Slashdot Mirror
Feeding Through Nutrient Patches
Eric Krout writes: "Thanks to the U.S. Department of Defense,
nutritional patches may be available by 2025 for a soldier in combat who (does not have access to / cannot waste time eating) a traditional meal as we know it today. The patch may consist of a tiny microchip that, after first determining exactly what your body needs, transfers vitamins to your body transdermally. Goodbye Penguin Mints, hello Penguin Patch! "
and here, in the overcoming addictions sections, ones that will cure you from that pesky need to eat and the jonesing for nutrition ...
I already patented that years ago, when I worked for Microsoft. How else do you think we kept our slaves^Wminions^Wprogrammers fed, during the long nights chained to their desks.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
I've actually had a few MRE's.. Theyre not bad, not big, and dont really weigh much.
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)
Bowie J. Poag
I keep forgetting to eat when I pull all night coding sessions.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
'An Army moves on its stomach'.. Even thought the soldier may not be on the verge of death due to starvation, you can sure as all hell bet they are not going to 'play' their best on a rumbling, week-empty stomach. Then again, MRE's are never filling enough, and you have to endure the flavour (or in some cases, the complete lack of it). With the MRE-in-a-patch, at least you don't have to taste it. That ought to raise morale...
.sig: Now legally binding!
If so, then why do i need a Boston Creme donut everymorning to take care of me in the morning? :-)
Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design
-Foxxz
Personally, I don't think this will work that well. While the soldier may get enough nutrition from the patches, he'll get really hungry. The amount of nutrition a person gets has nothing to do with how hungry they get, which is determined by the amount of substance that's inside the person's stomach. It could work, however, if coupled with something, anything to eat.
These bars - which have mocha chocolate flavoring with almond butter, almond pieces, currants and vegetable oil - contain a total of 600 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of about six cups of coffee.
:P
:P]), too see the new fashion craze kick in - don't eat any food, subsist entirely on food patches. :)
Were can I get some of these?!?!
Seriously, this sound pretty cool. I think you'd still feel hungry (as the body isn't adapted to taking food through the skin and the stomach just knows that it's empty), but it's a damn good idea. I wonder how it will get along in the general civilian market. Well, I guess I'll still be around in 2025 (though I will be an old fart [note that I consider anyone over 40 an old fart, nothing personal anyone
Your vitamin intake would be very small, but calories and carbs would take up more space.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Acording to this article on CNN researchers say everyone has differnent needs. In fact, Vitamins alone are not enough for keeping healthy but may cause problems. Especially if under stress.
How to render a human less human, and more dependant on machines. Maybe by 2025 the movie The Matrix will not be in the Sci-Fi category anymore, it'll be a Drama or a Real-Life Story...
from the now-if-only-I-didn't-need-to-stand-to-pea dept.
How dows one pea? Is it also possible to, say, corn or cucumber?
just read a post and thought of something i found rather interesting. If you could, in fact, get all the nutrition you needed through a patch (basically) - then this could quite possibly become a cure for obesity. Rather than telling people "watch what you eat." - just tell 'em "don't eat at all." There would obviously be no reaon to eat, and of course your calories would be "naturally" rationed so to speak.
That would seem to me to be a pretty reasonable way to lose weight. Thoughts, comments?
My only other concern would be - do you think the U.S. army would use this as an excuse to over-exert their troops? The act of eating can not just be taken as simply getting food. It also helps comradery, fatigue, and that nagging' desire for little debby snack cakes. I doubt this would happen but it is certainly a possibility.
FluX
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The perfect food that provides all the physical and emotional nourishment that a person needs is already available. It is called a Lil' Debbie Nutty Bar.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I can only guess, Linux or NetBSD.
Laugh, it's a joke
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
...coprophagic colorectal nanosites! Woohoo! Bet there won't be a lot of people lining up to beta-test that one.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
What!? MRE's not filling enough? I am a pretty big guy and I like to eat, but MRE's were always MORE than enough. In fact when I was in the field I could only get down two a day.
Weird.
Wouldn't it be easier to tamper with a large amount of patches, than a large amount of MRE's? I could see a bad batch of these patches hurting more people than a bad batch of other food sources. I also think it would be easier to add other goodies to a patch. Mind altering drugs to make troops more responsive? *throws 2 pennies in the jar*
- Jeremy Fuller
...they're almost as nutritious and wholesome as a... TOSSED SALAD!
--
Trollin' fer syrup!
Hmmm. Military, "Penguin Patches".... any chance I can see the CVS tree for a Lieutenant Colonel?
...obesity
You are not me, therefore you are not important
Neat. I wonder what else you could trick soldiers' brains into thinking? We could get rid of all sorts of pesky "human factors".
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
transfers vitamins to your body transdermally
I think you can stop eating vitamins for several days without suffering from any physical problem or performance insufficiency. The thing that you can't live without ingesting on a daily basis are carbohydrates and proteins, right? So, if these patches are meant to be used for one or two days, you wouldn't need to supply vitamins. (I'm no nutriologist, so correct me if I'm wrong).
The article also says that they're experimenting with some sort of patches that will give you the illusion that your stomach is full or your muscles aren't tired, but doesn't everyone with the right amount of motivation has sometime been able to stay 24 or 36 hours without eating or sleeping. And it seems to me that being in a combat situation would make you produce enough adrenaline to stop worrying about you not having a meal yet.
Finally, what about water?? That you gotta have!! Lost of it, everyday, what's the solution for that?? If you don't have access to food or cannot waste time eating you still have to carry water with you or is there gonna be a patch fot this too? Strikes me as unlikely.
"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams". Elias Canetti
It scares me becasue soldiers are taught to be something other than human during wartime, and the military encourages them to shed any emotion and replace it with dicipline.
If you take away the fundamental psychological and social funciton of eating, you've got troops who are even less human.
I don't like it.
tcd004
sirinek
Humankind will live on the moon, and robots will clean our houses! Computers will furfill our every desire in virtual worlds! Cats will be able to talk! Slashdot will have mirrors for the sites it links to! It'll be AMAZING!
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
I waste 3 or 4 hours a night sleeping! I'd much rather be hacking the kernel source during those hours.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
For that whacked segment of society that has to have everything pierced. Since you don't have to eat, seal that mouth shut and be stylish too!
by 2050, nutritional patches will be the new fad for girls trying to lose weight.
by 2060, dilberito finally goes out of business. Scott Adams doesnt' really care, because he's having too much fun inside the holodeck.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
I must be abnormal.. When I camp, I'll down four, mabye five in a day and not be happy.. Plus the odd extra chocolate bar, etc.
Versus two normal meals and a light breakfast at home..
I have an odd craving for barbacue pork all of a sudden..
.sig: Now legally binding!
You probably could include some drug(s) in the patch to prevent that, too. Ah, the miracle of science...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That's an interesting idea and all, but what about other basic nutrients? Correct me if I'm wrong, but your body still needs bulk sugars, carbohydrates, and protein, and caffiene... (ok, maybe not the protein...)
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
...that in 25 years there will be patches i can eat from.
(I'm not a nutritionist, but I have done the odd long distance sports event, and I know a little about this.)
Already, people involved in extreme athletic events (things like RAAM - the non-stop bicycle race across America) use a totally liquid diet for up to two weeks at a time. One of the main reasons for this is because solid foods are much harder to digest, and for events like these you really, really want to know exactly what is going into your body.
