Why? Does them having their serves right next to the exchange FORCE you to click the "sell" button? Does it somehow make you buy stock at a price you didn't want to buy it at? The ONLY advantage - if any - is that they get to be first in line. First in line can be a good thing. It can also be a pretty bad thing...
Nah he's the guy that takes the $300 when the airline tells him they overbooked and would he mind going on standby on another flight over the next couple days. He thinks he's getting a sweet deal, too. That airline is being so nice to him, giving him free stuff and everything...
The difference is that the guys who built the V1 didn't want to push it as a disposable vehicle to make millions and millions more for themselves (e.g. contractor buddies) as the V1 was already a disposable vehicle.
That sentence doesn't make much logical sense. "The guy that built it didn't want to make it disposable because it was already disposable". Er, the guy that built it presumably was pretty free to design whatever he wanted prior to having built it, because after all he was the guy that was building it.
Perhaps a more accurate perspective includes the fact that digital computers did not exist in that time period - apart from ENIAC; but ENIAC was a little too big to fit inside any aircraft. Gyros and analog computers were good enough to get close to a target, but nowhere near accurate enough to bring a vehicle back after a "bomb run". For that you needed a different analog computer, called a "pilot". But if you're making a manned craft that can dispense ordinance and return, one already exists, it's called a "bomber".
This is great news for the 53 people who will be using IE 10 and Windows 8. Just like Vista I don't see a compelling reason to "upgrade". Unlike Vista, however, I see many, many reasons NOT to switch to Windows 8. The fact that Microsoft are tying this OS to their tablet-like thing pretty much dooms it to failure too. Hey it's my opinion, and I could be wrong. I admire that Microsoft is taking a pretty huge gamble. But I think it's a gamble they are going to lose. Surely Redmond could have come up with a better strategy but I guess Microsoft sufferes from the same illness that affects all corporations after a while when they get big enough: mediocrity.
And maybe then you'll realise how much of your short life you wasted sitting in front of the TV.
Says the guy who wastes hours of his short life in front of a computer monitor. Oh wait, no, he's only here 5 minutes a day folks, he's not like "the rest". Sounds like someone is suffering from "I'm a special princess" syndrome. Why do you think that you are significantly different from everyone else who posts here, princess? And no, you can't have a pony.
"Others" do it quite well? So many "others", huh? Yeah everyone can be a Warren Buffet. No, this is like asking the 110 year old lady what her secret is for long life. And one old lady will tell you it's cold showers every morning. Another one will say praying to God every day. Still another will say getting up at 5am and going to bed at 6pm. But you see, that's just selection bias. I pretty much guarantee that even if you do all those things, you'll die much, much sooner. Your example was pretty poor. Buffet may think it's real easy to do what he does. Truth is even he doesn't exactly know how or why he can do what he does. Sure he can try to rationalize it and explain it to people, but he has no clue. Otherwise, as the saying goes, everyone would be doing it. You want evidence? OK, how many Warren Buffets are there?
Picking one extreme example and trying to pass it off as the norm is a fallacious way to try to justify an argument. You add to this by basically saying "I could be a multi-billionare too, but I don't feel like it". No buddy, neither you nor me will be billionaires like Mr. Buffet. But if you tell yourself you can pick stocks by looking at the financial statements of a company - statements that have been cooked until they are overdone, I guarantee you will not only not be a billionaire but rather poor to boot. And the evidence is pretty much in my favor - 80% (according to the SEC) of all traders lose money. But hey, what do I care. It's not my money. Have fun. And enjoy your wait. If you're patient enough, you probably will make it out with a profit. But not 50 billion...that I'm willing to bet on.
ALL glucose is filtered out by the kidneys. 100% of it.
You're right. I should have said "of all the glucose that arrives at the glomerulus, an amount equiproportional to its concentration in blood is filtered to form part of the ultrafiltrate"... but hey I was writing a fast post on slashdot, not answering a question on a nephrology exam. Sorry if this was misleading.
is it right that any cell in the body can take in glucose, per the transport mechanism?
Yes all healthy cells are equipped to absorb glucose one way or another. What varies is the type of transport protein they use to do the absorbing. Some of these proteins require the presence of insulin in order to work properly. Some don't.
