yes, but when you can cut costs and not have any issues, a lot of places will do it.
I'd like to see reliable evidence of this. I've heard this crap ever since Anthony Bourdain included it in some rant in one of his books about people who liked meat cooked more than medium-rare. Perhaps he was known to serve crappy food to those people, but I'd be really interested to know how widespread the practice is.
Because if you search around on some cooking forums, you'll see other actual chefs chime in and say they do NOT do this. Actual chefs will tell you that they tend to have thinner cuts available for people who like well-done, so as not to delay the entire order while cooking one steak longer. (If they don't have this, they'll generally offer to butterfly the cut.) But actually serving people crappier meat? Not so much that I've heard, outside of Tony's confessions of being a jerk.
theres no point in spending 20$ on a prime steak if the person eating it cant tell the difference between a shoe and a steak.
"Prime" ratings refer to marbling, not necessarily quality of taste. So, if you pay more for "prime," you're paying for more fat. That fat won't disappear completely if the steak is cooked well done: in fact, more of it will often soften, because temperatures about 130 F (temp for medium-rare) allow faster break-down of a lot of fat. Case in point: taste a low-quality fatty cut cooked fast on a hot grill (often lots of gristle) vs. similar meat from the same part of the cow cooked to a much higher temperature longer as a pot roast... all that fat will be melt-in-your-mouth tender. A well-done steak, done properly, can be somewhere in between.
For the record, I generally order my steaks medium rare, and I agree that that maximizes certain aspects (particularly juiciness and tenderness).
But for those who like well-done, they often get extra browning flavors from the Maillard reaction and caramelization, and the extra fat break-down can do good things for the fat (though making the muscle tougher). If the steak is heated slowly before grilling or finished in the oven at a very low temperature, it can also be quite juicy (contrary to popular belief). Cooking a steak well-done that tastes good is also an art, and probably even more finicky that cooking one medium-rare.
Anyhow, sorry, but if you are actually able to tell a prime-grade steak at medium-rare, you should also be able to tell one at well-done. If you can't, you probably don't know as much about steaks as you think you do. Different people like different things, but that doesn't excuse insulting them or serving them crappier food.
...and, in almost every case, carrying large amounts of cash has little to no consequence.
I visit the WSOP every year, and while they accept wire transfers at the Rio cage, nearly every player brings cash -- and not just the main event players. There's thousands of people like myself playing smaller events who have thousands of dollars in cash on them at and en route to the WSOP every year.
Yeah, good for you. Many, many people have been less lucky -- and perhaps you should pay close attention to what municipalities and states you travel through with your cash. (Some stories of how crazy this can get here.)
Care to tell us the rest of the story that was worth mentioning "just some beer in the back?"
Sounded like a reference to the kinds of things that allow law enforcement to arbitrarily seize assets to me. They spot something "suspicious," which is enough to constitute some minimum of "probable cause" ("I smelled something weird, and I spotted a case of beer in the back seat..."), ask to search the car, find a wad of cash, file a pseudo-lawsuit "State of X vs. $15,000," and the money disappears into the government's bank accounts.
Maybe there's more to the story, but it's also very possible that these people just happened to be driving through the wrong place and hit the cop who has a profit motive to arbitrarily seize assets. (And yeah, if you've never heard of this stuff happening before, it sounds freakin' CRAZY, but it does happen... all the time.)
Seriously, though, it sounds like your friends need to give 1/3 of that to a lawyer so they can get the other 2/3 back.
Yeah, good luck with that. These confiscations are notoriously hard to fight. The "friends" are probably not even an official party to some criminal proceeding -- instead, many of these cases are filed as "State of X vs. $15,000" (I wish I were kidding). Many municipalities will charge thousands of dollars in fees just for the right to file a challenge for the confiscation, so they might be out 10-20% of their money just to get the process started. Add on complicated and lengthy legal proceedings, and they'd be very lucky to get a fraction of it back. It might not be worth it at all. The only way to fix these sorts of problems is probably a class-action lawsuit against the offending municipalities.
By the way, for those who don't realize the craziness of civil forfeiture laws: law enforcement have routinely seized people's cash, cars, even houses -- with no trial, no criminal proceeding, often just a bare hint of "probable cause" or trumped up "suspicion." Look it up (for example, here's a good recent summary of some egregious examples.
While people traveling with a wad of cash are probably the most common target, this is a much bigger issue -- a truly shocking and extreme violation of basic rights.
If someone is going to teach Biology, I would take the guy who has a P.H.D. in biology, and the proper enthusiasm and skills, over the guy who doesn't have a clue about the subject, but just took courses to learn how to teach.
Are these my only choices? Personally, I'd choose the guy who actually CAN teach, rather than somebody with credentials saying he took classes in something... teaching or biology or whatever.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Public Speaking, to be allowed to speak at a conference.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Education, to know how to teach,
Yes, and you don't need even a 4-year degree in biology to teach high school level biology. A Ph.D. is massively overqualified. Sure -- if that person is a good teacher and wants to teach high school, that's fantastic. But I'm more interested in having a good TEACHER who is good at TEACHING biology, than someone with credentials.
To take another example, do you seriously think most people with bachelor degrees in engineering or physics or whatever aren't CAPABLE or don't have sufficient BACKGROUND to teach algebra in high school? Do you really need someone with at least a 4-year degree in math, or even a Ph.D.?
Frankly, I'd prefer to have the engineer teach high school math over many pure math majors, since the engineer is always likely to see math through a lens of practicality. The engineer can emphasize real-world applications, because that's what he uses high-school level math for. The pure math dude? Well, he's got a lot more credit hours in advanced real analysis, number theory, linear algebra, maybe things like topology or differential geometry -- how the heck do those things prepare him better to teach basic high-school algebra?
I prefer QUALIFIED experts in the field they will teach about, FILTERED to include only people who are subjectively good at teaching.
I prefer people who have an intuitive understanding of concepts AT THE LEVEL THEY ARE TEACHING, and can successfully communicate those concepts to be an effective teacher.
Lots of us can read. Lots of us can read at an "advanced level." Does that make us all effective reading teachers?
There are lots of very smart people with Ph.D.'s who are very capable of breaking down concepts and teaching basic ideas to people with little background. There are also very smart people with Ph.D.'s who do advanced research, but simply are incapable of breaking things down that way -- those people would be terrible teachers.
Also, frankly, just because you have a Ph.D. in a field does NOT mean that you know the introductory material to that field very well AT ALL. Depth of knowledge in some particular research area does not necessarily imply depth of knowledge about the basics of a discipline... or insight into how those basics might be taught or explained in detail. Lots of people in advanced research "just know" that intro stuff, but they often have no clue about how to break it down.
Many people focus on the last two phrases in that sentence. Not so much attention is focused on the first two phrases, but IMO they're just as important as the last two. Keeping and bearing Arms is a right... but it's a right, a power that comes with a hefty dose of responsibility (to be "well regulated") as well.
Let's change the language of the 2nd amendment you quoted to an issue that's less inflammatory:
A well educated Electorate, being necessary to the democratic function of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.
Okay. Suppose you read that. Are you seriously going to tell me that the only reason to let people read books is to vote properly? Let the government ban book ownership and readership for kids under 18 -- after all, they can't vote, so why should we let them read? If you aren't registered to vote, you are subject to raids of your home to remove all books. If you're not part of the "Electorate," why do you need them?
Or, if you read my altered version, would you conclude something more like: "The Founders thought it was important for all people to have the right to own and read books, and they particularly recognized how important it was to have an educated group of voters, so these books would facilitate that process. This wouldn't preclude other reasons for people to own and read books, only recognizing one of the most important ones."
Would that be a more fair interpretation?
A lot of people have arguments about what those first two clauses mean, and how they might restrict the last one. But I find my intuition about it is better if I actually change the topic to something else -- and in that case, it seems (to me) that the sentence is setting forth a general right, with the beginning providing one essential justification (though not necessarily implying it is the only one).
The 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees that each citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.
Precisely where in the 2nd Amendment does it say anything about "self-defense"? It says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." As many have argued, the first clauses set up only one possible justification, so the last clause just says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
So, where's the "self-defense" language?
There are only a very few obvious prohibitions, namely against convicted felons and those declared mentally incompetent or ill.
Where are these in the 2nd amendment? I don't see them. It says that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." I don't see any, "unless they've gone looney or have previously committed a felony."
(Note: I am not arguing we should give guns to the mentally ill or felons -- I'm saying that the only place these "obvious prohibitions" are found is in court rulings and judicial interpretation, not in the original language.)
Meanwhile, there are people in the US who fear the things so much, they want to restrict who can and cannot have a firearm, and wish to dictate under what conditions they are possessed.
Hmm... sounds like you already agree we should to just that. "Self-defense"? Good. "Militia" or "security of a free state"? Meh. Felons and mentally ill? Bad.
In other words, you seem unconcerned about the little language in the amendment given to guide its primary purpose, but you make up your own conditions for why guns should be possessed, along with deciding who can and cannot have them.
Well... except you're not doing it, as much as courts have done it, in their process of interpreting the meaning of the Constitution.
There is a route by which this can be accomplished, but it would require amending the US Constitution, which is notoriously hard to do (as it should be - capricious changes are painful, to say the least.) Any other route (including most attempts at federal "gun control" laws) is a circumvention of this process
And yet you cited a number of instances of "obvious prohibitions" that you seemingly think don't require amending the Constitution. Were they too a "circumvention" of the proper Constitutional process?
I also agree TBBT has blackface or 'coon show' qualities.
Wow -- I've been reading this a lot here. I think we need to step back and get some perspective. Blackface was and is offensive not just because it includes stereotypes, but because it served as a way of reinforcing stereotypes that led to social oppression and even slavery. Many people here might argue that scientists and engineers are underpaid or underappreciated compared to, say, corporate executives or whatever. But they generally earn relatively high salaries compared to average and are hardly "oppressed" let alone enslaved.
Saying the show represents stereotypes is one thing. Comparing it to blackface is quite extreme.
