethical, safe, law abiding behavior ? I’m tired of bay area Teslas not signaling, cutting me off, and near killing me while I’m walking or on my bike.

New comment by pdar4123 in "The Story of Samsung's failed deal with iFixit, as told by iFixit's CEO"

pdar4123 — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 13:33:25 +0000

Folks agreeing with this take should take a hard look at their attention spans and ability to focus and comprehend - it’s honestly really shocking to see how many people can’t handle sitting still and reading for 10 minutes (or fewer!) straight!

I should say I’ve struggled with this too, I have to be super mindful otherwise I’ll flip and skim and find myself distracted. But it is interesting there’s an embracing of this by many - “I always ask ChatGPT to summarize xyz.”

New comment by pdar4123 in "The Programmers' Identity Crisis: how do we use our powers for 'good'?"

pdar4123 — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 09:02:05 +0000

This is a long winded “permission slip” to avoid any personal responsibility for our actions. The fact is whether it’s eating beef or writing code for Raytheon you actually do have free will. The HN and tech crowd is also far more educated and empowered (individually and collectively) than the author would have us believe.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Forbes built hall of shame for the questionable people on its 30 Under 30 lists"

pdar4123 — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 15:22:38 +0000

Why don’t we preemptively put anyone who works in finance in the hall of shame. Unpopular w the hn crew I’m sure, but the field does disproportionately more harm than good.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time"

pdar4123 — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 15:22:34 +0000

I have loved watching space x launches for years. And here I am, scrolling around on my phone and I can’t for the life of me find a stream that opens- this is just so sad

New comment by pdar4123 in "Thousands of programmable DNA-cutters found in algae, snails and other organisms"

pdar4123 — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 13:59:55 +0000

“CRISPR-based genome editing tools developed by MIT professor and McGovern investigator Feng Zhang, Abudayyeh, Gootenberg, and others have changed the way scientists modify DNA, accelerating research and enabling the development of many experimental gene therapies.”

“Others” being Nobel laureates Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpatier - MIT and the Broad have long sought to minimize the work of these two women in the media for their own gain. Here again, a small but glaring example of their pettiness.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Magic123: One Image to High-Quality 3D Object Generation"

pdar4123 — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 01:58:06 +0000

Good lord the horror - devil horse is going to haunt me

New comment by pdar4123 in "Southern Europe in extreme heat, with Greece seeing temperatures of 40C or more"

pdar4123 — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 17:09:08 +0000

The article is a “tree…”

New comment by pdar4123 in "Southern Europe in extreme heat, with Greece seeing temperatures of 40C or more"

pdar4123 — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 17:04:34 +0000

You seem to be missing the forest though the trees. https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1679816678023000065...

New comment by pdar4123 in "Macron floats social media cuts during riots"

pdar4123 — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 13:52:34 +0000

What is your point? He deserved to be murdered? This seems irrelevant, “he likely was maybe guilty of something…” and?

New comment by pdar4123 in "The age of average"

pdar4123 — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 21:54:44 +0000

Just think how much worse it’s all going to get with the ubiquity of AI

New comment by pdar4123 in "Judge decides against Internet Archive"

pdar4123 — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 02:27:15 +0000

Why do u need a blockchain? Why not just torrents for sharing.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Meiosis is all you need"

pdar4123 — Sat, 02 Jul 2022 14:03:45 +0000

This is nonsense - none of this is possible - eg, there is no way to make gametes from stem cells

New comment by pdar4123 in "Possible impact of functional active gpcr-autoantibodies in long Covid"

pdar4123 — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 16:47:50 +0000

Where’s the control? 100% of long Covid patients also had 2 arms and 10 toes

New comment by pdar4123 in "Show HN: CookTime – Recipe index"

pdar4123 — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 16:05:01 +0000

I find your title and discussion of “mommy blogs” to be extremely misogynistic. This has no place on hacker news.

New comment by pdar4123 in "Dentist broke his patients’ teeth to make millions installing crowns, jury finds"

pdar4123 — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 02:39:59 +0000

There is a great deal to be suspicious of in all “fee for service” healthcare to be frank. I am particularly skeptical of dentists, they take on enormous debt to run their businesses and have every incentive to try to turn their patients into profit. They can also easily exploit the classic economic problem of one sided information. The patient has no idea if a procedure is necessary. How much do you really think you need “Invisalign”???

New comment by pdar4123 in "Attitude Determines Your Success"

pdar4123 — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 19:37:24 +0000

Good thing I grew up in zip code with super positive vibes

New comment by pdar4123 in "I Hacked My Standing Desk with a Raspberry Pi"

pdar4123 — Mon, 26 Jul 2021 02:50:05 +0000

Epic lol - it goes up. It goes down. “The hardest part of my life was pushing the single button when a random timer went off- fortunately I have a lot of free time” rofl