Hacker News: tsoukase

New comment by tsoukase in "We all depend on open source. We will defend it together"

tsoukase — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:22:57 +0000

Akrites were the Byzantine border defenders. If they defend the OSS community against AI then they have to try hard, because Ottomans won at last.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akritai

New comment by tsoukase in "Ending respiratory infections"

tsoukase — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:45:19 +0000

First we need strong immune system for all. This is a huge endeavour that includes exercise, both aerobic and non, low stress and other interventions.

Drugs and medicine play a small role in resp viral infections.

New comment by tsoukase in "Never Give Them Your Face"

tsoukase — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 11:40:50 +0000

Let's describe it simply: in the name of children protection, pushed by govs and parents, the companies found the chance to pass full identification of all. They use the former as a Trojan horse for the latter.

The sollution is simply to decouple the two processes. Now it'seasy as it's still early. The first step is for the people to realise the sneaky link and for the govs to stop any lobbying.

New comment by tsoukase in "From Australia to Europe, countries move to curb children's social media access"

tsoukase — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 06:28:33 +0000

The players here are the naive and regular non tech savy parents, rigid and burocratic gov orgs and greedy giant companies. What can go wrong?

There must be a culture and unwritten law among all sides. Some general points: 1) more parental control options beyond Family Link 2) totally avoid of flat ID check for all

There are so many minor controlled activities: alcohol, driving, sex and generally controlled: guns, drugs. Just learn from them.

New comment by tsoukase in "Google Chrome update will close the door on ad blockers"

tsoukase — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 20:55:20 +0000

I and I hope many others globally will not care. Since the last months I reverted my browsers from 6-0 in favour of Chrome to 1-5 for Firefox and the one Chrome accesses local adfree sites at work. We are gonna see a revival of Firefox, hopefully like its 2006.

New comment by tsoukase in "Why are cells small?"

tsoukase — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:55:55 +0000

All life started from procaryotic cells. The step from macromolecules to the first cell cannot be big, otherwise it could not happen spontaneously. On the other side, it must be big enough so that the cell have enough flexibility and functionality to support complex life.

That is, the cell is small enough in order to be produced directly by molecules but large enough in order to be a full living organism (reproduction, metabolism etc). This sweet spot seems to be the cell size we observe.

Later in evolution the size disparity grew because a procaryotic cell swallowed another one to become an eucaryotic and the eucaryotic ones specialized even further.

New comment by tsoukase in "Switzerland wil have a referendum to cap population at 10M"

tsoukase — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 12:13:25 +0000

A population ceiling is not a serious decision for a modern country like Switzerland, esp given their 1.29 kids per family. They could cap by proffesion, region or even origin nation. But a hard cap reminds something between One child policy of China and Brexit, which both didn't go well. First problem will be the shortage of workers in specific fields or regions.

New comment by tsoukase in "Why are so many young people getting cancer?"

tsoukase — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:57:56 +0000

You probably refer to the psycho-immunology, a different aspect. I refer to onco-immunology which is even less explored. In the past many proposed a connection between stress and cancer but without evidence and ground. I think it's time to approach it with enough scientific rigor.

New comment by tsoukase in "Why are so many young people getting cancer?"

tsoukase — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:22:11 +0000

I believe the single common caiae of increase for all types of cancer is immunosuppression. Immune system might clear a cancer cell that would otherwise evolve to fulminant disease, every few days. A slight immunosuppression might explain a astonishing increase. All the environmental factors referred are candidates for that but the most important is chronic psychological stress, which is rampant in modern adults and not measured, so not studied, in research.

New comment by tsoukase in "The EU Open Source Strategy"

tsoukase — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:12:07 +0000

There is the light headed assumption that any time propr software can be replaced by open source. By regulation, by being fed up with closed source, by saying so etc. It cannot, it's very hard.

In this realm, software is like a car. Would you buy an open source car? You might know any aspect of it but where would be the professional support, the strict safety regulations, the security feeling that you are under the wing of a company? I am full OSS, but I am not sure for the average Joe and Mary or better for the Oliver, Lucas, Matteo and Sofia.

