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Which really begs the question: why not have it open-source at that point? Obsidian isn't making money from things hidden in the code, but rather their Sync service.

Might as well open-source it (and perhaps get more people helping with the development), keep the Sync service, and stem competitor projects like these in the bud.

Canada 6 months ago

That's definitely true, though probably only limited to CS (and maybe the top 5% of people going to investment banking). The vast majority of the most intelligent people at any Canadian university will stay in Canada, and given the current political situation, I think that's probably only going to become more true.

Also, anecdotally, I would wager that schools with significant numbers of Americans (e.g., McGill) probably have more US students staying in Canada than vice versa at this point (with perhaps the exception of CS).

It's quite sad that ADHD is as stigmatized as it is: even though it is a very well-characterized condition in psychiatric literature, the most common 'pop-science' take one hears about it is that ADHD is completely overdiagnosed and may not even exist as a condition. Also, I know multiple people, even though well-managed ADHD would not negatively affect their careers, are barred from certain professions (like high-security military careers and being pilots) simply due to having ADHD and being medicated for it.

What sort of privacy implications? I'd imagine that Anki data would be relatively privacy-concern free, as it contains no PII, and for the AnKing decks, all of the content is standardized and so wouldn't contain personal notes. Though, having never worked with this data, please let me know if I'm wrong!

Also, having used those decks in the past, and downloaded the add-on/look at the monetization structure of developers like the AnKing, I would be very surprised if aggregate data on review statistics wasn't collected in some way. I.e., if the AnKing is collecting this data already to design better decks/understand which cards are the hardest—probably to target individual support—then I imagine that collecting some de-anonymized version of that data wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Plus, considering that all of the developers of AnKing-style decks are all doctors, they probably have a pretty good grasp at handling PII and could (hopefully) make pretty sound decisions on whether to give you access :)

Losing the War 12 months ago

While I do agree with a lot of what you're saying (wrt. people in the US feeling that their country is slowly falling apart, perhaps into fascism) I just wanted to point out that I don't actually live in the US.

Though I think the nascent feelings you describe are very universal: living in a (thankfully) stable democracy, I think these feelings that the world is slowly unraveling are quite universal—we constantly see in the news that the U.S. is slowly falling apart, that there are now large-scale land wars in Europe again, and that China is inching towards a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. I think for a lot of people it feels hard to imagine a world that gets better in the short-medium term, especially as the U.S. slowly starts to unravel itself (from an outsider POV).

I'm not really sure whether the world is slowly starting to become more crazy or whether this has always been the case (I wasn't even a teenager when Trump was first elected), I sometimes wonder if the feeling that things are reaching a breaking point is the same feeling that people had in 1928.

| The main challenge in building content-aware memory models is lack of data. To my knowledge, no publicly available dataset exists that contains real-world usage data with both card textual content and review histories.

I wonder if the author has ever considered reaching out to makers of Anki decks used by premeds and medical students like the AnKing [1]. They create Anki decks for users studying the MCAT and various Med School curricula, so have a) relatively stable deck content (which is very well annotated and contains lots of key words that would make semantic grouping quite easy) b) probably contains loads of statistics on user reviews (since they have an Anki addon that sends telemetry to their team to make the decks better IIRC), and c) contains incredibly disparate information (all the way from high-school physics to neurochemistry).

---

[1] https://www.theanking.com

Losing the War 12 months ago

This was one of the most incredible essays about war I've ever read. At some points I forgot that I was even reading an essay about war, but everything came together in the end.

I think Sandlin was one of the few authors (perhaps alongside Remarque) that could adequately capture the silent resignation into fear (or 'fey' as he put it) that so many people have; my father was one of those people, and while his time at war was something I barely understand and was never told about—probably to shield me—his description of those restless nights dreaming of patrolling Okinawa (or Fallujah, Kandahar, or Kashmir) are something that truely can't be described by the language of peace, or even by people who were not there—like myself.

