I never expected SU to come up in HN! Unfortunately, it wouldn't be the best reference...

Did something happen with SU?

Oh, no – I meant Spinel and her tragic past.

Or even just a compiler to C piggybacking off <objc/runtime/objc.h>; I think Apple still spends a lot of time making even dynamic class definition work fast. I haven't touched Cocoa/Foundation in a while, but I think (emphasis on think) a lot of proxy patterns in Apple frameworks still need this functionality.

This is slightly more niche, but I know it was pretty popular with users of AutoCAD as well.

But I would imagine that, for DTP, rasterizing PostScript on the printer would make things a lot easier.

Especially for a nation-state that's already hoovering up data broker products.

More details on leaked information from El Reg, especially after (laudably) the British government has been more transparent: https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/23/500k_biobank_voluntee...

"The charity did not specify the types of data that were included, but Murray stated in the Commons that several markers were included in the listings:

- Gender

- Age

- Month and year of birth

- Assessment center data

- Attendance dates

- Socioeconomic status

- Lifestyle habits

- Measures from biological samples related to haematology, biology, and chemistry

- Sleep, diet, work environment, mental health, and health outcomes data."

I'm curious – in which context? I've worked on NIH-funded grants in academic medical centers, throughout the research lifecycle, and I've seen how both stringently data management plans are vetted, and how annual IRB certification drills the basics even into the oldest tech-phobic investigators.

That being said, I may be as pessmistic as you are: I don't think people right now grasp how standards for deidentification may no longer be enough, and how easy and automated deanonymization changes everything. Unfortunately, cuts to federal science agencies means that I doubt any well-informed guidance will come soon.

As a biostatistician who's touched epidemiological studies, I'd argue losing the trust of participants and the public is one of the biggest threats to the viability of the whole research enterprise. It's reckless to jeopardize that as well. Conversely, this dataset will be mined for at least 30-50 years - there are an infinite number of questions that can be asked of this dat. Given that timescale, I think a little delay here is acceptable.

I like their idea of an audit log of analysis runs -- beyond transparency, I'm sure it'll help future researchers know how much iteration is needed to work with the messiness of medical records...

I'm also amused (in a good way) by the fact that SAS isn't supported as an analysis platform...

It's certainly an interesting idea, I remember he was on a few podcasts talking about it. I might submit it here to see if it gets some conversation going

From the perspective of someone who's worked with (biostatisticians who touch) Medicaid and Medicare billing data...

It looks like they've identified the institutions, at least... but aren't identifying it to the public for now. Are there going to be consequences? Are they going to be identified and sanctioned beyond "having their access suspended?"

In the US, HHS wouldn't hestitate to name, shame, and impose a sanction with corrective action plans. Not knowing much about how things work across the pond, I'm sure CMS PII gets used more often in research without these leaks left and right.

I know this is probably out of scope, but I'd love it as well if Notion could slowly accrete the features of Airtable... at least expose some form of programmatic access to tables!