The dissociative anaesthetics are likely to prevent various causes of brain damage. Dextromethorphan (a common, over the counter cold suppressant that acts similarly to ketamine and PCP) has been shown to protect the brain from damage caused by alcohol and epileptic seizures.
Unfortunately, it's suspected that these drugs cause their own unique form of brain damage termed Olney's Lesions, so these discoveries are certainly mixed blessings.
...the slashdot article text down as -1, unfunny? Seriously, the jokes about Apple and their one button mouse stopped being funny about... well... shortly after the first one was ever made.
In the US, everyone and their dog has an email address and webpage. In Canada, I find it hard to believe that Ma and Pa Smith have email addresses, or, if they do, at no higher a rate than Ma and Pa Smith in the US Midwest.
No offense, but I have no clue how your logic led you to the above statement.
The poverty rate is much lower in Canada; hence, even our "poor people" can afford computers, unlike yours, which are kept utterly oppressed by deplorable poverty (I lived in DC for four months last summer, and I was shocked by how poor some people could really be - never saw anything like that in Canada).
Rest assured that most of us have net access in our igloos.
The other poster is incorrect. I find that the ID3 tags on AllOfMp3.com are not entirely accurate; firstly, instead of using apostrophes in artist names, song titles, etc., they use backquotes. Secondly, song names, album names, etc. are truncated. Thirdly, while tracks may be numbered by filenames, they are not numbered in the ID3 tags. While I love AllOfMp3.com and highly recommend it, I'd point out that this is definitely one of the big annoyances of dealing with them.
What I AM though is someone who believes that society's basic purpose (from an evolutionary perspective) is to enable human beings to be as connected to each other as possible
Yes, because those conversations that the majority of people have on their cell phones are absolutely brimming with importance. Here's a gem I heard this morning as I fantasized about taking the cell phone from the girl who was screaming into it on my morning bus ride (which I usually hope to be relaxing and start my day off on the right foot) and jamming it deeply within the recesses of her anus, hopefully electrocuting her in the process:
"Yeah... We're just passing by the mall. Mmmm hmmm. I'm wearing my pink jogging pants.... Yeah... *laughter*... Yeah, that was fun. Now I'm by the McDonald's...."
From my experiences with having to listen to people squawk into these devices almost constantly, I have to say that this type of drivel constitutes about 90% of what I overhear.
If you really want to be connected, I suggest you turn off your cell phone before we take it out of your hand and smash it into the ground, turn to someone in your general vicinity, and engage them in polite conversation. I have yet to hear anything resembling compelling evidence that leads me to believe that cell phones are, for 99% of the population, a superior method of communication.
Incorrect. If 2 is not in {p1,..., pn}, then clearly for all i in {1,..., n}, pi is odd since pi is a prime number not equal to 2. Thus, p1 *... * pn is odd, and p1 *... * pn + 1 is even, and hence, has a divisor, 2, and is not prime.
Despite the fact that I didn't really cure it in any professional way (I just hung the leaves in my closet), it was definitely better than almost all the commercial tobacco that I've ever had. It felt much "cleaner" to smoke due to the fact that it didn't have any added chemicals to it, I suspect: I didn't come down with that "throat-clearing" urge I get the day after having a cigarette or two, and the smell dissipated from my fingers very quickly.
The only other tobaccos I've liked as much were the organic native brands, which don't use the cheaply made fertilizer that many tobacco companies do (that is suspected to increase the number of radioactive isotopes in tobacco dramatically).
Just wanted to say hi from one Canadian (Torontonian) gay geek to another - we're an endangered species, it would seem, so it's always good to meet another of our kind! *waves*
After having grown my own tobacco (for fun more than anything - I really only smoke about one cigarette a week and have done so for a few years without problems), I don't think this is feasible at all. My tobacco plants were insane amounts of work in the end (constant watering and fertilizer), and I only grew enough tobacco for perhaps 200 cigarettes. For the pack-a-day smoker to whom these taxes matter, unless they live on a farm, they couldn't possibly have the resources to grow enough for their needs.