They do use vitamn suplements, though.
In things like the Tour de France they use daily blood testing to see what food you should eat, and it isn't too far fetched to be able to make an educated guess on your nutrition needs from your sweat secretions, using current technology.
Before everyone says "But you'll feel hungry because your stomach will be emtpy" - not true! You'll feel hungry for a while, but liquids and foods with a lot of bulk but low calories (eg, plain salads) will compensate for that, and your stomach will contract.
After a couple of weeks your stomach will feel fine, and a liquid diet, plus these nutrition patches would work really well. You'd still need the liquid for hydration, though.
I'd say 2025 might be pessimistic - at least for the first versions of something like this.
Woo hoo! Sign me up! I wanna be the first living brain with an IP address (I wonder if IPv6 has enough addresses). Just pleeeeeease don't slashdot my brain!
Networked brains?
Two words: Beowulf cluster.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Isn't it just a little bit early to be celebrating? Especially considering that this patch won't do *US* any good at all.
Assuming that this patch is made available to civillians in 2025, at the same time as it becomes available to the military; the only programmers that'll benefit from it are the ones just getting around to being *born* right now.
Twenty-five years from now, we'll all be over the hill and obsolete. Unless of course there's a Y2K-esque emergency that'll bring us C/C++/Java/Perl guys in from the pasture; like Y2K itself did for the COBOL and Fortran geezers. Other than that, it'll be no use whatsoever for those of us programming NOW.... oh well.
Depressing? Yeah, a little. But that's the nature of our game.
It might help our kids do those all-nighter programming sessions tho. That's definately something.
john
Imagine all the people...
Overheard in an army mess tent in 2025... "Excuse me, are you going to finish that Nutrition Patch?"
mmmmmmmm.....so much caffiene. I think these would become huge on the college black market scene / bigger than even freakin' mp3's. imagine party, i mean study for days on end....sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.
-dennis the kid
Which may make me part of the lowest low brow culinary culture, but I'm serious.
... the food is actually surprizingly good. I'd like to know where I can get some MREs to keep in my car, actually, in case I suffer a breakdown and have to wait a while for help. (Which has happened to me, and I was very glad to have the emergency car food along.)
... well, crackers. The chocobars are tasty, though no competition for the Lindt family of Switzerland. The fruit punch is bland, at least in the recommended concentration, but it's just like Kool-Aid: the recommendation is a joke played on you by the guy who designs the packages, and is to be ignored as a matter of course.
...
They're a really interesting engineering project. I'm talking about the ones that you heat with a galvanic reaction (am I thinking straight?)
The peaches and other fruit are good, so are the cookies. The crackers are
However, there's no excuse for any creamy dishes in MREs -- those are pretty foul. Chicken Ala King? barf. Chile? Turkey? They're goood! Please, if you don't like MREs, send me your extras:)
Of course, I am rarely tapped to work on the Michelen guides
timothy
p.s. The little tobasco bottles are cool, too!
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
"Thanks to the U.S. Dept. of Defense, nutritional patches may be available by 2025 for a slashdotter in cyberspace who (does not have access to / cannot waste time eating / is too damn lazy to get up and eat / has forgotten what comprises) a traditional meal as we know it today.
There. It's fixed now.
Zack 'Vorro' Adgie
---------------------------
A wise man speaks because he has something to say.
A foolish man speaks because he has to say something.
____________________________
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
"Make me one with everything."
Very scary if you think about it. Just don't let Microsoft have any place in the making or it'll start creating strychnine by accident when it crashes....Instead of the Blue Screen of Death, it'll be the Blue-Cyanotic Face of Death.
-You're wearing...A bag? I have misplaced my pants.
From the article:
Also possible would be the infusion of "neutraceuticals" -- chemicals that would trick a soldier's brain into thinking his stomach is full or that his muscles aren't really tired.
Just like Neo thought he was in reality, but he really was in a big plastic egg filled with goo with a wire sticking out of his head.
And why stop here? If we can trick our muscles into thinking they aren't tired, why not trick your heart into always beating, even if you have high cholesterol? There goes Viagra...
And think of what these patches can do for people with low self-confidence! You can just wear a ConfidencePatch, and always feel like everyone digs you.
Good to see the military will have perfected mindfucking by 2025.
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
uh... endometriosis is not a digestive problem (hopefully).
Interesting to see that this new technology is brought up in a context of battlefields and soldiers, and nobody seems to care, either. Am I the only one who thinks this could be pretty interesting for the starving population of the 3rd world ? Sounds similar to the invention of powder-milk, but even better : a single plane can carry 'food' for literally hundreds of thousands of people, the expiring date is practically 'forever', it's easy to administer, and requires no extra resources (like the milk which requires water). Technology actually helping people ! No ?
Introducing Constant Vitamin Source or CVS for short. Brought to you in part by the Department of Defense, the Linux Nano Community and public support from users like you.
--
Insert Witty Sig Here
Hmmm. Sounds interesting but, there are some fundamental flaws in the physiology of the model.
Electrolytes are important. Without proper numbers of K and Na and P, your nerves wouldn't work to well at all, hence you would have a hard time running, shooting, etc. (also, shouldn't they be working on developing world peace by 2025, not super-soldiers?)
The other most important performance indicator is the amount of glycogen stored in the muscles. Glycogen is ready-to-go fuel. I forget how much of this a typical person has at any given moment, but after several hours of hard work without refreshment, your blood sugar levels get low, as do glycogen levels, and you (as cyclists say) "bonk", ie. extreme glycogen depletion. You are pretty much useless after that point; severe performance degredation is a phrase that comes to mind.
Their patch is all well and good if it adresses these most basic issues (the article was rather brief and non-technical) or only one of them, ie. vitamins sorta implies electrolytes. However, the most severly performance limiting factor (as proven by trials in publications like Bicycling Magazine (they don't actually have it available online) is water. Performance has been shown to be affected in as little as an hour of physical activity without hydration. As the body's water content drops, blood gets thicker, resulting in poorer flow and consequently poorer delivery of oxygen and other needed chemicals to the muscles and brain.
So, in closing, yes, the patch is a good idea (but 25 years?!), but maybe a transdermal hydration system would be a bit of a better considering hydration is quicker to act and hampers performance certainly more than "vitamin" loss and probably more than electrolyte loss. Moreover, electrolytes could be intergrated into any hydration system, ie. gatorade.
Why, after reading this article, do I get a mental picture of the Jem Hadar lining up to get their ration of 'the white'?
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
A few years ago, researchers discovered a protein hormone called leptin that is critically involved in regulating the response of the brain to hunger in the body. Essentially the fat storage cells in your body (adipose tissue) produce leptin when they are satiated (have enough fat stored), leptin travels to your brain and induces a feeling of satiety, shutting off hunger signals. The drug companies got really excited by this as it first appeared to be the key to controlling obesity. As it turned out very few extremely fat people respond to additional leptin as their problem lies in the responce of the brain cell to leptin, not the lack of the messenger.
I wonder though, what percentage of normal, soldier types would respond to a quick shot of leptin in not feeling the need to eat for a few days? This could be very useful in war situations where you want to send troops into territories for a few days where you have not set up supply lines yet (can you say covert operations).
Anyway, I can see this sort of technology being useful in special situations ie. military, athletic events, new product rollouts, yuppie camping, Quake marathons etc.
But at the end of the day you just gotta EAT!
no sig.
