Slashdot Mirror

The sad part is that it is easy for me to believe that you might believe that. OK. I'm almost done trying to help people understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. I'll close with this quote from the wiki article on Scientific Method: "The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself,[discuss] supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false. "

And how is this different to a soundly construction psychological experiment? My hypothesis is that people given an opportunity to punish or reward a person in another room will punish more often if they know the person in the other room is male. I set-up a system where the scenario is the same (a fairly gender neutral crime) for everyone, but the participants will be informed that the person is male or female, or gender will remain a secret. Properly set-up, this is measuring reality through statistics. The results should be reproducible with comparable populations. Properly constructed studies are there to deal with the subjective nature of observation, and we know it's very easy to bias a study through poor sampling. For example, a gender dependant study performed in the UK could play out very differently in a society where women are traditionally treated as second-class citizens.

The reason you can't understand the difference is very simple. You have no idea what reality is, and you believe that perception is reality. It is not. It is not even close. When you measure subjective experience you are "measuring" a mirage. It doesn't matter if it is a mass hallucination. It is none-the-less a mirage.

And you're stuck in the idea that it's not science unless it's a guy in a white coat firing photons at something. Psychology is definitely not a hard science but it's not the "I sense you are confused" caricature you're presenting. Psychologists work to counter the subjectivity that comes as a result of measuring things that have agency. For example, self-reported data are unreliable when expecting honesty around areas that would cause embarrassment or be a rich source of cognitive biases. e.g. ask a bunch of Baptists if they steal? Straight out, that's a bad question because it's vague. Also, it's the kind of thing that a good God-fearing person could be trying their best to answer in the negative. One could instead understand this by looking at prison demographics, yet there we have to control for other factors in ensuring a representative sample. It's very easy to do this badly.

As you'll probably know yourself, the hard sciences aren't always as straight forward as saying "do x and y will always happen at a set time". For example, the role of probability in Mendelian inheritance. It's not possible to predict the alleles you would receive from your biological parents, but we could calculate the probability of receiving certain alleles. Expecting psychology to explain you, with a sample size of one, is like asking a geneticist to predict your height.
Even being able to examine your parents, it'll still be prone to wild inaccuracy on the level of a single person, while a larger sample would smooth things out a bit. How about radioactive decay - we can never know for definite when a specific atom will decay - only that probabilistically we have a half-life for a group of atoms.

America's over-reaction to 9/11 and the terrorism "threat" in general is doing far, far more damage than any terrorist could directly do in their wildest dreams.

10 years ago, I would have agreed with you. But looking back, I feel that you are being a bit naive.

If you were a detective wanting to solve a crime, the first question you'd ask would be "Who benefited?".

I agree that terror has been used plenty of times recently, that the elected governments never had a hand in it, and that there are organized groups around the world who have been hurt by the U.S. and want to take revenge at all cost. However, whenever I try to look from the perspective where "they got extremely lucky once", the picture begins to turn into a caricature of reality, like a badly written Hollywood movie.

We will never know why things happened how they happened, but trying to make sense of it the way we are supposed to doesn't work anymore. How long would Saddam's nuclear weapons remain a plausible threat if the citizen had no way of knowing about the evidence?

What say I? I say spend 2 months in the UAE, Qatar, or Bahrain. Not every place is what your caricature of the Middle East describes.

"He has taken what Bush did further than Bush ever dreamed "

that is completely false. Frankly, it's getting old and has been factual shot down 1000 times.

Obama did expand drone strikes in his first year in office. He did assassinate American citizens, which Bush didn't dare do. You cannot say that statement is completely false.

