It's a great loss. I cried; something a man in my culture isn't supposed to do, but I'm still having trouble seeing the screen for the tears.
They were reaching for the stars. They knew they might not make it, and they did it anyway.
If I had the same chance, I'd sign up in a New York minute. There are worse ways to die than going out in a blaze of glory while reaching for the stars.
Once upon a time, I was greeted by a poll-worker upon exit from voting, with "Thank-you for doing your duty to vote".
I turned and replied, "It is not my duty, it is my right and privelege. No one has a duty to vote, and in fact, anyone who hasn't taken the time to study the candidates and issues needs to stay home and let those of us who have run their government for them."
My first reaction is: why? Why not just be a vegetarian? Hell, millions of Indians are, and they seem to be doing okay, building supercomputers and hand-held computing devices like gangbusters. We need less saturated fat, not an uberexpensive supply of it.
Ah, again with the Dietary Myth That Will Not Die. For starters, take a guess at what part of the world has (by far) the largest per capita incidence of diabetes. Hint: It's not the US.
Fact: Saturated fat is more or less neutral in its impact on health, unless consumed along with too much high-glycemic carbohydrate.
I have personally lost over 100 lbs on a diet with more than 60% of calories from fat, and most of that being saturated fat from animal sources. In the process, I improved my blood sugar, cholesterol, and my blood pressure substantially over what it was when I was following a low-fat vegan diet.
I have lost over 100 lbs on a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet, while at the same time achieving good blood-sugar control, lowering my cholesterol, improving my HDL/LDL, dropping my triglycerides from the high 300's to the teens, and numerous other health benefits.
I've grown tired of hearing members of the so-called 'medical' profession lecture me on how 'risky' my 'high-protein' diet is (seems most doctors are functionally deaf and/or immune to learning anything at all from a non-doctor). I gotta wonder how much more 'risky' my MODERATE protein is than being more than 100 lbs overweight. Seems doctors only read the conclusions of studies, and not the actual studies. I have come to the conclusion (based on my personal experience, and comparing notes with several dozen others in the same situation) that the typical 'research' paper follows these steps:
1: Write down a conclusion
2: Write a paper supporting that conclusion
3: Do some 'research', carefully structured to support that conclusion
4: Discount or discard any data that doesn't support that conclusion
5: Get the paper reviewed by a group of associates that agree with your conclusion
6: Publish the paper in some mutual-admiration society journal
My favorite along these lines is one entitled "Type 2 Diabetics Benefit From Reducing Intake Of Animal Protein". If you read the summary very carefully, you will see that the 'researchers' removed the SUGAR from the diet, and then concluded, from the resulting health improvements, that animal protein causes type II diabetes. (!!) This is, unfortunately, typical of what passes for 'science' in the study of diet.
"Not necessarily, there is something to be said for being a generalist. A specialist often will fall to the "everything looks like a nail" syndrome, because they only know how to solve problems one way."
I've done quite well being a generalist for most of my career -- up until this last year, when I've suddenly become 'overqualified'. Now, every interviewer that I have seen has confronted me with a long list of ridiculously precise and inflexible requirements. I presume this is so that once they see the gray in my hair, they have a 'legitimate' excuse to be rid of me. I've been told more than once that because I chose not to go into manglement (management) that there must be something wrong with me -- or at the very least, they couldn't use anybody with 27 years of software experience because I managed to avoid project management during all that time.
I'm now peddling insurance. So far, my general agent has not used the word 'overqualified' even once (at least not where I could hear her). And the gray in the hair actually helps me when I'm talking to senior about Medicare supplements.
In addition to peddling insurance, I'm helping with my wife's new business, and teaching concealed hangun license classes. Oh, and I still write software for my own use. I might even be able to sell my client database system to the other agents in my office.
I have shied away from putting my appointment calendars and client contact information on the web, and I don't see any compelling reason to start. I've already seen arbitrary changes in so-called "privacy" terms & conditions.
I would like to see something a little better than the date app than shipped with my PDA, though.
"Life expectancy" over the last century is a misleading average, which includes, among other things, two global wars in the first half of the last century. *Maximum* lifespan has remained fairly constant, while infant mortality and death of women during childbirth has declined. Various medical advances do in fact account for most of that improvement. The remainder is mostly from changes which make driving and working safer (divided highways, workplace safely rules, etc).
