skadamou (u/skadamou)

skadamou commented on Ask HN: If you were a grad student writing a blog, where would you host it? · Posted by u/skadamou

Bender · 9 days ago

Are you asking for something that is low cost or free? as in a starving student. If so then probably NeoCities [1]. Some have used github but some do not like the idea that Microsoft control it.

[1] - https://neocities.org/

skadamou · 9 days ago

Yes, absolutely low cost/free is what I'm looking for. Thank you for the suggestion!

skadamou commented on New protein therapy shows promise as antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning medschool.umaryland.edu/n... · Posted by u/breve

kazinator · 10 days ago

The existing methylene blue substance is also effective in cases of CO poisoning.

1933 paper:

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.19...

"Methylene Blue as an Antidote to CO Poisoning", Matilda Moldenhauer Brooks

skadamou · 10 days ago

This paper is interesting but I want to point out there is a difference between a research paper showing that something is hypothetically feasible and something that is actually useful clinically.

Clinically, methylene blue is used to treat a different condition, methemeglobinemia and is not used to treat carbon monoxide poisoning which relies on hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

skadamou commented on Blood oxygen monitoring returning to Apple Watch in the US apple.com/newsroom/2025/0... · Posted by u/thm

jeffbee · 10 days ago

Wouldn't you already be super dead with a true reading of 80? Or at least unable to cognitively interpret the reading?

skadamou · 10 days ago

That's definitely a danger zone for healthy people but interestingly enough people with things like COPD may have a blood oxygen level in the 80s and while that is indicative of the disease, they may be totally stable and may not even need oxygen [1].

[1] https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/normal-oxygen-level-so...

skadamou commented on New protein therapy shows promise as antidote for carbon monoxide poisoning medschool.umaryland.edu/n... · Posted by u/breve

skadamou · 10 days ago

Methylene blue is actually used to treat acquired cases of a similar condition called methemeglobinemia which is when the iron in heme is oxide from Fe2+ to Fe3+ [1]. This is different from carbon monoxide poisoning which is caused by carbon monoxide binding more tightly to hemoglobin than oxygen preventing oxygen from effectively getting into your blood.

[1] https://www.uptodate.com/contents/methemoglobinemia?search=m...

skadamou commented on How to Scale Proteomics asimov.press/p/proteomics... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

marcosdumay · 18 days ago

> I'm not sure I understand why this is on the front page of HN

Well, it's probably because `they figured out how to run protein mass-spec "by an order of magnitude" faster'.

skadamou · 18 days ago

I guess a better way to put that would have been "what is the significance of being able to run protein mass-spec by an order of magnitude faster"

The article links this to Alzheimer's research but I was hoping someone on here familiar with the field would be able to point out how significant this advancement is.

skadamou commented on How to Scale Proteomics asimov.press/p/proteomics... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

skadamou · 18 days ago

There was quite a bit of fluff here so I only skimmed the article but the major takeaway here is that they figured out how to run protein mass-spec "by an order of magnitude" faster. This is certainly cool but I'm not sure I understand why this is on the front page of HN. What am I missing?

edit: Does anyone familiar with the field know what the significance of being able to run protein mass-spec an order of magnitude faster is? What kind of questions can we ask now that we couldn't ask before?

skadamou commented on Things that helped me get out of the AI 10x engineer imposter syndrome colton.dev/blog/curing-yo... · Posted by u/coltonv

sureglymop · 19 days ago

I do also believe that those who are often looked at or referred to as 10x engineers will maybe only see a marginal productivity increase.

The smartest programmer I know is so impressive mainly for two reasons: first, he seems to have just an otherworldly memory and seems to kind of have absolutely every little feature and detail of the programming languages he uses memorized. Second, his real power is really in cognitive ability, or the ability to always quickly and creatively come up with the smartest and most efficient yet elegant and clean solution to any given problem. Of course somewhat opinionated but in a good way. Funnily he often wouldn't know the academic/common name for some algorithm he arrived at but it just happened to be what made sense to him and he arrived at it independently. Like a talented musician with perfect pitch who can't read notation or doesn't know theory yet is 10x more talented than someone who has studied it all.

When I pair program with him, it's evident that the current iteration of AI tools is not as quick or as sharp. You could arrive at similar solutions but you would have to iterate for a very long time. It would actually slow that person down significantly.

However, there is such a big spectrum of ability in this field that I could actually see this increasing for example my productivity by 10x. My background/profession is not in software engineering but when I do it in my free time the perfectionist tendencies make me work very slowly. So for me these AI tools are actually cool for generating the first crappy proof of concepts for my side projects/ideas, just to get something working quickly.

skadamou · 19 days ago

I like the quip that AI raises the floor not the ceiling. I think it helps the bottom 20% perform more like the middle 50% but doesn't do much for people at the top.

skadamou commented on Intel's retreat is unlike anything it's done before in Oregon oregonlive.com/silicon-fo... · Posted by u/cbzbc

MinimalAction · a month ago

I heard from a friend who works for Intel that he doesn't know why he was hired in the first place; his PhD was in a completely different domain, the objectives of the project were remote to his skills, and he told me this is what his entire team was made of. Seems like a lot of bloat present in this company, and it makes sense they feel the way forward is layoffs.

skadamou · a month ago

I know someone with a PhD in biochemistry who was hired at Intel from a cancer research lab... I'm sure he sold his chemistry background well but I always thought that was an odd hire. Maybe there are just so few qualified PhDs that they'll happily take folks from adjacent fields?