Recent submissions

Comment · 6 months ago
There's a book called "Bowling Alone" that explores a lot of ideas around this. Iirc the conclusion is two fold:

1. Historically women were largely responsible for community building. As they joined the workforce, they had less time to community build and so there became less community.

2. Technology allowing home entertainment. People can now stream movies instead of going to theaters. Play computer games instead of go to arcades. Check Facebook instead of call friends to catch up. Use a Keurig for convenient coffee instead of go to a cafe.

Comment · 1 year ago
I have a similar setup. Corne keyboard, trackball mouse, portable laptop stand. Never had an issue with TSA. I don't even bother taking the keyboard out of my bag since each half is roughly the size of a cell phone
Comment · 1 year ago
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. That article appears to be about a women who is now in a wheel chair due to nerve damage caused by a b12 deficiency which supports my comment that one of the most concerning risks of nitrous use is b12 deficiency.
Comment · 1 year ago
I don't think replacing oxygen in the brain is the main mechanism of action (in medical settings they mix nitrous and oxygen and it's still effective without risking hypoxia). Looking at Wikipedia it says the mechanism of action isn't fully understood but it says the effects "are likely caused mainly via inhibition of NMDA receptor-mediated currents".

I've been under the impression that biggest risk of long term use of nitrous is that it causes b12 deficiency which is really bad for your nervous system. Wikipedia also mentions that NMDA receptor antagonist in general are neurotoxic and studies in mice suggest that nitrous has this neurotoxicity.

Comment · 2 years ago
My favorite is 1 mile = phi kilometers with <1% error
Comment · 2 years ago
I'm way out of my depth here but I believe this would function as a very sensitive accelerometer. The rubidium would be still relative to the lasers so when you accelerated, it would have inertia and take some time to catch up with the rest of the device. You'd then integrate the acceleration to find the velocity and integrate that to find position.
Comment · 2 years ago
I've been using kagi and that's my biggest complaint. Upgrading from the basic plan seems like a lot of money but being on the basic plan, I have mental friction every time I do a search because I have anxiety about running out of searches. I actually haven't ran out in the 3 months I've been using it for but I don't like the anxiety 300 searches/month creates for me and maybe I would run out if I didn't have the anxiety limiting me
Comment · 2 years ago
The article also claims they were imported from China. They also said samples were sent for genetic testing and confirmed they were of the species Morchella sextelata. Not sure if that is what you're referring to as a species with a higher hydrazine content but I agree with you that you should be cooking them regardless and it's strange to me that they were serving them raw.
Comment · 2 years ago
Asimov wrote an essay called "relativity of wrong" that I think does a good job of capturing the changes our understanding of the world goes through.

Yes, Einstein's theory of relativity was a change from Newtonian physics but it's a fairly minor correction for most practical purposes and Newtonian physics is still important to know and understand.

So yeah, our understanding of physics will likely change but it'll only matter in more and more extreme edge cases and will likely build on our current understanding. Maybe it'll result in us finally having fusion reactor, room temperature super conductors, or quantum computers but you're still going to get a roughly parabolic arc when you throw a ball through the air.

Comment · 2 years ago
Doesn't having those numbers available help you ask questions like "why are houses of worship more likely to install solar panels than a warehouse?" which could possibly point towards answers to the question "how can we increase the percent of warehouses that are installing solar panels?" Maybe it doesn't lead to anything (many churches are more motivated by ideals and less motivated by profit than a warehouse) but studying outlier categories even if they're minorities seems like a reasonable thing to do.
Comment · 2 years ago
Where exactly is the line drawn for how much and what type of human intervention is required? When I cook food, human intervention is causing chemical reactions that change the composition of the food. I doubt many people consider grill marks to be unnatural or synthetic.
Comment · 2 years ago
I never said the majority of the population has severe incurable diseases. I said that have genes that aren't great (maybe they have a predisposition for certain diseases or they're a carrier but are healthy themselves).

Also, many diseases don't effect you until after you're past reproductive age. Evolution doesn't care if you get Alzheimer's at 70 but it still has a fairly large burden on our modern day society.

Sickle cell is particularly interesting because the gene that causes it makes the carriers less susceptible to malaria. So there actually was an evolutionary pressure for people in areas with high levels of malaria to have it (which is why it's so common among African Americans). Apparently it's better to die of sickle cell at 40 after you've had kids then die of malaria when your 10.

Comment · 2 years ago
What genes do you think we should be testing for and which ones do you think are severe enough that you parents with those genes shouldn't have children?

Almost everyone has some sort of gene that isn't great. They might have a family history of Alzheimer's, maybe a family history or some sort of cancer, or bipolar disorder, or any other of 100 different serious illnesses. Humans would go extinct if we only allowed those with perfect genes to reproduce.

Oh, and with sickle cell, you're going to be in particularly hot water with suggestions like that given the fact it's mostly African Americans who have the gene.

Comment · 3 years ago
Sure, hypothetically. It's just not what I'm seeing the wealthy parents in the town I grew up in doing. Most of them are fighting for school vouchers so they can divert money from public schools into their private schools.
Comment · 3 years ago
> The wealthy parents sent their kids to private schools and try to defund public education

They didn't say sending kids to private school was a way to actively defund public education just that wealthy parents do both which is true. What's your motivation to vote and support politicians that advocate for better funded public schools when it doesn't effect your kids but raises your taxes?

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