...is that the benefits of a low-carb way of life would become more widely demonstrated, as would the idiocies of the low-fat fad.
In addition to the realization of just how much nutritional disinformation we are being fed by the popular media, we would see widespread consciousness-raising in regard to the deleterious effects of unnatural substances in our diets (sugar, grains, trans-fats, etc). The relative benefits of various types of exercise would be more readily apparent, and immediate feedback would encourage more healthy lifestyles.
There is already ample evidence that one of the major keys to a long and healthy life is the reduction of the amount of insulin your body needs (others include wearing seat belts, avoiding violent crime, getting ample sleep, avoiding environmental poisons, not taking gratuitous risks, not smoking, etc.).
One can only hope that some better way of doing this can be found. Since current bg monitoring is done by IR absorption/transmission, I would think that a small IR reflector could be implanted, perhaps just under an artery or vein in the arm near the skin's surface. Then a monitor could use this to directly read bg (perhaps with occasional calibration with other methods) using a short IR burst.
Other things I'd like to be able to measure (inexpensively) in real time: Insulin level, HD/LD/TG, ghrelin (and its recently-discovered agonist, which doesn't have a popular name yet), white cell count, seritonin, and DHEAS. Might find some other items worth monitoring, to add to that list. Gathering a large amount of data on these things might result in a quantum leap in real knowledge on a subject that is now characterized by 'research' that consists largely of:
1) Writing a conclusion based on current biases,
2) Collecting data artfully chosen to support that conclusion,
3) Submitting the 'research' based primarily on the pre-conceived conclusion for review by people with the same or similar biases, and
4) Getting published in a journal of some mutual admiration society.
The city where I currently reside has a fairly well-equipped gym, and only costs about $40/year for membership, so that's the most cost-effective route for me. Since I'm currently underemployed, I do my workouts during the day when there's not much of a crowd, so the whole workout is about an hour from start to finish, including the 5-minute commute.
I do a 3 times/wk workout on the weights, one set each of 15 reps, followed by a 20-30 minute cardio at 140-150 BPM on the heart rate monitor (they have an indoor track, which I like better than a treadmill). Once a week, I do an extra set of weights after the cardio. My workout would be considered a mere warmup by the dedicated muscleheads, but I've found that even a light workout on a regular basis makes a *lot* of difference in how I feel.
I generally follow the guidelines given in "Weight Training for Dummies", which, despite the title, is an excellent guide.
Best evidence we have is that prior to the agricultural 'revolution', the maximum lifespan was around 70-75 years. The *average* was lower, due to infant mortality, and accident (hunting was a hazardous job). But those folks who managed to get past childhood diseases were actually likely to live to a ripe old age, provided they didn't get eaten by something. Take a look at this article on Dr. Loren Cordain's research on that topic.
There isn't any other kind. Corn as we know it today did not exist at all until it was selectively bred for several dozen generations. Prior to about 7000 years ago, there was no such grain.
I realize, of course, that GE as used here means "trans-species", which is just a newer form of selective breeding.
Corn is good for making farm animals gain weight very quickly. Works on people, too. In a way, the farm animals are lucky, because they are killed and eaten before they have a chance to develop heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and other maladies caused by excess carbohydrate consumption (especially grains, which were not parts of the human diet prior to about 7000 years ago).
...that in many other countries outside of the US, the government postal services do indeed, if only indirectly, run the email systems. In many countries, the phone system is run by the postal service.
So the idea isn't really all that far-fetched. I would consider it a narrow miss. Things could have be even worse than they are now.
I clearly remember ZD as one of the pioneers of misleading mail-order campaigns. They sent a renewal notice that was designed to look like an IRS notice. That was over 10 years ago, and I immediately cancelled the remainder of my PC Magazine subscription, and have avoided dealing with them ever since. As they took over other magazines that I subscribed to, I let those subscriptions lapse. That was partially because I disliked ZD's behavior, and partially because the computer magazines were gradually becoming a waste of time anyway.
I try to avoid dealing with companies that use unethical advertising. Latest example that comes to mind is VeriSign.
The recipient of spam bears essentially ALL of the cost. Since the marginal cost of sending a spam is basically zero, it doesn't matter if the response percentage is low.
Spam will continue to be a worsening problem until some way is found to fix the fact that it doesn't cost the spammer anything.