Just out of curiosity, who owns CDE? Is Sun able to release this as open source? I've wanted to get my hands on version that works well with Linux or is open source for awhile now, with no luck...
I actually enjoy my job fairly well; I just find that 40 hours a week is *far* too much for one person to work. I don't think I'm alone here, either. I'd say at least half (and probably many more) of the people I know come home feeling tired, irritable, and disgruntled from their work day.
Why I criticize society's model is that it doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense: what boggles my mind is that I doubt we would have to work half this hard in a hunter gatherer society. Wasn't agriculture and technology designed to make our lives easier and more pleasant? Yes, we have benefits today like health care, other services, heating, air conditioning, cars, etc., but are we really better off and happier?
Unfortunately, as another poster said, we aren't given much in the way of options these days. It's either work 40 hours or be unemployed. There are a very small number of jobs available that allow for another alternative.
As for doing something I might enjoy more, I personally am going back to school next year to begin my Ph.D., and pending that, I'll become a professor. While hard work will be involved, at least I'll have more flexibility and the option to engage in self-directed work to a much higher degree. I'm sad that more people who are at least as disgruntled as I am with their situation don't necessarily have the same options.
I agree that that is probably the wisest course of action, and I am starting to make a dedicated effort to do that. It is difficult, though: even though I don't mind the nature of my work, I dislike doing it 40 hours a week and only having five hours to myself every evening when I get home... I almost feel like I need pick-me-ups just to deal with the feelings of unhappiness I have living in this type of situation, even though, via your logic, an escape (even if it might be far off) is possible.
I've realized, though, that these pick-me-ups don't really pick me up in particular, so I've largely discontinued indulging in them. Hopefully this, combined with me going back to school next year to start my Ph.D. and make roads into becoming a university professor - will make the cycle shorter and seem less grim!
While some of us might be like that, I disagree that for many of us, the reason that we work is to accumulate "stuff".
We don't seem to be given much choice in the matter. I would gladly work at a part-time job if I was given the choice: I would much prefer to make enough to pay for rent, bills, and groceries. Unfortunately, because of the model that society has adopted, I'm forced into a work-world where eight hours a day is the standard, and I'm paid to a level where I have quite a bit of disposable income. Given how unhappy I am spending a huge chunk of my week either thinking about work, preparing for work, or working, I have little time to myself and feel that I should compensate myself; additionally, it seems silly to just save the money I've earned, since I wouldn't know what to do with it all. Hence, I buy stupid things that I don't really need and that bring me a small but very transient amount of happiness.
I notice this pattern in pretty much everyone around me who isn't up to their ears in debt. They accumulate random garbage that they don't really need or particularly want much.
This model really sucks, because I think it leaves many of us largely dissatisfied. I don't know what would make you happier, but personally, I can say without hesitation that I'd prefer more free time to spend with my family and pursue my hobbies rather than more possessions. As well, it's environmentally destructive: we gather and gather useless crap, wasting our natural resources which could be put to much better use.
But will the capacity of humanity to generate information so rival your capacity to collect knowledge that your goals will be in vain? What constitutes "enough wisdom"?
While I agree that society, historically, has been very discouraging of accepting women into fields like science, mathematics, and engineering, I think it's important that we ask ourselves *why* this grew to be the case. Was it because our society was male-dominated, or perhaps because women were typically (for valid or not reasons) thought to have less aptitude in these domains?
Is society was simply male dominated, why did it become that way?
The trend I've noticed in these types of studies are that we typically try to identify whether these problems are biological or social. Can't they be both? Perhaps there are biological reasons that drove the social attitudes that we have today, even if we dislike them.
I'm glad that - irregardless of whether or not men are typically "hard-wired" to be more proficient in certain fields than women - women are now given a choice in the matter. My Master's supervisor (combinatorics) was an absolutely brilliant woman, as were about half the students in my lab. Even if women tend, as a biological trend, to be less adept at math than men, as a trend, tend to be, there are certainly some women who are astoundingly brilliant when it comes to mathematics. Emmy Noether is my strongest role model.
Although I'd never be so brash as to say that god doesn't exist (although I have no use for the concept of god, and hence, reject it), I don't understand Christians who are arrogant enough to claim beyond the shadow of a doubt that god is real.
