If only your experience were universal. I am also currently a caffeine addict, proudly so, and I've got no trouble drinking a 10-pot cup of strong coffee and then sleeping for 8 hours, if the time is right, though I seldom drink that much lately.
First thing when I do when I get out of the house for work, is find coffee, which is only a few blocks away from my house. If I'm unable to do this (say, because I've slept in a bit), my first several waking hours are a groggy mess. However, with a bit of coffee in the morning, everything's cool.
You're chastising them for not having the proper sense of cosmological perspective by calling the distance to Mars vast, but you choose as your example of the truly vast to be the closest galaxy to us?
Ha!
Andromeda is a stone's throw away. I refer you to the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The distance to one of those galaxies is vast. Galaxies so distant that the light reaching us today is from only a short time after the Big Bang. That's vast. Our pathetic local group is far too tiny on a truly cosmological scale to call any trip between two points within it "vast".
Point being: If there's a valid perspective by which you can consider Milky Way to Andromeda to be a vast distance, there's a valid perspective where the distance to Mars is vast.
A much more relevant perspective too. Specifically, the perspective of trips which human beings are contemplating actually taking in this century.
No, because the addicted coffee drinker's tolerance means they don't experience the stimulating effect of caffeine. It's that effect that makes you feel not tired, but addicts don't get that effect. They simply lose the effects of withdrawal.
Imagine "baseline" as meaning "whatever level a non-drinker would be at that time". For an addict their caffeine fix will bring them up to that level, but no higher. An addict who was tired and experiencing withdrawal would be below a tired non-drinker, and when they drink the coffee they'll lose the withdrawal and just be tired. So it'll feel like an improvement (and surely is) but it won't be an improvement over not being an addict in the first place.
Frankly this matches my experiences as a caffeine addict. While my morning cup of joe is essential to getting my brain up and running, if I didn't get enough sleep then it doesn't make me not tired. I can drink a double shot of espresso shortly before bed time and not have any trouble falling asleep, and I've tried drinking copious amounts of coffee to help me stay up late and it doesn't work.
My caffeine addiction really kicked in during my last couple years of college when I was pulling lots of all-nighters for projects. The stimulant effect sure helped then, but I just don't feel the benefit anymore.
Uh, a person not on caffeine is "baseline". That's the point. A caffeine addict goes below baseline because they're suffering from withdrawal, and drinking caffeine only counters those symptoms. This doesn't happen to not-drinkers for obvious reasons.
Maybe not, but if the species relationship is not transitive (I assume that's what you meant) how do you count them?
Heh, yeah, it is.
Anyway, actually counting the species requires you to define what species means, taking into account all the complexities like non-transitivity, which is much trickier and not the problem I'm trying to solve. I'm just suggesting a criterion for saying two things are definitely *not* the same. It's not very useful for counting species in a ring, since all it can say is "at least two".
The classic example described on WP, the gulls surrounding the arctic circle, consists of at least five species. On the other hand, the Greenish Warblers are classified taxonomically as a single species with a number of sub-species. That kind of thing changes all the time, though. For example, the Tufted Titmouse and Black-crested Titmouse used to be considered separate species, then they decided to classify them as the same species, then they decided to separate them again.
Lol, I meant *transitive* of course, not commutative. But seeing as you can different results breeding A and B depending on if A or B is the mother, commutative should probably not be assumed either!
Nope, there are lots of definitions of species, not just that one (which fails on ring species).
Uh, my whole point was that having a criterion to say that two populations are not the same species is not the same as defining "species" which is much more difficult. I can say that if you lack a spine you're not a mammal, but that's not the definition of mammal, nor is it the only criterion by which you could be said to not be one.
And as a criterion it works just fine for ring species; if the populations at the ends of the ring can't interbreed, they aren't the same species. The fuzzy relationships with neighboring populations is only a problem if you assume species relationships are commutative. But biological compatibility is not by nature commutative, so neither should you expect species relationships to be.
Well... "Two organisms that cannot produce fertile offspring are separate species" would probably be more accurate. Otherwise you would be lumping tigers and lions into the same species. And the reverse is not true, just because two species can produce fertile offspring doesn't mean they are the same species.