Cow's milk is good for baby cows, but not so good for humans. Human milk has substantially different nutritional profile. Plus, in nature, milk is not consumed by mammals past puberty. There is no such thing as a dairy "food group" (there is a dairy lobby, however).
So, by all means, let's encourage Cubans to consume dairy products, so that they will develop some of the same nutritionally-connected diseases that we have. While we are at it, let's export the whole USDA "food pyramid" myth.
Note that this recent slashdot story, Live From Iran, Film88 is about a company that wants you to send your credit card to a company in Iran to rent movies over the internet.
Why go to all the trouble of getting information off of credit card slips from a restaurant in Amman, when you can just get folks who are looking for cheap movies (or other items) to send you that information over the internet?
Identity theft is probably the major source of funding for terrorism now. Think about that the next time you order a pirated movie or some online porn.
>Think if Ford charged you every time you started your car. A lot of people would take the bus...
Actually, there are already a lot of people buying their automobiles by the mile. It's the most expensive way to go, but they are seduced by the low "down" and lease payments that are a bit smaller than they would pay if they purchased instead of leasing.
Microsoft is obviously considering this model for software.
The folks that run Google(tm) have decided to censor advertising of perfectly legal articles, and to enforcing a ban on advertising by anyone who sells knives, firearms, or related items, whether or not those items are featured in the actual advertisement. See this link for details.
Another recent study showed that sleeping less would increase insulin resistance, which would definitely shorten lifespan. And that study actually showed probable causation, unlike the 'study' referenced above.
It continually amazes me what passes for science in the fields of nutrition and sleep. Most of the studies I've read in these two areas would not get a passing grade in a high school science class.
I have been self-employed most of my career now, and I try to minimize the amount of time off that I have. Right now, I haven't got any full-time gigs, and I would much rather have been working than sitting around the house today.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a great loss. I cried; something a man in my culture isn't supposed to do, but I'm still having trouble seeing the screen for the tears.
They were reaching for the stars. They knew they might not make it, and they did it anyway.
If I had the same chance, I'd sign up in a New York minute. There are worse ways to die than going out in a blaze of glory while reaching for the stars.
Once upon a time, I was greeted by a poll-worker upon exit from voting, with "Thank-you for doing your duty to vote".
I turned and replied, "It is not my duty, it is my right and privelege. No one has a duty to vote, and in fact, anyone who hasn't taken the time to study the candidates and issues needs to stay home and let those of us who have run their government for them."
My first reaction is: why? Why not just be a vegetarian? Hell, millions of Indians are, and they seem to be doing okay, building supercomputers and hand-held computing devices like gangbusters. We need less saturated fat, not an uberexpensive supply of it.
Ah, again with the Dietary Myth That Will Not Die. For starters, take a guess at what part of the world has (by far) the largest per capita incidence of diabetes. Hint: It's not the US.
Fact: Saturated fat is more or less neutral in its impact on health, unless consumed along with too much high-glycemic carbohydrate.
I have personally lost over 100 lbs on a diet with more than 60% of calories from fat, and most of that being saturated fat from animal sources. In the process, I improved my blood sugar, cholesterol, and my blood pressure substantially over what it was when I was following a low-fat vegan diet.
Ah, I mis-remembered. The actual claim was made in a separate paper (non-reviewed) by one of the 'researchers'. Sorry.
>and they certainly don't claim that animal protein causes type II diabetes
Excuse me? Read the TITLE of the 'study'! It contains exactly that claim.
I've grown tired of hearing members of the so-called 'medical' profession lecture me on how 'risky' my 'high-protein' diet is (seems most doctors are functionally deaf and/or immune to learning anything at all from a non-doctor). I gotta wonder how much more 'risky' my MODERATE protein is than being more than 100 lbs overweight. Seems doctors only read the conclusions of studies, and not the actual studies. I have come to the conclusion (based on my personal experience, and comparing notes with several dozen others in the same situation) that the typical 'research' paper follows these steps:
1: Write down a conclusion
2: Write a paper supporting that conclusion
3: Do some 'research', carefully structured to support that conclusion
4: Discount or discard any data that doesn't support that conclusion
5: Get the paper reviewed by a group of associates that agree with your conclusion
6: Publish the paper in some mutual-admiration society journal
My favorite along these lines is one entitled "Type 2 Diabetics Benefit From Reducing Intake Of Animal Protein". If you read the summary very carefully, you will see that the 'researchers' removed the SUGAR from the diet, and then concluded, from the resulting health improvements, that animal protein causes type II diabetes. (!!) This is, unfortunately, typical of what passes for 'science' in the study of diet.