There's a certain melancholy in the tone of the entire essay, something that I think grips so many people in my generation (and that Sandlin mentions while describing Wagner): the belief that while life continues on as normal today, the world is about to be irreparably changed for the worse; perhaps we'll go to war with China, Russia, Iran, or some other country, but in the aftermath, everything we've taken for granted in life will be completely gone. I think an entire generation of young men now believe that they'll eventually be shipped off to some war and might not return—and if they do, just like Eugene Sledge, the entire world around them will be completely different. And eventually, no one will care to hear about their war stories and their memories of it will fade.

I completely agree—though it would be very difficult to measure the information contained within methylation/acetylation. If, naively, we assume that epigenetic modifications act only to increase or decrease the rate of transcription (or promoter binding, nucleosome coverage, and/or things we barely even understand as of now), and also assume that only cytosine bases are modified, then we still increase our estimate for the amount of information by at least an order of magnitude—and this neglects other modifications like methylation on nucleosomes, of which there are hundreds.

Maybe it's regression to the mean? Perhaps the second day 'feels' more lazy because you did so much the last day, so that when you return to your baseline, you feel as if you haven't done anything in comparison.

This could be proven/disproven with some metrics about your average productivity and productivity on 'lazy' days.

Just curious: does anyone know any good, somewhat realistic computer wargames that one could play? I've always been interested in military theory, history, and strategy, so would love to play a wargame where you play as a commander and have to deal with limited intelligence while moving forces around, engaging with an enemy, and (most importantly) dealing with logistics. Paradox games scratch this itch a bit, but I find that they emphasize the "grand" strategy a bit too heavily.

If this doesn't exist: why not? It seems like the Army should spend millions of dollars to give their officers a fun way to get tactical and logistical experience without having to run in-person wargames.

I guess from a genetic standpoint, it doesn't really matter. Since many of those near-relations (as other comments have mentioned) who mated and had children would have somewhat similar genetic profiles, one particular SNP from a great-x10 grandparent might still propagate to us, simply because other mates would also have that gene.

My Caste 3 years ago

I’m the descendant of Indian immigrants, but is someone who grew up in North America, speaks English as my first language, and is very westernized—I wouldn’t even consider myself Indian to any respect, except for my heritage.

I’ve never experienced caste discrimination (through I think I come from a high caste). But, I recognize that my experience is likely different, and probably slanted by my caste status in comparison to recent Indian immigrants.

I was wondering if any other Indian diaspora or Indian immigrants to North America could chime in with what they’ve experienced: have you faced any caste discrimination?

Personally, that's why I think a Cap and Trade program is better than a Carbon tax. You're reducing the effect on lower-income people (who aren't directly exposed to increased prices caused by the tax), you incentivize innovation (so that companies don't have to buy carbon trades), and you can reduce emissions targets based on your stated goals (i.e., you can automatically reduce emissions by lowering the cap).

Our iceberg lettuce is up to 7$/ea except for the 10% we get from California. The other ~90% is from predominantly Ontario green houses, all of which are being hammered by the Federal carbon taxes(Provincial are already carved out).

To be fair, this is the doing of the Ford government. Ontario had a cap-and-trade program under Kathleen Wynne (however bad she may be), which the Ford government scrapped for no apparent reason. By law, the federal government had to step in and implement a carbon tax, which Ford knew in advance. This increase is purely due to his government.

You may be right. If there was a selective pressure against large penises due to intra-male fighting, and the lack of a strong enough pressure for larger penises (due to the relative absence of pair-bonding), that would support the observation that gorilla penises are small. For humans, where that sort of fighting doesn't happen, and where pair-bonding is important, penis size would naturally drift upwards until they become too big, or they take too much energy to grow/utilize.

One way to test this would be analyze the fighting techniques of various primate species, and then bin them based on their penis size and relative monogamy. If all primates that grab and tear have small penis, irrespective of their pair-bonding, then perhaps the former is more important.

I'm not sure if female social capital in gorillas is the reason for the shorter penis size. Because in other primates, like bonobos, for example, where females predominate and have lots of choice, penis size is still small.

I think the main reason why is because sex is used in humans for pair-bonding, and many human cultures have much more monogamous lifestyles—raising children together for example. Sex in humans is less for procreation than in monkeys, so larger penis sizes became more adaptive.