I can get my nicotine now but have to wait till 2025 to get my vitamins. Something's wrong here.
(I'm sure that this has been mentioned, but since Andover.Net owns ThinkGeek it seems in really bad taste to link to them instead of directly to the Penguin Mints's actual homepage http://www.peppermints.com/storytime/index.htm.)
I'm not in the military, but from my limited knowledge of the military the prime difference between food and water is logistics. Water is quite plentifull in most places, and can be made drinkable with the right equipment and experience. Whereas food/rations must be shipped and delivered to the battle scene. In other words, unlike water, you must have ships and/or airplanes deliver food to feed the troops. Logistics such as these are _major_ issues in even modern wars.
I didn't read the article either, but even if this thing were to only deliver vitamins, I'd imagine that'd free up meal selection substantially. In other words, they could eat all kinds of shit if they had to, and do so more sporadically, which they otherwise could not due to lack of vitamins. In pinch time, if this technology works as claimed, it just might give us an edge.
For all kinds of reasons I became something of an extreme type of vegeterian about 6 years ago. So I only eat raw (fresh hopefully) vegetables, fruits, nuts, honey. Nothing else. I don't drink when I eat, because it is not necessary with all the liquid in my tomatoes. I don't cook, only wash and cut. I eat once a day at noon, this is mostly due to my crazy lifestyle, work, university, girlfriend, rollerblading, ping pong, swimming, writing some code for myself, homework, work, university, girlfriend, rollerblading, ping pong, swimming, writing some code for myself, homework, work, university..... you get the picture
I also fast 2-4 times a year for the sake of getting rid of those chemicals, pesticides etc. that are numerous in our foods and air. I only drink distilled water when I fast and nothing else for 3-10 days in a row. I can tell you, that if you are doing this right, you can go on without any food, without feeling hunger, in fact being extra fast and sort of hyper for at least first 5 days of only drinking distilled water (lots of it, which is absolutely necessary to get rid of all toxins) and you don't loose your strength as fast as most of you think. In fact, over time it seems to get easier and easier to do. (with some exceptions, when there is too much stress from exams or the weather is wrong). Human body can go on without food not without liquid for long periods of time and if you do it for short periods of time (less than 40 days) than it can help your overal health.
You can't handle the truth.
Well, from a science fiction standpoint this has been predicted for a long time. Conventional science has yet to catch up in thi area although many people are rushing to it. This is another step in that direction, one that sorta bothers me. I don't particularly care for militaries in general, and the though of people who's absolute specialty is war really tweaks my pedal. In 2050 are we going to have genetically engineered soldiers that are raised for the sole purpose of killing other people? Genetic engineering and eating supliments are totally different research areas but they won't be in the future. In 2025 the Army can give a soldier an implant that feeds them, then another to augment his/her perceptions, then another which releases a stimulant to increase muscle strength and dull pain impulses. Then by 2050 the modifications are done on a genetic level rather than a bionic level. What will these factory made soldiers do when there is no war? Will will end up in another decades long cold war because two dogmas don't agree and have the funding to build a super powerful military? How about instead of actually fighting each other, we play a couple rounds of Mortal Kombat and the winner gets a dollar.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
The majority of Americans overeat, not all of them are overweight, and most don't have any more emotional problems than the average european. Not only do they overeat, but they eat poorly and don't get enough exercise. Put simply, the modern American diet is horrible. Overweight people are frequently the result of simply not being able to get away with this type of eating (e.g., propensity to gain weight)...which prompts inactivity, which prompts depression, which CAN lead eating even more.
In other words, it is not emotions that make Americans fat, it is our diets. We eat too much sugar, fat, etc. Our meals are high in carbohydrates. The typical American serving size is gigantic by international standards, which naturally prompts increased eating. When is the last time you've been to McDonalds? The supersize value meal soda's are like a gallon soda, a slight exaggeration, but it is truely disgusting, not to mention very unhealthy.
This new technology may have interesting effects in geekdom. Imagine: No more going hours without food so that you can meet your coding deadlines. Getting vital sustenance from a patch could be a boon to late night coders the world over.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
It's a tasty animal
There are two varieties
Clockwise and counter clockwise
The Clockwise variety has shorter legs on its right side
This helps it run around the Highland hills in a clockwise direction faster.
The hunting season for the clockwise strain lasts from Feb 31 to Apr 31.
The hunting season for the counterclockwise strain lasts from Jun 31 to Sept 31.
The most common hunting method is to put on one stilt
and run around the hill in the opposite direction carrying a large sack
It is often helpful to have a bagpipe player with a stilt on the other leg running in the oposite oposite direction
This would be post-nanotech, wouldn't it?
By that time, we could all be running on hydrogen anyway.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Great! Now if only they could engineer a patch that will 'cure' sleep too, I'd be all set!
Remember the recent story on development of exoskeletons for military use. Fitting a real nutritional system (not just vitamin supplements) into one of these would be a small matter, perhaps even a Dune-esq still-suit water recovery system.
This could/should also be applied to current military vehicles (planes and tanks) to extend operating time & range.
As someone already pointed out in an earlier post constant feed and hydration systems are being used quite widely and with good results within athletic fields ala camelbak and powergel.
I'm amazed the military isn't jumping all over this!
Chewing is hard.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Check out the HooAH bars at the bottom of the article!
"These bars -- which have mocha chocolate flavoring with almond butter, almond pieces, currants and vegetable oil -- contain a total of 600 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of about six cups of coffee."
I'd be ready to hack anything! Who needs sleep?
"You point your finger at the moon, the fool stares at your finger."
It just seems to me that you lose out on that. I can see using them sometimes, but a lot of the time I just wanna get out of the glow from my CRT for a minute.
Plus, there's nothing like the taste of cold pizza. I think these would be an occasional boost, not something I'd use everyday.
It does always depress me to see everyone designing things like this for military applications. If the US spent as much effort on feeding people as it does on ICBMs, we'd probably clear up the problem in a hurry (it is, after all, merely a distribution problem). But, given that all technology is simply tools (and therefore lack ethical value entirely), I suppose this could be used to help feed people- I assume they'd be pretty dense (in terms of nutritional value per cc), so they'd be easy to airlift.
The above comment is CopyWrong (K) Erisian Entertainment. All Rights Reversed. Ewige Blumenkraft!
According to the story, a microchip on the patch will determine what the body needs, and delivers the necessary nutrients accordingly.
Well.... unless there is a new way of determining nutrient-needs using the non-invasive method has been developed, I do not see how can a microchip on a patch would "know" what the body needs.
It can analyse the sweat content, body temperature, heartbeats, blood pressure et cetera, but I do not think we have yet the technology of knowing exactly what the body of a living thing needs by having a microchip-on-a-patch.
So.... is it possible that a microchip is IMPLANTED inside the soldier's body, and _another_ microchip on the patch communicates with its cousin inside the body and deliver whatever nutrients that have been requested?
If so, there lies a vulnerability
If every soldiers on the field have implanted microchips in their bodies, and everyone of them carries a nutrient patch with them, then, the easiest way for the enemy to attack is to SABORTAGE the functioning of the microchips, screwing up the nutrient delivery procedures, and causes an inner-body biological upheaval.
The soldiers then will now have ONE MORE warfront to fight, the one INSIDE their bodies.