And it seems like the more scientific / theoretical the character's field is, the more antisocial they are. The closer they are to engineering, the more socially redeeming qualities and access to romantic partners they have. I mean, they made Sheldon downright asexual.
I agree that the show is a bit of an exaggeration of everyday scientists and engineers. But I did my undergraduate degree at one of the top science and engineering schools in the world, and I knew people who fit just about every one of these stereotypes. Seriously. And, while there were certainly exceptions, I have to say that their portrayal of the "lack of social skills" continuum is also relatively accurate, from the perspective of general trends. Beyond Sheldon, I wouldn't say the show portrays the characters as "antisocial," but rather as lacking in various social graces. In my experience, among high level scientists, engineers, and math people, the pure science people tend to be weirder than the engineers on average, the physicists tend to be outliers among even the pure science folks, and the math people have the highest proportion of socially-inept folks. Again, there are numerous exceptions, but this stereotype has some basis in fact. And the trend is even more prominent among the grad students I knew while I was an undergrad: the engineers were almost "normal," but the physics and math grad students I knew were the quiet weird ones who always said inappropriate things. I haven't done a statistical study of this, but the show certainly agrees with what I personally observed in a similar environment.
The show is an exercise in anti-intellectualism
I suppose you could see it that way. I suppose viewers who identify with Penny might get that impression. On the other hand, there are numerous occasions on the show where Penny and other "non-science people" are suitably impressed when the "nerds" do some useful thing. So, "intellectualism" is clearly portrayed as valuable -- but the jargony wacko world of the main characters does not necessarily have innate value for its own sake.
The show has an important point: science and math geeks often get so wrapped up in their world that they fail to communicate their ideas effectively to others. Thus, "normal people" find the geeks weird or even ridiculous because of that disconnect, since they can't figure out why all the arcane trivia and esoteric math and abstract knowledge is important. It is precisely the same attitude that comes out here on Slashdot concerning advanced humanities topics. Why should anyone give a crap about English major's theory about a medieval manuscript? Who cares about the "soft" humanities theories in sociology or history or some esoteric version of philosophy that doesn't seem to mesh well with the standard "scientific" mythos?
I'm not saying that you need to care about the jargon-laced research in advanced humanities disciplines, but jargon from almost any discipline seems unnecessary, complicated, and abstract to those outside of that discipline. Yet scientists often have the perspective that their way of knowing is the one superior way of doing things, and thus anyone outside of that is obviously ignorant... which leads people outside
Much closer to the truth is that the government has massively slashed taxes on the mega-wealthy without dropping its spending nearly enough to pay for the overwhelming cut. If taxes on the wealthy simply returned to the levels we had in the 1960s, the deficit would go massively negative, and the debt would be paid off in approximately two decades.
I guess you haven't heard of the Laffer curve then, eh?
Are you really naive enough about macroeconomics to believe that you could simply switch from the current tax brackets up to 90% or whatever taxation of the wealthiest, with everything else in the economy just remaining exactly the same, so we could pay off the debt? Changing economic policy on such a huge scale simply cannot let everything else remain exactly the same.
Basic principle of the Laffer curve: If you tax at 0% interest rate, you'll get no government revenue, obviously. If you take at 100% interest rate, you'll get no tax revenue, because people will have no incentive to work and/or people will move out of the country to avoid taxes. So, at some point between 0% and 100%, there is a point where you get maximum revenue.
You see, when you decrease tax rates below 100%, you leave more money in the private economy. That additional money goes into whatever rich people do with it -- most don't simply bury all of it under their mattress. Often, a lot of it gets invested. Those investments earn more money. And that additional money then gets taxed as more income -- hence additional government revenue. If rich people invest in companies, those companies might hire more employees, and those employees earn wages, which then can be taxed, for more government revenue. So, at least in some cases, leaving more money in the pockets of the rich will ultimately result in more tax revenue, not less.
Now, there are plenty of people who will debate the effects of tax breaks for the rich, and whether that money ends up "trickling down" to help middle class and poor people or not. But we don't need to debate Reaganomics here, because that's not the question. The question is not whether tax breaks help poor people, but whether tax raises will actually bring in more government revenue in the form of taxes.
And the answer is that maximum revenue probably lies somewhere in the middle. It's definitely less than 100%, but more than 0%, obviously. It's probably greater than our current tax liability for wealthy people (though some would disagree with that). But it's probably less than the 90% tax rate or whatever it was in the 1960s.
If you did increase taxes to that rate, you might be able to maintain some sort of revenue for a couple years, but it would drop off as rich people pulled back on investments, sent money into other countries or various tax shelters, etc.
And anyways... you really don't want to just suddenly pay off all the national debt. Trust me. Again, go read a macroeconomics textbook. I know that there's a lot of the mindset out there that we need to run our country like you'd balance your home checkbook, but your home checkbook doesn't issue sovereign currency, it can't force people to use its currency as legal tender, and it can't force people to pay it back in the form of taxes.
The point is: when the government goes into deficit, it increases the base money supply (referred to variously as M0 or MB). Basically, the government "spends" money and that money shows up in the private economy as "currency." Central banks lend out that money. Other banks lend out that money. Rich people invest that money. Credit gets built on credit, which gets built on credit -- but it's all built on top of the base money supply.
If you start a massive debt reduction, you'll suck huge amounts of base money supply out of the economy. The only way for the private econom
Ferment for a week for best results, or else you're actually 'poisoning' yourself!
Umm, I'm assuming that you're referring to the whole phytic acid myth. All I have to say is: stop believing all the crap you read on those "health food" web sites, and go read some actual science. It's true that phytic acid binds iron, zinc, and other metals that are important as nutrients, but most of it in plant matter is already bound -- so, at worst, if you consume that stuff in your brown rice, you just won't get SOME of the extra nutrients that brown rice has over white rice. It won't "take away" any nutrients already in your body or in other foods, as some people will have you believe. It's certainly not going to "poison" you! In fact, the science on phytic acid in general is decidely mixed -- some studies suggest it is carcinogenic, while others suggest it may prevent cancer. It certainly can act as an antioxidant, removing free radicals in a beneficial way. Some people even take it as a supplement, which seems ridiculous if you're claiming it's a "poison"!
We need better understanding of food science by the average joe, some 'healthy' foods are only healthier for you when properly prepared.
Meh. This is somewhat true of certain foods, but in most cases these claims are way overstated. Eat a raw vegetable, and you'll get certain nutrients that would be destroyed by cooking. Eat the same vegetable cooked, and you'll release some different nutrients but destroy others. All-in-all it's usually best to just eat a variety of foods using a variety of preparation techniques.
Anyhow, you will certainly release certain nutrients from brown rice by sprouting it (something that is also consumed in other countries -- not just white rice), but it's not necessary to get some nutritional benefits. If you're really concerned about phytic acid, you should also be worried about all sorts of dark green vegetables and other "healthy food" as well... brown rice isn't at the top of that list.
While I agree with you in general, admitting that you were a student doesn't help your point.
What point was that? That it's possible to afford decent food even on a limited budget? How does my status as a student take away from that point? Or are you talking about my reply to the other AC, who accused me of being an idiot? I think my reply in that respect was directly on point.
It means you were in a different situation than those who have jobs and families (who may be on food stamps which you didn't qualify for)
I never implied that I had a family or anything at that point in my life.
Being a student has its hardships, and there are certainly students who really have it worse than people in "the real world", but generally that's not the case.
I will freely admit that, as grad student living goes, I did reasonably well. But, as I mentioned, I had friends who didn't have it so well -- who were taking out lots of loans and chose to live on much more extreme budgets than I did. But they still had a more nutrious and balanced diet than most people I know. I also had friends who worked in labs as science or engineering grad students and spent long hours (much more than 40-hour weeks) doing their work. Yet some of them also found time and money to eat reasonable food.
I never claimed to be living the life of a poor stressed worker doing a bunch of minimum wage jobs. But I did live on a very limited budget (and was much busier at times than I've ever been with a "real job" in the "real world"), and yet I still found ways to eat okay.
Regardless, my main point in the original post was countering the ideas eating a balanced diet with better food is somehow pricier and impossible for people with limited resources -- so they're somehow forced to eat junk food. That is decidely not so. I got to know some of the people who would frequent the supermarket I mentioned in my original post: many of them seemed not to be doing very well from a monetary standpoint, but many of them made the trek to the supermarket to buy basic ingredients to feed large families. Others seemed to just leave with carts full of junk food. I know from my own experience pricing foods that the former was actually a cheaper (and healthier) way to live on a budget.
I am amazed that you were such an idiot as to only be able to make an income that allowed a pathetic $20/week in food, but had the foresight to plan out weekly meals and make ends meet.
Hmm, guess you've never heard of "being a student." It's a common career choice, and it generally leads to higher earnings later (as it did in my case). Also, admittedly, I chose to find a one-bedroom apartment for myself, because I found it more convenient than dealing with roommates -- and in lots of college towns and cities, that's pricey, and on a grad student stipend, it didn't leave a lot extra for daily expenses...but that's okay, because I could actually eat well for $20/week. (I had a friend who cut it down to $12/week or so, and he was struggling....)
Next time get food stamps, dumbass.
You'd be surprised how low your income has to be as a single person to qualify for food stamps. I was earning significantly more than that even on a grad student stipend, but after rent, utilities, school materials, etc., that didn't necessarily leave a lot left over.
The word is ketosis. It is spelled totally different from voodoo.
Umm, here's what the GP said:
Fad diets, like a low carb diet, do work, but they work by restricting your calories, not by some special voodoo.
Here's what your linked article says:
However, when the body is in ketosis the individual tends to feel less hungry, and will probably eat less than he/she might otherwise do.
In other words, according to your own link, ketosis causes you to eat less (i.e., restrict your calories) because you feel less hungry.
So, you and the GP actually agree with each other. It's not "voodoo": it just means that for some people, the feeling of satiety from ketosis may cause them to restrict their calories. For others, they may find other useful methods to restrict calories.
