Hacker News: travmatt

New comment by travmatt in "“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” asks Goldman Sachs (2018)"

travmatt — Mon, 17 May 2021 19:00:22 +0000

Any business who followed your logic would be then vulnerable to the first competitor who was willing to sell the cure instead. To prevent that from happening, it would take a global conspiracy of every company who could develop said drug, along with the complicity of every scientist who knew about said research and who would be tempted to develop or leak its it themselves.

New comment by travmatt in "“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” asks Goldman Sachs (2018)"

travmatt — Mon, 17 May 2021 17:34:51 +0000

In reality, a company will look at the cure and know that it will end the market in management. They will also understand that whoever brings the cure to market first will take the majority of the profits, and the other will just lose. A company will not refrain from selling a cure to protect the market share of its competitors.

Your idea only works if you believe there is a global conspiracy of businesses and scientists who all agree to embargo research into cures, and who are all willing to forgo any profits on the cure while also recognizing any scientist and company not in their conspiracy could wipe out their profits at any time.

New comment by travmatt in "“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” asks Goldman Sachs (2018)"

travmatt — Mon, 17 May 2021 16:10:40 +0000

If a company is aware that a new drug could cure a previously managed disease, it’s pretty obvious that you’d like to be the one pocketing any available profits before a competitor does. The conspiracy only works to the extent that nobody else in the world could create the same drug, and that every person aware of its existence is prepared to keep it secret and lose out on the money to be made selling it.

New comment by travmatt in "Young Koreans are echoing r/WallStreetBets in their war against short sellers"

travmatt — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 18:21:04 +0000

I don’t think the stock market has correlated with underlying economic realities in a long time, and I don’t think short selling is the cause of that.

Additionally, I’d think that the small constant corrections of short sellers helps avoid most large cost corrections later.

New comment by travmatt in "Young Koreans are echoing r/WallStreetBets in their war against short sellers"

travmatt — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 17:35:02 +0000

Economic research[0] disagrees with you.

“””

We show that stock prices are more accurate when short sellers are more active. First, in a large panel of NYSE-listed stocks, intraday informational efficiency of prices improves with greater shorting flow. Second, at monthly and annual horizons, more shorting flow accelerates the incorporation of public information into prices. Third, greater shorting flow reduces post-earnings-announcement drift for negative earnings surprises. Fourth, short sellers change their trading around extreme return events in a way that aids price discovery and reduces divergence from fundamental values. These results are robust to various econometric specifications, and their magnitude is economically meaningful.

“””

[0]https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/01/sh...

New comment by travmatt in "Young Koreans are echoing r/WallStreetBets in their war against short sellers"

travmatt — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 16:22:21 +0000

Markets cannot find efficient prices without short selling.

New comment by travmatt in "Young Koreans are echoing r/WallStreetBets in their war against short sellers"

travmatt — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 16:20:24 +0000

One of the people in the world most vulnerable to short selling is against it.*

Short selling is still an essential part of markets and price discovery, it’s not really that hard to understand why Elon is against it.

New comment by travmatt in "The GPU Sadness Index: Tracking eBay Pricing"

travmatt — Sun, 28 Feb 2021 20:27:35 +0000

I saw a picture on Reddit of a wall stacked high with 3060’s. In the comments, the poster mentioned he placed a bulk order, the downside was it took a while.

New comment by travmatt in "WH Ignores Yellen $800k Speaking Fees from Firm Bailed Out GameStop Hedge Fund"

travmatt — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 23:19:35 +0000

Some might argue that you should provide evidence and arguments that support your allegation that’s she’s selling influence.

New comment by travmatt in "WH Ignores Yellen $800k Speaking Fees from Firm Bailed Out GameStop Hedge Fund"

travmatt — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 23:16:09 +0000

I have a hard time reconciling the fact you claim to be making a dispassionate analysis, and yet cannot find a single accomplishment of Janet Yellen that would merit her being an in-demand speaker, except her ability to ‘direct government largesse’. If you were trying to make a sincere argument, I suspect you’d find a few reasons people would value her ideas.