"Not necessarily, there is something to be said for being a generalist. A specialist often will fall to the "everything looks like a nail" syndrome, because they only know how to solve problems one way."
I've done quite well being a generalist for most of my career -- up until this last year, when I've suddenly become 'overqualified'. Now, every interviewer that I have seen has confronted me with a long list of ridiculously precise and inflexible requirements. I presume this is so that once they see the gray in my hair, they have a 'legitimate' excuse to be rid of me. I've been told more than once that because I chose not to go into manglement (management) that there must be something wrong with me -- or at the very least, they couldn't use anybody with 27 years of software experience because I managed to avoid project management during all that time.
I'm now peddling insurance. So far, my general agent has not used the word 'overqualified' even once (at least not where I could hear her). And the gray in the hair actually helps me when I'm talking to senior about Medicare supplements.
In addition to peddling insurance, I'm helping with my wife's new business, and teaching concealed hangun license classes. Oh, and I still write software for my own use. I might even be able to sell my client database system to the other agents in my office.
So, I guess I'm still a 'generalist'...
I have shied away from putting my appointment calendars and client contact information on the web, and I don't see any compelling reason to start. I've already seen arbitrary changes in so-called "privacy" terms & conditions.
I would like to see something a little better than the date app than shipped with my PDA, though.
"Life expectancy" over the last century is a misleading average, which includes, among other things, two global wars in the first half of the last century. *Maximum* lifespan has remained fairly constant, while infant mortality and death of women during childbirth has declined. Various medical advances do in fact account for most of that improvement. The remainder is mostly from changes which make driving and working safer (divided highways, workplace safely rules, etc).
See Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution for details.
...is that the benefits of a low-carb way of life would become more widely demonstrated, as would the idiocies of the low-fat fad.
In addition to the realization of just how much nutritional disinformation we are being fed by the popular media, we would see widespread consciousness-raising in regard to the deleterious effects of unnatural substances in our diets (sugar, grains, trans-fats, etc). The relative benefits of various types of exercise would be more readily apparent, and immediate feedback would encourage more healthy lifestyles.
There is already ample evidence that one of the major keys to a long and healthy life is the reduction of the amount of insulin your body needs (others include wearing seat belts, avoiding violent crime, getting ample sleep, avoiding environmental poisons, not taking gratuitous risks, not smoking, etc.).
One can only hope that some better way of doing this can be found. Since current bg monitoring is done by IR absorption/transmission, I would think that a small IR reflector could be implanted, perhaps just under an artery or vein in the arm near the skin's surface. Then a monitor could use this to directly read bg (perhaps with occasional calibration with other methods) using a short IR burst.
Other things I'd like to be able to measure (inexpensively) in real time: Insulin level, HD/LD/TG, ghrelin (and its recently-discovered agonist, which doesn't have a popular name yet), white cell count, seritonin, and DHEAS. Might find some other items worth monitoring, to add to that list. Gathering a large amount of data on these things might result in a quantum leap in real knowledge on a subject that is now characterized by 'research' that consists largely of:
1) Writing a conclusion based on current biases,
2) Collecting data artfully chosen to support that conclusion,
3) Submitting the 'research' based primarily on the pre-conceived conclusion for review by people with the same or similar biases, and
4) Getting published in a journal of some mutual admiration society.
The city where I currently reside has a fairly well-equipped gym, and only costs about $40/year for membership, so that's the most cost-effective route for me. Since I'm currently underemployed, I do my workouts during the day when there's not much of a crowd, so the whole workout is about an hour from start to finish, including the 5-minute commute.
I do a 3 times/wk workout on the weights, one set each of 15 reps, followed by a 20-30 minute cardio at 140-150 BPM on the heart rate monitor (they have an indoor track, which I like better than a treadmill). Once a week, I do an extra set of weights after the cardio. My workout would be considered a mere warmup by the dedicated muscleheads, but I've found that even a light workout on a regular basis makes a *lot* of difference in how I feel.