I think Obama is actually more dangerous than Bush. Bush was a bit of a buffoon; a caricature of a Texas cowboy or a "Joe Everyman" (neither are accurate, but that's how he presents himself. Obama comes across as more refined, more intelligent, more compassionate. He promised transparency, an end to Gitmo, and a renewed focus on diplomacy over military intervention. The current president won a Nobel Peace Prize as the world hoped he'd be the change he preached! But, by his actions, he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I blame myself too. I voted for Obama, twice. The second time I did so with my nose pinched shut. When our broken system gives you two choices, "bad" and "worse", then sometimes you just have to hold your nose and do the practical thing rather than the right one. I didn't vote in 2000 because both candidates were flawed,and sometimes I think that the many of us who abstained from the process during that election set the stage for a lot of the mess that we're in today as a nation.

Except they were also eating a lot of berries, starchy tubors, and fruit.

I find it hard to believe they were actually low glycemic.

But they are. Hell, baobab is *advertised* as low glycemic, and none of them are refined to increase glycemic index.

And the other culture eating white sugar sweetened beverages along with fruits. The model doesn't fit.

The impact of white sugar consumption accumulates over generations, as demonstrated by the gestational diabetes paper.

Sorry, not bothering.

Your loss :)

It's not a caricature, you're convinced insulin resistance is the driver of obesity

Let's be specific. Differential insulin resistance is the driver of obesity. You keep focusing on "look at this group that eats low glycemic, but high starch and fructose, but isn't obese!", while ignoring the necessary factor of differential insulin resistance.

Why do you continue to refuse that factor as part of my position, and simplify it down to "insulin"?

if you want to understand the system you have to actually study the system

Which has been done in depth with the Kreb's cycle, and the basics of fat accumulation biology. Now, perhaps your position is simply "there is no good answer, and I'm annoyed at Taubes for asserting he has one" (ignoring your support of Guynet for the moment) - but you seem to be wilfully ignoring the study of the system that has occurred.

My actual beef is he's ignored decades of very high quality research and knowledge

Odd. You don't seem to hold that research and knowledge up to the same level of scrutiny :)

!It isn't 1878 any more. The Industrialists are no longer the caricatures that the Wobblies fought, that you read about in that labor hiistory pamplet you got off the Trotskyite lit table. Every middle class person with retirement savings is The Industrialists now.

So that high starch high sugar culture was actually lean off eating a lot of fructose so there goes another mechanism.

I think the question is "what is different from honey than other sources of fructose, like fruit juices without the pulp" - and again, your "high starch high sugar" culture was really a "low glycemic, high fructose culture", so again, the model fits.

Except they were also eating a lot of berries, starchy tubors, and fruit.

I find it hard to believe they were actually low glycemic. And the other culture eating white sugar sweetened beverages along with fruits. The model doesn't fit.

When faced with a complex system like biology starting from the ground up is going backwards.

So we start with God, and work backwards from there? Watch this series, especially lecture 2 regarding cells: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/cognitive-ubiquity-evolution/id464839816

Sorry, not bothering. And I have no idea what you're talking about with the god thing.

You start by observing the system, seeing how it responds to various stimuli, and then you start working out how the low level mechanisms work in that system.

You don't start with a low level mechanism (like insulin), decide the role it must play, they build up your understanding around it then start making excuses when things don't apply.

You're creating a caricature of my position. Insulin is the mechanism for fat accumulation. Differential insulin resistance is the mechanism for insulin causing obesity, gluttony and sloth. I'm open to the question "where does differential insulin resistance come from?"

It's not a caricature, you're convinced insulin resistance is the driver of obesity and if something like sugar or starch isn't correlated with obesity you add a new qualifier so you can still blame insulin resistance.

I simply can't disagree more. An observational study shows you nothing - you've got to approach it with clear, falsifiable, foundational mechanisms to determine causality.

And I think maybe that's your essential beef - you're angry with Taubes because he's approached the problem from one direction, and you're *positive* that it must be approached from the other.

You can disagree but you'll be wrong.

You naturally want to understand the foundational mechanisms as well as you can, but if you want to understand the system you have to actually study the system, otherwise you'll never understand how that mechanism works in that system.