New comment by tsoukase in "Ask HN: How did you discover Hacker News?"

tsoukase — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:40:41 +0000

I was hovering over PC forums since 2000 until in 2018 I stumbled upon here. My first thought: where the hell was this treasure hidden all this time? Second thought: are there such gems for other fields (my field-medicine, sports, travel etc)? I found none with so high quality, curration, expertise.

New comment by tsoukase in "Do we need billionaires?"

tsoukase — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:17:19 +0000

Forget about reasonable arguments about wealth distribution. Human greed is infinite and the belly is insatiable, so they will stop at no amount of money. The ultimate goal of a totally capitalist society, like the US, is to create a single mutli-trillionaire, while all others starve.

New comment by tsoukase in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

tsoukase — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 02:40:53 +0000

Esp in mental health there is a large overlap of symptoms between diagnoses. So doctor's experience is needed to get the right diagnosis. No database and, hell, no AI assistance yet.

It all boils down on how deep a doctor goes diagnostically: for common diseases (1/100) an interview is enough, for rarer (1/1000) an MRI/blood test are needed and for very rare you need extensive and expensive genetic and immune exams. Because of cost, the 'art of diagnosis' is to be able to filter the cases that should be referred downward. Classic type I/II error due to binary misclassification happens all the time.

New comment by tsoukase in "American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn"

tsoukase — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 17:16:10 +0000

Oh, the good old reflex that is activated in panic situations but never realised. Then the revolution was from capitalists against kings. Now the former are already in power with their servants (CEOs) and there is no alternative. So no change, no revolution.

New comment by tsoukase in "I was recently diagnosed with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis"

tsoukase — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:58:25 +0000

Very rare disease, expected to be misdiagnosed as psychiatric. I admit I would (neurologist here) But you were luckily treated by an excellent neurologic center.

The lesson learned is that there are rare diseases (<1/10.000-100.000) but as they are so many, they form an important minority next to common ones (1/100-1000). Just don't forget them when data don't fit well. Such estimations is a hard dexterity of doctors that cannot be rivalled by AI.

New comment by tsoukase in "US healthcare still stupidly expensive, with pathetic outcomes, study finds"

tsoukase — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 07:08:28 +0000

Health care in the US is the field that functions with the ultimate values of the country: totally free market (read capitalist jungle), without any state/public support, where only the fittest literally survive. But everyone can (read hopes to) become one.

New comment by tsoukase in "High Density Living, 2000 Years Ago: Inside the Roman Apartment Building"

tsoukase — Fri, 29 May 2026 20:46:33 +0000

In order to reach density living you need three things: space, water and food. The first was possible through the Roman cement, the second through the monumental Roman aqueducts and third due to the large share of slaves in relation to free people (it might be 10:1)

New comment by tsoukase in "It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop"

tsoukase — Fri, 29 May 2026 18:47:36 +0000

There is and will always be a 1-3% minority in every aspect: rich, deeply educated, talents, tall, etc etc. It's the right tail of the Bell curve. In OSes, this is Linux.

New comment by tsoukase in "Donald Trump and sons to be 'forever' exempt from tax audits"

tsoukase — Thu, 21 May 2026 21:15:59 +0000

As a citizen of a developed semi-corrupt country I know exactly how it feels. It's a cognitive dissonant state: the people elected those that end up stealing them. There are many vulnerabilities in the whole system: electing method, media distraction, low public political education. A well known proverb says the fish stinks from the head, but here it's become the fish stinks only in the head.

New comment by tsoukase in "Earth is now heating up twice as fast as in previous decades"

tsoukase — Thu, 21 May 2026 20:55:32 +0000

The huge energy consumption of the past decades was pushing temperatures up, especially the fastest rise of the mightiest power in history, China (not to blame them though, cudos to them). We have not reached peak everything yet (CO2, energy, steel etc).

We must and we will adapt, if that means renewables, migration or partial extinction. There is no other choice because this is the law of evolution.