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tiplus commented on UFO spotted by US fighter jet pilots   bbc.com/news/av/world-us-... · Posted by u/myrandomcomment
tiplus · 8 years ago
I am not sure about UFO sightings because it seems unlikely to me that aliens would approach us like this.

However, given the huge amounts of exo planets discovered everywhere around us in the last year or two, I consider it highly unlikely that we are alone.

tiplus commented on Don’t keep cell phones next to your body, California Health Department warns   techcrunch.com/2017/12/15... · Posted by u/gdeglin
saurik · 8 years ago
I was under the impression that low frequency waves (all the studies being on frequencies lower than those used by cell phones, so I still haven't been concerned, but maybe I should be) showed that they could vibrate DNA and chance how it is folded, adjusting its epigenetic profile. Why do you assume that the only way to cause cancer is "molecular damage"?
tiplus · 8 years ago
Biomolecules are remarkably fast (picosecond timescales) at dissipating excess heat into the solvent, like heat from an excited vibrational mode. In order to cause serious damage through unfolding, I think, you would need much higher intensities than a few milliwatts from a cellphone. Serious local heating requires visible, UV light and above. Sunlight, however, does massive damage to all parts of your skin, including base pair changes in your DNA beyond epigenetics but your body has repair mechanisms, which recover changes and/or destroy damaged cells. Proof of cellphone induced damage would be remarkable.
tiplus commented on Ask HN: How do I get $2.2M dollars?    · Posted by u/gallerdude
tiplus · 8 years ago
If I got hit by a bus tomorrow - dying in the streets - I would not want to think about how I put 2.2 M$ in my savings account.

To get you started... you could try to think about the cliche "how to be the person selling shovels in the gold rush".

Write an online course on how you parametrized RNNs to predict Bitcoin markets. I got it to work well on predicting a certain low frequency event well with not too much effort. This resulted in 2~3 trade opportunities per day, making only very few $ each trade. So no luck in the gold rush but maybe not a bad shovel to sell?

Switch professions, maybe? 2.2M$ are not uncommon if you can wait a few years... Become a medical doctor and freelance across the country? Enter the middle management in any 200+ B$ company? Marry into a rich family? Low tier drug dealer in Europe (short prison times)? All of the above require working long/stressful hours over years. This brings me back to my first point: forget about the 2.2M and do s.th. you enjoy doing.

tiplus commented on Show HN: VClist – Get the top 50 VC's emails in your inbox   vclist.co... · Posted by u/oliv__
tiplus · 8 years ago
Congrats on your project! What a fantastic idea for (almost) passive income. You might even try to make the payment recurring and sell updates.
tiplus commented on London’s Grenfell Tower Fire Was No Ordinary Accident   citylab.com/equity/2017/0... · Posted by u/DiabloD3
buro9 · 8 years ago
I am probably an exception on HN. I live in a London tower block, on the 19th floor.

The block I am in was subject to a BBC documentary a decade ago for being a high fire risk building.

The containment measures originally designed into the building have long been compromised by short-term upgrades to kitchens and bathrooms. The service riser is now a chimney that freely joins every flat in a vertical quarter of the building into a single contiguous fire channel.

We have no sprinklers, we have a single fire escape, but there is no fire alarm. The theory is that containment will hold and so it is best that people stay put. That the emergency services will need to come up the fire escape, and this is why Grenfell residents stayed put. But even were people to orderly try and use it, there is no means to raise the alarm.

Internal fire doors do not create a seal. Internal doors in the flats have been removed over time and not replaced by the landlord (the council).

Central heating was removed and replaced with a communal oil burner for a radiator system. The central heating ducts remain, joining flats vertically, joining rooms of flats, filled with dust and not sealed off.

Simply put, I live in a death trap.

I am more fortunate than my neighbours. Despite having been homeless when I was younger, I now have a salary that allows me to save for a deposit and to find another place to live. But London rents being what they are I cannot move now and still save for a deposit... if I did I would be consigning myself to never own the property in which I live.

So I must stay, and deal with the fire risk, manage it as best I can, whilst I save for a deposit.

If anyone ever wants to know why startups should have a market to permit existing shareholders to buy shares from employees holding options... this is it. Life gets in the way. I'm sitting on share options that could provide a transformational effect on my life, that could let me sleep at night and live in much lower stress levels. It's hard to give 100% to work when any night could be the night I am burned alive. I sleep fitfully, restlessly. I am so desperate for a way out... but it takes time, I only have a salary and the IPO is too long away (even if gets announced tomorrow).

Fire risks are real, the terrible neglect of housing is real, and it doesn't help everyone but if you're a founder and you want to know how to help someone... provide liquidity to your employees.

tiplus · 8 years ago
I had similar fears in my last appartment building (12th floor) after a deadly fire in the neighbouring tower. I ended up buying a long rope at a climbing outlet and some used climbing gear. There are also more expensive fire proof rope ladders but the rope worked for me.
tiplus commented on Structural Propensity Database of Proteins   doi.org/10.1101/144840... · Posted by u/ktamiola
tiplus · 8 years ago
If I understand correctly, the product is the database and its Tensorflow API?

I am wondering how this compares to the TALOS-N [1] server from Ad Bax (NIH) with 9000+ proteins in its DB? This, too, uses machine learning to 'fit' a predictor for secondary structure (dihedral angles) for backbone and side chain torsions based on chemical shifts.

[1] https://spin.niddk.nih.gov/bax/software/TALOS-N/

tiplus commented on A Startup Making Paper Out of Stone, Not Trees   bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/T-A
tiplus · 8 years ago
I am worried about the dust this type of paper might produce when it is shredded or ripped, similar to the dust from rockwool insulation materials made from stone fibres. If I remember correctly, the persistence time of rockwool dust (current generation not 1970s) in your lungs is about 4 weeks, during which it is /may be cancerogenic?
tiplus commented on Show HN: AcrossTabs – Easy communication between cross-origin browser tabs   github.com/wingify/across... · Posted by u/softvar
tiplus · 8 years ago
I was puzzled when I first saw cross tab communication in impress.js for their slide control tab (slid.es) and I am still wondering about the proper use case of this feature today. Isn't this a security nightmare?
tiplus commented on Ask HN: What do you want to see in Ubuntu 17.10?    · Posted by u/dustinkirkland
tiplus · 8 years ago
- FLAVOR: server / all

- HEADLINE: remove sha1 PPA signatures

- DESCRIPTION: remove the warning "signature by key uses weak digest algorithm (sha1)" and ban sha1 for PPA signatures

- ROLE: user

u/tiplus

KarmaCake day299May 26, 2012View Original