jrapdx3

Excellently written, informative, entertaining and a bit scary. Oceans of slime yet viruses are so small. It is mind-blowing to think about.

Haven't visited Europe in a few years. Last time I was there, on a train routed through less populated areas of northern France, I saw nuclear plants emitting steam. For all their downsides they do feed a lot of power into the grid. It is a relatively clean option.

You make a strong case for alternative options. I guess the path taken pivots on evaluation of the tradeoffs, and significantly, who does the evaluating.

Good interview, informative and reveals something of the character of the individual. Better writing than typical for interviews of this sort.

But I'm biased. I've used Chicken Scheme for a few years. For the most part, it's been a gratifying experience. For me, Chicken's easy to use and sensible FFI is big part of the reason. The language more than not works for what I aim to achieve.

The Chicken community supports newcomers and old hands when they need it. Harsh responses to queries are rare. As online communities go, it's about as good as it gets.

> "...if you ever get a chance, check out the Auguste Rodin Gallery at the Maryhill Museum of Art"

I wholeheartedly concur. Just a few hours up the Gorge from Portland/Vancouver, Maryhill is a great place to take visitors up for it.

If memory serves, the Rodin exhibit has original plaster casts signed by Rodin and dozens of other works. In addition, the vast museum contains the huge and fascinating collections of its founders.

Nearby is the Stonehenge replica constructed to match the original as closely as possible. Definitely worth visiting.

I'll have to try it.

It occurs to me that in this era of RAM hardware shortage, resource-frugal applications like this one could become more prevalent.

Anyway I guess we'll see if that happens.

Edit: Downloaded, running under Windows.

Impressive. Loads fast, looks pretty polished. Highlighting for many languages included "obscure" ones that I sometimes use.

Mem used: 7.9MB (gvim 12.2MB, emacs 35.5MB, vscodium 291.1MB)

Interesting. Having made websites I think "of course that makes sense!". As a practical matter, getting wanted page appearance can require adding a few classes. I've been guilty of class proliferation caused by perfectionistic tweaking of things to the last nanogram. Anymore I strive not to go there.

This aroused my curiosity. Tried to get the article. Clicking on the item didn't fetch the site, never did connect.

I've programmed in Scheme on and off over the last decade or so. callcc comes in handy for "return" or "break" functionality. More sophisticated uses, like threading or coroutines, have been around for a long time. Obviously those operations are harder to implement but they do exist and are widely used.

That's absolutely splendid. In the user role, I get very irritated when programs do stupid things or interface elements don't do what they're supposed to do. Muttering to myself I'm asking a question: have the developers ever actually used this program? I'm convinced had they used it for real, there would be far less idiocy users have to deal with.

Your approach to developing software goes a long way to producing software that users appreciate. OTOH users may have no opinion about software sufficiently intuitive to use that it fails to bring attention to itself. Such transparency is an outcome developers should be proud to achieve.

I get what you're saying but I think there's a problem, gobs of common drugs have 2D6 as a metabolic pathway. Increasing 2D6 inhibition puts recipients at greater risk of serious adverse events or drug toxicity. Can't say much about pharmacodynamics of candidate compounds, that remains to be determined experimentally in live subjects including animal models and possibly phase 1 trials.

In any case I appreciate the interesting ideas in your comment and the article.

Studies show Modafinil isn't effective in ADHD adults. It may have benefit in children with ADHD.

I think many prescribers give ADHD adults a high dose too soon causing side-effects. In my experience, it's best to start with a low dose and slowly increase as necessary. The myth is ADHD responds quickly, but observing hundreds of patients it takes months, not days, for benefit of treatment to develop. There's wisdom in the phrase, "start low and go slow".

> ... I wonder why they don't just give people some ritalin and ask if they feel calmed down? Except the obvious reason of course

In ADHD (and most conditions) diagnosis by medication response is not acceptable. Response to drugs is highly variable and fails criteria for acceptable tests. Also drugs can produce side-effects. According to professional standards, it's unethical to expose people to nontrivial risks without good cause.

FWIW it's commonly the case with cancers of abdominal organs: stomach, pancreas, liver, kidney, etc. These cancers are frequently not diagnosed until at an advanced stage. Symptoms tend to be nonspecific, overlap with ubiquitous conditions like constipation, gastritis.

A goal of research is improving early detection of these cancers but it's an uphill battle. It's difficult to increase providers' "index of suspicion" of seemingly "minor" complaints.

> My point is mostly that artist occupy a strange spot in our culture. They are the only “trade” that I know of that can fabricate items that have a value beyond their utility.

Thank you for the clarification. You're right artistic success usually requires enduring arduous effort. Art, well, visual art, is making something out of very little. Hard to explain why the value of art is quirky. The word "value" is ambiguous, has multiple meanings.

I think paintings, prints, etc., are approximate expressions of an artist's visual imagination. Material value of painted canvas is negligible, price can be assigned by dealers and other players. Real value is individual, created when a viewer strongly resonates with an artistic expression. OTOH market/art-world value is mutable. I've often remarked that it won't be decided which of the art created today is "good" until 50 years after we're all gone.

> The most important thing is creating.

It's true, motivation to make art is more than selling art. A very successful artist in his sixties told me he feels a need to create art whether it sells or not. I've donated prints to schools, hospitals, libraries, etc. It's gratifying to know my work will be around long after I've passed on. That's more important to me than money.

I visited your uncle's website. His kinetics are superb, entertaining but also expressing visually complex, 4 (or more) dimensional ideas. Translating to concrete form is an admirable accomplishment.

BTW I think industrial design is underappreciated. Shape, color, etc., of utilitarian objects has to be determined by at least one real person. Some of these objects are endowed with subtle beauty. Working with beautiful things makes the labor less burdensome.