And it has nothing to do with my beef with Taubes, I only realized he was making this mistake recently. My actual beef is he's ignored decades of very high quality research and knowledge in favour of a pet theory they already studied, and soundly discarded. And he's done it using some very dodgy methods, both intellectually, and in presenting his data.

There's a reason the nutrition community thinks he's a crank, it's because he fits the definition.

So that high starch high sugar culture was actually lean off eating a lot of fructose so there goes another mechanism.

I think the question is "what is different from honey than other sources of fructose, like fruit juices without the pulp" - and again, your "high starch high sugar" culture was really a "low glycemic, high fructose culture", so again, the model fits.

When faced with a complex system like biology starting from the ground up is going backwards.

So we start with God, and work backwards from there? Watch this series, especially lecture 2 regarding cells: https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/cognitive-ubiquity-evolution/id464839816

That's the fundamental problem with your position, insulin is basically the one mechanism you know, so everything basically happens as a result of insulin.

You're creating a caricature of my position. Insulin is the mechanism for fat accumulation. Differential insulin resistance is the mechanism for insulin causing obesity, gluttony and sloth. I'm open to the question "where does differential insulin resistance come from?"

Given a complex system with multiple confounders you need to approach it observationally.

I simply can't disagree more. An observational study shows you nothing - you've got to approach it with clear, falsifiable, foundational mechanisms to determine causality.

And I think maybe that's your essential beef - you're angry with Taubes because he's approached the problem from one direction, and you're *positive* that it must be approached from the other.

The principles that underly the actual USA, specifically the constitution (as written, not as "interpreted"), are the foremost in the world by quite a distance -- they do the best job of balancing individual rights without falling overboard and choking off individual freedoms. Not perfect (oh, would I love to rewrite some of it), but still the best to date. Comparable efforts make serious mistakes, particularly in the areas of suppressing speech and giving cover to superstition. The ideal here in the USA was a profoundly well thought out constitutional republic, given the time frame the ideas were laid out in.

However, those principles are now only a vague memory in the actual day to day operation of the US legal and social systems. So while one might admire the foundation, the intent, and even the attempts of many individuals within the context of what one could simply call 'The USA", it's a huge mistake to take those high points as a legitimate description of who and what we are today: A corporate oligarchy, wildly out of the citizen's control, engaged in wholesale deception to keep it that way. Today, we have embraced some of the most repulsive things we used to say we stood against. From torture to surveillance to pervasive, systemized political corruption to massive, for-profit imprisonment, the USA at this time is no more than a caricature of its founding ideals.

Speaking to the younger generation (yeah, I'm getting old, and this is my lawn), I'm sorry, very sorry in fact, but you're well and truly fucked.

It is unreasonable to expect public debate of every law when understanding such laws in detail (as opposed to misunderstanding it or falling for a caricature the opposition spreads in the popular press) requires considerable legal training.

And therein lies the problem. Laws are a lousy solution to the ages old problem of holding your fellow people accountable for their actions. Just because we have always done it that way doesn't mean it isn't incredibly stupid.

While there will always be some tiny amount of votes who read the text of a law and write in to their representatives to voice their opinion, the general public is simply incapable of following the detailed legalese involved.

The legalese is solely for the purpose of enumerating every possibly situation. This "solution" is patently absurd as any AI software engineer can tell you. It is simply the wrong way to go about making decisions. It is understandable that the concept of law was created the way it was, but we now know a great deal more about how to create decision making process' thanks to Computer Science. Its time to abandon the concept of laws, get the poly-sci guys talking to the comp-sci guys and lets see if we cant come up with something that makes better use of a half century of control theory and information theory...

Oh yeah, I forgot, there is a whole army of lawyers out there who'd be out of a job if we actually made a system that works, and for some stupid reason we had put them in charge...

What about someone who *does* think berries are tasty, and potato chips aren't? After all, people can have different addictions. Can someone addicted to berries in the Hazda tribe get fat because of their subjective tastiness?