The only existence of god that we have is god's word. The conclusion is the premise. There is no logical reason to believe the word of god. There is no reason not to believe it, if it suits you, as well, but to say that it is true is just silly.
From my (perhaps incorrect) understanding, the study was done with the hypothesis that opium usage was destructive and should be outlawed. The findings (that opium use largely mirrored alcohol use) were quite unexpected at the time.
The majority of drug users consider alcohol to be a hard drug.
Alcohol is physically addictive. Withdrawal from alcohol can kill you (unlike heroin withdrawal).
An old study by the British Empire in China regarding the patterns of opium consumption revealed that China's opium use largely paralleled Britain's alcohol use.
But, seeing to guys kiss makes me want to hurl. No offense.
*shrugs*... It doesn't offend me. The thought that people might be offended doesn't stop me from being (appropriately) affectionate with my husband in public, but I expect that people will be polite enough to keep their offended nature to themselves and not make a big issue out of it, since I don't think my actions are infringing on their rights.
I liken it to how irritated it makes me when I have to sit on a bus next to someone yapping on a cell phone. I don't have a cell phone, and I find them profoundly annoying, but it's their right to yap to their heart's content, and while I may dislike it tremendously, I support their right to do as they please as my feelings of annoyance are in no way indicative of them attacking my rights.
don't take my rancor for the groupthink as a hatred of individuals such as yourself, you sound cool : )
Thanks, and no worries... I'm not a big fan of mainstream "gay culture" either, where the focus of one's life becomes homosexuality, instead of merely an aspect of who they are. Frankly, the fact that I'm attracted to members of the same sex is simply a facet of who I am, as is my love of mathematics (which is more important to me by far), the fact that I'm a UNIX boy, etc.
Please don't paint us as a group by your impressions of mainstream gay culture... a huge number of us (probably the majority, I'd wager) choose to either not participate, or participate infrequently in the large "gay community", and you probably interact with us daily but simply aren't aware of the fact that we're gay, because we don't make an issue of it.
I'm certainly not closed about the fact that I'm gay, and when relationship topics come up amongst my coworkers, I'm happy to tell them that I'm married to another guy, but I don't go around announcing that fact or purposefully and excessively indulging in stereotypical gay activities because somehow I find validation in belonging to the "community".
My father was not particularly overbearing - no more so than the average father. He was definitely not absent, either: he spent quite a bit of time with my brother and I, frequently taking us out to play hockey, go cross-country skiing, or just to grab a burger and fries for lunch.
My brother, raised in the exact same environment as me, turned out completely heterosexual.
Of course, if it were genetics, according to Darwin, it would be a trait that should have been wiped out long ago since homosexuals cant reproduce.
Nonsense. Homosexuals, physically, are fully capable of reproducing - it's just that the sexual acts which are appealing to them don't result in reproduction. Regardless, I know no lack of people with gay biological parents who reproduced because they felt social pressure to enter into heterosexual relationships.
Additionally, recessive genes can carry for many generations, and if homosexuality is genetic, it's obviously controlled by a sequence of genes that are recessive.
Personally, I'm gay and I don't think homosexuality is genetic. I suspect that there are biological causes (e.g. hormone levels in the mother, etc.), but I'm capable of admitting that we don't know at this stage and it is possible that homosexuality is a choice. This is irrelevant to me, though, because even if it *is* a choice, it's my choice to make, and it's no one's business what the outcome of that decision is.
LiveJournal doesn't profit through advertising...
on
LiveJournal Buyout Rumor
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
While LJ toyed with the idea of placing adverts on the free account journals, the idea was discarded. This is largely one of the reasons that I *love* LiveJournal: they offer enough basic services for the majority of users to enjoy the site with free accounts, and enough bonus features to make it worthwhile for a small percentage of users to upgrade and thus cover LJ's costs.
While I also love/., I find many of the advertisements obnoxiously tacky and intrusive, and I have no desire to pay for the service, unfortunately.