I have the feeling that DoD doesn't really care for the wellbeing of the soldiers. If they have, they wouldn't even want to mess with the soldiers' bodies like that.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
HooHA is the cheer of the marines..
stupid journalists.. should do better research
---------------
CoyboyNeal is God
This would make great advancements in medical treatments, and personal care departments.
First, the patch could be used on civilians to help monitor and balance their daily diet with nutrients that they may not get normally. This would help children develop more completely when young... you know all of that like "a good breakfast..." so on and so forth, well we can make sure it happens with these things.
This could also be used as a non-invasive mediacal treatment to get people healthy, instead of an IV (cant replace hydration, but not bad for nourishment).
It always seems that the military comes up with the most innovative and useful things...
--jay
Soldiers are taught to kill a person solely because they have been labeled the enemy, because the other side will do the very same thing (at a bare minimum). So again, your concern about soldiers being less than human is ill placed. War is about winning, not making you personally comfortable with what soldiers do for a living. What part of "Soldiers kill people for a living" are you having trouble groking?
Do you want warriors that hesitate to kill and end up being killed themselves, because they need to be "more human"? Or do you want highly disciplined, highly effective killing machines that will execute on the mission we the people given them and then go no further?
If you want to be conquered, you go with a the former, if you want to win a war, you go with the later and you rely on that discipline to keep those troops in line.
--
Python
Python
Okay, here's my totally unscientific, probably flat wrong, view on this...
1. Ever seen those people on 20/20 who are taking like 20000 times the RDA for various vitamins to fend off, among other things, old age, cancer, liver disease, or the plague? Those are always, invariably, the least health, most fucked up people I have ever seen. Their skin is a burnt-piss-yellow color, they have buggy little eyes. Something is wrong here. Some sort of imbalance exists.
2. I had some bad experiences with beef and became a vegetarian for about a year of my life. I basically stopped growing (I was 16 at the time, right in the middle of puberty - bad idea) because I didn't eat enough protein, even though I drank protein shakes and had plenty of protien supplements, hated beans but ate a little bit anyways, and generally had a pretty all-around balanced diet. I took up meat in a big way after that and gained about 20 lbs.
I posit that, for whatever reason, taking man-made nutritional supplements just doesn't cut it after awhile. There is something about natural vitamins and carbos and proteins that our body needs. I don't know what it is, but I know it exists. I don't think it would be possible to live on Vitapatches for an extended period even in the best of situations, not to mention humping it through the jungle/desert as a footsoldier all day long.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Woohoo, this is just what we need, the ability to send in patches via osmosis! I'm sending one in now to mozilla!
Phear my l33t homepage.
True, the difference is that in combat the levels of physical and psychological stress are several orders of magnitude greater than anything you will encounter in your civilian life.
So, whereas it is certainly possible to survive for very long periods of time without anything but water (you can go maybe 3 days, tops, under heavy stress without water before you get into very serious trouble and will probably die from dehydration, heat stroke and so on), however the combat effectiveness of a unit diminishes as that unit is forced to go without water and food (in that order). In war, combat effectiveness, not bare minimums, is one of the keys to victory. So, unless you absolutely have no choice, feeding the troops is mandatory to suceeding, no matter how much people can "go without".
There is an old and wise saying in the military, "An army travels on its stomach". When you are buring sometimes upwards of 7000 calories a day (in winter climates, the daily ration is 7000 calories a day for deployments) you can being very cranky and tired if you don't feed those muscles. After a few days of going without, your strength is diminished and your body suffers. And when the body suffers, the mind suffers - and thats a fast path to getting killed.
So look at it this way, when you have 90 pounds of gear in your ruck, another 20 pounds in combat load, an M-60 (another 25 pounds) slung around your neck, your PASGT pulling on your body and neck, coupled with a heavy mission to knock out - food is not a luxury, its FUEL. Without fuel, you're not going anywhere.
As part of Ranger school there is alot of starving involved so that you learn first hand what your body can do in extreme circumstances and you learn you can go without food (amongst other things). However, you do not want to operate in combat like that if you do not have to, and thats what these patches are all about. Some missions move too fast to eat, and that does diminish the combat effectiveness of those units. On the other hand, with something like this nutrional patch (if it works), those units will be that much more likely to succeed in their missions - and thats what its all about.
These patches will do a great job for DRF's, SOG units, Light infantry and other high speed units that have to move fast and may not be able to feed their troops to make mission. Its too bad it will take 25 years before we see it deployed, but it still sounds like a fantastic tool for the War Fighter to have and yet another tool to enhance the combat effectiveness of US fighting forces.
--
Python
Python
(Sorry about replying to myself.. I couldn't find a better place to put it)
Since the article is talking about combat situations, I think I misinterpreted some of the issues here. What I said above is still correct, but not neccessarily relevent.
These patches aren't designed for complete nutritional replacement, but for temporary help during crisies.
Modern Combat situations normally last for maybe 48 hour max - anything more than that and I'd say you have more important thing to worry about than food.
However, in a combat situation you need your reflexes to be quick, your senses to be accurate and your judgement to be at it's best. All these things are effected by bad nutrition (and lack of sleep).
Someone in another post mentioned that they expected that adrenelin would keep you alert - not true, and not what you want, anyway. The actual hormonal/chemical adrenelin reaction only lasts for seconds (during the "fight or flight" reflex action), and while this does improve you reflexes and senses (to some degree) it impares your judgement, and leads to a let down afterwards - when you are highly vulnrable.
Unfortunatly, while it is true that not letting your energy levels (depleated though exercise) get too low will help with these problems, the more severe problem is the lack of sleep. I've read studies that show huge losses in reflex speed after around about 16 hours without sleep, and while this may be delayed in various ways, I don't think you could push it out far beyond the 24 hour barrier without chemical help.....
I suspect that these "combat patches" may contain a little more that just vitamns. I find that a little scary. Remember those tests with Speed & LSD during Vietnam?
I'd like to see how someone pumps dietry fiber through that patch. Of course, I've heard that MERs are specially processed so that fibre content is at a minimum (so that the troops won't be caught literally with their pants down...)
Wonder if HooAh bars are available Military Surplus?
-=- SiKnight
Heck Yeah...
I used to eat 4 or 5 of them myself each day. Not good though. Each MRE has supposedly 2000 calories (but I think that includes the boxes and plastic). Funny thing is, that the FDA never approved their use for longer than 2 weeks at a time. Too bad for those of us who lived off of them in the desert. MRE's can be used to make the ultimate coding food though --- the ranger cookie. Mix the coffee, cream and sugar together in one packet. Place on heater for 30 seconds. Presto instant coffee cookie.
HMMMM ranger cookies, love those things
Those are all foo-foo MREs and bear no resemblence whatsoever to the real thing. I know, they are the real thing now, but that doesn't make them good. The newest Johnny Quest can't hold a candle to the old Johnny Quest the same way these new MREs aren't nearly as good as the old MREs.
Oh, gone are the days when you could get real MREs. I'm talking Chicken and Rice, Turkey a la King, and the absolute best MRE ever made (if not only because of the incredible -- and I mean truly majestic smelling -- flatulence it provided) Meatballs, Beef and Rice in Spicy Tom Sauce. I lived on Spicy Tom Sauce for a while. I'd eat that breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could. I'd likely get fired, though.
