zoeysmithe (u/zoeysmithe)

zoeysmithe commented on The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful iflscience.com/the-wow-si... · Posted by u/toss1

this_user · a day ago

Any species that is advanced enough for interstellar communication will almost certainly be a highly aggressive apex species. You don't get to the top of the food chain by being nice, you get there by murdering all of the competition and plundering all of the resources. And if you were trying to be nice, someone else would have just wiped you out.

The big question is if a species can eventually reach some point of collective enlightenment where they leave these primitive impulses behind. But based on the current state of humanity, I'm not to optimistic.

zoeysmithe · a day ago

Under a scientific economy like socialism you dont need to be "apex male who exploits the workers under him to get yachts and tax breaks." The workers co-operate and thus the "apex predator" capital owner becomes dismissed the same way our towns and villages in the developed West don't pay fees to warring bands of gangs but instead we've unlocked the Republic and the system of representation and taxes and such via democratic action.

You absolutely can have utopian beings. In fact, I'd argue the greed-based societies get caught in the great filter and if there is a space faring race, its absurdly ethical and fair and, to me, explains the Fermi paradox. They're out there and maybe they see Earth but it would be hugely unethical to intervene here. The proper thing to do would be to only observe us from afar.

If this was a movie or novel maybe the Wow signal was them messing up, or a defector amongst their midst who disagrees with full isolation policies. But most likely it'll end up being something simple. The last good theory I heard was it domestic and was reflected off orbiting space junk, but who knows.

zoeysmithe commented on One universal antiviral to rule them all? cuimc.columbia.edu/news/o... · Posted by u/breve

carlsborg · a day ago

Paper appears to be paywalled. It is however an update to this preprint which is available on Biorxiv: "Broad-spectrum RNA antiviral inspired by ISG15-/- deficiency" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.24.600468v1

My summary for programmers:

When you get a viral infection, immune cells make a signalling protein called a IFN-1 (Type I Interferon) cytokine, and this flips a boolean flag to True on a bunch of genes (interferon-stimulated genes or ISGs) that produce a bunch of proteins (hundreds) that control the infection. ISG15 is one of them and its role appears to be to downregulate and to limit the inflammation.

The paper title refers to a ISG15 deficiency, meaning if you are dificient in ISG15 that inflamation limitation goes away. But the paper is actually about how in people that naturally have a ISG15 deficiency, there is an always-on low level expression of some of these pro-inflamation genes. So they take that as a safe level.

The did RNA sequencing on experimental ISG15 deficient cells and from heatlhy individuals, identified the mutations, narrowed down to 10 genes (antiviral ones not inhibitors) that in combination significantly inhibited viral replication. They stuck the RNA for such genes in lipid nanoparticles such that they enter host cells, whose ribosomes happily read the RNA like a turing head reads a tape in base 20 and produce proteins encoded by these genes, similar to how the mRNA vaccine works.

So why not dose with the IFN-I directly? Three referenced papers show its "poorly tolerated with significant side effects" and all those downregulators that get expressed limit the inflammation response.

Disclaimer: IANAB (not a biologist) corrections might be due..

zoeysmithe · a day ago

This is typical of "why not just one drug/treatment" for something big like viruses, cancer, etc.

I think we'll never have this "one shot," but continue to find tailored treatments for individual conditions. There's no way out of this complexity with "one simple trick," which seems really appealing to the people who determine what gets popular in social media and seemingly politics now. Its just going to be boring and grueling academia and medical trials that are hard for the layperson to understand, hence the important of funding these programs. The recent right-wing election wins and thus a right-wing government cutting all manner of medical grants is supported by the "one weird trick" crowd. Hopefully, the USA will have better leadership in the future to get us back to actual science and to find actual new treatments.

Already, even on HN, the top comments are conspiracy-culture coded, "but, but this one company bought the patent and disappeared with it!" Sigh.

zoeysmithe commented on US Intel stratechery.com/2025/u-s-... · Posted by u/maguay

NitpickLawyer · 2 days ago

> Nationalism/protectionism and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible

Huh? France and Germany are prime counter examples of your statement.

zoeysmithe · a day ago

They both have strong labor unions and/or collective bargaining agreements the USA does not have. That is to say socialist-coded policy is what is helping here, not capitalist ones.

