Hacker News: wwwtyro

Show HN: Speck PBR – A WebGPU molecular visualizer

wwwtyro — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:08:34 +0000

This is the spiritual successor to my Speck project, which was getting a bit long in the tooth. Big improvements are path tracing, video generation, and trajectory support. Right now only imports XYZ, but happy to add more formats as requested. Thanks for looking!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47628430

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by wwwtyro in "Two days of oatmeal reduce cholesterol level"

wwwtyro — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 05:22:42 +0000

> Bile is used to process food in the gut. It does not go back into our system.

I don't think that's correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterohepatic_circulation

I also think you're mischaracterizing HDL as a VLDL. If you search for Apolipoprotein A here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK305896/ you'll see that HDL is constructed from it, while VLDL and LDL are part of the Apolipoprotein B lineage.

New comment by wwwtyro in "Two days of oatmeal reduce cholesterol level"

wwwtyro — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 04:34:24 +0000

My understanding is that:

1. When someone consumes fat, bile is released into the gut.

2. Oatmeal (and other soluble fibers like psyllium husk) capture this bile and it is excreted in stool.

3. In order to create the bile, the liver needs LDL. Because the LDL it used to create the bile was lost when it was captured, it exposes more LDL receptors and pulls LDL out of the bloodstream, thereby lowering LDL levels.

It seems to me that in order to maximize the effectiveness of this LDL-lowering approach, one must not simply consume psyllium or oatmeal, but rather consume them in conjunction with fat. Not saturated fat, obviously, which raises LDL, but perhaps unsaturated or polyunsaturated fats. My expectation is that this would trigger the bile secretion required in order to actually sequester it.

Aurora Innovation launches live stream of their self-driving truck technology [video]

wwwtyro — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 21:02:14 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQRzgugg6gA

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44739449

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by wwwtyro in "The future is not self-hosted"

wwwtyro — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 22:37:07 +0000

I'm not sure. It seems like the harder they squeeze, the less they can hold onto. Books, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, music - you can find it all online for free and acquire it pretty safely (torrents/vpn etc). I think the only thing they can really sell us is convenience - and I buy it! But if that convenience is lost to fragmentation, or lack of offline availability (e.g., books), or price, I think people will stop paying and do the more convenient thing. There's a tension there that I don't think they can ignore.

Autonomous trucks with no safety driver are now moving freight in Texas

wwwtyro — Fri, 02 May 2025 13:31:35 +0000

Article URL: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/01/aurora-launches-commercial-self-driving-truck-service-in-texas/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43869516

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

Autonomous trucks in Texas, no safety driver

wwwtyro — Thu, 01 May 2025 21:06:37 +0000

Article URL: https://www.axios.com/2025/05/01/autonomous-vehicles-trucks-aurora-texas-pastries

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863370

Points: 42

# Comments: 2

New comment by wwwtyro in "Helix: A vision-language-action model for generalist humanoid control"

wwwtyro — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 15:54:14 +0000

Until we get robots with really good hands, something I'd love in the interim is a system that uses _me_ as the hands. When it's time to put groceries away, I don't want to have to think about how to organize everything. Just figure out which grocery items I have, what storage I have available, come up with an optimized organization solution, then tell me where to put things, one at a time. I'm cautiously optimistic this will be doable in the near term with a combination of AR and AI.

New comment by wwwtyro in "Show HN: Game Bub – open-source FPGA retro emulation handheld"

wwwtyro — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 17:56:13 +0000

I love the idea of open source hardware, but one issue I struggle with is - what happens when one or more components go out of production?

I suppose one solution is that the maintainers could update their component list (which might involve more than one component because of compatibility issues?). But what if I'm in the middle of purchasing the components only to discover I can't get them all? Maybe the maintainers could sell component kits? That might be a nice way to fund their work. Not sure if that would run into issues with IP laws, though.

New comment by wwwtyro in "Three Observations"

wwwtyro — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 02:01:06 +0000

> Moore waited at least five years [1] before deriving his law.

OpenAI has been around since 2015. Even if we give them four years to ramp up, that's still five years worth of data. If you're referring to the example he gave of token cost, that could just be him pulling two points off his data set to serve as an example. I don't know that's the case, of course, but I don't see anything in his text that contradicts the point.

> I don't think that it makes much sense to compare commercial pricing schemes to technical advancements.

How about Kurzweil's plot [1]?

[1] https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/2011/kurzweilfig.1.jpg

New comment by wwwtyro in "El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender"

wwwtyro — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:54:35 +0000

How does anything swing -1000%?

New comment by wwwtyro in "Trump Confirms Bitcoin Reserve Plans–$15T Price Boom Predicted"

wwwtyro — Sun, 15 Dec 2024 23:48:51 +0000

Do you mean medium of exchange? I think it's difficult to make the claim that the USD is a good store of value.

New comment by wwwtyro in "What's Next for WebGPU"

wwwtyro — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 02:54:51 +0000

Any word on when it'll be supported on Linux without a flag?

New comment by wwwtyro in "Mitochondria Are Alive"

wwwtyro — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 18:21:19 +0000

I'm sure there's a fantastic midi-chlorian joke here.

New comment by wwwtyro in "Show HN: AI OmniGen – AI Image Generator with Consistent Visuals"

wwwtyro — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 21:23:10 +0000

With consistent representation of characters, are we now on the precipice of a Cambrian explosion of manga/graphic novels/comics?

New comment by wwwtyro in "Canvas Fingerprinting"

wwwtyro — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 05:33:31 +0000

I know my priorities are questionable, but I'm more annoyed that I can't expect consistent canvas rendering.

New comment by wwwtyro in "Microsoft BitNet: inference framework for 1-bit LLMs"

wwwtyro — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 15:03:46 +0000

Can anyone help me understand how this works without special bitnet precision-specific hardware? Is special hardware unnecessary? Maybe it just doesn't reach the full bitnet potential without it? Or maybe it does, with some fancy tricks? Thanks!

New comment by wwwtyro in "Nasopharyngeal Lymphatics Found to Be Crucial for Cerebrospinal Fluid Outflow"

wwwtyro — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 20:44:59 +0000

> We aim to investigate in a reliable animal model whether activating the cervical lymphatic vessels through pharmacological or mechanical means can prevent the exacerbation of Alzheimer’s disease progression by improving CSF clearance.

Any speculation on what those mechanical means might be?

New comment by wwwtyro in "Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval"

wwwtyro — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 17:32:45 +0000

Yes, simply accepting the inadequacy of our current technology is always going to be easier than working to improve it. It's also going to lead to infinitely less progress.

Humanity is eventually going to be able to extend lifespans indefinitely. Whether that happens sooner or later depends on how many people decide not to go gentle into that good night.

New comment by wwwtyro in "Housing wealth is meaningless, destructive and fundamentally changing society"

wwwtyro — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 05:09:01 +0000

I assume people will continue to use real estate as an investment for as long as they are forced to escape the inflation of their currency.