The worst MRE has to be either the Scrambled Eggs or the Ham Slice (which I've actually seen hungry people refuse to eat, although it was pretty good if you could get your hands on a slice of cheese and then combine it with the MRE bread). I've got a case of 9 year old Ham Slices in my garage. I can't eat them. Anyone wants them, let me know. They're still edible (well, as edible as they ever were), and cheap. Maybe ebay would like them?
Has anyone tried the new MRE-ish things? Those ones in the white plastic trays? My parents bought a pallet of them (like thousands) wholesale before Y2K and I got my hands on some after the hangover settled. Not bad, but not right. First off, they have that weasely plastic tray instead of a pouch and you can't open them without a knife. The taste isn't right either. That cardboard top is a complete nuisance. And the most important factor: they don't bind you up enough.
To me, the best thing about MREs was that when you ate one in the morning (I'm serious: if you're in a position to subsist on MRES, you eat them in the morning and you like them in the morning) you didn't have to dump until exactly 12 hours later. Really, you could set you watch to your bowels after three days of MREs. You eat nothing but MREs and you pinch but one hefty pellet a day. It's very handy, and I even bust out an MRE sometimes when I'm feeling less than regular.
But you can counteract the retaining effects of the main meal packet with the chocolate bar. It's a laxative, and don't let anyone tell you differently. I've eaten the bars alone, and they work extraordinarily well. Too well. I know people say it's a myth, but I'll be happy to prove it to anyone that cares to watch. It only takes about six hours, and I'll buy the beer while you wait. See, I've still got some of those that I haven't eaten.
Now on to the drink packet. The Lemon flavor is best with liquor (works best with rum or vodka, not so well with Slivovitz or Pernot), the cherry is best for normal drinking. But you only have to mix the packet's contents with half the amount of water the instructions say. Then it's good and not too sticky and you get twice as much. Forget that crap about not mixing in your canteen. Do it anyway -- you don't care.
The accessory packet is worthless except for the Tabasco and the matches. You can't even blow your nose with that TP. The utensils suck. Throw everything but the sauce and the matches away. Keep the coffee/cocoa if you like that sort of thing (you can eat the coffee raw if you're desperate).
How to eat a real MRE: Easy, you tear it long ways, not sideways. Ignore those perforations they have near the top. Take your knife and cut the side of the pouch off. Then you can use that same knife to shovel the contents into your mouth. Takes about ten seconds to eat one that way. Using the perforations means you get your hands dirty and it takes forever, even if you get tricky and try to squeeze the stuff out (trust me). Oh yeah, don't forget to put the entire thing of Tabasco into the pouch, no matter what the meal. Eat the whole little bottle. It's important.
Make sure that you save the main meal pouch for holding trash. And don't bother with heaters. MREs are like revenge: best eaten cold. :-)
I miss MREs. Maybe I'll go dig one out of the garage now.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Bzzt! It's more like eight bottles of Jolt. See the alt.drugs.caffeine FAQ.
When I did my AF survival training exercise in early summer of '97, my team had to traverse ~30 kilometers in 5 days on essentially empty stomachs, through rugged, mountainous terrain, with people hunting us at all times. We were dropped in the deep woods with nothing but a single MRE, an obsolete c-ration, and an empty canteen accessorized by a bottle of nasty water purification tablets.
Over the course of that week I became very adept at wrenching the carrot-like biscuit root stalks from the ground with a single thrust from my bolt knife; I could fill a coffee can with those bland pseudo-carrots in under five minutes. I also managed to kill and skin an extremely cute white rabbit which we nicknamed Thumper (after the method of his demise), and even ate a few hundred black ants (delicious if you pinch their heads off first). However, despite the 'abundant' natural resources, I believe that few of us would have completed the course without our MREs.
I dream sometimes about that chicken a la king packet; I managed to save it until the 3rd night, and it was the best meal I've ever had. There was a stamp on the pack of M&M's which I clearly remember stating that they were packaged in 1978. Nineteen year old stew... and I would have killed for another. It was rich, creamy and somehow solid at the same time; even though it was freezing outside, it felt warm on my tongue. I ate it while nestled in a 2 poncho lean-to, between a boulder and a fallen tree, and the other members of my team glared while I sucked the soft essence into my mouth one miniscule drop at a time. I hated teasing them, since they had all long since finished their rations, but it was unavoidable. By the end of the journey I was wishing I had given it away, because some of the weaker members of the team were almost unable to continue. The problem wasn't physiological; they were not injured, or even badly malnourished. Most only lost around five pounds on the trip.
The problem was in their minds.
I wasn't affected nearly as badly as other members of my team; I wrestled in college (D-I) and routinely cut between 10 and 25 pounds to make weight, so starvation is a familiar demon. I've seen my skin turn yellow and lost fingernails from dehydration, while being so hungry that my stomach ached at the thought of food; and still had the strength and stamina to defeat some of the toughest people in the country in single combat. However, watching some of my survival team physically stumble, weak to the point of being unable to walk after being away from McDonalds for only a few long days, illustrates a good point: Never underestimate the psychological value of eating a full and satisfying meal. Eating is far more important than the simple intake of nutrients; swallowing a tasty bit of well-cooked cow or freshly processed chicken might sound over-rated or unnecessary while sitting at a computer terminal, but it is tremendously important to the human psyche. Especially under trying conditions, such as when being hunted or subject to enemy fire; an army with no morale is a dead army.
The only real use I see for these is to have in case of emergencies- imagine a pilot being able to carry enough packets in a pocket to survive a month without having to forage for food in case he is shot down. This would greatly increase his ability to evade capture and survive the experience. The same logic applies to soldiers cut off from the lines of supply; it is obviously better to feel hungry and thus demoralized than to be forced to surrender or die in your boots from something as banal as hunger. Everyday rations, however, call for something a little more fulfilling.
I may be trolling a bit here, but I would say that if the guys at darpa do their jobs correctly, foot soldiers should be nearly obsolete for most purposes by 2025 anyway; this is analogous to the situation with piloted fighter aircraft and UCAVs. There are/will be so many faster, better and cheaper ways to kill people than giving assault rifles to 18 year old 'men'.
Rev Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
This is probably suppossed to be incorporated with the implantable transponder with the 666 code.
~Whoever doesn't have the mark won't be able to eat~ I got a better way to use this microchip. You can stick it up your butt to closen its proximity to your digestive system. Maybe while you are in there digging you can find some of our tax dollars and give them back!!!!
Respectful or not, it's redundant. The Marine Corps is the only branch of the armed services referred to as "jarheads".
Whether, or under what circumstances, they should be is a separate discussion.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Well they've had the nicotine patch for awhile, and now they're considering a nutritional patch. Why don't they use patches for other medications that should be delivered slowly over a period of time? Often medications that need to be delivered to the body over a period of time are administered in slow-dissolving capsules, but depending on a person's metabolism the rate the medication is actually absorbed can vary widely. Anyone have any insight into this?
This sig is umop apisdn.
I'm a little skeptical about this. Of course I'm a little skeptical about just about everything. So that's no surprise.
For short term situations, especially when you take into account the normal, high-calorie diet that an active soldier takes in (yes, it's quite high calorie, they burn in all in the course of an active day, though more sedentry MOS'es either tend to eat less, or fatten up).
But as a long-term soloution, I don't think that a nutrient patch and liquid suppliments will cut it. It's not a complete substitute for the raw caloric intake required by the body. After a while, even with a perfectly balanced nutrient suppliment, the body's going to break down available fat and muscle tissue to get the raw materials neede to help keep cellular regeneration going. Otherwise parts of your body are going to die.