Their benefits are almost purely from the strength of the working class, hence workers having it better there.

In France, the percentage of employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement, which is very high (around 95-98%)

In Germany, about 50% of workers are directly covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs)

In 2024, the union membership rate in the United States was 9.9%, representing 14.3 million workers, while 16.0 million workers were represented by a union under a collective agreement, accounting for 11.1% of the workforce.

---

If American workers want a better life they need CBA's and unions, not protectionist tariffs and buying chunks of random tech companies.

zoeysmithe commented on Gemini 2.5 Flash Image developers.googleblog.com... · Posted by u/meetpateltech

shashankpritam · a day ago

Are men not attractive? Or perhaps for Google, this blog is a targeted content? But who is it targeting? I would like to see the reasoning behind using all women images (at the least the top/first ones) to show off the model capabilities. I have noticed this trend in the image manipulation business a lot.

zoeysmithe · a day ago

Because tech is largely male dominated and has inherent sexism/patriarchy and images of women, especially conventionally attractive ones, has the perception of aiding sales.

Also women are seen as more cooperative and submissive, hence so many home assistants and AI being women's voices/femme coded.

zoeysmithe commented on Red meat consumption within high-quality diets may support mental health medicalxpress.com/news/20... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

flr03 · 2 days ago

Extra context: - Still under review (unpublished) - Funding Sources: National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

zoeysmithe · a day ago

Also red meat is a luxury and if you can eat it regularly that means you're doing well economically, that most likely correlates with good healthcare access and a higher level lifestyle, which very much is correlated with better mental health.

This is bit like saying people with expensive cars have less cavities. That doesn't mean driving a luxury car somehow benefits your teeth, its just if you can afford a $100k car, you probably can afford regular checkups and good teeth care.

zoeysmithe commented on US Intel stratechery.com/2025/u-s-... · Posted by u/maguay

themgt · 2 days ago

I’ll be honest: there is a very good chance this won’t work .... At the same time, the China concerns are real, Intel Foundry needs a guarantee of existence to even court customers, and there really is no coming back from an exit. There won’t be a startup to fill Intel’s place. The U.S. will be completely dependent on foreign companies for the most important products on earth, and while everything may seem fine for the next five, ten, or even fifteen years, the seeds of that failure will eventually sprout, just like those 2007 seeds sprouted for Intel over the last couple of years. The only difference is that the repercussions of this failure will be catastrophic not for the U.S.’s leading semiconductor company, but for the U.S. itself.

Very well argued. It's such a stunning dereliction the US let things get to this point. We were doing the "pivot to Asia" over a decade ago but no one thought to find TSMC on a map and ask whether Intel was driving itself into the dirt? "For want of a nail the kingdom was lost" but in this case the nail is like your entire metallurgical industry outsourced to the territory you plan on fighting over.

zoeysmithe · 2 days ago

There's a real folly in capitalist countries thinking they can be self-sufficient walled castles. Capitalism by its nature will seek out the lowest cost be it in labor or manufacturing. That means often means outsourcing.

Our system has no breaks for this. In fact it works actively for this, hence the neolib ideal of "just move towards efficiencies, and let the chips fall where they may." This is ideal under capitalism. As long as we avoid the needed migration to socialism, this is the best we can do.

Neolib economies generally work as much as anything "works" under capitalism. The GDP of the USA, median salary, quality of life, etc was the envy of the world until the recent nationalist movement that's based on "insourcing" and tariffs. You can't go back and capitalism migrates to efficiencies, which means outsourcing. Its more efficient to export factories and keep cushy office/service jobs here and drain the profits from those factories overseas.

Nationalism/protectionism and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible, so here we are. Demagogy and populism and "return to the past" mentalities used to win political power are the actual problem here.

