<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: stanford_labrat</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=stanford_labrat</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2026 22:44:33 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=stanford_labrat" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "FTC action against Match and OkCupid for deceiving users, sharing personal data"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> They're in a sticky spot where their most successful customer is one that they will never see another dime from, and there's not really a way around it.<p>naive question: why has no one made an app with the reverse incentive structure? i understand that the current business model is much more lucrative...but i feel like with how fed up people are with the inability of modern online dating to provide quality, long-lasting relationships a new platform that optimizes for match quality and longevity would eat all of Match Groups offerings lunches. i guess there just isn't enough money to be made so it's not even worth it?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:02:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577632</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577632</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577632</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Entities enabling scientific fraud at scale (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>sadly no, this is not a thing and it's critically needed.<p>top on my list of things to do if i were a billionaire: launch an institute for the sole purpose of reproducing other's findings.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:47:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337973</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337973</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337973</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Entities enabling scientific fraud at scale (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>the problem is two-fold in my opinion.<p>firstly, there are basically no <i>legal</i> repercussions for scientific misconduct (e.g. falsifying data, fake images, etc.). most individuals who are caught doing this get either 1) a slap on the wrist if they are too big to fail or in the employ of those who are too big to fail or 2) disbarred, banned, and lose their jobs. i don't see why you can go to jail for lying to investors about the number of users in your app but don't go to jail for lying to the public, government, and members of the scientific community about your results.<p>secondly, due to the over production of PhD's and limited number of professorship slots competition has become so incredibly intense that in order to even be considered for these jobs you <i>must</i> have Nature, Cell, and Science papers (or the field equivalent). for those desperate for the job their academic career is over either way if they caught falsifying data or if they don't get the professorship. so if your project is not going the way you want it to then...<p>sad state of things all around. i've personally witnessed enough misconduct that i have made the decision to leave the field entirely and go do something else.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:13:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337515</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337515</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337515</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>sadly it looks like seanhunter was correct, shame.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 18:41:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47265469</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47265469</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47265469</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Intelligence is a commodity. Context is the real AI Moat"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>every few months i like to ask chatgpt to do the "thinking" part of my job (scientist) and see how the responses stack up.<p>at the beginning 2022 it was useless because the output was garbage (hallucinations and fake data).<p>nowadays its still useless, but for different reasons. it just regurgitates things already known and published and is unable to come up with novel hypotheses and mechanisms and how to test them. which makes sense, for how i understand LLMs operate.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:57:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47264919</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47264919</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47264919</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Government grant-funded research should not be published in for-profit journals"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>i am very glad to see others (presumably non-scientists) in this thread dunking on the false paradigm that "peer review = true". anyone who peddles this notion is naive or a moron.<p>while the author is correct that the for-profit publishing is definitely a negative externality, i can't help but feel they are missing the forest for the trees when it comes to all the other worse issues in academia.<p>a full explanation of which would be much too onerous for a hn comment, but in no particular order: rampant scientific fraud, waste of tax payer dollars, wage suppression via "students" and visa-dependent laborers (J1 visa abuse), publish or perish evaluation criteria, lack of management training, blatant and rampant racism, etc. etc. etc.<p>the whole system needs to burn down and be rebuilt from the ground up.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:47:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47250206</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47250206</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47250206</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "US orders diplomats to fight data sovereignty initiatives"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>some added context (both my parents are/were in the Foreign Service):<p>your location is assigned based on a competitive bidding system where you select from a list of cities to do your next tour. some countries/cities are obviously dangerous for a variety of reasons and they are called "hardship tours" (think iraq or afghanistan). you get bonus money for these and sometimes are forbidden from bringing family.<p>posts in places like Europe or East Asia are very desirable and highly competitive. but often it's a matter of fit. my dad was a hedge fund manager before the Foreign Service so his first posting was actually in Frankfurt. you can also do a tour in the continental US, such as in DC or NY. because of his economics background he has done a few of those.<p>most of the time the head ambassador is a political appointee, but the grunts are regular people who have made this their career.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 16:55:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154150</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154150</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154150</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Scientists find a way to regrow cartilage in mice and human tissue samples"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>the small molecule is SW033291, papers are required to publish this specific detail but second order news sources tend to avoid the technical details.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:37:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46721595</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46721595</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46721595</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "The next two years of software engineering"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>at the dissolution and decentralization of empires feudalism in it's many forms historically seems to be the most common outcome.<p>i would say that we firmly live in the American Empire with techno-feudalistic tendencies, but a historical event of such magnitude as the complete dissolution of the American state will probably see a reversal to a more traditional feudal system. Think Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates buying up and becoming the Dukes of the PNW.<p>personally though i don't think we are at this stage yet or even close to it. until the federal government becomes COMPLETELY inept and the average citizen cannot buy food, this won't happen. yes market conditions are currently not the best but we are nowhere near starvation.