I generally follow the guidelines given in "Weight Training for Dummies", which, despite the title, is an excellent guide.
Best evidence we have is that prior to the agricultural 'revolution', the maximum lifespan was around 70-75 years. The *average* was lower, due to infant mortality, and accident (hunting was a hazardous job). But those folks who managed to get past childhood diseases were actually likely to live to a ripe old age, provided they didn't get eaten by something. Take a look at this article on Dr. Loren Cordain's research on that topic.
There isn't any other kind. Corn as we know it today did not exist at all until it was selectively bred for several dozen generations. Prior to about 7000 years ago, there was no such grain.
I realize, of course, that GE as used here means "trans-species", which is just a newer form of selective breeding.
Corn is good for making farm animals gain weight very quickly. Works on people, too. In a way, the farm animals are lucky, because they are killed and eaten before they have a chance to develop heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and other maladies caused by excess carbohydrate consumption (especially grains, which were not parts of the human diet prior to about 7000 years ago).
...that in many other countries outside of the US, the government postal services do indeed, if only indirectly, run the email systems. In many countries, the phone system is run by the postal service.
So the idea isn't really all that far-fetched. I would consider it a narrow miss. Things could have be even worse than they are now.
>>Where are all the flying cars???
>>I was promised flying cars.
>Haven't been paying attention, have you?
Since you apparently didn't read the sales page from the website you linked, here is the last line:
"Skycars, Aerobots and Rotapower engines are not currently available for purchase."
So, the original poster's question remains relevant.
I clearly remember ZD as one of the pioneers of misleading mail-order campaigns. They sent a renewal notice that was designed to look like an IRS notice. That was over 10 years ago, and I immediately cancelled the remainder of my PC Magazine subscription, and have avoided dealing with them ever since. As they took over other magazines that I subscribed to, I let those subscriptions lapse. That was partially because I disliked ZD's behavior, and partially because the computer magazines were gradually becoming a waste of time anyway.
I try to avoid dealing with companies that use unethical advertising. Latest example that comes to mind is VeriSign.
The recipient of spam bears essentially ALL of the cost. Since the marginal cost of sending a spam is basically zero, it doesn't matter if the response percentage is low.
Spam will continue to be a worsening problem until some way is found to fix the fact that it doesn't cost the spammer anything.
Cow's milk is good for baby cows, but not so good for humans. Human milk has substantially different nutritional profile. Plus, in nature, milk is not consumed by mammals past puberty. There is no such thing as a dairy "food group" (there is a dairy lobby , however).
So, by all means, let's encourage Cubans to consume dairy products, so that they will develop some of the same nutritionally-connected diseases that we have. While we are at it, let's export the whole USDA "food pyramid" myth.
Note that this recent slashdot story, Live From Iran, Film88 is about a company that wants you to send your credit card to a company in Iran to rent movies over the internet.
Why go to all the trouble of getting information off of credit card slips from a restaurant in Amman, when you can just get folks who are looking for cheap movies (or other items) to send you that information over the internet?
Identity theft is probably the major source of funding for terrorism now. Think about that the next time you order a pirated movie or some online porn.
>Think if Ford charged you every time you started your car. A lot of people would take the bus...
Actually, there are already a lot of people buying their automobiles by the mile. It's the most expensive way to go, but they are seduced by the low "down" and lease payments that are a bit smaller than they would pay if they purchased instead of leasing.
Microsoft is obviously considering this model for software.
The folks that run Google(tm) have decided to censor advertising of perfectly legal articles, and to enforcing a ban on advertising by anyone who sells knives, firearms, or related items, whether or not those items are featured in the actual advertisement. See
this link for details.
Another recent study showed that sleeping less would increase insulin resistance, which would definitely shorten lifespan. And that study actually showed probable causation, unlike the 'study' referenced above.
It continually amazes me what passes for science in the fields of nutrition and sleep. Most of the studies I've read in these two areas would not get a passing grade in a high school science class.
I have been self-employed most of my career now, and I try to minimize the amount of time off that I have. Right now, I haven't got any full-time gigs, and I would much rather have been working than sitting around the house today.
Besides, not everyone is Christian.
--
See my custom-made Concealed-Carry Holster
--
"They have job openings for programmers. :-)"
The link is to a website that was last updated last November.