Slashdot Mirror
The dissociative anaesthetics are likely to prevent various causes of brain damage. Dextromethorphan (a common, over the counter cold suppressant that acts similarly to ketamine and PCP) has been shown to protect the brain from damage caused by alcohol and epileptic seizures.
Unfortunately, it's suspected that these drugs cause their own unique form of brain damage termed Olney's Lesions, so these discoveries are certainly mixed blessings.
...the slashdot article text down as -1, unfunny? Seriously, the jokes about Apple and their one button mouse stopped being funny about... well... shortly after the first one was ever made.
In the US, everyone and their dog has an email address and webpage. In Canada, I find it hard to believe that Ma and Pa Smith have email addresses, or, if they do, at no higher a rate than Ma and Pa Smith in the US Midwest.
No offense, but I have no clue how your logic led you to the above statement.
The poverty rate is much lower in Canada; hence, even our "poor people" can afford computers, unlike yours, which are kept utterly oppressed by deplorable poverty (I lived in DC for four months last summer, and I was shocked by how poor some people could really be - never saw anything like that in Canada).
Rest assured that most of us have net access in our igloos.
Unfortunately, there's no version for OS X.
The other poster is incorrect. I find that the ID3 tags on AllOfMp3.com are not entirely accurate; firstly, instead of using apostrophes in artist names, song titles, etc., they use backquotes. Secondly, song names, album names, etc. are truncated. Thirdly, while tracks may be numbered by filenames, they are not numbered in the ID3 tags. While I love AllOfMp3.com and highly recommend it, I'd point out that this is definitely one of the big annoyances of dealing with them.
What I AM though is someone who believes that society's basic purpose (from an evolutionary perspective) is to enable human beings to be as connected to each other as possible
Yes, because those conversations that the majority of people have on their cell phones are absolutely brimming with importance. Here's a gem I heard this morning as I fantasized about taking the cell phone from the girl who was screaming into it on my morning bus ride (which I usually hope to be relaxing and start my day off on the right foot) and jamming it deeply within the recesses of her anus, hopefully electrocuting her in the process:
"Yeah... We're just passing by the mall. Mmmm hmmm. I'm wearing my pink jogging pants.... Yeah... *laughter*... Yeah, that was fun. Now I'm by the McDonald's...."
From my experiences with having to listen to people squawk into these devices almost constantly, I have to say that this type of drivel constitutes about 90% of what I overhear.
If you really want to be connected, I suggest you turn off your cell phone before we take it out of your hand and smash it into the ground, turn to someone in your general vicinity, and engage them in polite conversation. I have yet to hear anything resembling compelling evidence that leads me to believe that cell phones are, for 99% of the population, a superior method of communication.
Incorrect. If 2 is not in {p1, ..., pn}, then clearly for all i in {1, ..., n}, pi is odd since pi is a prime number not equal to 2. Thus, p1 * ... * pn is odd, and p1 * ... * pn + 1 is even, and hence, has a divisor, 2, and is not prime.
Despite the fact that I didn't really cure it in any professional way (I just hung the leaves in my closet), it was definitely better than almost all the commercial tobacco that I've ever had. It felt much "cleaner" to smoke due to the fact that it didn't have any added chemicals to it, I suspect: I didn't come down with that "throat-clearing" urge I get the day after having a cigarette or two, and the smell dissipated from my fingers very quickly.
The only other tobaccos I've liked as much were the organic native brands, which don't use the cheaply made fertilizer that many tobacco companies do (that is suspected to increase the number of radioactive isotopes in tobacco dramatically).
Just wanted to say hi from one Canadian (Torontonian) gay geek to another - we're an endangered species, it would seem, so it's always good to meet another of our kind!
*waves*
After having grown my own tobacco (for fun more than anything - I really only smoke about one cigarette a week and have done so for a few years without problems), I don't think this is feasible at all. My tobacco plants were insane amounts of work in the end (constant watering and fertilizer), and I only grew enough tobacco for perhaps 200 cigarettes. For the pack-a-day smoker to whom these taxes matter, unless they live on a farm, they couldn't possibly have the resources to grow enough for their needs.