Yeah, the "can they produce fertile offspring" test is really only a way that lets you say that two populations (not organisms, I mean most of the time two males of the same species can't breed:P) are definitely different species. The definition of "species" is way too fuzzy to easily say that things which can breed are the same species.
It's a measure of the overall superstitious silliness of our species that we've actually coined a term for it, not to mention that it's one which very few people have ever heard of.
Well yeah it's not very surprising not many have heard of it, because Lore made it up to make fun of fortune telling by waiting to see which onion sprouts first, which unlike Chronomancy is an actual superstition (though certainly not something I'd heard of).
I.D. by "GOD" may be dogma, but synthetic life forms created by human beings are by all accounts intelligent design.
Dude, that's not what capital-I-D Intelligent Design is about!
Nobody sane on the planet earth doubts that there exists things which are Designed by an Intelligence, specifically ours. Dogs and agricultural plants are examples of human-originated "intelligently designed" organisms that long predate that article.
I.D. is not the claim that it is possible for human intelligence to create things up to and including artificial life.
I.D. is the claim that natural processes alone cannot be the source of the diversity of life including humans themselves.
The whole purpose of ID is to be an alternative to Evolution, in a thin ruse to push Creationism in schools without falling afoul of the 1st Amendment. There is no other kind of ID than "ID by GOD" because stated or not that is the premise. Well okay, there's ID by sincere idiots who don't seem to realize that if you contend that intelligent life cannot have arisen without an intelligence to create it, then where did that intelligence come from? At some point the "designer" must be either purely natural in origin (contradicting the whole premise), or super-natural.
But that's besides the fact that what you're talking about isn't ID, and actual ID is actually not science in any way.
Since they already have the weapon, but not the robot, I'm figuring they've tried the human-fired approach and found something wanting. I'm not certain, but seeing as how landmines are not exclusively used to deny territory to the enemy while nobody is watching it, but rather as an obstacle that slows and stops the enemy at conveniently chosen areas, and knowing some of the problems our soldiers have had over there... I'm guessing there's a good reason for robots, which can probably be summed up in two words:
But... but... cellphones are evil! Even bees know it. Bees are attuned to their magnetic frequencies, man! Like I'm tuned to the CIA's spy satellite transmissions! Ah man, I can tell they're reading me type this and are giving me cancer right now! I gotta go!
It's a phishing attack!! Everybody knows google is in AMERICA! Crazy frenchy.
Ah, but you have to go to Google France in order to get the link to the French study. In that one, they didn't cause discomfort in the mice by hurting their paws, but rather by offering a boring and pedestrian selection of cheeses.
Exactly. There are many things that like acupuncture that have been used medicinally for centuries. Just because we may not, at the time, understand any underlying mechanisms doesn't mean that they don't work.
Except acupuncturists claim to have a mechanism. It's integral to properly practicing acupuncture and to achieving the effects they claim which go well beyond simple pain relief.
Traditional medicine often has some basis in reality, but it varies how closely the actual practice is connected to that reality. Traditional medicine unsurprisingly gets encumbered by tradition, and with it comes both rules and results that don't matter and don't happen, respectively. It's understandable how this happened long before the existence of concepts like "confirmation bias". You put the needles in the way you were always taught to put the needles, your patients get better sometimes, and hey two days after treatment your neighbor passed that kidney stone.
Which is why I'm all for studying all of these traditions with science. We can find the part of it that really works, and discard the parts that were because nobody bothered with double-blind studies back then.
Bloodletting and leeches like you mentioned in another post are actually perfect examples. Finding them useful for some things doesn't equate to validating all the other uses they were put to. Research was done, they figured out that hey leeches are actually helpful for keeping a wound clean and preventing coagulation, and there you go. The real benefit, minus a bunch of illogical and unhelpful crap.
Heck, people thought they saw enough therapeutic benefit from using quicksilver that they kept prescribing that.
If the results of this study carry over to humans, then it could mean that acupuncture does really work for pain relief by stimulating the release of natural anesthetics. Which is great. But it doesn't seem to matter where you put the needles, the mechanism doesn't suggest anything beyond temporary pain relief, and the greater claims of acupuncturists have yet to pan out after investigation.