New comment by travmatt in "How Homogeneous Is Japan?"

travmatt — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 20:02:29 +0000

I’m telling you that black people in America have a culture that is descended from a lot of sources, and you cannot just simplify it as Anglo-Saxon, again because such a wide swath comes from the African diaspora that ignoring that means ignoring its most noticeable aspects. Gospel, jazz, blues, and rap are not descended from any Anglo-Saxon musical tradition, nor are our dances, or many of our foods.

American culture is largely descended from Anglo-Saxon culture, but that doesn’t transitively mean that all American culture is now Anglo-Saxon. The pockets of non Anglo-Saxon culture are not recent additions to black culture, they’ve been intact and distinct throughout their history. The Gullah people are American, not an expat community.

New comment by travmatt in "How Homogeneous Is Japan?"

travmatt — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 19:20:46 +0000

I know expat Jamaican and Dominican communities in New York that celebrate festivals yearly. I ate jerk chicken with red beans and rice last week, I don’t think that was an Anglo-Saxon invention, nor was chitlins, collard greens or other dishes. And we don’t listen to Anglo-Saxon music, as African American music isn’t descended from anglo-Saxon music at all. The fact that it’s been widely adopted in Anglo-Saxon culture doesn’t mean that they claim it’s origins at all. Gospel music and hymns do not come from Anglo-Saxon culture at all, nor does jazz, rap or blues. Gullah culture isn’t Anglo-Saxon, nor is the creole language and culture practiced around New Orleans and Louisiana. Trying to label African-American culture as Anglo-Saxon erases most of the actual history, which again comes from the African diaspora. Mexican-American culture doesn’t become ‘Anglo-saxon’ just because they now live in America and can speak English.

New comment by travmatt in "How Homogeneous Is Japan?"

travmatt — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 18:52:10 +0000

African-American culture is most certainly not Anglo-Saxon. It’s actual roots in the African diaspora and the Caribbean, and there are entire communities, like the Gullah of the Carolinian coasts, that have preserved their culture and language since the diaspora began. The most noticeable elements of African-American culture have been adopted into Anglo-Saxon culture, they don’t come from it. American culture predominantly descends from Anglo-Saxon culture, but it’s distinct.

New comment by travmatt in "FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol"

travmatt — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 21:56:00 +0000

To protect against harassment: https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/08/t-mobile-hands-over...

New comment by travmatt in "Early clinical trial shows anti-depressant prevents hospitalization from Covid"

travmatt — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:32:49 +0000

One possible candidate drug I’ve read quite a bit about but have not seen anything on HN about is high-dose melatonin, and even typical melatonin use is associated with a lower chance of testing positive. There’s a bunch of papers discussing how it _could_ be useful, there are several studies underway but none have been completed yet.

New comment by travmatt in "Early clinical trial shows anti-depressant prevents hospitalization from Covid"

travmatt — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:26:14 +0000

> The UK's health services are struggling at the moment.

Are you saying the NHS is struggling with their doctors publishing dangerous recommendations? I’m not sure what you’re implying.

New comment by travmatt in "Early clinical trial shows anti-depressant prevents hospitalization from Covid"

travmatt — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:23:23 +0000

I haven’t heard vitamin d administration is associated with better outcomes, but I’ve heard that vitamin d levels are inversely correlated with outcomes - i.e., people should take a blood test and determine if they are vitamin d deficient, and supplement as needed.

New comment by travmatt in "Advice from a 104-year-old PhD student [video]"

travmatt — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:03:18 +0000

If you do his breathing exercises you can step into a cold shower and legitimately not notice the cold.

New comment by travmatt in "SARS-CoV-2 induced remission of Hodgkin lymphoma"

travmatt — Sat, 09 Jan 2021 13:49:45 +0000

It’d be pretty useless to only research and document phenomena that you already understand. But in case it seems that odd to you, here’s 16 other cases of cancer that went into remission after a viral infection:

https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/ijccr/international-jou...

New comment by travmatt in "My Favorite Books 2020"

travmatt — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:40:30 +0000

> I read 45 books in 2020

He’s claimed to have read a fairly large number of books in 2020. So not on the basis of his writing swift, rather his taste as a reader.