Interesting, it seems like then that the old wives tale—that height, foot size, or hand size—should not correlate with that measurement in men.

According to the literature (RIP my search history), height is weakly correlated with it [1], while the ratio between the second digit and fourth digit is moderately correlated [2]. Weirdly enough, the 2D:4D ratio has to do with bone lengths, but is still correlated with that measurement.

--- [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/ijir201153 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digit_ratio

This seems to underlie their problem: if they're only supporting SciFi (and probably other creative outlets) as a means to an end, as a means to encourage innovation, they're doing it wrong. Asimov didn't write because he foresaw all of the tech entrepreneurs who would read his work, he wrote because he wanted to, and because the society where he wrote supported him—and promoted artistic works (though of course there is perverse incentive for art here in the West, in the form of monetary incentive for artists). If China only supports SciFi to innovate, they won't produce good enough works to innovate.

I think GP's intention was to mention the farmers themselves, who would (presumably, I'm neither a farmer nor European) receive above >€3000 in egg-revenue per week/month/annum, and then go deposit that at the bank, use it for mortgage payments, or pay for farm equipment et al. in cash.

Right, but they don't control the distribution and transaction of cash. They may stop producing €500 notes—for example, but there is nothing they can do to stop these farmers or undocumented immigrants from bundling together >€3000 in smaller notes for use in paying rent, buying cars, or investments.

Sorry, but I'm not sure this is entirely accurate, as a Canadian.

Translation: Canada is wealthy including most Canadians I know. That’s why things are expensive.

Most Canadians are not wealthy; the median salary, adjusted for taxes and transfers (so including healthcare spending and social welfare) is lower than almost any US state. There are very many Canadians, who live in places like Trois-Rivieres, Kelowna, or Kingston, that are very poor and are almost destitute. There are also very many people who can barely afford rent—average rent in Toronto is about ~2K CAD per month. That is almost the median salary for Canada as a whole.

Canada has better healthcare than the US (#5 in the world according to US News and World Report, ahead of Switzerland).

I agree, but its getting worse. Doctors (thanks Ford, Legault, and Smith) are underfunded and leaving, a good portion of Canadian cannot find a primary care physician, and haven't been to the doctor in months.

I straight up don’t believe you that there aren’t decent jobs in those cities. They’re like the NYC and LA of Canada.

There are decent jobs, but open to those who have university degrees due to the rampant credential inflation in Canada. If 60% of Canadians have tertiary education, what good jobs are available to the 40% who don't, due to family circumstance, money, or time? What jobs are available to the 500,000 immigrants per year?

People want big McMansions to store their consumerist junk because of our HGTV culture but you can live a good life in much less. Your kids can share a bedroom, they’ll even likely be happy with it.

People also want to spend less than $2K a month for a 1 bedroom apartment in a suburb. Canada's problem isn't that there aren't enough McMansions going around, but that there aren't enough *houses* going around. Again, the average Canadian pays something like 40% of our income in rent and/or mortgage, with little option to downsize to pay less.

dangus 1 hour ago | parent | context | flag | on: Families earning $100k in Toronto eligible for Hab...

“It’s so expensive, nobody wants to be there”

Kind of like “nobody drives, there’s too much traffic.”

Most Canadians I know have multi generational wealth so they are going to be fine

Translation: Canada is wealthy including most Canadians I know. That’s why things are expensive.

Canadian cities rank highly for livability, including expensive ones Toronto and Vancouver. No US cities were on the list that I found.

Canada ranks higher than the US on the human development index.

Canada has better healthcare than the US (#5 in the world according to US News and World Report, ahead of Switzerland).

I straight up don’t believe you that there aren’t decent jobs in those cities. They’re like the NYC and LA of Canada.

My hot take is that living in a small rented apartment isn’t some kind of catastrophe. For one thing, North American housing is already considered large by the standards of many countries.

More importantly, the size of your dwelling is only one aspect of quality of life, and it’s a factor that’s less important than most people give it credit for. Are Dutch people unhappy because their apartments are small?