But that any glucose that happens to make it to the kidneys will be completely filtered out and no longer be available to the body?
No I think this is the part you're missing: it's filtered out but immediately re-absorbed. So if you measure the concentration of glucose in the renal artery (that takes blood TO the kidney) and compare it to the glucose concentration in the renal vein (that takes blood FROM the kidney AFTER processing), it will be about the same. Actually that's not true because the kidney itself (and the blood vessls and the living cells in the blood itself) consumes a great deal of glucose in order to stay alive and do its job, but glucose IN is roughly equal to glucose OUT + glucose used by kidney. This in a healthy person.
In a diabetic, or someone for some reason with abnormally high glucose levels (ie, someone taking glucocorticoids), some glucose finds its way into the urine. Why? Because the re-absorbtion of glucose by the kidney has a maximum rate. So up to that "magic" number of (about - it varies from person to person but roughly) 180mg/dL, the kidney has no trouble re-absorbing 100% of the glucose it filters. As a simple example, if the concentration in blood is 300mg/dL, the concentration in the renal vein will be 180mg/dL because that's the magic number, no more than this can be absorbed. It's not strictly true for a lot of different reasons I won't bore you with, but it's illustratively true. What happens to the rest of the glucose? It stays in the urine, because the kidney can't re- absorb it fast enough. There is simply too much of it.
So to answer your question - no, any glucose that happens to make it to the kidney very likely will be filtered out of the blood, re-absorbed into the blood via active transport, and sent right back to you. Unless you're diabetic and have far too much glucose, in which case some of that glucose will be "lost" via the urine. But a diabetic has far, far too much glucose anyway. While glucosuria (peeing glucose) has its own important set of heath problems and risks, it's one of the least of a diabetic's worries. Increased blood viscosity, acid-base and electrolyte disturbances are some of the more serious immediate problems of having too much glucose in the blood, and then there's the long-term effects of all that glucose reacting with proteins it shouldn't be reacting with that cause the slow, crippling death spiral of the un-treated diabetic, assuming he survives long enough.
Eh no, pregnant women can develop diabetes while they are pregnant, and this gestational diabetes "disappears" after the pregnancy is resolved. However the mechanism is the same. Also these women are more likely to develop type II diabetes 5 years or so after the pregnancy.
I was under the impression that pretty much any cell in your body can take up glucose as an energy source.
Yeah. What does that have to do with anything? Glucose cannot move across cell mebranes by diffusion, that's what cell membranes are for - to provide a barrier so that a cell can try to maintain an orderly, controlled internal environment. Lipid soluble stuff can move across, because the membrane is a phospholipid bi-layer. Tiny molecules can move across - water, ions and the like. Ion gradients are actively maintained by the cell as it uses energy to pump unwanted ions (usually Na+) out and wanted ions (K+) in. Water soluble stuff like glucose cannot cross the membrane. Glucose gets into cells because it is actively transported into cells. Feel free to google for glucose transport mechanisms.
Does this mean that before your body can use glucose that your kidneys have to process it first?
Why would you say that? The kidneys receive approximately 20% of your body's blood flow. So out of those 5 glucose molecule that your liver just created by gluconeogenesis (as an example - there's lots of places glucose comes from), one of them probably passed through your kidneys, was filtered and then re-absorbed. The other 4 molecules, however, probably went from A to B without the kidney being involved at all. Think of the body as a dynamic, imperfect system. The chemical reactions are always happening, but the body is not a laboratory setting where you take substance A and mix it with substance B, and all of it is consumed to give you substance C. In the body you might start with A, and end up with some B, C and X, and the best bit is that C makes A turn into B faster, but X actually prevents A from being turned into anything at all. And all the time a little bit of all these substances are leaving the body - through the lungs, skin, urine and feces, and more of these substances are entering the body every time you breathe, drink or eat. Understanding biochemistry is understanding that life is dependent on a temporary equilibrium of equilibriums. When they get a little out of whack we call that "disease", and when they get really out of whack we call it "death".
have no input whatsoever on the actual value of the enterprise behind the stocks.
Stock prices have not reflected the actual value of companies for many, many years. Certainly since before the market was computerized. Stocks move according to people's expectations - not the actual facts. The facts only work to justify price moves in hind-sight. Oh yeah, the price went up/down because of... But if you tell me you can pick a "winning stock" by looking at the company's books, why aren't you a billionaire yet?