Someone who doesn't like chips probably won't get fat off them. But for berries factors like fibre, flavour, and moisture content might mean berries can reach that same level of addictivness.

And none of the data you've shown has contradicted that. You might have an example of certain carbs with a low glycemic index being *less* damaging, and therefore possibly negligible in effect, but you've caricatured Taubes into "all carbs must show a high insulin response and cause weight gain", instead of accepting that there is a spectrum of badness.

No, I've talked extensively about carbs with a high GI and insulin response like rice.

Not at all. I'm asserting the following - obesity is a sign of a carbohydrate allergy. Regardless of its genesis (say, fructose ala Lustig, or some other hormonal defect), the treatment is carbohydrate restriction. You cannot fix someone's insulin resistance (once they are insulin resistant), by feeding them starchy foods.

So by eating fructose we've developed some sort of insulin allergy that isn't present in non-industrial (ie ancestral) cultures. And that's why non-industrial cultures can eat any macronutrient balance they want and not get fat?

Did you come to this conclusion before or after the evidence the insulin hypothesis didn't work in non-industrial cultures?

Granted, let's assume for the moment that you have no alternate mechanism, and that Guynet's assertions are just hand waving. Let's be clear about the important questions still open about the insulin hypothesis:
1) what causes insulin resistance (see Lustig for one option)
2) what other mechanism could account for MHO (if say, further investigation shows that indeed, these large waisted people are able to accumulate fat in the absence of insulin). Perhaps this might end up being some sort of thyroid issue, who knows.

MHO==MOH==Morbidly Obese Humans?

Insulin resistance is more complicated than you think.

1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.

Mostly just in the sense that fat is very energy dense and make foods more palatable leading us to overeat. It may be linked to heart disease in industrial societies but not non-industrial.

2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis—the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.

Except easily digestible carbs like rice are fine in Japan, and countless non-industrial nations the only real common factor in obesity is industrial societies (though some like Japan avoid this).

That and protein also causes a similar effect on insulin (ie fish).

3. Sugars—sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.

I agree, but for different reasons

4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.

Maybe they're factors but my BS meter is go

There is public debate and input: election cycles. It is unreasonable to expect public debate of every law when understanding such laws in detail (as opposed to misunderstanding it or falling for a caricature the opposition spreads in the popular press) requires considerable legal training. While there will always be some tiny amount of votes who read the text of a law and write in to their representatives to voice their opinion, the general public is simply incapable of following the detailed legalese involved.

Berries are tasty but not addictive the way potato chips are, I'm not really sure how to measure that but I don't think that insulin is the answer.

What about potoato chip flavored berries, and berry flavored potato chips?

Why *wouldn't* insulin be the answer?

What about someone who *does* think berries are tasty, and potato chips aren't? After all, people can have different addictions. Can someone addicted to berries in the Hazda tribe get fat because of their subjective tastiness?

Taubes theory is that carbs are bad, refined carbs particularly so, and that the more insulin it releases the more fattening it is.

And none of the data you've shown has contradicted that. You might have an example of certain carbs with a low glycemic index being *less* damaging, and therefore possibly negligible in effect, but you've caricatured Taubes into "all carbs must show a high insulin response and cause weight gain", instead of accepting that there is a spectrum of badness.

I don't see you advocating a low in refined sugar but high in starchy foods so it sounds like you're dodging to me.

Not at all. I'm asserting the following - obesity is a sign of a carbohydrate allergy. Regardless of its genesis (say, fructose ala Lustig, or some other hormonal defect), the treatment is carbohydrate restriction. You cannot fix someone's insulin resistance (once they are insulin resistant), by feeding them starchy foods.

And at the end of the day I don't really need to give an alternate mechanism, I just need to show Taubes is wrong.

Granted, let's assume for the moment that you have no alternate mechanism, and that Guynet's assertions are just hand waving. Let's be clear about the important questions still open about the insulin hypothesis:

1) what causes insulin resistance (see Lustig for one option)
2) what other mechanism could account for MHO (if say, further investigation shows that indeed, these large waisted people are able to accumulate fat in the absence of insulin). Perhaps this might end up being some sort of thyroid issue, who knows.