Also what exactly happens if intel goes under? We have to buy 'foreign' licensed ARM? Manufacture in Asia? We're already doing that. And we have AMD which is a good, if not, superior product, regardless of manufacturing locale. We don't need local fabs the same way we don't need local factories for a lot of other things. You can't just depress wages with a wave of a hand nor do tariffs work outside of some really focused edge cases.

>The U.S. will be completely dependent on foreign companies

This is true of nearly all things in nearly all countries. Recent nationalist movements won't change how capitalism works and recent tariffs and protectionism has only hurt these industries and the working class. The toothpaste is out of the tube and it cannot be put back in. What we're seeing with the government buying intel is an attempt to do that, and it will fail. Expect more tomfoolery like this until we get responsible leadership, but until then we all have to sit here and watch these various economic horrors unfold. Be it this, inflation, mindless tariffs, etc. This will fail and its obvious it will, but currently it buys political power, so we will go this route because voters, largely uninformed on how capitalism works, think this is the "one weird trick" that will make them wealthy. It won't. In fact, all recent indicators are more negative as these policies continue. It will instead make them poor.

zoeysmithe commented on SSL certificate requirements are becoming obnoxious chrislockard.net/posts/ss... · Posted by u/unl0ckd

9dev · 2 days ago

How on earth would that make more sense than properly setting up ACME and forgetting about the problem for the next hundred years?? If your bespoke ERP system is really so hostile toward cert changes, put it behind a proper reverse proxy with modern TLS features and self-sign a certificate for a hundred years, and be done with it.

It'll take about fifteen minutes of time, and executive level won't ever have to concern themselves with something as mundane as TLS certificates again.

zoeysmithe · 2 days ago

Yep this. This is just "we have so much technical debt, our square pegs should fit into all round holes!"

Business culture devaluing security is the root of this and I hope people see the above example of everything that's wrong with how some technology companies operate, and "just throw money at the problem because security in an annoying cost center" is super bad leadership. I'm going to guess this guy also have an MFA exception on his account and a 7 character password because "it just works! It just makes sense, nerds!" I've worked with these kinds of execs all my career and they are absolutely the problem here.

zoeysmithe commented on Japan's Creepiest Station tokyocowboy.co/articles/d... · Posted by u/ewf

jfoster · 3 days ago

I caught a train through this station last year without knowing about it. It was very noticeably different from any other station I've caught a train through in Japan.

I generally agree with you that a lot of ridiculous fake information about Japan gets posted online, though. (especially in spammy Facebook groups and AI-assisted Instagram reels)

zoeysmithe · 2 days ago

That's fine, but were you terrified? Scared and having a panic attack and clutching your purse? Were you worried you ended up in "Silent Hill" like the author of this sensationalized piece?

I'm guessing like any unbiased person you just noticed this is a deep tunnel and that's interesting on its own and can be written about and expressed non-sensationally and without Matrix-like filters on photos.

Imagine instead of exoticizing and orientalizing this, we had an article about its unique architecture style, who the architects were, why it is so deep, quotes from the people there, a comprehensive history, information about the surrounding town and region, etc. Its bothersome to me that we're regerssing back to the world of grifters and sensationalists. I feel like the popularity of Atlas Obscura-style stuff is a sad reflection of the times we're in. We collectively decided facts, respect, diversity, respecting other cultures, challenge, and merit are put on the backburner for sensationalism, ego pleasing, rent-seeking, mindlessness, intellectual dishonesty, and engaging in popular stereotypes.

zoeysmithe commented on Japan's Creepiest Station tokyocowboy.co/articles/d... · Posted by u/ewf

proggy · 3 days ago

Creepy is subjective of course, but it’s pretty high on the list for the most isolated and/or inconveniently-located platform in the country. The only access is via a narrow footbridge leading to a 486-step staircase that goes 70m underground (230ft). Unlike most other 50+ meter deep train stations, there are no elevators and no escalators. The only way in or out of the station is via those stairs, which makes platform-to-street time a non-trivial part of the overall journey.

zoeysmithe · 3 days ago

Yep its not creepy its just a train station. I live in a big city and not-well-lit stations are common and its just a boring fact of life no one even notices here. But to an outsider trying to exoticize things, suddenly its "creepy" or "weird." I mean "the descent is terrifying?" It just stairs. We have this in DC, NYC, and Chicago. To a Chicagoan like me, these 'terrifying tunnels' are just our train station and where we go everyday. There's a real anti-urbanism and anti-public trans aspect here that is concerning.