Yeah, just like the government can stop other things not in the public interest. Is cancer in the public interest? Is death in the public interest? How about crime, is that in the public interest? Or drugs? The government can PRETEND to stop it, but governments can actually do very little except take money from honest men. The day you realize how true this is, you will have gained a lot of insight into both politics and human nature.
In your world the ideal market is a place where no one can ever trade. In my world the ideal market is where anyone can trade almost instantly at or near the desired price. Guess which one is closer to what HFT actually is? Don't let your jealousy of the rich man being able to roll over his capital much easier than you cloud the fact that no one is forcing you to complete a transaction. HFT is only providing a solution to the supply/demand of the market at any given point in time. It does not make the market. It does not force you to sell a share. It does not force you to buy a share. It does, however, enable you to sell your shares almost instantly at the asking price. And it does enable you to buy stock almost instantly at the bid. Now if you're a day trader trying to make money off the spread, HFT will eat your lunch. If you're an investor, however, HFT is your friend.
Strangely enough, the actual number of shares traded is declining after having peaked a while back, which seems to fly into the face of people who think that HFT is skewing the market. You'd think that if HFT businesses were just rolling the same cash over and over, this would increase the total number of trades and thus add to the overall volume of the market. But no, that's not the case. What's happening is that when their algorithms want to buy stock, they will buy it from you faster than anyone else. And likewise on the other end of the transaction. How does this affect you, if you manage to make the trade you were going to make anyway?
The REAL problem with the market is government money printing which is now pouring trillions into the market every year so that stock prices inflate not because of any actual connection to a company's performance, but because the economy is so bloated. It wouldn't matter if the market only went up, but the higher you go, the further down you get to fall when falling time comes...
ALL glucose is filtered out by the kidneys. 100% of it. It is then reabsorbed via active transport (actually sodium-glucose cotransport). The reason diabetics urinate glucose is because their blood glucose levels are so high, leading to such a high concentration of glucose in urine, that this saturates the active transport mechanisms. That is why you automatically know that a patient with any glucose in the urine at all has at LEAST a 180mg/dL blood glucose level, as that's the saturation point of the enzyme based transport mechanism.
Very important to remember in biochemistry that you are dealing with living, falliable systems. There are not many concrete reactions like in a test tube since there are so many variables, and also almost all reactions are subject to having their rate limited by enzyme saturation at one point or another.
Er you missed the part where caffeine is hydrosoluble. Since Wikipedia is no substitute for say, pharmacology classes in medical school, most of your assertions are irrelevant. While caffeine is metabolized by the liver like almost everything else: all small, hydrosoluble molecules are filtered out at the glomerulus and form part of the ultrafiltrate. Water soluble molecules are then not re-absorbed. Therefore while caffeine is metabolized in the liver, it and its metabolites are excreted via the urine. How much caffeine is metabolized and how much is excreted "as is" depends very much on dose, the patient's ability to metabolize it, and any exogenous factors (medication, etc) that could affect the rate at which the liver can break it down.
The liver takes time to metabolize things and like any enzyme dependent process, it can be saturated. The filtration from the kidney however is a physical process. So long as blood flows through it that has caffeine in it, some of that caffeine is going to get filtered out. And because the kidney is pretty good at keeping water-soluble molecules out (you know, things like urea), once it's filtered it stays filtered. Lipid soluble molecules can always find a way to sneak back in on their own, but the other stuff (like say, glucose) ain't getting back in unless there's an active transport system to pull it back in.
Nah just dangle a few stale pastries, a couple mac books/ipads/iphones and a wifi access point over the side, and the fish will be leaping into your boat.
so your experience that dying "is completely painless" seems not to be all that representative
You misunderstand me. I felt like absolute shit, which is why I went to the ER in the first place. I felt all of that, and as a (then) medical student I knew I was having a heart attack to boot. I was in a great deal of pain, probably the worst pain I had been in my life up until then, don't get me wrong. Now, ask me 10 seconds before I died if I thought I was about to die - and the answer is "no".
Will his consciousness cease to exist or will his ability to show us it exist cease?