Point is: the GP is correct. All fad diets have the same underlying principle if they are effective, and it isn't "voodoo" -- it's calorie restriction. Whatever method you use to restrict the calories and whatever works for you will have a similar effect as long as it results in fewer calories taken in than burned -- ketosis or not.
It reminds me a bit of when I was in school in the 80's, how the LOGO programming language was often used as an intro to programming. You're not going to go out and develop a useful piece of software just from learning how to code in LOGO, just as learning to do custom mods in the world of Minecraft has limited utility elsewhere. But the concepts and basic skills translate.
I wouldn't say that the "concepts and basic skills translate" very well to other things. It's not like learning LOGO is going to teach you good real-world programming techniques. But it will expose you to the basic idea of "programming."
And that's where some interesting ideas might "translate." Programming, like geometrical proofs, requires a certain kind of formal logical thought in an ordered regimented manner -- which is something rarely taught in other school subjects (at least not before advanced algebra or calculus or math-based physics problems... if they are taught well... if they aren't, teachers will just teach patterns of types of problems, rather than actual critical thinking skills).
You're doing it wrong - an onion can be peeled and chopped in less than 5 min, 2 min if you have one of those choppers, but then you're spending at least 3 min putting it together and taking it apart and cleaning it, dishwasher or not.
You don't need a "chopper." Look up a few videos on Youtube or something -- there are proper ways to dice onions that you can easily do in under a minute with a sharp knife.
One basic method: (1) slice in half through the root and stem. (2) cut off stem and pull off peel (which is faster if you slice in half first), (3) place sliced side down, (4) slice vertically away from root end toward stem end, not going all the way to root, so onion stays together, (5) if a large onion or if fine dice is desired, place one or two cuts horizontally to work surface while holding onion together, (6) slice at 90 degrees to cuts in step 4, beginning at stem end.
Do this technique a few dozen times, and I guarantee you can dice an onion in a minute or so. But you'll also need to keep your knife sharp. That last thing is a huge problem that slows down many people: if your knife is sharp, it will go through an onion like soft butter. If your knife is dull, it will slip on your onion's outer layers and potentially injure you, while taking 3 times as long to cut up the onion.
You also need to live somewhere with access to those ingredients, have a high enough income that you can afford the ingredients, and a high enough income that you can afford to be not-working long enough to cook and eat them. There are thousands upon thousands of people too poor for all three.
Yeah, umm, that problem is that if you're really poor, cooking for yourself is actually significantly cheaper. I lived for several years on a very small budget and had friends with even smaller food budgets (on the order of $20/week... yes, that's the entire food budget for the week for a person -- about $1/meal), and we not only survived, but ate rather healthy food that we cooked ourselves. Try living on a $1/meal by eating off the McDonald's Dollar Menu or something -- it's doubtful you could even get enough calories for an adult to survive.
Let's take your objections in turn:
They don't live anywhere with access to fresh food ("food deserts"), can't afford to travel to where they could buy fresh food,
During the years when I had very little income, I lived a couple blocks from the cheapest supermarket in town -- the local newspaper did a study and found that you could literally buy about 40% more groceries at this place, even without taking into account special sales, than almost anywhere else in the area. They just decided to make money off of volume sales rather than jacking up prices like crazy. The store was a zoo most of the time -- food flew off the shelves.
And you know who shopped there? Lower class and poor people, who often came on the bus and took taxi cabs to take their stuff home from that store, because the amount they could save from buying their food their more than made up for the price of a cab ride (obviously, they couldn't afford cars).
You know what else was in this store? Lots of cheap, fresh food. Fresher than almost any other supermarket in town, because it flew off the shelves. Most of the people I knew who had higher salaries refused to step in the door, because the place had a reputation as the "dirty supermarket where poor people shop," but I spent years buying fresh food there, while my friends spent more money to shop for rotting food at the normal supermarkets.
But the thing is -- even if you couldn't afford to buy fresh food there (and my friends on their limited budgets certainly couldn't), they still could buy relatively nutritious options, like big bulk packs of frozen veggies that are on sale, etc.
Everyone is always concerned about the lack of "fresh food" (which usually means lack of a decent produce aisle) in these urban "food deserts," but it's still possible to get nutritious meals from relatively unprocessed ingredients which are frozen or canned or minimally packed in some other way.
The poor people at these stores would not generally be helped very much by a more extensive produce aisle. Instead, they just need to buy less processed (and generally CHEAPER) food that's already available, and then combine it in simple dishes by cooking themselves (and saving money).
couldn't afford the food itself even if they could get there, can't afford to take the time out of their multiple jobs to go even if they could afford it,
Nope. As I noted above, they CAN afford the food -- in fact, it's the ONLY way to live healthy (and in fact sometimes the only way to survive) on a very limited budget. The 2-for-1 special on take-out pizza may sound like a good deal, until you realize you can probably make the same pizza at home with better ingredients for half that sale price. Volume discounts for fast-food places and such only go so far... they still have to pay for labor, equipment, etc. costs, which means you're paying a premium to eat that food over what you could generally do with your own ingredients at home.
Same thing for processed "TV dinners" and frozen pizzas and such. Skip 'em, and buy some simpler ingredie
How does that work? To lose weight from a diet, you need to consumne fewer calories than you use. To stay at the same weight once you've lost enough weight, you need to consume the same amount of calories that you use. These aren't the same thing.
Your logic fails because you think of the human body as a constant system. But that's not true, particularly when dieting. It's not a simple "Take in X calories per day, and burn Y calories per day" where X and Y are constant.
Fat tissue requires energy to stay alive (not a lot, but nonzero). If you lose weight, your basic metabolic needs will go down. Muscle tissue requires more energy than fat tissue to stay alive. Obese people also tend to have large muscles to allow them to get around, and these will often shrink a bit too (even with increased exercise) if someone loses a lot of weight. That also pushes down basic metabolic needs.
Also, the body can adjust metabolism -- burn off more energy in body heat after eating a big meal with excess calories, for example. Or be more efficient in using calories when there's a lower intake. It's probably not a large effect (though there is generally a lot of disagreement about the numbers here), but it too can lower the number of calories you need as your weight changes.
Basically, it is absolutely possible that your body could require 2500 calories per day just to maintain basic functionality when you're obese, but that requirement could decrease to 1750 per day at a normal weight. Or something even more extreme for very obese people (particularly active ones).
If you went on a diet that kept you down to 1500 calories per day, with an occasional "cheat day" or something, it's quite possible that your "diet" would absolutely need to become permanent if you want to maintain your weight at the end.
(Note here that I'm talking about reasonable "diets" that are likely to lead to sustainable weight loss, which would involve a calorie deficit leading to only a loss of a couple pounds per week. "Crash diets" that involve starving yourself and taking in extremely low numbers of calories are not only obviously unsustainable, but potentially unhealthy and occasionally dangerous.)
An overweight person would need to make some change to his eating habits, but that change wouldn't consist of making the diet permanent--if he did, he'd just keep losing weight down to nothingness
Obviously not, if intake was at all positive.
(or at least down to where his body just uses fewer calories because it's thin, which would not be the same as his target weight).
Why not? Most people who aren't pregnant or have some larger medical problem don't gain more than a few pounds per year. They may be 50 or 75 pounds overweight, but that weight was often accumulated over decades.
And then they expect to lose it all in a couple months. Not only is this quite difficult (and even impossible) to do, but it is also very hard on your internal systems.
What if this person simply started eating what his/her body required when it was 75 pounds lighter? The diet was adjusted not by adopting some sort of crazy "crash diet" extreme method (only eat food X! never eat carbs/fats/meat/whatever! etc.), but instead by choosing alternative foods that are tasty and sustainably balanced and nutritious?
Weight loss would immediately commence, though the loss would probably be at a healthy rate of a couple pounds per week, rather than something unsustainable. Eventually, to maintain the loss rate, some modifications might be necessary -- but the target from the start should be to make adjustments in the diet that could be sustainable PERMANENTLY. Unless an obese person transitions into a body builder (rather unusual), there's simply no way for required intake to remain the same.
Recent studies seem to show that our bodies get fixated on some weight "set point" over time, and if you've bee
Our diet contains more meat than any other point in history, even before factoring in the abundance of nuts and beans.
While much fast or junk food is low in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, our protein intake is far from deficient.
While this may be true, it may also be irrelevant to the claims here. Contrary to popular belief, high protein foods (including meat, but also beans and legumes) are generally low in calories when they are lean. (And, in prehistoric, pre-agriculture diets, chances are any meat that was eaten would have been fairly lean, not have been off of a farm-fattened animal with "superior marbling" to attain a "prime" rating.)
However, from TFA:
Food manufacturers have a financial incentive to replace protein with cheaper forms of calories, and to manipulate the sensory qualities of foods to disguise their lower protein content. This leads to savoury-flavoured food that makes us think we're eating protein when in reality it is loaded with carbohydrates and fats.
So, say I eat a dish that "tastes like protein" and my taste receptors think that a savory dish that tastes like that should usually have a couple hundred calories.
But, instead, that dish is NOT protein at all, and is loaded with fats and processed carbs, which gives it a calorie content of over 1000 calories. I'm getting a signal from my body telling me it's okay to eat more (according to taste), even when I'm consuming way too many calories. Moreover, as we eat it, our body might be ready to digest the protein it assumes it there, but when it doesn't arrive, perhaps another impulse might kick in to continue eating to receive that expected protein?
Thus, it may not be a lack of protein overall, but a mismatch in our digestive system and hunger impulses getting confused when we intake food that our bodies think should contain protein, but doesn't.
Humans are anything but carefully balanced, besides. Living organisms are very adaptable and self-correcting - if they weren't, we'd all be long dead.
While this is certainly true, TFA seems to be about our bodies getting the wrong chemical signals from foods that don't (and probably can't) occur in natural raw plant and animal sources. If we've evolved while always consuming foods with certain characteristics, but now we're eating foods that have very different characteristics that confuse our systems, those "balancing" elements may not react correctly.