Yeah, nutrient patches will slow this, but they won't stop it. Once a person reaches 0% body fat, the raw materials for cellular repair have to come from somewhere.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When was the last time you actually gave an order to a soldier (I mean as a citizen, not as an officer)?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but concidering your view I suggest you are an American. Now let me tell you how these thing go in that country:
The president has pretty unlimited control over the army, that is, he can start a war without consulting enyone (possibly calling it "peace enforcing operation" or something). What you, as a citizen can do, is to choose, out of couple of candidates, the one that you _believe_ shares your opinions of what is a "right thing" for the army to do. After he is elected, you have no control over his decisions whatsoever.
Now the president may be a good and humane person afterall so what is there to worry about. Well things aren't quite that simple. Ever played "broken telephone"? There is a bunch of people sitting in a circle and one of them makes up simple message, about five words. He whispers it to the person next to him an he passes it along. After the round is complete the message comes back to the person who started it. Suprisingly, it takes about ten people to transform the message completely, even though every individual tries to preserve it as it is. The same thing happens in an army. No matter how noble and righteous the commanders and the people behind them might be, when the order reaches the soldier after passing a dozen levels of morons, lunatics, rednecks, the well_meaning_but_stupid (the average officer material that is), it will most likely be something like "Kill'em all, let God sort'em out!"
With a system like that, would you rather like the soldiers to be conditioned robots or intelligent human beings cabable of making their own decicions and maybe thinking something like: "Why are we actually murdering these people? Wouldn't we all be better off at home taking it easy? Why can't we choose our own enemies anyway?"
What I'm trying to say is, that 'The People' have very little to say what the soldiers of their armies do.
-------------
There are two kids of people, my kind and assholes.
--Divine
Throw the Slashdot patch in, and you're set.
--
Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
So I propose that this technology is better suited for use by skinny geeks. Small body mass means lower requirements for maintenance. Better yet, we expend virtually no energy (except, ironically, when we get up for snacks).
As King of the Twig Geeks, and the only man ever to have negative body mass, I propose that we storm the nearest Army Place and demand these patches. We can make up some hacker-sounding words that will intimidate them. And if they try to shoot us, at least we're small targets.
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
By 2025 we'll have an entirely robotic army; these patches won't be needed since there will be no human soldiers....until about 2050 when the robots inevitably revolt and start to acquire a taste for human flesh.
According to some Unicef data (no URL) I read, during the horrible Ethiopian famine (remember "We are the world"?), Ethiopia actually exported grain to pay for their foreign debt.
I don't know about the current one (you know there are people dying from hunger in Ethiopia now, don't you?), but I heard a CARE man on CNN that the country managed to increase food production and depend less on imports. Thus they stood longer, but not enough.
Food donation and these patches can help in emergencies (Mozambique), but they will not solve the world food problem.
Food produced in the 1st world (powder milk!) makes third world dependent of big companies.
As the worthy anonymous I am answering to says, the Earth produces more than enough to feed mankind. It's the current economical and political organization that makes the distribution so unfair.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
There is a science-fiction story "Beggars in Spain" written by some woman, about genetical engineering to make people sleepless. They end being smarter, richer, better than we sleepers. Then there is persecution and a gap between subspecies. The story was extended with more volumes.
Anyway, you don't waste your sleeping time. Your brain processes your day (dreams).
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
The problem us not population growth. Remember, more people means more brains, more workforce (that's what open source is about, a surplus of people that can be directed to solve their problems, instead of trying to merely survive).
The problem is consumption growth.
India (which is leaving the third world in some aspects) has two?-fold the population of the US, but their pollution, imports, consumption is lesser.
Who is burning oil into CO2? Not Burkina Faso, certainly.
I don't remebers the numbers, but the average American (and the Europeans and Japanese and me) is worth several tens of third-worlders in energy, oil and materials consumption?
Who should try to restrain themselves?
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
...I've gone weeks without them. Many animals also live quite well without them; preditors, scavengers,....
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Us Canucks will get a kick out of the title. But, that's not what I'm going to rant about.. See, sure, there's enough food to feed everyone 1.5 times over, there's enough bombs to carpet-nuke the planet, too. That's not what the problem is.
The "people of the world" cannot just give away food. We did this here in Canada - we gave massive grain surpluses to India. Do you know what they did with their cost savings? They started a nuclear weapons research program, so that now, they can threaten global stability and Pakistan with nukes. Governments suck.
Food is one thing, resources are another. We in the 1st world consume most of the resources. That's just the way it is. To say that all the people in India, Africa and even Asia are going to live like me here in Canada is just stupid. There aren't enough resources. And I, and I doubt you, are going to go live in a tarpaper project to make sure everyone lives equally. Life sucks, don't it?
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but there are complex issues. You feed a nation's people, you upset the balance of trade, and that nation can then do things like buy arms to kill people. It isn't cut and dry - obviously the international community needs to help out, but for there to be long-term solutions these nations need their own development and place controls on populations, deal with internal strife & conflict, etc etc.
Kudos
..don't panic
What do I do if I want extra mustard? those plasters probably taste bland anyway...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
One of the hardest things about losing weight for a lot of people is that they still have to eat. A drug addict can live without the drugs. A food addict cannot.
This would allow someone with a food addiction to actually not eat.
As far as the military application is concerned, will the patch come with some sort of hunger supressing chemical? Or maybe some sort of ingestible foam with no nutritional value that allows you to feel full and gets rid of the hunger pangs cause by an empty stomach?
This would be great for one of those all night gaming sessions. That way you could keep on fraggin'!!!!
Cmdr_Pooky sgg@nettally.com http://www.nettally.com/sgg/
-Elendale (in fact, I think I'm still tired)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
Let them eat cake?
Let them ooze GM foodstuffs!
hello jello
It sounds like a closed loop system - constant real time monitoring of chemicals and nutrients in the bloodstream, constant release of appropriate substances the body needs.
Instead of using it as a military feeding system, it could be the basis of a real time insulin delivery system that accurately mimics how a healthy body releases insulin. It could be a computerized cure.
Manual insulin injection really sucks. It prevents rapid death, but it is a horrible approximation of how the body reacts in real time. Injections at certain times of a day only give a very rough approximation - so rough that the body often takes a great deal of damage, leading to shortened lifespan and major medical problems like loss of limbs or sight. This technology could potentially prevent all of that.
I would hope such a system would be affordable, but I'd do whatever was necessary to get it for myself.
Because I can't waste time with inefficient methods of consumption such as swallowing.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
shouldn't they be working on developing world peace by 2025, not super-soldiers?
It'd sure be nice, but there's no money, power, or glory in world peace.
We are actually at the top of a very unbalanced food chain, I worry about that. News clips of Arabs and Cubans chanting anti-American slogans makes my skin crawl...just build another McDonald's, the natives will love us!
Ugh.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
My dad, a WW II veteran, bitched about the powdered eggs in K rations. My eldest brother talked about those crummy C-rats in Vietnam. For a younger brother, it was the MREs (Meals Refused by Ethiopians). Now grunts will be denied even the simple physical pleasures of chewing and swallowing their miserable battlefield rations.
BTW, on a technical note, how the heck can your body absorb enough calories transcutaneously to keep you going? Sounds like it might work OK for drug delivery, but it'd have to be an awful big patch to get 2000 calories into a trooper q 24 hours.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
There are two kids of people, my kind and assholes.