Just out of curiosity, who owns CDE? Is Sun able to release this as open source? I've wanted to get my hands on version that works well with Linux or is open source for awhile now, with no luck...
I actually enjoy my job fairly well; I just find that 40 hours a week is *far* too much for one person to work. I don't think I'm alone here, either. I'd say at least half (and probably many more) of the people I know come home feeling tired, irritable, and disgruntled from their work day.
Why I criticize society's model is that it doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense: what boggles my mind is that I doubt we would have to work half this hard in a hunter gatherer society. Wasn't agriculture and technology designed to make our lives easier and more pleasant? Yes, we have benefits today like health care, other services, heating, air conditioning, cars, etc., but are we really better off and happier?
Unfortunately, as another poster said, we aren't given much in the way of options these days. It's either work 40 hours or be unemployed. There are a very small number of jobs available that allow for another alternative.
As for doing something I might enjoy more, I personally am going back to school next year to begin my Ph.D., and pending that, I'll become a professor. While hard work will be involved, at least I'll have more flexibility and the option to engage in self-directed work to a much higher degree. I'm sad that more people who are at least as disgruntled as I am with their situation don't necessarily have the same options.
I agree that that is probably the wisest course of action, and I am starting to make a dedicated effort to do that. It is difficult, though: even though I don't mind the nature of my work, I dislike doing it 40 hours a week and only having five hours to myself every evening when I get home... I almost feel like I need pick-me-ups just to deal with the feelings of unhappiness I have living in this type of situation, even though, via your logic, an escape (even if it might be far off) is possible.
I've realized, though, that these pick-me-ups don't really pick me up in particular, so I've largely discontinued indulging in them. Hopefully this, combined with me going back to school next year to start my Ph.D. and make roads into becoming a university professor - will make the cycle shorter and seem less grim!
While some of us might be like that, I disagree that for many of us, the reason that we work is to accumulate "stuff".
We don't seem to be given much choice in the matter. I would gladly work at a part-time job if I was given the choice: I would much prefer to make enough to pay for rent, bills, and groceries. Unfortunately, because of the model that society has adopted, I'm forced into a work-world where eight hours a day is the standard, and I'm paid to a level where I have quite a bit of disposable income. Given how unhappy I am spending a huge chunk of my week either thinking about work, preparing for work, or working, I have little time to myself and feel that I should compensate myself; additionally, it seems silly to just save the money I've earned, since I wouldn't know what to do with it all. Hence, I buy stupid things that I don't really need and that bring me a small but very transient amount of happiness.
I notice this pattern in pretty much everyone around me who isn't up to their ears in debt. They accumulate random garbage that they don't really need or particularly want much.
This model really sucks, because I think it leaves many of us largely dissatisfied. I don't know what would make you happier, but personally, I can say without hesitation that I'd prefer more free time to spend with my family and pursue my hobbies rather than more possessions. As well, it's environmentally destructive: we gather and gather useless crap, wasting our natural resources which could be put to much better use.
But will the capacity of humanity to generate information so rival your capacity to collect knowledge that your goals will be in vain? What constitutes "enough wisdom"?
While I agree that society, historically, has been very discouraging of accepting women into fields like science, mathematics, and engineering, I think it's important that we ask ourselves *why* this grew to be the case. Was it because our society was male-dominated, or perhaps because women were typically (for valid or not reasons) thought to have less aptitude in these domains?
Is society was simply male dominated, why did it become that way?
The trend I've noticed in these types of studies are that we typically try to identify whether these problems are biological or social. Can't they be both? Perhaps there are biological reasons that drove the social attitudes that we have today, even if we dislike them.
I'm glad that - irregardless of whether or not men are typically "hard-wired" to be more proficient in certain fields than women - women are now given a choice in the matter. My Master's supervisor (combinatorics) was an absolutely brilliant woman, as were about half the students in my lab. Even if women tend, as a biological trend, to be less adept at math than men, as a trend, tend to be, there are certainly some women who are astoundingly brilliant when it comes to mathematics. Emmy Noether is my strongest role model.
in other news, the word of God is real.