Again from TFA:
It is clear that the balance of nutrients -- especially protein, fat and carbohydrate -- has profound effects on many critical physiological functions, including appetite, energy intake, obesity, cardiometabolic health, ageing, immunity and the microbial ecology of the gut.
Processed carbs flood our bodies with sugars, whereas prehistoric carbs would have had less concentrated sugars and which would have required much longer digestion (and a HUGE intake to get anywhere near modern levels). If a human body is flooded with stuff that metabolizes in odd ways, perhaps it causes people to crave things that would regulate it and be digested more slowly (e.g., proteins)... which could drive us to eat "savory" things. But unfortunately, the "low fat" craze may then drive us to seek out "savory" by eating more carbs that have a "fake protein" taste, which again confuses our bodies, and the cycle continues.
Perhaps. I don't really know what's going on. But the argument from TFA is not impossible on its face.
What certainly played significant role in bringing down the Republic was the inability of the Romans to adapt their political system, which was quite efficient in running a city-state (or a loose union of several city-states), to govern the huge country their successful military campaigns created. It simply didn't scale well enough.
Or, one could also view it from the opposite perspective. That is to say that certain inflexibilities in political organization led to increasing numbers of military campaigns.
Another big hurdle, IIRC, was the impossibility of legal reform because the Roman viewed the laws of their forefathers as sacred. The legal mess they got on their hands in the last years of the Republic allowed all kinds of manipulation of the political system
Yes, in some respects. In others, it was precisely the reforms that did happen which arguably led to major problems. For example, before the first century BCE, Rome basically had no standing army -- an army was drafted from citizen landowners as necessary. All most of them wanted to do after fighting a war was to return to their farms.
But there were political movements to enfranchise those who didn't have land -- and when they could join the army, they had nowhere to return to. So, changing the rules regarding land ownership and who fought in the armies led to a fighting force that desired booty and conquered lands (where these land-less men could settled down in). As more men joined the army, the desire for more land became greater -- and the wealth that was accumulated during these campaigns became expected by those back at the capital.
Or, take the regulations surrounding temporary dictatorships, how long officials had to wait before serving in a high office (particularly consul) again, or even whether it was possible, etc. These rules were changed or applied with ever more laxity, eventually allowing Caesar to become a permanent dictator.
something which Caesar and his successors used skillfully to gradually take over.
Actually, I think you probably should say "Caesar and his predecessors." By the time Julius Caesar died, the Roman Republic was basically dead. If you want to look at the history of that death, you need to look at the preceding 100 years or so, from the reforms of the Gracchi brothers, to the reigns of Marius and Sulla... up to Pompey and Caesar.
I don't think we have enough facts to ascertain the role of the concrete in this process, though.
Absolutely. LOL. People have debated the causes of the fall of the republic and the birth of the empire for millennia. I don't think concrete ranks very high.
Caesar and Pompey began to think of themselves as "kings" because of their military prowess, the number of places they had conquered, etc. They also existed at a time where troops were really focused on generals who could take them on successful campaigns to acquire land and wealth -- their loyalty to the state was somewhat secondary. (And there was no real standing force to defend Rome itself, or even a city police force....)
So, basically once standing armies existed and their motivation was to follow their leaders, it was only a matter of time before a few of those leaders decided to take over.
And by the way, before somebody starts objecting to my comment about common language usage by saying that "kelvins" and not "degrees Kelvin" represents an absolute scale or something, rather than a "degree" -- that's a bogus argument. Anyone who works with "degrees Rankine" knows that (1) it's always Rankine, not rankine, (2) it's never pluralized as "rankines" as "kelvins" is, (3) the abbreviation should contain the degree symbol, and (4) the only people who say "Rankine" instead of "degrees Rankine" are the worst sort of ignorant pedants, like the OP, who think they are imitating the "correct" usage of "Kelvin" to refer to an absolute temperature scale, but actually aren't using it correctly (since, as I noted, "kelvins" should be lowercase and pluralized, as "rankines" never is.)
Kudos for writing 225-260 Kelvin and not 'degree Kelvin' or 'Kelvins' in the summary. Slate f'ed up though. They wrote 'Kelvins'.
Umm, sorry, but you're wrong. As an SI unit, a "kelvin" (yes, with a lowercase k) is pluralized using the same grammatical rules as others (e.g., volts, ohms, etc.). Its abbreviation is an uppercase K.
So, "225-260 kelvins" or "225-260 K" is correct, according to official SI standard.
If you want to be pedantic, be sure you have a clue concerning what you're talking about.
(And regardless, I think this is a rather stupid thing to get too pedantic about. The previous standard, before 1968, referred to it as "degrees Kelvin" just like all the other temperature standards. I understand that the SI conventions are trying to maintain consistency across all units, but it's weird when that also results in breaking consistency with all other units that deal with the same type of measurement. I'm not saying it's wrong, and official scientific documents shoudl get it right, but in normal language... I think this is a rather silly think to get worried about, since it actually breaks other linguistic conventions of standard language.)
I'm going to find the study if I can, I've been in several, the first was in grade 5, the second was in grade 9 and the last one was in university. If I can find the link to the study I'll share it with everyone
I look forward to reading it.
As I've said in another post, you only have look at a page and remember it, there is no point to read phonically, it's much more efficient and practical to read from images. Most people read by going through a paragraph and reading it to themselves, I read by looking at the page and taking a snapshot of it in my head, it's hundreds of times more efficient as I don't have to process the information phonically at run time, I can "compile" it and store it for later.
Yeah, now you're talking about a completely different phenomenon. You're no longer claiming to be a speed reader. Instead, you're claiming to have an eidetic memory. Those aren't the same thing. A speed reader would process the information as a normal reader would, though at a faster rate, and would be able to answer questions about the reading with the retention capabilities of a normal person.
But you're claiming to have an eidetic memory -- if so, you should not only be able to "read" quickly, but be able to actually quote the page you "read" back word-for-word without errors. If you can't do that, you haven't really "loaded the page image" into your memory for later processing as you claim.
In either case, I'm now even more skeptical than before. Lots of people claim to have eidetic memories too, but basically all studies and attempts to get someone to do this under controlled conditions tend to fail. The people who claim they can do it turn out not to really have a "photographic memory," but rather are very efficient at information processing (as in speed reading, or at least some version of it) -- because when such people are asked to recall a text or an image with nonsensical patterns, they simply can't.
Until you quote a study, I'm done with this discussion. As far as I'm concerned, I appear to have wasted my time having a discussion with some random troll on the internet... claiming to have superpowers. Cheers!
I usually read a novel in 4-8 hours, and I usually read it all in one go. I really don't like to break up a book. I never skim or 'try' to read faster, and in my mind, reading the book is like watching a movie.
While this is great and all, I'm not sure what it has to do with speed reading. Most novels are 60,000-100,000 words. 8 hours is 480 minutes. 100,000/480 = 208 words per minute. That's not speed reading. That's a pretty normal reading pace (admittedly a bit quick to sustain for 8 hours, hut hardly speed reading). Even if you only read novels that are at least 50% longer than the norm, that would only take you to about 300-350 words/minute, which is still in the normal reading range (though the speed of faster readers).
Just for comparison, if you were reading at 600 wpm or so, which is usually a "low" speed for people who claim to speed read, you'd be able to read War and Peace in about 16 hours, which is maybe 6-7 times as long as the average novel.
I've already been in a study for speed reading and proven it's not a joke.
Fantastic! I've provided some citations for my claims. Where's your study published? I'm absolutely serious, and I do NOT take this as a joke. I find this area of interest, and if you have something reputable that contradicts what I said, I want to know about it.
Oh, and by the way, the whole thing about the brain going faster than the eyes -- that's probably true for most folks, particularly non-expert readers. But there are limits to cognitive processing speeds, and most experts in visual/language processing see this as the ultimate "speed limit." It may vary from person to person, but I get the sense that most experts are pretty skeptical of anyone claiming full comprehension above 400-500 wpm. Again, any citations that dispute this would be welcome.
Great. Again, take part in a study, please. It's all great to "self-diagnose" or test yourself with some online tool that's probably designed to sell you something. But the actual studies done by cognitive scientists and reading experts don't seem to find the speed reading claims with comprehension to be real.
Look -- I read by word groups too: anyone who is fluent in a language and reads A LOT probably does. There probably are some differences in normal reading speed for maximum comprehension (and maybe some of it has to do with the way people are taught or bad habits or whatever) -- the figures I've seen say it might vary between 200 and 400 wpm or so. But 1000 wpm for full comprehension? Nope. Not in any reputable study. And, more relevant to the present discussion, multiple studies have shown that people who train themselves using speedreading methods (like deliberately trying to avoid subvocalization or reading by groupings or whatever) don't perform any better than untrained readers who are asked to skim in comprehension tests (and sometimes trained speedreaders perform worse). There may be some gain in superficial understanding for speedreading techniques, but no demonstrated advantage over normal people skimming in terms of deep comprehension.
In sum, I have no doubt you may read faster than your coworkers on average, and your comprehension may be better. But I have serious doubts if you claim full comprehension at speeds over 500 wpm.
Actually I'm not sure why that, like so many other things, could not improve considerably with practice. I know I read a lot faster now than back when I had just learned how to.
Yes, obviously. Everyone becomes a faster reader with practice, but multiple studies have shown that most people "max out" at about the same rate (usually somewhere around 300 words/minute) by the time they graduate college or so.
The issue is that there are probably physical processing constraints on how our visual apparatus works (how our retinas focus, how fast our visual cortex can recognize things, how our eye movement works), as well as a maximum load for our "working memory." Sure, you can "read" faster, as in make your eyes skip (i.e., "skim") over the page, but you're not actually taking in more information.
By the time even trained speed readers reach 500-600 words/minute, their reading comprehension falls to below 75%, and at 1000 words/minute, it's much less than 50%. Basically the maximum speed is probably about 400 words/minute (or less) for most people: anyone claiming a higher speed is just skimming. For a summary of a lot of the issues involved and some further research, see here, and for more sources, see my other post below.
Slashdot Mirror
yes, but when you can cut costs and not have any issues, a lot of places will do it.