If you tell me that something everyone calls blue is actually red, does it really make a difference if I keep calling it blue? Are humans defined by their consciousness, or more by their ability to express their consciousness and use it to impact the world around them? If you remove his ability to do this - even if his consciousness were to remain - could we still call him "human"?
There's a whole bunch of people who report little green men and anal probes and all sorts of shit. That doesn't make it true. Anyway I don't need to convince anyone. I've said my piece and I think I'm pretty well qualified. If you don't agree then I really don't care.
The medical definition, which is quite easy for me since I'm also a physician. Death can be reversible or non reversible. The legal definition of death is the minute I put my signature to the death certificate. Either way clinical death is defined as lack of pulse, blood pressure, breathing deep tendon reflexes, etc. It is identical in both reversible and non reversible cases, which is why efforts are usually taken to reanimate a recently dead person, especially if the death happens in front of medical staff and is not obviously irreversible (example, decapitation, a body that is obviously cold/stiff to the touch, etc).
but we know the brain doesn't 'die' immediately.
The tissue does not "die", however it stops working almost immediately when blood flow stops. The brain consumes huge amounts of oxygen and will immediately deplete any oxygen present in the blood. That's the reason people will suffer "transient ischemic attacks" (sort of like a mini-stroke) even with partial blockages of their carotid arteries - because there is a momentary disruption of blood flow. Now you could argue that a cell that is still alive in that it can maintain the permeability of its cell membrane for the moment, is not technically dead and you are correct. However that cell, at that moment, is not "working". All remaining ATP is being used to try to keep the cell alive, and it has no energy spare to do things like depolarize and transmit signals.
Maybe the angels, lights and funny guy with the beard show up later.
Buddy you are free to believe whatever you want. For me I just remember not finishing a sentence in the ER, and then being ventilated with a crowd of colleagues and nurses around me a few minutes later. There was no passage of time. There was no pain. There was no suffocation. In fact when I "came to" it took me a while to realize what had happened, with the obvious disbelief that it was happening to me. I do remember a certain disconnect from my body and it took a few minutes to register all the poking and prodding that was going on as IV lines were inserted, etc. And after a few minutes the incredible pain from the burns I had from the defibrilator started to be felt. But it's an amazing feeling to not have to do your own breathing. But I wouldn't read more into it than that. At least now I know that death is completely painless, and I'm not afraid for next time. I was taken completely by surprise, so now I figure that no one realizes when they are going to die. Oh they might feel really ill, or they might realize they are in real danger. But there's no "I'm dying" sensation. It just happens, quite suddenly, and just like the exact moment when you fall asleep, you have no idea exactly when it happens. But all the religious stuff I chalk up to people making shit up because they want/need attention, or they have to justify their beliefs to others in order to convince themselves that it's "true".
We can try an experiment. If we remove your brain from your head I hypothesise that your consciousness will immediately cease to exists. Let me know when you want to begin.
Necessarily. Having been dead for quite a few minutes myself, but being lucky enough to have been reanimated, I can assure you absolutely nothing happens. No white lights. No angels. Nothing. But then again who are you going to believe - me, who is not trying to sell you anything, or the guys/gals who want you to a) buy their book or b) donate money to their church?
Yeah, usually decomposition, and depending on the humidity levels, mummification. But you won't be around to experience any of that, being dead. You'll have exactly the same point of view as you had before you were conceived. You remember all that stuff from the beginning of the universe until you were born? No. Well that's exactly what will happen after you die, until the end of the universe...
So things like systematic extermination of "sub humans" in Nazi Germany isn't "internal strife" either? Even if we leave aside the extermination of the weak, the sick, and those of the wrong color or religion for a moment: how about the various assasinations when Hitler decided to get rid of his SA brown-shirts. There's some good german fanatic on german fanatic slaughtering. Not internal strife? I'd like to say it would be interesting to say exactly what his metric was, but frankly I don't think it's worth my time.
The curious thing is I read that perfectly, Spanish, French and English being three of the six languages I am fluent in. But I could venture that the latin-based languages like Italian and Portugese hardly count for much because if you know any two of them, you are pretty well equipped to handle yourself in any of the others. I was quite surprised however at how much spoken Romanian I can understand, although I am nowhere near fluent in that language.
