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User: Orne

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  1. Evolution's response to food scarcity? on Scientists Identify Sixth Taste: Fat · · Score: 2

    I always figured "fat" triggered the sweet sense, but this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. A primitive creature has to deal with food scarcity, and that means when you find something to eat, you have to make a quick decision on whether this food is going to be nutritious. Sweet tastes are full of glucose/fructose, that provide quick pick-me-up energy. Bitter and sour are good for detecting spoiled food, if eating this thing is going to make you sick. Salty and umami are like a measure of, will this food provide the vitamins that the body needs? Many cellular functions require salts (Sodium, Potassium, etc).

    So, a sense of "fatty" gives a fast feedback to the brain that the food will give long-lasting energy. I say fast, because a sense on the tongue is faster than eating and waiting for the digestive system to break down the material, then have the stomach give a signal that the food was good to eat. I've heard that its about 20 minutes for the brain to catch up to the "stomach is full" sense, so digestion sense is not quick. So when you are hungry and something is in front of you, your body needs a fast sense that the food is good to eat, so eat lots of it now.

  2. Re:Adult Diagnosis on Interviews: Ask Dr. Temple Grandin About Animals and Autism · · Score: 2

    My now-5-year-old son was also diagnosed as a high functioning autistic, and both me and my wife have many of the traits, with regards to social anxiety and language delays as youths, but neither diagnosed. Born 3 weeks premature, he was always on a track for monitoring. At age 2, he spoke about 10 words, was touch sensitive (hated anything loud or sticky), and got the diagnosis then. I myself was in denial for a while, thinking why did it have to happen to him, he's just a little behind, it will come. I had the same perspective, that every little accomplishment meant the condition was over. But as time went on, it didn't. At age 3, he qualified for our school district's Intermediate Unit, and began pre-school classes 4 days a week.

    He will "grow out of it" by constant reinforcement and occupational training, both in school and at home. If you assume it will go away on its own, you are doing a disservice to your child. Find the things that he likes, and use it as a example to teach social skills. Remain calm, because he doesn't know why he does things either. It's a constant battle, where every waking hour of the day is reinforcing "good choices" and being mindful of other people's perspectives and feelings.

    Is there a maturity factor, the "growing out of it"? Probably some percent. I wonder all the time, was he inattentive because he's just a 4-year-old boy? No one is born with social skills, so is it my fault? Was I the bad teacher? We recognized that my son wasn't developing eye contact skills, and my wife and I were indirectly enabling this behavior -- he would shout a question across the room, and we would answer it without requiring facial contact. Once we recognized this, we created a plan and broke him of the habit ("I'm sorry, I can't see your eyes . . ."). I wouldn't need to worry about this with my nephews, but my son didn't have that instinct for facial confirmation.

    Today at 5 years old, I can't get him to shut up. He is constantly asking questions, and is what anyone would now recognize as an over-average-intelligence child. He is reading at a 2nd grade level, knows basic multiplication, adds and subtracts up to thousands in English, and counts to 100 in Spanish. He loves playing as the "GPS" when we drive, telling us what roads are coming up next and reading every sign.

    You are a good parent just by recognizing there's an issue. If this disease really is genetic like current research is showing, there's nothing anyone could have done to prevent it, it's all dependent on how we respond to it. And whether you get a diagnosis for yourself or not isn't a reflection on your parents, it's just your own "medical state". But ask yourself, what can you do with that information? We refuse to let autism be a crutch to excuse away bad behavior for our son. If you have it, or I have it, how can we focus our efforts more productively? If you feel like you have social anxiety, maybe you can push yourself into uncomfortable or unusual situations to (as I was told) "flex those social muscles". The more you practice it, the better you will get. Then it really doesn't matter what the diagnosis could have been at the end of the day, because that doesn't have to be you today.

  3. Shadow IT, aka the computer under the desk on Ask Slashdot: What Do You Wish You'd Known Starting Your First "Real" Job? · · Score: 1

    Stay inside the IT framework, no matter how dysfunctional it is.