I'd like to see reliable evidence of this. I've heard this crap ever since Anthony Bourdain included it in some rant in one of his books about people who liked meat cooked more than medium-rare. Perhaps he was known to serve crappy food to those people, but I'd be really interested to know how widespread the practice is.
Because if you search around on some cooking forums, you'll see other actual chefs chime in and say they do NOT do this. Actual chefs will tell you that they tend to have thinner cuts available for people who like well-done, so as not to delay the entire order while cooking one steak longer. (If they don't have this, they'll generally offer to butterfly the cut.) But actually serving people crappier meat? Not so much that I've heard, outside of Tony's confessions of being a jerk.
theres no point in spending 20$ on a prime steak if the person eating it cant tell the difference between a shoe and a steak.
"Prime" ratings refer to marbling, not necessarily quality of taste. So, if you pay more for "prime," you're paying for more fat. That fat won't disappear completely if the steak is cooked well done: in fact, more of it will often soften, because temperatures about 130 F (temp for medium-rare) allow faster break-down of a lot of fat. Case in point: taste a low-quality fatty cut cooked fast on a hot grill (often lots of gristle) vs. similar meat from the same part of the cow cooked to a much higher temperature longer as a pot roast... all that fat will be melt-in-your-mouth tender. A well-done steak, done properly, can be somewhere in between.
For the record, I generally order my steaks medium rare, and I agree that that maximizes certain aspects (particularly juiciness and tenderness).
But for those who like well-done, they often get extra browning flavors from the Maillard reaction and caramelization, and the extra fat break-down can do good things for the fat (though making the muscle tougher). If the steak is heated slowly before grilling or finished in the oven at a very low temperature, it can also be quite juicy (contrary to popular belief). Cooking a steak well-done that tastes good is also an art, and probably even more finicky that cooking one medium-rare.
Anyhow, sorry, but if you are actually able to tell a prime-grade steak at medium-rare, you should also be able to tell one at well-done. If you can't, you probably don't know as much about steaks as you think you do. Different people like different things, but that doesn't excuse insulting them or serving them crappier food.
...and, in almost every case, carrying large amounts of cash has little to no consequence.
I visit the WSOP every year, and while they accept wire transfers at the Rio cage, nearly every player brings cash -- and not just the main event players. There's thousands of people like myself playing smaller events who have thousands of dollars in cash on them at and en route to the WSOP every year.
Yeah, good for you. Many, many people have been less lucky -- and perhaps you should pay close attention to what municipalities and states you travel through with your cash. (Some stories of how crazy this can get here.)
Care to tell us the rest of the story that was worth mentioning "just some beer in the back?"
Sounded like a reference to the kinds of things that allow law enforcement to arbitrarily seize assets to me. They spot something "suspicious," which is enough to constitute some minimum of "probable cause" ("I smelled something weird, and I spotted a case of beer in the back seat..."), ask to search the car, find a wad of cash, file a pseudo-lawsuit "State of X vs. $15,000," and the money disappears into the government's bank accounts.
Maybe there's more to the story, but it's also very possible that these people just happened to be driving through the wrong place and hit the cop who has a profit motive to arbitrarily seize assets. (And yeah, if you've never heard of this stuff happening before, it sounds freakin' CRAZY, but it does happen... all the time.)
Seriously, though, it sounds like your friends need to give 1/3 of that to a lawyer so they can get the other 2/3 back.
Yeah, good luck with that. These confiscations are notoriously hard to fight. The "friends" are probably not even an official party to some criminal proceeding -- instead, many of these cases are filed as "State of X vs. $15,000" (I wish I were kidding). Many municipalities will charge thousands of dollars in fees just for the right to file a challenge for the confiscation, so they might be out 10-20% of their money just to get the process started. Add on complicated and lengthy legal proceedings, and they'd be very lucky to get a fraction of it back. It might not be worth it at all. The only way to fix these sorts of problems is probably a class-action lawsuit against the offending municipalities.
By the way, for those who don't realize the craziness of civil forfeiture laws: law enforcement have routinely seized people's cash, cars, even houses -- with no trial, no criminal proceeding, often just a bare hint of "probable cause" or trumped up "suspicion." Look it up (for example, here's a good recent summary of some egregious examples.
While people traveling with a wad of cash are probably the most common target, this is a much bigger issue -- a truly shocking and extreme violation of basic rights.
If someone is going to teach Biology, I would take the guy who has a P.H.D. in biology, and the proper enthusiasm and skills, over the guy who doesn't have a clue about the subject, but just took courses to learn how to teach.
Are these my only choices? Personally, I'd choose the guy who actually CAN teach, rather than somebody with credentials saying he took classes in something... teaching or biology or whatever.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Public Speaking, to be allowed to speak at a conference.
You don't need a 4 year degree in Education, to know how to teach,
Yes, and you don't need even a 4-year degree in biology to teach high school level biology. A Ph.D. is massively overqualified. Sure -- if that person is a good teacher and wants to teach high school, that's fantastic. But I'm more interested in having a good TEACHER who is good at TEACHING biology, than someone with credentials.
To take another example, do you seriously think most people with bachelor degrees in engineering or physics or whatever aren't CAPABLE or don't have sufficient BACKGROUND to teach algebra in high school? Do you really need someone with at least a 4-year degree in math, or even a Ph.D.?
Frankly, I'd prefer to have the engineer teach high school math over many pure math majors, since the engineer is always likely to see math through a lens of practicality. The engineer can emphasize real-world applications, because that's what he uses high-school level math for. The pure math dude? Well, he's got a lot more credit hours in advanced real analysis, number theory, linear algebra, maybe things like topology or differential geometry -- how the heck do those things prepare him better to teach basic high-school algebra?
I prefer QUALIFIED experts in the field they will teach about, FILTERED to include only people who are subjectively good at teaching.
I prefer people who have an intuitive understanding of concepts AT THE LEVEL THEY ARE TEACHING, and can successfully communicate those concepts to be an effective teacher.
Lots of us can read. Lots of us can read at an "advanced level." Does that make us all effective reading teachers?
There are lots of very smart people with Ph.D.'s who are very capable of breaking down concepts and teaching basic ideas to people with little background. There are also very smart people with Ph.D.'s who do advanced research, but simply are incapable of breaking things down that way -- those people would be terrible teachers.
Also, frankly, just because you have a Ph.D. in a field does NOT mean that you know the introductory material to that field very well AT ALL. Depth of knowledge in some particular research area does not necessarily imply depth of knowledge about the basics of a discipline... or insight into how those basics might be taught or explained in detail. Lots of people in advanced research "just know" that intro stuff, but they often have no clue about how to break it down.
Many people focus on the last two phrases in that sentence. Not so much attention is focused on the first two phrases, but IMO they're just as important as the last two. Keeping and bearing Arms is a right ... but it's a right, a power that comes with a hefty dose of responsibility (to be "well regulated") as well.
Let's change the language of the 2nd amendment you quoted to an issue that's less inflammatory:
A well educated Electorate, being necessary to the democratic function of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.
Okay. Suppose you read that. Are you seriously going to tell me that the only reason to let people read books is to vote properly? Let the government ban book ownership and readership for kids under 18 -- after all, they can't vote, so why should we let them read? If you aren't registered to vote, you are subject to raids of your home to remove all books. If you're not part of the "Electorate," why do you need them?
Or, if you read my altered version, would you conclude something more like: "The Founders thought it was important for all people to have the right to own and read books, and they particularly recognized how important it was to have an educated group of voters, so these books would facilitate that process. This wouldn't preclude other reasons for people to own and read books, only recognizing one of the most important ones."
Would that be a more fair interpretation?
A lot of people have arguments about what those first two clauses mean, and how they might restrict the last one. But I find my intuition about it is better if I actually change the topic to something else -- and in that case, it seems (to me) that the sentence is setting forth a general right, with the beginning providing one essential justification (though not necessarily implying it is the only one).
The 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees that each citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.
Precisely where in the 2nd Amendment does it say anything about "self-defense"? It says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." As many have argued, the first clauses set up only one possible justification, so the last clause just says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
So, where's the "self-defense" language?
There are only a very few obvious prohibitions, namely against convicted felons and those declared mentally incompetent or ill.
Where are these in the 2nd amendment? I don't see them. It says that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." I don't see any, "unless they've gone looney or have previously committed a felony."
(Note: I am not arguing we should give guns to the mentally ill or felons -- I'm saying that the only place these "obvious prohibitions" are found is in court rulings and judicial interpretation, not in the original language.)
Meanwhile, there are people in the US who fear the things so much, they want to restrict who can and cannot have a firearm, and wish to dictate under what conditions they are possessed.
Hmm... sounds like you already agree we should to just that. "Self-defense"? Good. "Militia" or "security of a free state"? Meh. Felons and mentally ill? Bad.
In other words, you seem unconcerned about the little language in the amendment given to guide its primary purpose, but you make up your own conditions for why guns should be possessed, along with deciding who can and cannot have them.
Well... except you're not doing it, as much as courts have done it, in their process of interpreting the meaning of the Constitution.
There is a route by which this can be accomplished, but it would require amending the US Constitution, which is notoriously hard to do (as it should be - capricious changes are painful, to say the least.) Any other route (including most attempts at federal "gun control" laws) is a circumvention of this process
And yet you cited a number of instances of "obvious prohibitions" that you seemingly think don't require amending the Constitution. Were they too a "circumvention" of the proper Constitutional process?
How do we know?
I also agree TBBT has blackface or 'coon show' qualities.
Wow -- I've been reading this a lot here. I think we need to step back and get some perspective. Blackface was and is offensive not just because it includes stereotypes, but because it served as a way of reinforcing stereotypes that led to social oppression and even slavery. Many people here might argue that scientists and engineers are underpaid or underappreciated compared to, say, corporate executives or whatever. But they generally earn relatively high salaries compared to average and are hardly "oppressed" let alone enslaved.
Saying the show represents stereotypes is one thing. Comparing it to blackface is quite extreme.