Slashdot Mirror
giving the HFT traders an unfair advantage
Why? Does them having their serves right next to the exchange FORCE you to click the "sell" button? Does it somehow make you buy stock at a price you didn't want to buy it at? The ONLY advantage - if any - is that they get to be first in line. First in line can be a good thing. It can also be a pretty bad thing...
Nah he's the guy that takes the $300 when the airline tells him they overbooked and would he mind going on standby on another flight over the next couple days. He thinks he's getting a sweet deal, too. That airline is being so nice to him, giving him free stuff and everything...
but for now they're pretty hard to counter.
At a pricetag of $100+ million each for some of the nicer ones, you don't have to bring down too many though before they stop being used against you.
The difference is that the guys who built the V1 didn't want to push it as a disposable vehicle to make millions and millions more for themselves (e.g. contractor buddies) as the V1 was already a disposable vehicle.
That sentence doesn't make much logical sense. "The guy that built it didn't want to make it disposable because it was already disposable". Er, the guy that built it presumably was pretty free to design whatever he wanted prior to having built it, because after all he was the guy that was building it. Perhaps a more accurate perspective includes the fact that digital computers did not exist in that time period - apart from ENIAC; but ENIAC was a little too big to fit inside any aircraft. Gyros and analog computers were good enough to get close to a target, but nowhere near accurate enough to bring a vehicle back after a "bomb run". For that you needed a different analog computer, called a "pilot". But if you're making a manned craft that can dispense ordinance and return, one already exists, it's called a "bomber".
This is great news for the 53 people who will be using IE 10 and Windows 8. Just like Vista I don't see a compelling reason to "upgrade". Unlike Vista, however, I see many, many reasons NOT to switch to Windows 8. The fact that Microsoft are tying this OS to their tablet-like thing pretty much dooms it to failure too. Hey it's my opinion, and I could be wrong. I admire that Microsoft is taking a pretty huge gamble. But I think it's a gamble they are going to lose. Surely Redmond could have come up with a better strategy but I guess Microsoft sufferes from the same illness that affects all corporations after a while when they get big enough: mediocrity.
And maybe then you'll realise how much of your short life you wasted sitting in front of the TV.
Says the guy who wastes hours of his short life in front of a computer monitor. Oh wait, no, he's only here 5 minutes a day folks, he's not like "the rest". Sounds like someone is suffering from "I'm a special princess" syndrome. Why do you think that you are significantly different from everyone else who posts here, princess? And no, you can't have a pony.
"Others" do it quite well? So many "others", huh? Yeah everyone can be a Warren Buffet. No, this is like asking the 110 year old lady what her secret is for long life. And one old lady will tell you it's cold showers every morning. Another one will say praying to God every day. Still another will say getting up at 5am and going to bed at 6pm. But you see, that's just selection bias. I pretty much guarantee that even if you do all those things, you'll die much, much sooner. Your example was pretty poor. Buffet may think it's real easy to do what he does. Truth is even he doesn't exactly know how or why he can do what he does. Sure he can try to rationalize it and explain it to people, but he has no clue. Otherwise, as the saying goes, everyone would be doing it. You want evidence? OK, how many Warren Buffets are there?
Picking one extreme example and trying to pass it off as the norm is a fallacious way to try to justify an argument. You add to this by basically saying "I could be a multi-billionare too, but I don't feel like it". No buddy, neither you nor me will be billionaires like Mr. Buffet. But if you tell yourself you can pick stocks by looking at the financial statements of a company - statements that have been cooked until they are overdone, I guarantee you will not only not be a billionaire but rather poor to boot. And the evidence is pretty much in my favor - 80% (according to the SEC) of all traders lose money. But hey, what do I care. It's not my money. Have fun. And enjoy your wait. If you're patient enough, you probably will make it out with a profit. But not 50 billion...that I'm willing to bet on.
ALL glucose is filtered out by the kidneys. 100% of it.
You're right. I should have said "of all the glucose that arrives at the glomerulus, an amount equiproportional to its concentration in blood is filtered to form part of the ultrafiltrate"... but hey I was writing a fast post on slashdot, not answering a question on a nephrology exam. Sorry if this was misleading.
is it right that any cell in the body can take in glucose, per the transport mechanism?
Yes all healthy cells are equipped to absorb glucose one way or another. What varies is the type of transport protein they use to do the absorbing. Some of these proteins require the presence of insulin in order to work properly. Some don't.