    I did this in 1999, told my new boss to just get me a spare PC and I could handle the morning report printout ourselves. Want a change? Done in minutes, not months. Those web postings? Simple, couple lines of VBA to FTP. Another report? Sure. The Access database can manage all those mapping locally outside of Oracle. Corporate goal calculations? Err, why not. Daily compliance reports? Ok... Just give me admin on a SQL Server and I'll manage the tables...

    Then it broke on vacation, so I had to modem in from FL. I became tied to this beast as the sole programmer supporting a dept of 8 people. I never got a budget for hardware upgrades, never got awards or credit for project management, since this thing was off the books. It took 7 FTEs to rewrite the mess after personal life & management changes in 2009.

    In retrospect, I should have let IT do it and played the beurocracy. It would have made me happier in the long run.

  4. Re:50 Hz vs 60 Hz on Japan Looks To Distributed Control Theory To Manage Energy Market Deregulation · · Score: 1

    HVDC tie lines and rotary frequency converters can do this. There are many instances of this in the US interconnection, just look where the Amtrak network (25 Hz) connects to the transmission grid (60 Hz).

    It's all a matter of how much money are you willing to spend for the additional reliability. Until the nukes went offline, Japan's two grids were self-sufficient enough that transferring energy between the two wasn't cost effective to justify a highly connected interface. By the time you needed it, it was too late to build.

    Heck, there are only 24 transmission lines above 200 kV that connect New York to the rest of the eastern interconnection.

  5. Why elevate a Celebrity in the first place? on Technology's Legacy: the 'Loser Edit' Awaits Us All · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm having a hard time seeing their point, when all I can think of is counterpoint. Prior to the Information Age, we lived in a world where our media was spoon fed to us, editing everything to make us believe a narrative. Kennedy was King of Camelot, not a womanizer. Hollywood was sparkles and success, not addictions and failures.

    This tool the Internet lets us bypass all the BS and see these people for who they are, just people with problems and opinions, no one worth elevating to a point of authority. Lohan isn't a Mouseketeer anymore, she's an addict. Clinton isn't President anymore, he's tripping off to overseas underage sex parties. In the past, we'd never know the facts, just someone else's "Truth". The IRS had all of the missing backup tapes of Lerner's emails all along, perjuring themselves for the last two years. It isn't revisionism when the truth was hidden in the first place.

  6. Taking it in the back-end on What Would Minecraft 2 Look Like Under Microsoft? · · Score: 1

    My guess is that Microsoft will rewrite the multiplayer server modules first, replacing Java with C#. They will introduce standardized APIs (that the game sorely needs). Expect to see micropayment systems introduced. Then I would expect a move to Azure cloud services, replacing the dozens of multiplayer server farms that are out there. Games will finally support more simultaneous characters per world, larger worlds, etc. and actually scale.

    By this point you will see a schism in the developer community, those that hang on to the old server code and those that begin migrating to the new cloud-based (supported) code. XBox will enable access to Azure-code servers (today you can only access a world hosted by another XBox player), and that mode of play will quickly become dominant. Mods will be developed in Visual Studio 15, with a new project type.

    As Microsoft continues to extend .Net to Apple and Linux environments, they will release new clients for those environments in .Net only. Expect some tie-ins with Microsoft Phones to check in on your Azure-hosted worlds, etc like Microsoft SmartGlass does for Xbox.

    The Minecraft Client will be updated slowly, in a way that most people won't realize that Microsoft is tweaking it. When they finally release a v 2.0 client, I imagine that all existing accounts will be converted to Live accounts, whether you like it or not. One day out of the blue, it will block access to Java-based servers citing a "security risk to your Live account". You can keep playing with your old client on old servers, but you wont get the new widgets, textures, etc. The server hosting community will continue to dry up, until you convert to the new client through inertia.

  7. Bigger question - mandatory "vaccine" on Study: Peanut Consumption In Infancy Helps Prevent Peanut Allergy · · Score: 1

    The bigger question is . . .