--Divine
actually... mink stole's character, connie marble, said this... not divine... just a nitpick... sorry...
Just because you're paranoid does not mean that the world is not full of assholes.
During one REFORGER, we got two MRE per day. This was before the included the heaters, so not only could you not eat them, you couldn't play with them. nobody ate anything but the crackers and the coffee. cold corned beef hash and omlette with bacon pieces (cooked eggs were definitely not made for long term storage) are just not edible. Of course, 30 days with no food is a small price to pay for 30 days with no KP. Now if the would just add some amphetemine to these patches, 30 days with no sleep might not be so bad. .^
^.
Damn, you must be a big guy, those things have like 1800 calories each. they're mostly flavored fat .^
^.
It's called Depends, they're not just for incontinence anymore. .^
^.
Georgia Tech has been doing new research on patches with microneedle arrays that you can't even feel. A tiny computer could control the dosage, potentially.
l
http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/res-news/NEEDLES.htm
Transdermal drug delivery is currently my research topic in school. The idea is to find solvents that go through your skin (stratum corneum is the tough layer) harmlessly and carry a drug with it that goes into your blood. There's a lot of new research for this. I recommend the Journal of Controlled Release, J. of Pharmacological Pharm., and others as good resources in this field.
"Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, nor destiny obscure...
--Thomas Gray, "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"
Glycogen is glycogen, in the muscles of bicycling Yuppies and Anonymous Cowards alike. Don't be such a pinhead.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Can they give this technology to Guinness? That way, I don't have to leave my computer to get another beer every ten minutes!
Um, this is my sig.
Am I the only one who thinks this sounds like the first step towards the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's Nutri-Matic?
Delicious...can't wait to get injected with more microbiotic goodies....whatz the prob with JOLT hey...I thought THAT was a viable source of a days required nutrients???
TH3 L@t3X Pr0gr@mm3r...G0d3ss of 0p3n-s0ur(3.
I'm like anyone else on this planet -- I'm very moved by world hunger. I see the same commercials, with those little kids, starving, and very
depressed. I watch those kids and I go, 'Fuck, I know the FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!' There's a director five feet away
going, 'DON'T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT DOESN'T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!' But I'm not
trying to make fun of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people
food. Don't send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them
U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, 'Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last
thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn't BE world hunger, if
you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE!
NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM
NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SHIT, WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL
TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, ASSHOLES!"
--From an appearance on Rodney Dangerfield's "It's Not Easy Being Me," 1984.
--From here
--
+&x
Is there *really* any evidence that this *won't* happen?
Just history.
--
+&x
Speaking as an economist rather than an attorney this time . . .
Save fro the short and sudden famines that we occasionally see, starvation is a distribution problem, not a production problem.
More than enough food is produced to feed the world. More than enough is produced in or sent to countries suffering from starvation to feed them. It just doesn't get to those who need it.
By far the leading cause is corruption or malice, by governments and rebel military forces. At a distant second is central planning, which history has never found to work for anything bigger than a small village or commune--certainly not anything big enough to call a city, let alone a country [more than half of the soviet potato crop used to rot every year after being harvested do to failures of central planners].
If you want to fight starvation, gathering food isn't the way to do it. Put an infinite supply of ofod in those countries, and you will make at most a negligible difference in the number of folks starvign. Instead, look at the governments and rebels that either steal it, or prevent it from arriving to suit their own agendas.
hawk
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Britain did not take to (and rule) the seas and start an empire for commerce, nor Queen, nor glory, nor God.
Rather, the young men of England would do *anything* to get away from the food.
There have been democratic armies where soldiers elected their officers and where orders were not followed if they didn't make sense, in the Spanish civil war for example. They were defeated I admit, but they were facing a much more numerous opponent plus were betrayed by their allies. But they were effective organizations and put up a good fight.
We haven't yet seen a battle between an archistic top-down controlled and and an anarchistic bottom-up controlled armies of equal material strenght but if we ever will, I will predict the latter to win because of it's greater adaptability and innovability. Of course it can only be used if all the soldiers truly believe their cause, wich they should in every war.
And yes, I have read Sun Zu too and the example you provided is a very good one of the fascist nature of the traditional military. Isn't it a bit paradoxal that to protect democratic institutions you need a fascist one?
--------------------
If there's one thing I hate in this world it's the men who boast about the size of their marrows.
--Tank Girl
Ohhh.. non-stop gaming here we come!
Drinking and patches are very different. You can certainly absorb everything you need from drinking. Even fiber if you put in some psyillum.
But a patch is very limited. You can only absorb milligram quantities from it. Enough for pharmaceuticals and maybe some vitamines (maybe not C though).
But a combat soldier needs 4000 Calories (16.5 MJ) of food energy per day on a continuous basis. Thats 1000 grams of carbohydrates or protein, or 450 grams of fat (unlikely). Your endurance athlete is in much the same situation.
No way you can absorb 1000 grams of carbohydrates per day through your skin. Not even if you sat in a heated jacuzzi/wetspacesuit of 5% glucose.
Now a patch might be a nice placebo, or good to administer some drugs/vits, but is not going to be useful for more than a short (24h) fast.
Should we feed people who lie in the desert?
There are two ways to approach this problem. We could do what's best for me (Ryan) or we could do what's best for "society" (ie most efficient global resource usage). I suppose we could do what's best for them, but that's just the first case as seen from the other end of the stick.
1 What's best for Ryan.
Starving people in deserts have negligible impact on my life. I wouldn't have known they exist were it not for television. It would be best for me to spend my money on things that impact my life.
Verdict: ignore 'em.
2 What's best for "society."
If you live in a desert you cannot grow food (that's why it's a desert). So we must either (a) move food to the people -or- (b) move the people to food. Obviously moving the people is far more resource efficient than moving their food (and their children's food, etc).
Verdict: relocate poeple to non-desert areas.
Don't bitch to me about my cars if you want to ship food thousands of miles. If I start driving three thousand miles to go to the grocery store THEN you can tell me to stop polluting. Otherwise shut up.
Ryan
Well, Manhattan is above its carrying capacity, Japanese cities are.
That's why they import everything. The current distribution system enables that New-Yorkers and Japanese receive food, fuel, energy, and the rest and send the garbage elsewhere. And Ethiopia can't.
As I said, the land can produce more than enough to sustain the people, modulo the occasional drought, but also California and Japan are earthquake areas, and twisters frequently attack the Atlantic coast of the US.
You remembered me that the CNN commentator said that anyway lots more will die in Ethiopia from AIDS than from famine.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
and just chew a few cocoa leaves. Stay awake for days, good energy, bad for everything else.
--
+&x
The last time I checked, there was no USRDA for caffeine.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
The MAJORITY of H. sapiens are lactose intolerant from shortly after weaning. The ~80% of caucasians that can digest milk sugar are decidely in the minority of our species. On average, only something like 30% of H. Sapiens over the age of 5 can metabolize lactose.
When the US has shipped donations of powdered milk for "hunger relief" to places like SE Asia and Africa, most of it is thrown away (or, as one anthropologist discovered, used to white-wash walls) because it made the people there very, very sick to ingest it.
Powdered milk is a technology that provides food for those few (mostly caucasian) fortunates who have the genes to use it. It is poison to the rest.