But that any glucose that happens to make it to the kidneys will be completely filtered out and no longer be available to the body?
No I think this is the part you're missing: it's filtered out but immediately re-absorbed. So if you measure the concentration of glucose in the renal artery (that takes blood TO the kidney) and compare it to the glucose concentration in the renal vein (that takes blood FROM the kidney AFTER processing), it will be about the same. Actually that's not true because the kidney itself (and the blood vessls and the living cells in the blood itself) consumes a great deal of glucose in order to stay alive and do its job, but glucose IN is roughly equal to glucose OUT + glucose used by kidney. This in a healthy person.
In a diabetic, or someone for some reason with abnormally high glucose levels (ie, someone taking glucocorticoids), some glucose finds its way into the urine. Why? Because the re-absorbtion of glucose by the kidney has a maximum rate. So up to that "magic" number of (about - it varies from person to person but roughly) 180mg/dL, the kidney has no trouble re-absorbing 100% of the glucose it filters. As a simple example, if the concentration in blood is 300mg/dL, the concentration in the renal vein will be 180mg/dL because that's the magic number, no more than this can be absorbed. It's not strictly true for a lot of different reasons I won't bore you with, but it's illustratively true. What happens to the rest of the glucose? It stays in the urine, because the kidney can't re- absorb it fast enough. There is simply too much of it.
So to answer your question - no, any glucose that happens to make it to the kidney very likely will be filtered out of the blood, re-absorbed into the blood via active transport, and sent right back to you. Unless you're diabetic and have far too much glucose, in which case some of that glucose will be "lost" via the urine. But a diabetic has far, far too much glucose anyway. While glucosuria (peeing glucose) has its own important set of heath problems and risks, it's one of the least of a diabetic's worries. Increased blood viscosity, acid-base and electrolyte disturbances are some of the more serious immediate problems of having too much glucose in the blood, and then there's the long-term effects of all that glucose reacting with proteins it shouldn't be reacting with that cause the slow, crippling death spiral of the un-treated diabetic, assuming he survives long enough.
Eh no, pregnant women can develop diabetes while they are pregnant, and this gestational diabetes "disappears" after the pregnancy is resolved. However the mechanism is the same. Also these women are more likely to develop type II diabetes 5 years or so after the pregnancy.
I was under the impression that pretty much any cell in your body can take up glucose as an energy source.
Yeah. What does that have to do with anything? Glucose cannot move across cell mebranes by diffusion, that's what cell membranes are for - to provide a barrier so that a cell can try to maintain an orderly, controlled internal environment. Lipid soluble stuff can move across, because the membrane is a phospholipid bi-layer. Tiny molecules can move across - water, ions and the like. Ion gradients are actively maintained by the cell as it uses energy to pump unwanted ions (usually Na+) out and wanted ions (K+) in. Water soluble stuff like glucose cannot cross the membrane. Glucose gets into cells because it is actively transported into cells. Feel free to google for glucose transport mechanisms.
Does this mean that before your body can use glucose that your kidneys have to process it first?
Why would you say that? The kidneys receive approximately 20% of your body's blood flow. So out of those 5 glucose molecule that your liver just created by gluconeogenesis (as an example - there's lots of places glucose comes from), one of them probably passed through your kidneys, was filtered and then re-absorbed. The other 4 molecules, however, probably went from A to B without the kidney being involved at all. Think of the body as a dynamic, imperfect system. The chemical reactions are always happening, but the body is not a laboratory setting where you take substance A and mix it with substance B, and all of it is consumed to give you substance C. In the body you might start with A, and end up with some B, C and X, and the best bit is that C makes A turn into B faster, but X actually prevents A from being turned into anything at all. And all the time a little bit of all these substances are leaving the body - through the lungs, skin, urine and feces, and more of these substances are entering the body every time you breathe, drink or eat. Understanding biochemistry is understanding that life is dependent on a temporary equilibrium of equilibriums. When they get a little out of whack we call that "disease", and when they get really out of whack we call it "death".
have no input whatsoever on the actual value of the enterprise behind the stocks.