And it seems like the more scientific / theoretical the character's field is, the more antisocial they are. The closer they are to engineering, the more socially redeeming qualities and access to romantic partners they have. I mean, they made Sheldon downright asexual.
I agree that the show is a bit of an exaggeration of everyday scientists and engineers. But I did my undergraduate degree at one of the top science and engineering schools in the world, and I knew people who fit just about every one of these stereotypes. Seriously. And, while there were certainly exceptions, I have to say that their portrayal of the "lack of social skills" continuum is also relatively accurate, from the perspective of general trends. Beyond Sheldon, I wouldn't say the show portrays the characters as "antisocial," but rather as lacking in various social graces. In my experience, among high level scientists, engineers, and math people, the pure science people tend to be weirder than the engineers on average, the physicists tend to be outliers among even the pure science folks, and the math people have the highest proportion of socially-inept folks. Again, there are numerous exceptions, but this stereotype has some basis in fact. And the trend is even more prominent among the grad students I knew while I was an undergrad: the engineers were almost "normal," but the physics and math grad students I knew were the quiet weird ones who always said inappropriate things. I haven't done a statistical study of this, but the show certainly agrees with what I personally observed in a similar environment.
The show is an exercise in anti-intellectualism
I suppose you could see it that way. I suppose viewers who identify with Penny might get that impression. On the other hand, there are numerous occasions on the show where Penny and other "non-science people" are suitably impressed when the "nerds" do some useful thing. So, "intellectualism" is clearly portrayed as valuable -- but the jargony wacko world of the main characters does not necessarily have innate value for its own sake.
The show has an important point: science and math geeks often get so wrapped up in their world that they fail to communicate their ideas effectively to others. Thus, "normal people" find the geeks weird or even ridiculous because of that disconnect, since they can't figure out why all the arcane trivia and esoteric math and abstract knowledge is important. It is precisely the same attitude that comes out here on Slashdot concerning advanced humanities topics. Why should anyone give a crap about English major's theory about a medieval manuscript? Who cares about the "soft" humanities theories in sociology or history or some esoteric version of philosophy that doesn't seem to mesh well with the standard "scientific" mythos?
I'm not saying that you need to care about the jargon-laced research in advanced humanities disciplines, but jargon from almost any discipline seems unnecessary, complicated, and abstract to those outside of that discipline. Yet scientists often have the perspective that their way of knowing is the one superior way of doing things, and thus anyone outside of that is obviously ignorant... which leads people outside
Much closer to the truth is that the government has massively slashed taxes on the mega-wealthy without dropping its spending nearly enough to pay for the overwhelming cut. If taxes on the wealthy simply returned to the levels we had in the 1960s, the deficit would go massively negative, and the debt would be paid off in approximately two decades.
I guess you haven't heard of the Laffer curve then, eh?
Are you really naive enough about macroeconomics to believe that you could simply switch from the current tax brackets up to 90% or whatever taxation of the wealthiest, with everything else in the economy just remaining exactly the same, so we could pay off the debt? Changing economic policy on such a huge scale simply cannot let everything else remain exactly the same.
Basic principle of the Laffer curve: If you tax at 0% interest rate, you'll get no government revenue, obviously. If you take at 100% interest rate, you'll get no tax revenue, because people will have no incentive to work and/or people will move out of the country to avoid taxes. So, at some point between 0% and 100%, there is a point where you get maximum revenue.
You see, when you decrease tax rates below 100%, you leave more money in the private economy. That additional money goes into whatever rich people do with it -- most don't simply bury all of it under their mattress. Often, a lot of it gets invested. Those investments earn more money. And that additional money then gets taxed as more income -- hence additional government revenue. If rich people invest in companies, those companies might hire more employees, and those employees earn wages, which then can be taxed, for more government revenue. So, at least in some cases, leaving more money in the pockets of the rich will ultimately result in more tax revenue, not less.
Now, there are plenty of people who will debate the effects of tax breaks for the rich, and whether that money ends up "trickling down" to help middle class and poor people or not. But we don't need to debate Reaganomics here, because that's not the question. The question is not whether tax breaks help poor people, but whether tax raises will actually bring in more government revenue in the form of taxes.
And the answer is that maximum revenue probably lies somewhere in the middle. It's definitely less than 100%, but more than 0%, obviously. It's probably greater than our current tax liability for wealthy people (though some would disagree with that). But it's probably less than the 90% tax rate or whatever it was in the 1960s.
If you did increase taxes to that rate, you might be able to maintain some sort of revenue for a couple years, but it would drop off as rich people pulled back on investments, sent money into other countries or various tax shelters, etc.
And anyways... you really don't want to just suddenly pay off all the national debt. Trust me. Again, go read a macroeconomics textbook. I know that there's a lot of the mindset out there that we need to run our country like you'd balance your home checkbook, but your home checkbook doesn't issue sovereign currency, it can't force people to use its currency as legal tender, and it can't force people to pay it back in the form of taxes.
The point is: when the government goes into deficit, it increases the base money supply (referred to variously as M0 or MB). Basically, the government "spends" money and that money shows up in the private economy as "currency." Central banks lend out that money. Other banks lend out that money. Rich people invest that money. Credit gets built on credit, which gets built on credit -- but it's all built on top of the base money supply.
If you start a massive debt reduction, you'll suck huge amounts of base money supply out of the economy. The only way for the private econom
Ferment for a week for best results, or else you're actually 'poisoning' yourself!
Umm, I'm assuming that you're referring to the whole phytic acid myth. All I have to say is: stop believing all the crap you read on those "health food" web sites, and go read some actual science. It's true that phytic acid binds iron, zinc, and other metals that are important as nutrients, but most of it in plant matter is already bound -- so, at worst, if you consume that stuff in your brown rice, you just won't get SOME of the extra nutrients that brown rice has over white rice. It won't "take away" any nutrients already in your body or in other foods, as some people will have you believe. It's certainly not going to "poison" you! In fact, the science on phytic acid in general is decidely mixed -- some studies suggest it is carcinogenic, while others suggest it may prevent cancer. It certainly can act as an antioxidant, removing free radicals in a beneficial way. Some people even take it as a supplement, which seems ridiculous if you're claiming it's a "poison"!
We need better understanding of food science by the average joe, some 'healthy' foods are only healthier for you when properly prepared.
Meh. This is somewhat true of certain foods, but in most cases these claims are way overstated. Eat a raw vegetable, and you'll get certain nutrients that would be destroyed by cooking. Eat the same vegetable cooked, and you'll release some different nutrients but destroy others. All-in-all it's usually best to just eat a variety of foods using a variety of preparation techniques.
Anyhow, you will certainly release certain nutrients from brown rice by sprouting it (something that is also consumed in other countries -- not just white rice), but it's not necessary to get some nutritional benefits. If you're really concerned about phytic acid, you should also be worried about all sorts of dark green vegetables and other "healthy food" as well... brown rice isn't at the top of that list.
While I agree with you in general, admitting that you were a student doesn't help your point.
What point was that? That it's possible to afford decent food even on a limited budget? How does my status as a student take away from that point? Or are you talking about my reply to the other AC, who accused me of being an idiot? I think my reply in that respect was directly on point.
It means you were in a different situation than those who have jobs and families (who may be on food stamps which you didn't qualify for)
I never implied that I had a family or anything at that point in my life.
Being a student has its hardships, and there are certainly students who really have it worse than people in "the real world", but generally that's not the case.
I will freely admit that, as grad student living goes, I did reasonably well. But, as I mentioned, I had friends who didn't have it so well -- who were taking out lots of loans and chose to live on much more extreme budgets than I did. But they still had a more nutrious and balanced diet than most people I know. I also had friends who worked in labs as science or engineering grad students and spent long hours (much more than 40-hour weeks) doing their work. Yet some of them also found time and money to eat reasonable food.
I never claimed to be living the life of a poor stressed worker doing a bunch of minimum wage jobs. But I did live on a very limited budget (and was much busier at times than I've ever been with a "real job" in the "real world"), and yet I still found ways to eat okay.
Regardless, my main point in the original post was countering the ideas eating a balanced diet with better food is somehow pricier and impossible for people with limited resources -- so they're somehow forced to eat junk food. That is decidely not so. I got to know some of the people who would frequent the supermarket I mentioned in my original post: many of them seemed not to be doing very well from a monetary standpoint, but many of them made the trek to the supermarket to buy basic ingredients to feed large families. Others seemed to just leave with carts full of junk food. I know from my own experience pricing foods that the former was actually a cheaper (and healthier) way to live on a budget.
I am amazed that you were such an idiot as to only be able to make an income that allowed a pathetic $20/week in food, but had the foresight to plan out weekly meals and make ends meet.
Hmm, guess you've never heard of "being a student." It's a common career choice, and it generally leads to higher earnings later (as it did in my case). Also, admittedly, I chose to find a one-bedroom apartment for myself, because I found it more convenient than dealing with roommates -- and in lots of college towns and cities, that's pricey, and on a grad student stipend, it didn't leave a lot extra for daily expenses...but that's okay, because I could actually eat well for $20/week. (I had a friend who cut it down to $12/week or so, and he was struggling....)
Next time get food stamps, dumbass.
You'd be surprised how low your income has to be as a single person to qualify for food stamps. I was earning significantly more than that even on a grad student stipend, but after rent, utilities, school materials, etc., that didn't necessarily leave a lot left over.
The word is ketosis. It is spelled totally different from voodoo.
Umm, here's what the GP said:
Fad diets, like a low carb diet, do work, but they work by restricting your calories, not by some special voodoo.
Here's what your linked article says:
However, when the body is in ketosis the individual tends to feel less hungry, and will probably eat less than he/she might otherwise do.
In other words, according to your own link, ketosis causes you to eat less (i.e., restrict your calories) because you feel less hungry.
So, you and the GP actually agree with each other. It's not "voodoo": it just means that for some people, the feeling of satiety from ketosis may cause them to restrict their calories. For others, they may find other useful methods to restrict calories.