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Every time I vote. The US military is controlled by the civilian government, lock, stock and barrel.
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Except that in the US, where I am from (on that point you are correct), the military is made up of volunteer citizens (no conscription) that take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution not blindly follow orders from any president. We also have laws that restrict what the military can do and a strong ethic that runs to the core of our fighting forces that restrains what those units do.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting or complaining about. We have a well disciplined, lawful and powerful military that obeys the orders given it by our democratically elected civilian government.
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One word: speed. In combat, you don't have time for a discussion, a debate or hesitation. There are two types of people on the battlefield, the quick and the dead.
Democratic methods move slowly, so they don't tend to fare well in combat situations.
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Does anyone remember the first episode of STTNG where the crew of the Enterprise was put on trial for all of the crimes of humanity? During the trial scene the soldiers that came out has an attachment to their suits that spit out a narcotic that once they were hooked on allowed their superiors to control them. A similar plot is the white the the founders gave to the jem'hadar. Now be fore i look like too much of a geek doesn't this meal on a chip thing sound like it could have the same effects? imagine... years after retireing from the military they can "call you back into service" by using the chip to deny you of some nutrient or another... the possibilities are disgusting.
Ryan Dorman, CCNA Network Communications Specialist Millersville Univesrity
I have no doubt about what you say. But even 1/2 an MRE is alot better than nothing. Getting even 50 or 100 grams of carbohydrate a day (200-400 Calories) will help enormously because the fat reserves have better metabolic pathways when glucose is present.
I seriously doubt you could even absorb 50 grams glucose per day from a patch.
The idea of these patches seem reasonable, for use for very short periods until a soldier can get real food/rest - but I tend to wonder what the jokes will be like amongst the men (ever smelled a Nicoderm patch? It smells like cat piss)...
The caffeine chewing gum seems old hat to me, as well - looking through my backpack, I have a pack of "Stay Alert" caffeine gum (dated 1997) - each stick contains 50 mg of caffeine, about half of what is in a cup of coffee (the pack reccommends chewing 2-4 sticks, equiv. to 1-2 cups of coffee). The stuff is made by Amurol Confections Company. It comes in mint and cinnamon flavors (I am not sure if it is still being sold, but the above website still carries "nutritional" info on the product - if anyone knows where it is sold on the net, or a similar product, post a response). It also doesn't take very good (has a bitter aftertaste).
On a final note, and what I am wondering if anyone can answer (and maybe I answered it myself above - because the patches smell like cat piss), is why haven't transdermal patches been appropriated by the "illegal" drug market? In other words, why can't you get a cocaine/meth/heroin/E transdermal patch? Are the patches difficult to manufacture? Is it because they wouldn't give an instant "high"? Or are they actually being used, but only in niche areas (I am very naive about the hard drug trade - but I have always wondered if such hard drug patches would ever be made - with maybe certain logos/designs stamped on them)?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
- Population rates are at an all-time high because people are living longer, not because too many babies are being born. (This is not a bad thing!)
- The consequences of the wrong reaction to this growth could be serious: Over 60 countries are at or below "replacement rates", including all the major industrialized nations.
- These countries will face significant labor shortages and a declining population to support the growing number of elderly. (Utimately exposing Ponzi schemes like Social Security.)
- Only Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East are significantly above replacement rates.
- The population paranoia is not even supported by the UN itself: Almost all of the D6B press is driven by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
- The UNFPA is not a UN agency, it is an independent agency operating under UN auspices, with close ties to nongovernmental organizations like International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes, which have clear political agendas (and an economic interest in promoting thier point of view.)
- The UN's chief population demographers work for the UN Population Division (UNPD), which is an official entity, operating as a branch of the UN Secretariat.
- UNPD's take on population growth is *quite different*: UNPD has three growth scenarios, and they currently favor the Low Growth scenario as the most likely. This scenario shows population peaking in 2040 and declining thereafter.
Source: http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/10-09-99/inte
Sony:hardware::Microsoft:software
CompactFlash: IBM Microdrive, Flash, Ether, Modem, etc.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Are you serious? *rolled eyes* They've been working on that for longer than 2000 years, and the end is not in sight. If you're in a fight, might as well come out on top...
As for electrolytes:
Some good points but two things I wanted to point out. Electrolytes in water? You get water where you can and purify it. That means you'd have to carry a powder and get them to dose themselves. Easier to just say, "Drink your water and wear your patch".
By the same token, transdermal hydration might run into a problem with impurities. See, your digestive tract is a wonderfully nice thing... Drop those little tablets into the water, watch em fizz, drink up and let Mother Nature handle the rest. Don't think you can do similar things easily with the transdermal hydration idea.
You said "MERs" but probably meant MREs, as in Meals Ready to Eat. Or in real military lingo, "Meals Readily Exitable". You make your own conclusions about the fiber content.
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A little boy was standing in front of a mirror in the restroom at John F. Kennedy Airport, when in walked a Marine staff sergeant, dressed in his dress blues. The little boy turned to the Marine and said, "Wow! Are you a Marine?"
The Marine replied, "Why, yes I am, young man. Would you like to wear my hat?"
"Boy, would I!," said the little boy. He took the hat and placed it on his head and turned to admire himself in the mirror.
As he was looking in the mirror, he heard the door open and through a ray of bright light, a man entered the room. But, this was not just a man -- he was more than a man. He was an Airborne Ranger.
The little boy turned and went over to the soldier. As he approached him, he could see the reflection in his boots. His eyes widened as he stared up at the soldier's chest full of medals and combat ribbons. He tried to speak, but he couldn't. Finally, he took a deep breath, and managed to say, "Excuse me, Sir. Are you an Airborne Ranger?"
The Ranger replied with a thunderous voice, "Why yes, I am!! Would you like to shine my boots?"
The little boy smiled, and said, "Oh, no sir!! I'm not a Marine. I'm just wearing his hat!"
Rangers Lead the Way!
Where did you pull that statistic from?
Consider, for a moment, someone preparing to climb Mt. Everest. He or she spends many months living at around 18,000 feet in order to allow the body to adjust to the altitude. The blood becomes thicker, with these climbers showing around 3x the normal amount of red blood cells. This allows the body to better transport oxygen in an environment where it is scarce.
Yes, water is important, and yes, dehydration is dangerous. But the thickness of your blood is not the primary performance indicator.
Best regards,
SEAL
Two friends and I went to a Vietnamese place a few years ago. There were one or two items on the menu I recognized and I have to confess I went with a safe bet. One of the guys asked what they recommended and was brought what appeared to be a bowl of translucent worms that smelled like a combination of an open sewer and Vicks VapoRub! He didn't finish it.
carlos
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As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
That's nothing...I had some lobster at a restaurant the other night, and it was slightly dry!!! Worst part was there was no sauce, so I had to drench it with melted butter...
You should join the army. With an attitude like that they would make you a general.
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Fire Your Boss!
"An analysis has been done on your taste buds and this beverage has been specially formulated to meet your needs for taste and nutrition!"
Then again, this would eliminate power lunches.
Sig? What's a SIG?
Already did. Spent a whole decade in the Infantry.
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Just history.
... which shows us a gradual bleeding away of the differences between cultures, and a steady erosion of the power imbalance between the rulers and the ruled. History has shown us that you get richer via trade than you do via war, that modern weapons don't just kill people, they kill man-made assets, and trading your way to the top is better than bombing everyone around you to a lower level.