1
Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier
The Wirecutter’s review of the IKEA air purifier is a mishmash of scientific errors, shoddy testing, and self-contradictory logic.
Dynomight
science and existential angst
- Popular posts
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Visit dynomight.net → RSS feedOn Hacker News Feb 2021 – Jul 2026
Life, Learning & Writing 35Science & Space 29Society, Policy & Culture 18Tools & Productivity 7History & Retro Computing 3AI & Machine Learning 3
2
Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
30 underrated reasons to be thankful, starting with the fact that atomic bombs don’t ignite the atmosphere
3
Plans you're not supposed to talk about
When does talking about a plan ruin it? Marriage, CO2, religion, self-promotion, edgelords, and Chinese medicine.
4
My 16-month theanine self-experiment
randomized and blinded, N=1
5
Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate
Here are some things that I hated as a student. At the time, I thought my teachers didn’t understand or care how terrible they were.
6
The health benefits of better air
Why the air you breathe matters, and what to do about it.
7
New colors without shooting lasers into your eyes
Can optical illusions take you outside the human color gamut?
8
OK, I can partly explain the LLM chess weirdness now
(“make LLMs play better with one weird trick”)
9
I don't like NumPy
it’s too hard
10
How I learned to stop worrying and structure all writing as a list
We like lists because they are an objectively good way to organize information. They allow readers to quickly and easily get what they want.
11
So Much Blood
but how much exactly?
12
Let's stop counting centuries
One-indexing problems in everyday life
13
Experiments on a $50 DIY air purifier (2020)
You can make a DIY air purifier in 30s. To test if it works, I generated smoke, and measured how well it removes tiny particles.
14
The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated
Some skepticism of vitamin D skepticism
15
Old jokes
That’s what she said, a rabbi resolves a dispute, and six categories in the Philogelos
16
Taxonomy of Procrastination
There’s a little accountant named Jim that lives in my head
17
Thoughts on the potato diet
Nine observations about what happens when you eat only potatoes
18
Does creatine make you smarter?
And why does the brain use creatine anyway?
19
A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes
People with the same big five personality types tend to be more happy, successful, intelligent, creative, and popular. Why aren’t there more tradeoffs?
20
Test scores are not irrelevant
Some claims that test scores don’t predict college success don’t add up.
21
The big alcohol study that didn't happen
Why did a huge alcohol RCT get cancelled? A strange story of science, academia, bureaucratic maneuvering, ambition, politics, capitalism, the deep state, secret emails, and slippery ethical slopes.
22
Take something you don’t like and try to like it
it offers lessons on your nature
23
The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
Since around 2009, methamphetamines have been made with phenylacetone (P2P). Is there a chemical different causing schizophrenia?
24
The Cuboid: A DIY air purifier that's better than a box fan
Designs for a quieter, more energy efficient purifier, and data proving it really works.
25
Nobody optimizes happiness
People don’t seem to try very hard to make themselves happier. Why not?
26
What I learned trying to classify abortion access across the rich world
Rich countries are not monolithic. However, outside the US and a few microstates, they vary in a limited range.
27
Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists
An unhinged polemic
28
Underrated reasons to be thankful V
even more
29
My attempted cult recruitment
Dark patterns in social behavior
30
Is "colorectal cancer" rising in "young people"?
(Yes, but.)