Point is: the GP is correct. All fad diets have the same underlying principle if they are effective, and it isn't "voodoo" -- it's calorie restriction. Whatever method you use to restrict the calories and whatever works for you will have a similar effect as long as it results in fewer calories taken in than burned -- ketosis or not.
It reminds me a bit of when I was in school in the 80's, how the LOGO programming language was often used as an intro to programming. You're not going to go out and develop a useful piece of software just from learning how to code in LOGO, just as learning to do custom mods in the world of Minecraft has limited utility elsewhere. But the concepts and basic skills translate.
I wouldn't say that the "concepts and basic skills translate" very well to other things. It's not like learning LOGO is going to teach you good real-world programming techniques. But it will expose you to the basic idea of "programming."
And that's where some interesting ideas might "translate." Programming, like geometrical proofs, requires a certain kind of formal logical thought in an ordered regimented manner -- which is something rarely taught in other school subjects (at least not before advanced algebra or calculus or math-based physics problems... if they are taught well... if they aren't, teachers will just teach patterns of types of problems, rather than actual critical thinking skills).
You're doing it wrong - an onion can be peeled and chopped in less than 5 min, 2 min if you have one of those choppers, but then you're spending at least 3 min putting it together and taking it apart and cleaning it, dishwasher or not.
You don't need a "chopper." Look up a few videos on Youtube or something -- there are proper ways to dice onions that you can easily do in under a minute with a sharp knife.
One basic method: (1) slice in half through the root and stem. (2) cut off stem and pull off peel (which is faster if you slice in half first), (3) place sliced side down, (4) slice vertically away from root end toward stem end, not going all the way to root, so onion stays together, (5) if a large onion or if fine dice is desired, place one or two cuts horizontally to work surface while holding onion together, (6) slice at 90 degrees to cuts in step 4, beginning at stem end.
Do this technique a few dozen times, and I guarantee you can dice an onion in a minute or so. But you'll also need to keep your knife sharp. That last thing is a huge problem that slows down many people: if your knife is sharp, it will go through an onion like soft butter. If your knife is dull, it will slip on your onion's outer layers and potentially injure you, while taking 3 times as long to cut up the onion.
You also need to live somewhere with access to those ingredients, have a high enough income that you can afford the ingredients, and a high enough income that you can afford to be not-working long enough to cook and eat them. There are thousands upon thousands of people too poor for all three.
Yeah, umm, that problem is that if you're really poor, cooking for yourself is actually significantly cheaper. I lived for several years on a very small budget and had friends with even smaller food budgets (on the order of $20/week... yes, that's the entire food budget for the week for a person -- about $1/meal), and we not only survived, but ate rather healthy food that we cooked ourselves. Try living on a $1/meal by eating off the McDonald's Dollar Menu or something -- it's doubtful you could even get enough calories for an adult to survive.
Let's take your objections in turn:
They don't live anywhere with access to fresh food ("food deserts"), can't afford to travel to where they could buy fresh food,
During the years when I had very little income, I lived a couple blocks from the cheapest supermarket in town -- the local newspaper did a study and found that you could literally buy about 40% more groceries at this place, even without taking into account special sales, than almost anywhere else in the area. They just decided to make money off of volume sales rather than jacking up prices like crazy. The store was a zoo most of the time -- food flew off the shelves.
And you know who shopped there? Lower class and poor people, who often came on the bus and took taxi cabs to take their stuff home from that store, because the amount they could save from buying their food their more than made up for the price of a cab ride (obviously, they couldn't afford cars).
You know what else was in this store? Lots of cheap, fresh food. Fresher than almost any other supermarket in town, because it flew off the shelves. Most of the people I knew who had higher salaries refused to step in the door, because the place had a reputation as the "dirty supermarket where poor people shop," but I spent years buying fresh food there, while my friends spent more money to shop for rotting food at the normal supermarkets.
But the thing is -- even if you couldn't afford to buy fresh food there (and my friends on their limited budgets certainly couldn't), they still could buy relatively nutritious options, like big bulk packs of frozen veggies that are on sale, etc.
Everyone is always concerned about the lack of "fresh food" (which usually means lack of a decent produce aisle) in these urban "food deserts," but it's still possible to get nutritious meals from relatively unprocessed ingredients which are frozen or canned or minimally packed in some other way.
The poor people at these stores would not generally be helped very much by a more extensive produce aisle. Instead, they just need to buy less processed (and generally CHEAPER) food that's already available, and then combine it in simple dishes by cooking themselves (and saving money).
couldn't afford the food itself even if they could get there, can't afford to take the time out of their multiple jobs to go even if they could afford it,
Nope. As I noted above, they CAN afford the food -- in fact, it's the ONLY way to live healthy (and in fact sometimes the only way to survive) on a very limited budget. The 2-for-1 special on take-out pizza may sound like a good deal, until you realize you can probably make the same pizza at home with better ingredients for half that sale price. Volume discounts for fast-food places and such only go so far... they still have to pay for labor, equipment, etc. costs, which means you're paying a premium to eat that food over what you could generally do with your own ingredients at home.
Same thing for processed "TV dinners" and frozen pizzas and such. Skip 'em, and buy some simpler ingredie
How does that work? To lose weight from a diet, you need to consumne fewer calories than you use. To stay at the same weight once you've lost enough weight, you need to consume the same amount of calories that you use. These aren't the same thing.
Your logic fails because you think of the human body as a constant system. But that's not true, particularly when dieting. It's not a simple "Take in X calories per day, and burn Y calories per day" where X and Y are constant.
Fat tissue requires energy to stay alive (not a lot, but nonzero). If you lose weight, your basic metabolic needs will go down. Muscle tissue requires more energy than fat tissue to stay alive. Obese people also tend to have large muscles to allow them to get around, and these will often shrink a bit too (even with increased exercise) if someone loses a lot of weight. That also pushes down basic metabolic needs.
Also, the body can adjust metabolism -- burn off more energy in body heat after eating a big meal with excess calories, for example. Or be more efficient in using calories when there's a lower intake. It's probably not a large effect (though there is generally a lot of disagreement about the numbers here), but it too can lower the number of calories you need as your weight changes.
Basically, it is absolutely possible that your body could require 2500 calories per day just to maintain basic functionality when you're obese, but that requirement could decrease to 1750 per day at a normal weight. Or something even more extreme for very obese people (particularly active ones).
If you went on a diet that kept you down to 1500 calories per day, with an occasional "cheat day" or something, it's quite possible that your "diet" would absolutely need to become permanent if you want to maintain your weight at the end.
(Note here that I'm talking about reasonable "diets" that are likely to lead to sustainable weight loss, which would involve a calorie deficit leading to only a loss of a couple pounds per week. "Crash diets" that involve starving yourself and taking in extremely low numbers of calories are not only obviously unsustainable, but potentially unhealthy and occasionally dangerous.)
An overweight person would need to make some change to his eating habits, but that change wouldn't consist of making the diet permanent--if he did, he'd just keep losing weight down to nothingness
Obviously not, if intake was at all positive.
(or at least down to where his body just uses fewer calories because it's thin, which would not be the same as his target weight).
Why not? Most people who aren't pregnant or have some larger medical problem don't gain more than a few pounds per year. They may be 50 or 75 pounds overweight, but that weight was often accumulated over decades.
And then they expect to lose it all in a couple months. Not only is this quite difficult (and even impossible) to do, but it is also very hard on your internal systems.
What if this person simply started eating what his/her body required when it was 75 pounds lighter? The diet was adjusted not by adopting some sort of crazy "crash diet" extreme method (only eat food X! never eat carbs/fats/meat/whatever! etc.), but instead by choosing alternative foods that are tasty and sustainably balanced and nutritious?
Weight loss would immediately commence, though the loss would probably be at a healthy rate of a couple pounds per week, rather than something unsustainable. Eventually, to maintain the loss rate, some modifications might be necessary -- but the target from the start should be to make adjustments in the diet that could be sustainable PERMANENTLY. Unless an obese person transitions into a body builder (rather unusual), there's simply no way for required intake to remain the same.
Recent studies seem to show that our bodies get fixated on some weight "set point" over time, and if you've bee
Our diet contains more meat than any other point in history, even before factoring in the abundance of nuts and beans.
While much fast or junk food is low in vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, our protein intake is far from deficient.
While this may be true, it may also be irrelevant to the claims here. Contrary to popular belief, high protein foods (including meat, but also beans and legumes) are generally low in calories when they are lean. (And, in prehistoric, pre-agriculture diets, chances are any meat that was eaten would have been fairly lean, not have been off of a farm-fattened animal with "superior marbling" to attain a "prime" rating.)
However, from TFA:
Food manufacturers have a financial incentive to replace protein with cheaper forms of calories, and to manipulate the sensory qualities of foods to disguise their lower protein content. This leads to savoury-flavoured food that makes us think we're eating protein when in reality it is loaded with carbohydrates and fats.
So, say I eat a dish that "tastes like protein" and my taste receptors think that a savory dish that tastes like that should usually have a couple hundred calories.
But, instead, that dish is NOT protein at all, and is loaded with fats and processed carbs, which gives it a calorie content of over 1000 calories. I'm getting a signal from my body telling me it's okay to eat more (according to taste), even when I'm consuming way too many calories. Moreover, as we eat it, our body might be ready to digest the protein it assumes it there, but when it doesn't arrive, perhaps another impulse might kick in to continue eating to receive that expected protein?
Thus, it may not be a lack of protein overall, but a mismatch in our digestive system and hunger impulses getting confused when we intake food that our bodies think should contain protein, but doesn't.
Humans are anything but carefully balanced, besides. Living organisms are very adaptable and self-correcting - if they weren't, we'd all be long dead.
While this is certainly true, TFA seems to be about our bodies getting the wrong chemical signals from foods that don't (and probably can't) occur in natural raw plant and animal sources. If we've evolved while always consuming foods with certain characteristics, but now we're eating foods that have very different characteristics that confuse our systems, those "balancing" elements may not react correctly.