That all being said, I don't think that Taubes has a particular axe to grind on either one of these. Here's his 10 conclusions in GCBC:

"1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.

2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis—the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.

3. Sugars—sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading the liver with carbohydrates.

4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.

5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating, and not sedentary behavior.

6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter, any more than it causes a child to grow taller. Expending more energy than we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.

7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance.

8. Insulin

I've had experiences much like your appendectomy example, but I'm still not religious for pretty much the reasons you describe. I require my god to be at least as moral as I am, and even then I don't see why it would be appropriate for me to kiss his ass. Furthermore man's theologies have more to do with men, and with the power that men wish to exercise over other men, than with God. To the extent that scripture to be taken seriously, making shit up, even inspired shit, then calling it God's Word, is blasphemy anyway. And I agree that a non-religious person can love the Golden Rule, I think its a great principle.

That said, the caricatured view that people on this site often have about conservatives and Christians is often grossly unfair. Though there is a lot of truth in the caricature, the motivations and general outlook of people in both groups is also often a lot more intelligent, nuanced, and compassionate than they're given credit for. And despite all of their stupidity, dishonesty, and cognitive dissonance, there are a few things that conservatives and Christians often understand better and act on more sincerely than atheists or people on the left do. Not everybody is cut out to question everything and invent a custom philosophical outlook for themselves. If they feel helped the general characteristics of a particular religion, they get out of it what they can, while glossing over whatever aspects of it don't seem to make as much sense. I'm not one of those people, I can't shackle my intellect that way, or let a priest or guru tell me how I should live. But most other people are not like me in that regard. They're going to buy into something, and no matter what they buy into its going to have skews and limitations, because people aren't honest enough for it to be otherwise.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that some of the realities of life can be pretty difficult to take psychologically if you feel and think deeply about them. So people suppress their emotions, or logic, or deny some part of the picture that makes the remaining part more palatable. But different people see different things clearly, and fudge their worldviews in different ways. Most people, for instance, want to think of themselves as being a part of a large group which sees the world the 'right' way, with the problems being the fault of some other group. Actually all political groups, as I see it, including the minority 'aternative' factions like libertarianism, are f-ed up in important ways if you look for it. Seeing that while still maintaining a healthy optimism and love of life isn't a trick that very many people can pull off. And maybe nobody pulls if off very well, everyone wrestles with it one way or another.

Considering the USA had nearly a century and a half head start, I wouldn't expect the USSR to have come close to catching up with it. And yet we're talking about differences in life expectancy of a few years, and very nearly irrelevant definitions of "wealth" when we contrast the models of service provision.

For example, when I lived in the US, I was able to earn a lot more money than in the UK. But it was worth a lot less, as private insurance is an inefficient rip-off vs British healthcare and social safety net. There's really little opportunity for comfort in the US except for a small proportion of people: the majority work far more hours than are needed to sustain a decent lifestyle for the whole country. Western continental Europe does so much better.

I have a brief personal experience with the end of the USSR, and my family worked for a car firm which did business there under Khrushchev. Sure, it sucked too, but not in the terrific way caricatured by Western propaganda.

So, it's a "meme" which I've lodged in my head based on personal experience - and a concerted attempt to enjoy and appreciate both extremes. And that's before we bring in the experiences of everyone else.

I saw a PBS documentary on this, and the beads and art were also more advanced among Neanderthals of the period than Homo Sapiens Sapiens digs. The initial Neanderthal skeleton, the documentary said, was stooped because of arthritis, but led to a caricature of stoop shouldered morons. It looked more like a Romans-taking-over-Greece than Neanderthals being outcompeted.