The notes aren't "Silent Hill" like but a cute way human social need expresses itself. Its community. Its not weird or scary at all, in fact its the opposite.

The alternative to 'terrifying' stairs and trains are the actual terror of driving which has a much higher injury and morality rate than riding a train.

No one wants to have this conversation but if you wonder how egyptomania happened, well, its happening here with people fetishizing Japan and its people.

I wish orientalism was taken more seriously. Japan has sort of become this fictional and stereotypical thing and it percolates down with stuff like this. Its just a train station. Its someone's boring work commute. Its not GITS or a catgirl hideout or cyberpunk in real life whatever. Its a place that doesnt have the social, political, and capitalist capital to get much needed renovations, same with the many 'creepy' stations on Chicago's west and south sides, which the North side ones (wealthy, white dominated) have had renovations, new paint, new lighting, etc. Its just the everyday corruption of how many societies work.

Go ahead an put "DOAI EKI" into google images. It looks quite normal. The "tokyo cowboy" website inserted that dark green filter. Its just a boring, if not ugly, tunnel with a but of colorful moss to break up the monotony:

https://wikimapia.org/16698934/Doai-Station-%E5%9C%9F%E5%90%...

If anything, the external facade is quite striking with its big triangle face. I mean, this is just a train tunnel, albeit a deep one. Not the Chernobyl exclusion zone and entirely safe and honestly, if you're anything like me, you'll enjoy the quiet and seclusion of a train tunnel.

I've been to Japan and when people find this out and start ranting to me about how they'd love to go for stereotype-heavy reasons, its very hard for me to tell them it isn't actually a cybperpunk or anime heaven, but its just a normal developed economy and it and its people are not very different from them, many of whom without a strong interest in the otaku culture they think defines this entire society. Nor is it easy to talk about its many serious political issues, as Japan has many faults orientalism doesn't present.

Japan is full of the same working class people as you, with the same worries and joys as you. Maybe they ride the train more than you but their tunnels and stairs aren't "terrifying," they're instead the cherished memories of their hometowns. Maybe the L in Chicago is ugly to you, but its my, sometimes difficult, but beloved train system I ride every day. The L is the source of many of my warm childhood and young adult memories the same way stations like this are to the Japanese there too. I dont know if its accurate to portray these systems as weird exotic and dangerous things. Its just everyday rail. Its our daily lives.

So much of this orientalism is dishonesty to get engagement, fame, ad impressions, etc. I'd love a good hearted and honest appreciation and criticism of Japan's rail lines over sensationalist writing like this. The Atlas Obscura style of writing and profit-making is practically ruining the internet and making people divorced from the actual reality of these places and its people. You get the McTourist version of things that don't reflect the reality and people there much, or if at all.

I think the older crowd remembers what it was like before wikipedia got big, near everything was sensationalist and 'blogger' and 'personal diary' like this. You couldn't just bring up the data and facts about stations like this or an article written with journalist ethics, instead you'd be pummeled with "Atlas Obscura" style narratives like this made to be sensational and often inaccurate and engaging in stereotypes. The people who wrote this article are motivated by money, not information sharing, hence the style. I dislike we're moving back towards "Anime fans facts on Japan webring" type writing. I really hope people stop and think about this stuff and stop promoting this kind of stuff, especially now when you can just tell an AI to write Obscura-style sensationalism trivially and use many SEO tools to promote this writing for profit.

I come to HN to get away from stuff like this and its just disheartening to me to see these types of articles becoming popular here. This isn't the first one and I'm afraid this is becoming a trend.