Stock prices have not reflected the actual value of companies for many, many years. Certainly since before the market was computerized. Stocks move according to people's expectations - not the actual facts. The facts only work to justify price moves in hind-sight. Oh yeah, the price went up/down because of... But if you tell me you can pick a "winning stock" by looking at the company's books, why aren't you a billionaire yet?
Yeah, just like the government can stop other things not in the public interest. Is cancer in the public interest? Is death in the public interest? How about crime, is that in the public interest? Or drugs? The government can PRETEND to stop it, but governments can actually do very little except take money from honest men. The day you realize how true this is, you will have gained a lot of insight into both politics and human nature.
In your world the ideal market is a place where no one can ever trade. In my world the ideal market is where anyone can trade almost instantly at or near the desired price. Guess which one is closer to what HFT actually is? Don't let your jealousy of the rich man being able to roll over his capital much easier than you cloud the fact that no one is forcing you to complete a transaction. HFT is only providing a solution to the supply/demand of the market at any given point in time. It does not make the market. It does not force you to sell a share. It does not force you to buy a share. It does, however, enable you to sell your shares almost instantly at the asking price. And it does enable you to buy stock almost instantly at the bid. Now if you're a day trader trying to make money off the spread, HFT will eat your lunch. If you're an investor, however, HFT is your friend.
Strangely enough, the actual number of shares traded is declining after having peaked a while back, which seems to fly into the face of people who think that HFT is skewing the market. You'd think that if HFT businesses were just rolling the same cash over and over, this would increase the total number of trades and thus add to the overall volume of the market. But no, that's not the case. What's happening is that when their algorithms want to buy stock, they will buy it from you faster than anyone else. And likewise on the other end of the transaction. How does this affect you, if you manage to make the trade you were going to make anyway?
The REAL problem with the market is government money printing which is now pouring trillions into the market every year so that stock prices inflate not because of any actual connection to a company's performance, but because the economy is so bloated. It wouldn't matter if the market only went up, but the higher you go, the further down you get to fall when falling time comes...
ALL glucose is filtered out by the kidneys. 100% of it. It is then reabsorbed via active transport (actually sodium-glucose cotransport). The reason diabetics urinate glucose is because their blood glucose levels are so high, leading to such a high concentration of glucose in urine, that this saturates the active transport mechanisms. That is why you automatically know that a patient with any glucose in the urine at all has at LEAST a 180mg/dL blood glucose level, as that's the saturation point of the enzyme based transport mechanism.
Very important to remember in biochemistry that you are dealing with living, falliable systems. There are not many concrete reactions like in a test tube since there are so many variables, and also almost all reactions are subject to having their rate limited by enzyme saturation at one point or another.
Er you missed the part where caffeine is hydrosoluble. Since Wikipedia is no substitute for say, pharmacology classes in medical school, most of your assertions are irrelevant. While caffeine is metabolized by the liver like almost everything else: all small, hydrosoluble molecules are filtered out at the glomerulus and form part of the ultrafiltrate. Water soluble molecules are then not re-absorbed. Therefore while caffeine is metabolized in the liver, it and its metabolites are excreted via the urine. How much caffeine is metabolized and how much is excreted "as is" depends very much on dose, the patient's ability to metabolize it, and any exogenous factors (medication, etc) that could affect the rate at which the liver can break it down.
The liver takes time to metabolize things and like any enzyme dependent process, it can be saturated. The filtration from the kidney however is a physical process. So long as blood flows through it that has caffeine in it, some of that caffeine is going to get filtered out. And because the kidney is pretty good at keeping water-soluble molecules out (you know, things like urea), once it's filtered it stays filtered. Lipid soluble molecules can always find a way to sneak back in on their own, but the other stuff (like say, glucose) ain't getting back in unless there's an active transport system to pull it back in.
Nah just dangle a few stale pastries, a couple mac books/ipads/iphones and a wifi access point over the side, and the fish will be leaping into your boat.
so your experience that dying "is completely painless" seems not to be all that representative
You misunderstand me. I felt like absolute shit, which is why I went to the ER in the first place. I felt all of that, and as a (then) medical student I knew I was having a heart attack to boot. I was in a great deal of pain, probably the worst pain I had been in my life up until then, don't get me wrong. Now, ask me 10 seconds before I died if I thought I was about to die - and the answer is "no".
Will his consciousness cease to exist or will his ability to show us it exist cease?