Slashdot Mirror
If only your experience were universal. I am also currently a caffeine addict, proudly so, and I've got no trouble drinking a 10-pot cup of strong coffee and then sleeping for 8 hours, if the time is right, though I seldom drink that much lately.
First thing when I do when I get out of the house for work, is find coffee, which is only a few blocks away from my house. If I'm unable to do this (say, because I've slept in a bit), my first several waking hours are a groggy mess. However, with a bit of coffee in the morning, everything's cool.
But that is my experience, to a tee.
You're chastising them for not having the proper sense of cosmological perspective by calling the distance to Mars vast, but you choose as your example of the truly vast to be the closest galaxy to us?
Ha!
Andromeda is a stone's throw away. I refer you to the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The distance to one of those galaxies is vast. Galaxies so distant that the light reaching us today is from only a short time after the Big Bang. That's vast. Our pathetic local group is far too tiny on a truly cosmological scale to call any trip between two points within it "vast".
Point being: If there's a valid perspective by which you can consider Milky Way to Andromeda to be a vast distance, there's a valid perspective where the distance to Mars is vast.
A much more relevant perspective too. Specifically, the perspective of trips which human beings are contemplating actually taking in this century.
Hehe. It's true, I'm a blatant chemistryist. If that's the right word.
So my reusable screen filter is bad for my cholesterol? Shit.
But wait, the WP page says it may also be an anticarcinogen. Now what do I do?
I'm just mad that they didn't name it Lovelace.
Caffeine? You're here for caffeine? That's some bullshit! Man, have you ever sucked a dick for caffeine?!
No, because the addicted coffee drinker's tolerance means they don't experience the stimulating effect of caffeine. It's that effect that makes you feel not tired, but addicts don't get that effect. They simply lose the effects of withdrawal.
Imagine "baseline" as meaning "whatever level a non-drinker would be at that time". For an addict their caffeine fix will bring them up to that level, but no higher. An addict who was tired and experiencing withdrawal would be below a tired non-drinker, and when they drink the coffee they'll lose the withdrawal and just be tired. So it'll feel like an improvement (and surely is) but it won't be an improvement over not being an addict in the first place.
Frankly this matches my experiences as a caffeine addict. While my morning cup of joe is essential to getting my brain up and running, if I didn't get enough sleep then it doesn't make me not tired. I can drink a double shot of espresso shortly before bed time and not have any trouble falling asleep, and I've tried drinking copious amounts of coffee to help me stay up late and it doesn't work.
My caffeine addiction really kicked in during my last couple years of college when I was pulling lots of all-nighters for projects. The stimulant effect sure helped then, but I just don't feel the benefit anymore.
We're awash in chemicals all day. Why do we have to vilify certain ones?
Because different chemicals have different effects, and some of those effects are harmful but may be non-obvious unless they are studied.
I mean, duh?
The image -- I mean source code -- is blocked, but the WP page on piet gave me the gist. That's pretty cool, actually. Art deco computer programs.
Regarding your insanity -- I won't be truly impressed until you write a self-hosting Piet compiler in Piet. ;)
Uh, a person not on caffeine is "baseline". That's the point. A caffeine addict goes below baseline because they're suffering from withdrawal, and drinking caffeine only counters those symptoms. This doesn't happen to not-drinkers for obvious reasons.
Where are the C development jobs? I have strong C skills, but everything is Java/C++/PHP/Ruby/worse.
Worse? Fortran? Cobol? Ada?
Dare I say, Intercal?
Brainfuck?!
Maybe not, but if the species relationship is not transitive (I assume that's what you meant) how do you count them?
Heh, yeah, it is.
Anyway, actually counting the species requires you to define what species means, taking into account all the complexities like non-transitivity, which is much trickier and not the problem I'm trying to solve. I'm just suggesting a criterion for saying two things are definitely *not* the same. It's not very useful for counting species in a ring, since all it can say is "at least two".
The classic example described on WP, the gulls surrounding the arctic circle, consists of at least five species. On the other hand, the Greenish Warblers are classified taxonomically as a single species with a number of sub-species. That kind of thing changes all the time, though. For example, the Tufted Titmouse and Black-crested Titmouse used to be considered separate species, then they decided to classify them as the same species, then they decided to separate them again.
