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ronzensci's comments

ronzensci | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Migrate from G Suite, keep email addresses?

We have 40 email accounts on our custom domain and pay $0 per month for both sending & receiving emails on our custom domain.

We have very simple tech for that. We use the free email forwarding option from our domain provider. This allows us to receive emails sent to our custom domain. To send emails we use the free sendgrid SMTP servers configured for that same custom domain email account in our forwarded email account.

Maybe not the most elegant solution, but we can run upto 100 free custom domain email accounts using this.

ronzensci | 4 years ago | on: Mourning loss as a remote team

Having lost a loved one recently, I can say that never ever underestimate the effect of sharing grief with the family in-person. Just drop into Pete's home in Scotland and spend an evening with his family & loved ones. They must all be deeply in grief and your physical presence to talk to them about Pete would mean the world to them.

ronzensci | 4 years ago | on: The case of the 500-mile email (2002)

We have a banking website which refuses to login when I connect on the 5G Wifi but allows me to login when I connect on the regular 802.11 WiFi (non-5G mode). How does the website login know which WiFi speed am I connecting on?

ronzensci | 6 years ago | on: Data Brokers

"Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, beginning January 1, 2020, among other things, grants a consumer a right to request a business to disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information that it collects about the consumer, the categories of sources from which that information is collected, the business purposes for collecting or selling the information, and the categories of third parties with which the information is shared."

The new law requires companies to tell us who are they sharing our personal information with. Applying common sense law -- this sounds like anyone who sells my personal information to a third party with whom I'm not having a direct relationship - that gets covered.

The Ad I see on the top of my search query seems based on personal information that was sold to a third party.

ronzensci | 6 years ago | on: Data Brokers

Google is aggregating search queries. And they are selling my search query to the highest bidder with whom I'm not having a direct relationship. That sounds like a search broker to me.

ronzensci | 6 years ago | on: Data Brokers

Wouldn't Google Search/Gmail/Twitter -- all need to register themselves as Data Brokers?

ronzensci | 7 years ago | on: Loneliness is a serious public-health problem

Loneliness, when used for turning the search light inwards, can turn out to be a very rewarding experience. Most of the enlightened souls have spent a decade or more in solitude and looking inward. If the time of aloneness is used well, it can help find many answers. Eventually people do end up spending time with others, but those interactions turn out better when the time of being alone has been gainfully spent.

ronzensci | 7 years ago | on: The independent researcher

I am pursuing a self-sponsored PhD at one of India's leading institute of science and technology. I have about 15 years of work experience, including building a product which has seen a good amount of commercial success.

Validation of idea's was one of the reasons I decided to enrol in the part-time doctoral program. Also, vetting of technologies I planned to use in my work was another reason to become a part of a central govt. funded institute. It is easier to collaborate with faculty members when you are part of academia than otherwise.

Having said that, I am now of the opinion that independent research is the most optimum way to pursue one's own ideas. If you are working in the space of citizen impact or developmental projects, engaging with journalism editors has a far more positive impact than engaging with academic faculty. The science editors are able to articulate and help you present your work better than most other people.

Another group of people, I feel, might be helpful are "true incubating mentors". If you are looking at taking your work to the next level, I feel an incubator/mentor will provide you with the right direction (I've myself not experienced this but have seen people benefit from this).

ronzensci | 7 years ago | on: Delhi’s air pollution monitors have recorded the highest levels they can measure

The air pollution event that the article refers to was for a very short duration & was an episodic event due to a meteorological phenomenon.

The dust storm in the western region started on 13 June around 18:00 hrs and ended on 16 June around 05:00 hrs. The data from the official monitors in one of the western regions of Delhi NCR can be seen here: http://bit.ly/CPCB_Haryana_1Jun-16June2018

The headline in the above article is over-dramatic & is lacking a proper understanding of the actual ground-level monitored situation of those two days. What is more harmful is sustained levels of 500 ug/m3 of PM2.5 pollutants rather than a couple of spikes (each lasting less than a few hours) of 999 ug/m3.

ronzensci | 7 years ago | on: Doctors hail world first as woman’s advanced breast cancer is eradicated

Articles related to immunotherapy and TILs/CAR-T cell have been appearing in the mainstream media for the past five years. And each one of them has hailed one or two miracle cures.

For patients (as well as their immediate caregivers) who are dealing with advanced/metastatic breast cancer, these articles tend to do more harm than good. The reason is because for an informed patient who is vulnerable, such pieces tend to strongly start influencing treatment decisions.

My sister completed her journey with advanced breast cancer in April. And she was on immunotherapy for 8 months. She was also evaluated for TIL based treatment at MSKCC.

An earlier extremely similar article had strongly influenced our decision making. Now we realise that information such as this influences families a lot. I really feel the tone and underlying theme of the article should not be to convey it as a revolution. There is a reason why certain thresholds of success are built into clinical trials. Articles such as these should be written by guest oncologist and not journalist, as they tend to overemphasize the optimism and underplay the risks.

ronzensci | 8 years ago | on: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

There is a fundamental approach that has not been tried as yet

- Incentives

The real-world has that figured out long ago. If you find something that is truly useful & timely, you would be willing to pay real money for it.

Google Answers (answers.google.com) had tried an approach wherein a price can be put on a question and any legit reply which answers that q can claim it. 'Reputation' definitely still plays a role in this, but the system is flexible enough to allow a new comer to attempt answering a question & stake a claim to the funds.

The real-world has many of these aspects sorted out, like calling a plumber or a carpenter from your neighborhood to get your work done. The problem is we have embarked on creating a 'global' network (aka FB) without first having adequately understood how to create strong family & community network, before we go global with our social networking..

ronzensci | 9 years ago | on: Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”

Your own inner voice will tell you when you are being unethical and when you are merely benefitting from your experience or knowledge. Being unethical is not a grey area - almost everyone has an internal compass which can tell themselves in black or white (people know when they are self-justifying).

I would argue that you don't every need to cheat your own self to be successful.

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