    How long is it going to be until there is a mandatory "nut allergy vaccine" in the form of a required patch / injection of peanut dust in order to allow nut-allergic children to go to school?

    If nut-allergies are shown to be preventable in the same way as measles, etc., why should a school have to be completely on edge about a child going into shock because some other child brought a sandwich to lunch? The economic benefits alone of doing away with the nonsense of nut separation in snacks, parties, cafeteria choices, medical equipment on-hand, etc. would pay for making this part of the immunization package for kindergarten entry.

    Isn't it a form of child abuse to allow your child to live with a curable allergy that could kill them in a moment's notice?

  8. Lies & Damn Lies on The World Is Not Falling Apart · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A wise politician one said, "Never let a crisis go to waste". If the public isn't agitated, they won't give up their liberties and control to the government.

    Crime rates are down, yet cops are more militarized than ever. Police shootings are rare. Gun violence is down. College campus sexual assault rates are actually 0.61%. The earth is not warming in 20 years. There is no missing heat in the oceans. Hurricanes and tornado count are at a historical low. Unemployment counting those not looking for work is at a 40 year high. Inflation in food (not counted) is huge, yet commodities (gold / oil) are deflating. College debt is crippling high, but so is general credit card debt.

    If you dig into the numbers behind the "official" numbers, everything is topsy turvy. That's why the public sees doom and gloom - everything they experience is counter to what we are being told, including articles saying "Don't panic".

  9. Re:why would I write to that? on Microsoft Introduces .NET Core · · Score: 1

    TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc( local ) and ConvertTimeFromUtc( utcDate, TimeZoneInfo.Local ) seem to do the trick, introduced in the framework in .Net 3.5. And you can use a stock name from GetSystemTimeZones to convert to any standard time zone, or roll your own with CreateCustomTimeZone

    And more importantly they are all backward compatible for dates before 2007 when the US congress mucked with the daylight saving rules.

  10. Not surprising on How Facebook Is Influencing Who Will Win the Next Election · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After the results if this midterm election, it's not surprising Facebook is ending their get out the vote program?

    Why? Because Millenials are increasingly voting Republican and Libertarian after decades of lip service from the Democrats. Jobs, college debt, and personal liberty are extremely important issues to this generation.

    Facebook, with its left leaning executives, would see no reason to mobilize their opposition's base.

  11. Re:Fission is Dead on Fusion and Fission/LFTR: Let's Do Both, Smartly · · Score: 1

    Umm, it's literally right there, first country name in the 3rd sentence.

  12. Re:Pleasant? on The Minecraft Parent · · Score: 1

    You're showing your age. KERMIT is the way to go!

  13. Re:Headline is backwards on Supreme Court Upholds Most EPA Rules On Greenhouse Gases · · Score: 2

    No, Congress is currently split with the Senate controlled by Democrats, and the House controlled by Republicans. Laws cannot pass unless both chambers sign off on the law.

  14. Re:This will hugely backfire... on FWD.us: GOP Voters To Be Targeted By Data Scientists · · Score: 2

    Actually, no, they are not. Hispanic Christians are dominantly liberal, so a conversion of illegal immigrants to citizen status would increase the Democrat ranks, not the Republican ranks.

    Immigration Reform is like asking Republicans to vote to lose every election forever. What is weird is that about 20% are saying yes to that.

  15. Re: This will hugely backfire... on FWD.us: GOP Voters To Be Targeted By Data Scientists · · Score: 1

    No, that's forced equality.

    Fairness is that all the illegal aliens get arrested, then deported back to their countries of origin. Then the law-abiding immigrants and the natural citizens of the United States would be able to go the same schools and have the same healthcare.

  16. Re: Amazon and Google... on Amazon Wants To Run Your High-Performance Databases · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Amazon is not going after Apple, they are going after IBM. Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure are the leaders in this space, and are hitting reliability and scalability metrics that are pushing the old models out of business.

    Bloomberg had a great article this month on how IBM is losing *government* contracts (its bread and butter) to AWS.

      http://mobile.businessweek.com...