The trolls here should take a lesson, however, that almost everything in archeological history pertaining to inventions (like wheels and metals) stems from TRADE, and almost nothing stems from gene pools. There are plenty of geographies with Neanderthal DNA which don't have metals or wheels, the commonality of retarded invention adaptation is a major geographic barrier to exchanging with other humans (ocean, desert, mountain range), and ability to exchange and cross-reference and interact - not the DNA. The ability to exchange and trade (guns, germs, metals) predicted success in Europe, and melting pot economies tend to do pretty well economically. If trolls want to isolate themselves from interacting with "inferior" (different) people, be our guests by all means. /. has evolved, with mod points, to distance itself from Arian Nazi propaganda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Angels_(science_fiction_novel)

It has a LOT of fan references. Basically, the USA has become Ultra-'Green', and very technophobic (except 'approved' tech, of course). Even Sci-Fi is frowned upon (unofficially of course :ahem:). This has resulted in a drop in CO2 emissions, and the start of another Ice Age. Like in glaciers up to the Canada/USA border. Some orbital stations have held out, but they need a regular infusion of new air. One ship on a 'scoop' run is shot down, and it's Sci-Fi fans to the rescue!

When I was a sci fi fan back in the transition between the '70's and 80's the sci fi fans and the environmental movement held each other in pretty much mutual contempt, although it was the sci fi fanboys who were more vocal about it. The fanboys didn't give two bits about the environment as their focus was entirely on ditching this planet and heading out into space, which did not endear them that much to the environmentalist crowd. I'm honest enough to admit that I was among the would-be Technocrats of the time, although I'd like to think that I've learned a bit of wisdom of some type. Enough to know that you can't appreciate the universe if you are going to hold the part of it that spawned you in contempt. I don't see how we as a species can survive out there in the forbidding depths of space, if we can't manage a long term relationship with the most friendliest environment we'll ever see in the Universe. Jerry Pournelle I see, hasn't made that transition. He's still the same person who was writing pseudo science fiction with Larry Niven back in the era of Known Space and Ringworld. He's not only still hostile to the environmental movements, he's resorted to caricature worthy of Ayn Rand. Maybe he's earnest about it, or maybe he's just hacking it to make a quick buck amongst his fandom. Either way, the result is the same.

Come back to the big boy table when you have something to show for yourself - we're fighting real battles here.

No, you're not. You're playing their game and fighting fake battles that they've set up to distract you. Palin and Romney act like caricatures the same way that Bush did because that appeals to a certain demographic. And here, because of your glorious victory over them, we have a president who defends the same warrantless domestic spying he previously decried and who maintains a hitlist of US citizens. Things are not better than before, and are arguably worse. Your victory was another victory for evil.

This is the exact point Rockoon is making. Besides the emotions that the candidates cause you to feel, both of the two major parties are identical. Their policies are not significantly different at all and any differences you see are most likely outright lies (Hope and Change, anyone?).

My wife is a doctor. I know plenty of doctors. The claims you make about doctors not managing their own money are ludicrous and not credible.

I got a new primary care physician a couple of weeks ago. When he saw the weight loss I achieved with diet and exercise, and the other changes I made in my lifestyle, he said he DIDN'T think I should get back on the statin I had been on for years, we should wait and see first.

Your only real data was one anecdote about a wheelchair supposedly pushed on you by a HOSPITAL, not a doctor.

I don't see how you supported your "doctors are horrible", etc. rant with anything at all. Your post read like some caricature from AM radio.

Even if you are correct, you're not going to get people to agree with you (that is your goal, isn't it?) if you act like a smug know-it-all douche nozzle.

The trolling bit stems from how you present your argument. Spewing xenophobic trash at people is a good way to get labeled "troll" or "flamebait", because that is what you are doing.

When I read your comments, I'm picturing a caricature of Woody Allen, arms flailing, walking around in circles just looking for someone to bitch at. Interestingly, I briefly talked with a person over the weekend that was acting this way at the bar. Not coincidentally, he was pretty much sitting by himself the entire night.