Hacker News: phaedrus441

New comment by phaedrus441 in "AI Slop Report: The Global Rise of Low-Quality AI Videos"

phaedrus441 — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 14:44:02 +0000

This is interesting to me. I've done basically no configuring (except frequent use of a "site:reddit.com" lens) and it's been great. Now when I see Google or Bing results it's jarring how bad they seem.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "P-Hacking in Startups"

phaedrus441 — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 11:42:41 +0000

This! I see this all the time in medicine.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Oracle engineers caused five days software outage at U.S. hospitals"

phaedrus441 — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 10:41:03 +0000

Can't wait for the overpriced, late, outdated Oracle to get deployed at the VA! We get to go from one bad EHR to another...

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Careless People"

phaedrus441 — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 12:46:34 +0000

I think you'll see this kind of thing in many professions. Some doctors, who are highly specialized and highly trained in their field, act like they should automatically be great at skills they barely have experience with, and then get frustrated when they don't immediately excel or when people with less impressive credentials end up being better at something.

My family member who taught flying to hobbyist pilots always said physicians were the most dangerous students because of their "know-it-all" attitude.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Show HN: I built a modern Goodreads alternative"

phaedrus441 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 18:33:18 +0000

I completely agree. I've never read a 1-star (to me) book because that implies it's unreadable, and anything good enough to keep my attention room is generally 4-stars and rarely 5-stars. I bet if I look at my Goodreads it's 60% 4s, 30% 3s, and 10% 5s

New comment by phaedrus441 in "20k federal workers take "buyout" so far, official says"

phaedrus441 — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:52:51 +0000

Late to the party, but I know of at least two highly-paid coworkers that already had plans to retire, but are now just hoping for several months of extra pay (it's essentially the only situation where I would recommend someone take this offer-- if it works out, great for them; if it doesn't, well they were going to leave anyway)

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Is the world becoming uninsurable?"

phaedrus441 — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 12:38:52 +0000

This is such an interesting perspective that I've never thought about. Thanks!

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Don't sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes, doctors warn"

phaedrus441 — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 14:23:08 +0000

This doesn't change the fact that bidets in the US are only in a vanishingly small percentage of homes. As an example, while not at all scientific, open up Zillow or Redfin and look at any random property and see if there's a bidet.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "FDA proposes ending use of oral phenylephrine as OTC nasal decongestant"

phaedrus441 — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 02:13:23 +0000

Wow I was surprised by this figure, so I tried to find the source everyone quotes. It appears to be a 2006 telephone survey of 987 randomly-selected voting age citizens that were then weighted for an underrepresentation of race (so perhaps not that accurate). Anecdotally, I work in a safety net hospital and it is really rare for someone to come in without ID, which is why those numbers seemed so surprising to me...

https://www.brennancenter.org/media/6697/download

I could easily have missed a better or more recent study, so if anyone has one please post it!

New comment by phaedrus441 in "FDA proposes ending use of oral phenylephrine as OTC nasal decongestant"

phaedrus441 — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 23:08:42 +0000

You honestly think there are 10s of millions of people wanting a decongestant in the United States without ID? This is ridiculous and I agree with the other commenter, a bit hyperbolic.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Everyone hates the electronic medical record"

phaedrus441 — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 11:45:38 +0000

This article (and many like it) often mention how intuitive and speedy the Dept. of Veterans Affair EMR is. I can guarantee not a single one of these authors has ever used it. CPRS (the VA's EMR) is easily one of the biggest reasons physicians don't want to work at the VA, and most facilities have fewer patients per team (compared to academic or community hospitals) because of how much extra effort is required to use it. It is just startlingly bad.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "George Carlin's "Soft Language" (2019)"

phaedrus441 — Sun, 22 Oct 2023 15:44:04 +0000

I think you are mistaken: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock

"Shell shock is a word that originated during World War I to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that many soldiers experienced during the war, before PTSD was officially recognized."

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Soviet Union sold titanium to US believing they needed it for pizza ovens"

phaedrus441 — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:05:10 +0000

Highly recommend the recent Acquired podcast episode about Lockheed Martin. They spend a while discussing the development of the SR-71 (and other Skunk Works projects): https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/lockheed-martin

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Show HN: I'm a doctor and made a responsive breathing app for stress and anxiety"

phaedrus441 — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 20:55:01 +0000

Interesting feedback. What apps do you prefer?

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Ask HN: First-time dad-to-be. What do you wish you'd known back then?"

phaedrus441 — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 13:35:50 +0000

This looks great! Any other good recommendations like this?

New comment by phaedrus441 in "A single prophylactic 200mg dose of Doxycyline prevents Lyme disease"

phaedrus441 — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 01:22:30 +0000

Can you post a link to this study? If true, it's really interesting...

New comment by phaedrus441 in "GSuite legacy users can now get a free personal account, includes Gmail"

phaedrus441 — Tue, 17 May 2022 13:06:49 +0000

Thanks for this. Worked like a charm! (Though I am another user that switched to Fastmail and so far enjoy it)

New comment by phaedrus441 in "I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control"

phaedrus441 — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 18:40:32 +0000

Of course it has happened and probably will continue to happen. The key is that this isn't a systemic error, but rather providers going against the government's reporting rules (either mistakenly or intentionally). One could imagine mistakes erring in the opposite direction, though nobody is looking for that (nor would it be an easy thing to discover).

New comment by phaedrus441 in "I am a New York City public high school student. The situation is beyond control"

phaedrus441 — Sat, 08 Jan 2022 15:32:28 +0000

I decided to look into this, because I hear this bandied about frequently (i.e. "these death numbers aren't real because they count even if they incidentally had COVID-19"). Turns out, this isn't correct.

Here's the CDC site with that data: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-...

Here's the site with information about how a death is counted: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

In short, for a death to be counted as COVID, it needs to be listed on the death certificate (which only lists diagnoses directly related to the death).

For example, when I write a death certificate (which is a standardized form), it sounds something like this: Cause of Death: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome as a Consequence of COVID-19 pneumonia

Guidance from my state (SC) specifically says: "The Coronavirus Disease 2019 or COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death. The preferred term to use in the cause of death is COVID-19." So I can see possibilities where we don't know if it was the MRSA pneumonia superimposed on the COVID-19 or the COVID-19 itself, and we are supposed to report COVID on there, but the idea that a car crash victim would be counted in the statistics seems unlikely.

New comment by phaedrus441 in "Turboencabulator"

phaedrus441 — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 11:02:48 +0000

Patriot is an amazing show and I was looking for someone to post this clip!

Don’t forget Leslie’s original rendition: https://youtu.be/yyfMphjo4t4