If you tell me that something everyone calls blue is actually red, does it really make a difference if I keep calling it blue? Are humans defined by their consciousness, or more by their ability to express their consciousness and use it to impact the world around them? If you remove his ability to do this - even if his consciousness were to remain - could we still call him "human"?
There's a whole bunch of people who report little green men and anal probes and all sorts of shit. That doesn't make it true. Anyway I don't need to convince anyone. I've said my piece and I think I'm pretty well qualified. If you don't agree then I really don't care.
The medical definition, which is quite easy for me since I'm also a physician. Death can be reversible or non reversible. The legal definition of death is the minute I put my signature to the death certificate. Either way clinical death is defined as lack of pulse, blood pressure, breathing deep tendon reflexes, etc. It is identical in both reversible and non reversible cases, which is why efforts are usually taken to reanimate a recently dead person, especially if the death happens in front of medical staff and is not obviously irreversible (example, decapitation, a body that is obviously cold/stiff to the touch, etc).
but we know the brain doesn't 'die' immediately.
The tissue does not "die", however it stops working almost immediately when blood flow stops. The brain consumes huge amounts of oxygen and will immediately deplete any oxygen present in the blood. That's the reason people will suffer "transient ischemic attacks" (sort of like a mini-stroke) even with partial blockages of their carotid arteries - because there is a momentary disruption of blood flow. Now you could argue that a cell that is still alive in that it can maintain the permeability of its cell membrane for the moment, is not technically dead and you are correct. However that cell, at that moment, is not "working". All remaining ATP is being used to try to keep the cell alive, and it has no energy spare to do things like depolarize and transmit signals.
Maybe the angels, lights and funny guy with the beard show up later.
Buddy you are free to believe whatever you want. For me I just remember not finishing a sentence in the ER, and then being ventilated with a crowd of colleagues and nurses around me a few minutes later. There was no passage of time. There was no pain. There was no suffocation. In fact when I "came to" it took me a while to realize what had happened, with the obvious disbelief that it was happening to me. I do remember a certain disconnect from my body and it took a few minutes to register all the poking and prodding that was going on as IV lines were inserted, etc. And after a few minutes the incredible pain from the burns I had from the defibrilator started to be felt. But it's an amazing feeling to not have to do your own breathing. But I wouldn't read more into it than that. At least now I know that death is completely painless, and I'm not afraid for next time. I was taken completely by surprise, so now I figure that no one realizes when they are going to die. Oh they might feel really ill, or they might realize they are in real danger. But there's no "I'm dying" sensation. It just happens, quite suddenly, and just like the exact moment when you fall asleep, you have no idea exactly when it happens. But all the religious stuff I chalk up to people making shit up because they want/need attention, or they have to justify their beliefs to others in order to convince themselves that it's "true".
We can try an experiment. If we remove your brain from your head I hypothesise that your consciousness will immediately cease to exists. Let me know when you want to begin.
Not necessarily.
Necessarily. Having been dead for quite a few minutes myself, but being lucky enough to have been reanimated, I can assure you absolutely nothing happens. No white lights. No angels. Nothing. But then again who are you going to believe - me, who is not trying to sell you anything, or the guys/gals who want you to a) buy their book or b) donate money to their church?
Yeah, usually decomposition, and depending on the humidity levels, mummification. But you won't be around to experience any of that, being dead. You'll have exactly the same point of view as you had before you were conceived. You remember all that stuff from the beginning of the universe until you were born? No. Well that's exactly what will happen after you die, until the end of the universe...
So things like systematic extermination of "sub humans" in Nazi Germany isn't "internal strife" either? Even if we leave aside the extermination of the weak, the sick, and those of the wrong color or religion for a moment: how about the various assasinations when Hitler decided to get rid of his SA brown-shirts. There's some good german fanatic on german fanatic slaughtering. Not internal strife? I'd like to say it would be interesting to say exactly what his metric was, but frankly I don't think it's worth my time.
The curious thing is I read that perfectly, Spanish, French and English being three of the six languages I am fluent in. But I could venture that the latin-based languages like Italian and Portugese hardly count for much because if you know any two of them, you are pretty well equipped to handle yourself in any of the others. I was quite surprised however at how much spoken Romanian I can understand, although I am nowhere near fluent in that language.