  17. Re: Sure, why not? on Obama To Ask For $1 Billion Climate Change Fund · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://blog.heritage.org/2012/...

    Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
    SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
    Solyndra ($535 million)*
    Beacon Power ($43 million)*
    Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
    SunPower ($1.2 billion)
    First Solar ($1.46 billion)
    Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
    EnerDelâ(TM)s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
    Amonix ($5.9 million)
    Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
    Abound Solar ($400 million)*
    A123 Systems ($279 million)*
    Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
    Johnson Controls ($299 million)
    Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
    ECOtality ($126.2 million)
    Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
    Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
    Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
    Olsenâ(TM)s Crop Service and Olsenâ(TM)s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
    Range Fuels ($80 million)*
    Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
    Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
    Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
    GreenVolts ($500,000)
    Vestas ($50 million)
    LG Chemâ(TM)s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
    Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
    Navistar ($39 million)
    Satcon ($3 million)*
    Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
    Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

    *Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

  18. Re: What the heck is RTO? on New England Burns Jet Fuel To Keep Lights On · · Score: 5, Informative

    Regional Transsmission Organization. After the deregulation of the bulk electric system, these companies are given the responsibility of monitoring high voltage transmission reliability. They commonly are also Independent Service Organizations, which operate regional wholesale electric markets.

  19. Never about search on Actually, It's Google That's Eating the World · · Score: -1, Troll

    The Google search engine was a byproduct of their want to serve advertisements to web browsing users (customers), and to provide better metrics to their clients (advertisers) so they could command higher rates. Once you see that, things like home automation, tracking energy usage, travel choices, etc are all means to an end of understanding what the user wants/needs then putting the best advertisement in front of the viewer.

  20. Vending Machines + Apps on Coca-Cola Reserves a Massive Range of MAC Addresses · · Score: 1

    If you extrapolate, plus look at the hints Coke has been dropping...

    Coke must be working on a phone app that allows you to configure your "preferred" drink at their multi-selection syrup dispensers. Yes, you can accomplish it with RFID, but If each individual machine is internet-aware, then it can geo-fence to know who is near the machine, report syrup levels for restocking, as well as more accurately track a customer rewards program. We can't rely on phones to have NFC/RFID, so they need to come up with some other way of communicating. If you can get the machine on the LAN of the restaurant, you can do all sorts of stuff... promotions, push notifications, preferences, etc.

    Actually, just found that all Freestyle machines are already RFID enabled, since 2009.
    http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?4967

  21. Re: Do it on Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split · · Score: 1

    So you are actually arguing in favor of the Republican voters in the current state to never be represented, and instead add to the counts of Democrat electoral votes, so it always goes to the presidential candidate that they never want? The current situation sounds totally fair.

  22. Re:Seems like a small sample on Astronomers Discover When Galaxies Got Their Spirals · · Score: 0

    That never happens, this is Science we're talking about here!

  23. Re:Prep and landing? on Disney Pulls a Reverse Santa, Takes Back Christmas Shows From Amazon Customers · · Score: 2

    Apparently "Prep and Landing" is the name of a 2009 holiday short about Santa's elite "advance team" of elves that visits houses before Santa's arrival and makes sure that everything goes smoothly (Preparation for Santa's Landing).

    http://disney.go.com/prep-and-landing/about/prep-and-landing/

  24. Re:Whatever on Physicists Smash Record For Wave-Particle Duality · · Score: 1

    Picoturtles or it didn't happen.

  25. What's the problem? on Amazon Botches Sales Tax, Overcharges NJ · · Score: 1

    Isn't the real problem that NJ state's tax code is so expansive that its own citizens don't even know what they should or should not pay taxes on?

    Tax law is one item that Amazon is paying extremely close attention to as of late. They are actually leading the discussion for the national sales tax, because it forces their competition (eBay) to play by the same rules. Amazon is a distribution system masquerading as an online retail store. They have physical nexus and are being required to collect taxes on behalf of customers in at least 16 states.