People want big McMansions to store their consumerist junk because of our HGTV culture but you can live a good life in much less. Your kids can share a bedroom, they’ll even likely be happy with it.

Just as a cherry picked example, I’d rather live in a tiny apartment in Vancouver than live in a big house in places like New Orleans, where I have to worry about higher crime and gun deaths, worse education, worse and more expensive healthcare, worse city services and infrastructure, weather and climate flooding my house away, and worse job opportunities.

Obviously, Canada needs better housing and immigration policy, but I’d call those pretty minor and resolvable problems for a country that is doing so well.

I'm sorry, but this is really out of touch. Canada needs better housing policy, but its not a minor and resolvable problem. It's something we've known about since ~2000, but haven't fixed yet due to entrenched interests. Many Canadians—especially those with high-paying, senior dev roles as you would find on HN—are doing well, but there is a significant underclass of people—including those who came here for a better life—who are struggling. Please do not diminish their struggles.

Probably because we set the baseline at alcohol—if alcohol is legal, then society is willing to tolerate the harms that come from it (along with the inertia of it being such a widely-consumed drug for thousands of years). If we can tolerate the harms from alcohol, why can't we tolerate the (much lower) harms from cannabis?

According to the Massachusetts SNAP eligibility site, a grad student earning the minimum Harvard grad student salary would have to be in a household of 3 people with neither of the other 2 working to qualify for SNAP.

So a grad student with two kids? Or a spouse on mat leave + a newborn? Or two elderly parents? Pretty much any Harvard grad student that isn't single or cohabitating with a fully-employed person would fit under this criterion.

Sorry about that, I know nothing about education so I'm mostly trying to start a conversation here.

Given those numbers, we should expect $12,000 per pupil to go towards special ed (let's assume 10% need it) and $12,000 per pupil to go towards teacher salaries, and $12,000 for overhead.

With that $12,000, shouldn't NYC still have class sizes of ~10-12, assuming teachers make $120K a year (which is high, but perhaps not unfeasible considering NYC being fairly pro-public sector union and high cost of living)?

This also implies that the average cost per one special-ed student is $120K per year, which is very high, but fairly understandable given the needs you mentioned. In fact, special-ed teachers (assuming few-to-one class sizes) may make comparatively less than regular teachers given the need for aides.

Also $12K per pupil on overhead also makes sense, assuming a high cost for maintenance / repair, plus administrative salaries being higher than in other parts of the country.

This (again, very uninformed, back-of-the-envelope analysis) implies that policy objectives should focus on reducing special-ed costs while increasing quality of education, figuring out why we don't have smaller class sizes, and potentially reducing overhead (which I thought would be the most wasteful sector, but actually seems small in comparison).

To some degree, this is a function of Baumol's cost disease [1] and high cost of living. As other fields become more productive (think fields NYC is known for, finance, research, tech.) labour for fields that don't become more productive (teaching, medicine) become more comparatively expensive. Add to this the extremely high cost of living in NYC, which pushes up labour prices, we have (part) of the root cause.

This doesn't explain everything, though. Using some back of the napkin math, a lot of money seems to be wasted in NYC (as someone who doesn't research education, though considering the state of the field I'm not sure that would help much). Imagine 10% of students need 1:1 teaching (think special needs) to be successful, while the other 90% need class sizes of 15 (gross underestimates to steelman the point). Also, imagine that 50% of costs go towards teacher labour (which may or may not be low), and that each teacher gets paid 120K a year.

Thus, the equation looks like: 2 * [0.1 * $120K + 0.9 * ($120K/15)] ~ 35K per year. This means that the NYC school system (which definitely does not have 15 kids per class, or 1:1 special needs education for 10% of students) is grossly inefficient.

--- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

I'm from Canada so maybe this is more typical of the US, but does anyone else find these degree programs a bit odd? Like here, we get a degree in Computer Science, or in Biology, or in Life Sciences, or Health Sciences (I will say, those last three can get a bit weirdly specific) but I've never heard anyone say that they are getting a degree in 'Human and Community Development'. That seems so specific so as to reduce the value in getting a degree.