Blinks-'s comments

Blinks- | 6 years ago | on: Tendon stem cells enhance regeneration

I have also found success with high repetition (15-30 reps) slow eccentric work for tendinopathy in my fingers and elbow. So far it's really the only thing that helps besides making sure the surrounding areas are not overly tight with soft tissue work. This guide and the linked research have been very helpful. https://stevenlow.org/overcoming-tendonitis/

Blinks- | 6 years ago | on: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

It seems like a user side configurable app permission such as "allow this application to use PushKit for non VOIP related functions" would take care of this without breaking functionality. However if the author of this article is correct it seems like this is more a jab at Facebook messenger than anything.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: Why can’t I block all incoming calls that aren’t in my contact list?

While I agree, if you randomize the number that needs to be pressed to get by the prompt it could become a serious roadblock for most autodialer systems.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: Advice to new programmers

I posted something similar in another thread about advice but take a programming terminology/vocabulary class, you probably know most of it after a few years experience but even a slight misunderstanding in diction can have serious implications down the line. I was surprised how much I learned and how beneficial it was to the conciseness of my code comments. This can be especially helpful with network stack and TCP/IP related work, remembering all the acronyms can save you a lot of time.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: Meat-free 'Impossible Burger 2.0' tastes even closer to the real deal

I wonder if they balanced the amino acid profile correctly, if this is not a complete protein then it wold detract from the main reason I eat meat, for simple exercise recovery. One of the problems I have with grain protein sources is they are rarely formulated in a way that allows for slow absorption and it forces me to look up what amino acids I need to supplement with.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration

My experience has been fine once I got some good noise canceling headphones, before that I had serious issues concentrating. My main issue is not having long uninterrupted blocks of time to complete projects that require a lot of focus.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: Ajit Pai faces rare criticism from GOP senator on rural broadband failures

Considering how many farmers vote Republican I'm almost surprised this issue is not raised more often in red states.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: “Social network” of brains lets people transmit thoughts to each other’s heads

This was a great read thanks, I found a good precursor study on brain-to-brain interface (BTBI) using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS), if you are not familiar with this research it's a good place to start: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01319

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: The Widely Divergent Life Expectancy in Every County in the US

For anyone who wants to check out the direct correlation mentioned in the article between this heatmap and the obesity heatmap, here is a link: https://maxmasnick.com/2011/11/15/obesity_by_county/

Unlike the map linked in the article this obesity heatmap is also by county so it makes for an excellent comparison.

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming

This topic interests me, I have used indirect techniques to increase the rate at which I get into a lucid dream state, drugs are not necessary with the correct schedule. However like others here have noted sleep quality is reduced and REM does not seem to have the same restorative effect if you spend it lucid dreaming.

I was actually first taught how to do this by my Chinese martial arts teacher, he recommended I spend any time I had in lucid dreams shadowboxing and sparing with opponents and in situations (often against weapons) I fear the most. It has actually increased my ability to think objectively during stressful situations. Especially because when you get too excited in a dream it usually collapses (look up deepening techniques if this is a problem for you).

One way I have heard people use this technique outside of martial arts is practicing public speaking in the dream state to increase confidence and create a realistic practice environment. Of course the possibilities are wide, however I find it very difficult to do things I have not experienced in real life, for example I can jump really high like I would if I was on a trampoline but I can not fly around like superman.

This is the Guidebook that taught me the fundamental techniques: https://www.obe4u.com/files/the_phase/the_phase.html

Happy Dreaming all, it's the weekend give it a try!

Blinks- | 7 years ago | on: A man who paves India's roads with old plastic

I found an interesting article that breaks down some of the potential problems with this process and the risks involved with heating plastics and trying to differentiate between plastic and PVC (they release different compounds when heated, both potentially problematic). https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/heard-about-miracle-pl...

Blinks- | 8 years ago | on: Nobody Knows Anything About China

Unfortunately the ones who do know how to start the process of resolving this are too afraid or too comfortable to do anything about it. This is why economic upward mobility is so important in any nation. Without the governing perspective of a person who rose from the summit, the top is unreachable and impossible to see down from.

Blinks- | 8 years ago | on: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

Increases in complexity up the barrier of entry to any advanced system, but lately it seems like things are made with the intent to make that barrier impossible to overcome within the lifetime of the hardware. The right to repair and open hardware standards are something we need to organize and push for if we want to see improvements. After all it's been demonstrated time and time again that we can't trust black box hardware.

Blinks- | 8 years ago | on: Japanese Company Offers Extra Days Off to Workers Who Don't Smoke

Considering the extremely toxic work/life balance most large Japanese companies pressure their employees to conform to and the compounded health effects of stress(i.e lack of time off) and smoking, I find this perplexing.

Blinks- | 8 years ago | on: Quitting Caffeine

One of the things that always gets to me when I try to stop drinking coffee/tea is that I end up feeling tired all day and then can't get to sleep at night. Apparently sleeplessness is a side effect of caffeine withdrawal, it's almost comical. Then again I have never tried slowly reducing my intake over a month, might be worth a try.

Blinks- | 8 years ago | on: Ask HN: For those programming 10+ years, what do you wish you knew 4 years in?

I inquired about this to a friend of mine who was mostly self taught at first, he has now past the 10 years experience mark but is just finishing up school in between freelance jobs. One of the things he told me was to take a terminology/vocabulary class, you probably know most of it after a few years experience but even a slight misunderstanding in diction can have serious implications down the line. I was surprised how much I learned and how beneficial it was to the conciseness of my code comments.

Blinks- | 8 years ago | on: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

"SpaceX has also proposed an additional 7,500 satellites operating even closer to the ground, saying that this will boost capacity and reduce latency in heavily populated areas."

This should be interesting, depending on how this is regulated on the legal side it could result in the major ISP's updating our infrastructure, of course nothing has stopped them from agreeing to update infrastructure then running off with our tax money in the past. Not to mention they will probably use legal means to hamstring this if possible. Hopefully this spurs competition in areas with stagnating ISP's and increases availability of low latency connections in sparsely populated areas.

Blinks- | 9 years ago | on: Mimicking an impact on Earth’s early atmosphere yields all 4 RNA bases

When I was in middle school I read a new book about cell structure I found in the library, my favorite chapter was always about the so called primordial soup of lipids and simple organic compounds that could have setup the chemical basis for polymers to form and in turn create the building blocks for RNA. It was one of the main things that gave me an interest in science and engineering, up until that point people had always given me a "god did it" or "we still have no theories on that son". This brings me back to the good ol' days of trying to explain how RNA could come about, as a 12 year old, to middle aged religious teachers who shot me down every time. As a kid this made me turn to outside sources for knowledge, and in retrospect that was actually a good thing.

Blinks- | 9 years ago | on: Ask HN: Do you still use Antivirus in 2017?

At work for windows/Mac machines I use Webroot, after an infection though I will run superantispyware or malwarebytes from an external media device (they seem to have a higher detection rate). I usually run a software side firewall like tinywall on Windows or littlesnitch on Mac just to see what's making requests in the background. Interestingly enough at work Macs receive a lot more detections per machine then windows boxes these days.