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:34:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591619</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591619</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591619</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>my own institution launched an internal investigation into a professor who i know for a fact committed fraud and was "unable to prove intentional wrongdoing". academic institutions have taken the "this never happens because we are morally pure" approach which we all know is a load of baloney, they are perversely incentivized to never admit fraud.<p>the witness and reportee who i am friends with was directly instructed by this professor to falsify data in a more positive light in order to impress grant funders. multiple people were in attendance in this meeting but even that was not enough to see any disciplinary action.<p>duke also has a notorious reputation for being a fraud mill.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 21:36:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46533290</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46533290</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46533290</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>the greatest travesty of modern science is that fraud is not illegal.<p>in every other industry that i can imagine, purposely committing fraud has been made illegal. this is not the case in modern science, and in my opinion the primary driver of things like the replication crisis and the root of all the other problems plaguing academia at the moment.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 18:01:31 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529932</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529932</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529932</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I think about this quite a lot. I’ve come to the conclusion that in the past acting with integrity was rewarded and lacking integrity was punished.<p>In 2025 it seems integrity is meaningless, “winning” is all that matters. Particularly, you are not punished for acting without integrity but definitely “punished” for having it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2025 00:40:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46155395</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46155395</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46155395</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "OpenAI declares 'code red' as Google catches up in AI race"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>chatgpt making targeted "recommendations" (read ads) is a nightmare. especially if it's subtle and not disclosed.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Dec 2025 19:13:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46125312</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46125312</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46125312</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Hedge funds have to be big"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My portfolio was +94% in 2024 and +52% in the past 6 months (I took a massive haircut thanks to April's tariff saga and by having biblical levels of greed...lesson learned).<p>How do I declare for the inaugural Hedge Fund Draft?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2025 19:15:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45429902</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45429902</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45429902</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>yup, anecdotally the majority of postdocs these days are internationals who are willing to work 60+ hour weeks on $50k a year, for the infinitesimal chance to land a R1 tenure-track faculty position. americans have no interest in getting a phd and then subjecting themselves to this kind of indentured servitude.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 23:01:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45307799</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45307799</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45307799</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Paracetamol disrupts early embryogenesis by cell cycle inhibition"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Painkillers like ibuprofen are NSAIDs which inhibit the enzyme COX1/2, reducing prostaglandin production.<p>Prostaglandins are an inflammatory hormone that do a variety of things, but specifically PGE2 plays a role in muscle stem cell activation to divide and produce more muscle fibers. The effect is probably realistically small, but you will leave gains on the table by taking ibuprofen after hard workouts.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 24 Aug 2025 21:37:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45008033</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45008033</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45008033</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "Anthropic's AI-generated blog dies an early death"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've always thought of these VC fueled expeditions to nowhere as the opposite. Wealth transfer from the owning class to the middle class seeing as a lot of these ventures crash and burn with nothing to show for it.<p>Except for the founders/early employees who get a modest (sometimes excessive) paycheck.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Jun 2025 17:42:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226959</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226959</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226959</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "After Pornhub left France, this VPN saw a 1,000% surge in signups in 30 minutes"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I’m sorry who is who in this analogy. Because if internet/tech is the gun then the clear solution is “not giving your children guns”.<p>Bad modern parents just give their kids an iPad.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 07 Jun 2025 18:55:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44211737</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44211737</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44211737</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "AI makes the humanities more important, but also weirder"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>On the topic of hammers: "if you don't hold the hammer at exactly 2.6cm from the end of the handle and strike the nail with 6N of force at an angle of 58 degrees then of course you won't get a good nail strike into the wood. Oh and you must only use acacia sourced from the subtropics".<p>Give me a break, it's a hammer. This is a perfectly normal "use" of ChatGPT and a good example of how a literature student may opt to try and use AI to make their work easier in some way. It also conveniently demonstrates some of the shortcomings of using a LLM for this sort of task. No need to call them a dumbass.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 03 Jun 2025 15:10:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44170918</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44170918</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44170918</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by stanford_labrat in "AI makes the humanities more important, but also weirder"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Just like AI seems like it's being used as a convenient scapegoat for the layoffs and trimming following the end of ZIRP, now we see it also being used to blame for the failures of our modern education system.<p>Mostly which are that our system only rewards one thing in education: the grade. Not understanding, knowledge, intelligence, but instead a single number that is more easily gamified than anything. And this single number (your GPA) is the single most important thing for every level from middle school to college where it will unironically determine your entire (academic/academic-adjacent) future.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 03 Jun 2025 14:58:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44170821</link><dc:creator>stanford_labrat</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44170821</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44170821</guid></item></channel></rss>