Although I'd never be so brash as to say that god doesn't exist (although I have no use for the concept of god, and hence, reject it), I don't understand Christians who are arrogant enough to claim beyond the shadow of a doubt that god is real.
The only existence of god that we have is god's word. The conclusion is the premise. There is no logical reason to believe the word of god. There is no reason not to believe it, if it suits you, as well, but to say that it is true is just silly.
From my (perhaps incorrect) understanding, the study was done with the hypothesis that opium usage was destructive and should be outlawed. The findings (that opium use largely mirrored alcohol use) were quite unexpected at the time.
The majority of drug users consider alcohol to be a hard drug.
Alcohol is physically addictive.
Withdrawal from alcohol can kill you (unlike heroin withdrawal).
An old study by the British Empire in China regarding the patterns of opium consumption revealed that China's opium use largely paralleled Britain's alcohol use.
But, seeing to guys kiss makes me want to hurl. No offense.
*shrugs*... It doesn't offend me. The thought that people might be offended doesn't stop me from being (appropriately) affectionate with my husband in public, but I expect that people will be polite enough to keep their offended nature to themselves and not make a big issue out of it, since I don't think my actions are infringing on their rights.
I liken it to how irritated it makes me when I have to sit on a bus next to someone yapping on a cell phone. I don't have a cell phone, and I find them profoundly annoying, but it's their right to yap to their heart's content, and while I may dislike it tremendously, I support their right to do as they please as my feelings of annoyance are in no way indicative of them attacking my rights.
don't take my rancor for the groupthink as a hatred of individuals such as yourself, you sound cool : )
Thanks, and no worries... I'm not a big fan of mainstream "gay culture" either, where the focus of one's life becomes homosexuality, instead of merely an aspect of who they are. Frankly, the fact that I'm attracted to members of the same sex is simply a facet of who I am, as is my love of mathematics (which is more important to me by far), the fact that I'm a UNIX boy, etc.
Please don't paint us as a group by your impressions of mainstream gay culture... a huge number of us (probably the majority, I'd wager) choose to either not participate, or participate infrequently in the large "gay community", and you probably interact with us daily but simply aren't aware of the fact that we're gay, because we don't make an issue of it.
I'm certainly not closed about the fact that I'm gay, and when relationship topics come up amongst my coworkers, I'm happy to tell them that I'm married to another guy, but I don't go around announcing that fact or purposefully and excessively indulging in stereotypical gay activities because somehow I find validation in belonging to the "community".
Exclusive homosexuality has been observed in captive penguins on numerous occasions. Google "gay penguins" for links.
My father was not particularly overbearing - no more so than the average father. He was definitely not absent, either: he spent quite a bit of time with my brother and I, frequently taking us out to play hockey, go cross-country skiing, or just to grab a burger and fries for lunch.
My brother, raised in the exact same environment as me, turned out completely heterosexual.
Of course, if it were genetics, according to Darwin, it would be a trait that should have been wiped out long ago since homosexuals cant reproduce.
Nonsense. Homosexuals, physically, are fully capable of reproducing - it's just that the sexual acts which are appealing to them don't result in reproduction. Regardless, I know no lack of people with gay biological parents who reproduced because they felt social pressure to enter into heterosexual relationships.
Additionally, recessive genes can carry for many generations, and if homosexuality is genetic, it's obviously controlled by a sequence of genes that are recessive.
Personally, I'm gay and I don't think homosexuality is genetic. I suspect that there are biological causes (e.g. hormone levels in the mother, etc.), but I'm capable of admitting that we don't know at this stage and it is possible that homosexuality is a choice. This is irrelevant to me, though, because even if it *is* a choice, it's my choice to make, and it's no one's business what the outcome of that decision is.
While LJ toyed with the idea of placing adverts on the free account journals, the idea was discarded. This is largely one of the reasons that I *love* LiveJournal: they offer enough basic services for the majority of users to enjoy the site with free accounts, and enough bonus features to make it worthwhile for a small percentage of users to upgrade and thus cover LJ's costs.
/., I find many of the advertisements obnoxiously tacky and intrusive, and I have no desire to pay for the service, unfortunately.
While I also love