Again from TFA:
It is clear that the balance of nutrients -- especially protein, fat and carbohydrate -- has profound effects on many critical physiological functions, including appetite, energy intake, obesity, cardiometabolic health, ageing, immunity and the microbial ecology of the gut.
Processed carbs flood our bodies with sugars, whereas prehistoric carbs would have had less concentrated sugars and which would have required much longer digestion (and a HUGE intake to get anywhere near modern levels). If a human body is flooded with stuff that metabolizes in odd ways, perhaps it causes people to crave things that would regulate it and be digested more slowly (e.g., proteins)... which could drive us to eat "savory" things. But unfortunately, the "low fat" craze may then drive us to seek out "savory" by eating more carbs that have a "fake protein" taste, which again confuses our bodies, and the cycle continues.
Perhaps. I don't really know what's going on. But the argument from TFA is not impossible on its face.
What certainly played significant role in bringing down the Republic was the inability of the Romans to adapt their political system, which was quite efficient in running a city-state (or a loose union of several city-states), to govern the huge country their successful military campaigns created. It simply didn't scale well enough.
Or, one could also view it from the opposite perspective. That is to say that certain inflexibilities in political organization led to increasing numbers of military campaigns.
Another big hurdle, IIRC, was the impossibility of legal reform because the Roman viewed the laws of their forefathers as sacred. The legal mess they got on their hands in the last years of the Republic allowed all kinds of manipulation of the political system
Yes, in some respects. In others, it was precisely the reforms that did happen which arguably led to major problems. For example, before the first century BCE, Rome basically had no standing army -- an army was drafted from citizen landowners as necessary. All most of them wanted to do after fighting a war was to return to their farms.
But there were political movements to enfranchise those who didn't have land -- and when they could join the army, they had nowhere to return to. So, changing the rules regarding land ownership and who fought in the armies led to a fighting force that desired booty and conquered lands (where these land-less men could settled down in). As more men joined the army, the desire for more land became greater -- and the wealth that was accumulated during these campaigns became expected by those back at the capital.
Or, take the regulations surrounding temporary dictatorships, how long officials had to wait before serving in a high office (particularly consul) again, or even whether it was possible, etc. These rules were changed or applied with ever more laxity, eventually allowing Caesar to become a permanent dictator.
something which Caesar and his successors used skillfully to gradually take over.
Actually, I think you probably should say "Caesar and his predecessors." By the time Julius Caesar died, the Roman Republic was basically dead. If you want to look at the history of that death, you need to look at the preceding 100 years or so, from the reforms of the Gracchi brothers, to the reigns of Marius and Sulla... up to Pompey and Caesar.
I don't think we have enough facts to ascertain the role of the concrete in this process, though.
Absolutely. LOL. People have debated the causes of the fall of the republic and the birth of the empire for millennia. I don't think concrete ranks very high.
Caesar and Pompey began to think of themselves as "kings" because of their military prowess, the number of places they had conquered, etc. They also existed at a time where troops were really focused on generals who could take them on successful campaigns to acquire land and wealth -- their loyalty to the state was somewhat secondary. (And there was no real standing force to defend Rome itself, or even a city police force....)
So, basically once standing armies existed and their motivation was to follow their leaders, it was only a matter of time before a few of those leaders decided to take over.
And by the way, before somebody starts objecting to my comment about common language usage by saying that "kelvins" and not "degrees Kelvin" represents an absolute scale or something, rather than a "degree" -- that's a bogus argument. Anyone who works with "degrees Rankine" knows that (1) it's always Rankine, not rankine, (2) it's never pluralized as "rankines" as "kelvins" is, (3) the abbreviation should contain the degree symbol, and (4) the only people who say "Rankine" instead of "degrees Rankine" are the worst sort of ignorant pedants, like the OP, who think they are imitating the "correct" usage of "Kelvin" to refer to an absolute temperature scale, but actually aren't using it correctly (since, as I noted, "kelvins" should be lowercase and pluralized, as "rankines" never is.)
Kudos for writing 225-260 Kelvin and not 'degree Kelvin' or 'Kelvins' in the summary. Slate f'ed up though. They wrote 'Kelvins'.
Umm, sorry, but you're wrong. As an SI unit, a "kelvin" (yes, with a lowercase k) is pluralized using the same grammatical rules as others (e.g., volts, ohms, etc.). Its abbreviation is an uppercase K.
So, "225-260 kelvins" or "225-260 K" is correct, according to official SI standard.
If you want to be pedantic, be sure you have a clue concerning what you're talking about.
(And regardless, I think this is a rather stupid thing to get too pedantic about. The previous standard, before 1968, referred to it as "degrees Kelvin" just like all the other temperature standards. I understand that the SI conventions are trying to maintain consistency across all units, but it's weird when that also results in breaking consistency with all other units that deal with the same type of measurement. I'm not saying it's wrong, and official scientific documents shoudl get it right, but in normal language... I think this is a rather silly think to get worried about, since it actually breaks other linguistic conventions of standard language.)
I'm going to find the study if I can, I've been in several, the first was in grade 5, the second was in grade 9 and the last one was in university. If I can find the link to the study I'll share it with everyone
I look forward to reading it.
As I've said in another post, you only have look at a page and remember it, there is no point to read phonically, it's much more efficient and practical to read from images. Most people read by going through a paragraph and reading it to themselves, I read by looking at the page and taking a snapshot of it in my head, it's hundreds of times more efficient as I don't have to process the information phonically at run time, I can "compile" it and store it for later.
Yeah, now you're talking about a completely different phenomenon. You're no longer claiming to be a speed reader. Instead, you're claiming to have an eidetic memory. Those aren't the same thing. A speed reader would process the information as a normal reader would, though at a faster rate, and would be able to answer questions about the reading with the retention capabilities of a normal person.
But you're claiming to have an eidetic memory -- if so, you should not only be able to "read" quickly, but be able to actually quote the page you "read" back word-for-word without errors. If you can't do that, you haven't really "loaded the page image" into your memory for later processing as you claim.
In either case, I'm now even more skeptical than before. Lots of people claim to have eidetic memories too, but basically all studies and attempts to get someone to do this under controlled conditions tend to fail. The people who claim they can do it turn out not to really have a "photographic memory," but rather are very efficient at information processing (as in speed reading, or at least some version of it) -- because when such people are asked to recall a text or an image with nonsensical patterns, they simply can't.
Until you quote a study, I'm done with this discussion. As far as I'm concerned, I appear to have wasted my time having a discussion with some random troll on the internet... claiming to have superpowers. Cheers!
I usually read a novel in 4-8 hours, and I usually read it all in one go. I really don't like to break up a book. I never skim or 'try' to read faster, and in my mind, reading the book is like watching a movie.
While this is great and all, I'm not sure what it has to do with speed reading. Most novels are 60,000-100,000 words. 8 hours is 480 minutes. 100,000/480 = 208 words per minute. That's not speed reading. That's a pretty normal reading pace (admittedly a bit quick to sustain for 8 hours, hut hardly speed reading). Even if you only read novels that are at least 50% longer than the norm, that would only take you to about 300-350 words/minute, which is still in the normal reading range (though the speed of faster readers).
Just for comparison, if you were reading at 600 wpm or so, which is usually a "low" speed for people who claim to speed read, you'd be able to read War and Peace in about 16 hours, which is maybe 6-7 times as long as the average novel.
I've already been in a study for speed reading and proven it's not a joke.
Fantastic! I've provided some citations for my claims. Where's your study published? I'm absolutely serious, and I do NOT take this as a joke. I find this area of interest, and if you have something reputable that contradicts what I said, I want to know about it.
Oh, and by the way, the whole thing about the brain going faster than the eyes -- that's probably true for most folks, particularly non-expert readers. But there are limits to cognitive processing speeds, and most experts in visual/language processing see this as the ultimate "speed limit." It may vary from person to person, but I get the sense that most experts are pretty skeptical of anyone claiming full comprehension above 400-500 wpm. Again, any citations that dispute this would be welcome.
Great. Again, take part in a study, please. It's all great to "self-diagnose" or test yourself with some online tool that's probably designed to sell you something. But the actual studies done by cognitive scientists and reading experts don't seem to find the speed reading claims with comprehension to be real.
Look -- I read by word groups too: anyone who is fluent in a language and reads A LOT probably does. There probably are some differences in normal reading speed for maximum comprehension (and maybe some of it has to do with the way people are taught or bad habits or whatever) -- the figures I've seen say it might vary between 200 and 400 wpm or so. But 1000 wpm for full comprehension? Nope. Not in any reputable study. And, more relevant to the present discussion, multiple studies have shown that people who train themselves using speedreading methods (like deliberately trying to avoid subvocalization or reading by groupings or whatever) don't perform any better than untrained readers who are asked to skim in comprehension tests (and sometimes trained speedreaders perform worse). There may be some gain in superficial understanding for speedreading techniques, but no demonstrated advantage over normal people skimming in terms of deep comprehension.
In sum, I have no doubt you may read faster than your coworkers on average, and your comprehension may be better. But I have serious doubts if you claim full comprehension at speeds over 500 wpm.
Reading for speed compromises comprehension.
Actually I'm not sure why that, like so many other things, could not improve considerably with practice. I know I read a lot faster now than back when I had just learned how to.
Yes, obviously. Everyone becomes a faster reader with practice, but multiple studies have shown that most people "max out" at about the same rate (usually somewhere around 300 words/minute) by the time they graduate college or so.
The issue is that there are probably physical processing constraints on how our visual apparatus works (how our retinas focus, how fast our visual cortex can recognize things, how our eye movement works), as well as a maximum load for our "working memory." Sure, you can "read" faster, as in make your eyes skip (i.e., "skim") over the page, but you're not actually taking in more information.
By the time even trained speed readers reach 500-600 words/minute, their reading comprehension falls to below 75%, and at 1000 words/minute, it's much less than 50%. Basically the maximum speed is probably about 400 words/minute (or less) for most people: anyone claiming a higher speed is just skimming. For a summary of a lot of the issues involved and some further research, see here, and for more sources, see my other post below.