Lol, I meant *transitive* of course, not commutative. But seeing as you can different results breeding A and B depending on if A or B is the mother, commutative should probably not be assumed either!
Nope, there are lots of definitions of species, not just that one (which fails on ring species).
Uh, my whole point was that having a criterion to say that two populations are not the same species is not the same as defining "species" which is much more difficult. I can say that if you lack a spine you're not a mammal, but that's not the definition of mammal, nor is it the only criterion by which you could be said to not be one.
And as a criterion it works just fine for ring species; if the populations at the ends of the ring can't interbreed, they aren't the same species. The fuzzy relationships with neighboring populations is only a problem if you assume species relationships are commutative. But biological compatibility is not by nature commutative, so neither should you expect species relationships to be.
I don't see any Pierson's Puppeteers around. I think we should get out of here.
Don't worry, there's a Puppeteer right here beside me.
Though on the other hand, he readily admits that he is insane.
That won't work. Don't you remember? Rats, cockroaches, and twinkies are nuke-proof.
Well... "Two organisms that cannot produce fertile offspring are separate species" would probably be more accurate. Otherwise you would be lumping tigers and lions into the same species. And the reverse is not true, just because two species can produce fertile offspring doesn't mean they are the same species.
Yeah, the "can they produce fertile offspring" test is really only a way that lets you say that two populations (not organisms, I mean most of the time two males of the same species can't breed :P) are definitely different species. The definition of "species" is way too fuzzy to easily say that things which can breed are the same species.
It's a measure of the overall superstitious silliness of our species that we've actually coined a term for it, not to mention that it's one which very few people have ever heard of.
Well yeah it's not very surprising not many have heard of it, because Lore made it up to make fun of fortune telling by waiting to see which onion sprouts first, which unlike Chronomancy is an actual superstition (though certainly not something I'd heard of).
Ah yes, Chronomancy, the art of telling the future by waiting to see what happens.
I.D. by "GOD" may be dogma, but synthetic life forms created by human beings are by all accounts intelligent design.
Dude, that's not what capital-I-D Intelligent Design is about!
Nobody sane on the planet earth doubts that there exists things which are Designed by an Intelligence, specifically ours. Dogs and agricultural plants are examples of human-originated "intelligently designed" organisms that long predate that article.
I.D. is not the claim that it is possible for human intelligence to create things up to and including artificial life.
I.D. is the claim that natural processes alone cannot be the source of the diversity of life including humans themselves.
The whole purpose of ID is to be an alternative to Evolution, in a thin ruse to push Creationism in schools without falling afoul of the 1st Amendment. There is no other kind of ID than "ID by GOD" because stated or not that is the premise. Well okay, there's ID by sincere idiots who don't seem to realize that if you contend that intelligent life cannot have arisen without an intelligence to create it, then where did that intelligence come from? At some point the "designer" must be either purely natural in origin (contradicting the whole premise), or super-natural.
But that's besides the fact that what you're talking about isn't ID, and actual ID is actually not science in any way.
Since they already have the weapon, but not the robot, I'm figuring they've tried the human-fired approach and found something wanting. I'm not certain, but seeing as how landmines are not exclusively used to deny territory to the enemy while nobody is watching it, but rather as an obstacle that slows and stops the enemy at conveniently chosen areas, and knowing some of the problems our soldiers have had over there... I'm guessing there's a good reason for robots, which can probably be summed up in two words:
"Boom! Headshot!"
And speaking of military robots, am I the only one who's creeped out by Big Dog? Looks like some sort of unholy union between a deer and a spider..
You can call it unholy if you want, but there was magic in the air that night. Who are you to judge true love?
But... but... cellphones are evil! Even bees know it. Bees are attuned to their magnetic frequencies, man! Like I'm tuned to the CIA's spy satellite transmissions! Ah man, I can tell they're reading me type this and are giving me cancer right now! I gotta go!
It's a phishing attack!! Everybody knows google is in AMERICA! Crazy frenchy.
Ah, but you have to go to Google France in order to get the link to the French study. In that one, they didn't cause discomfort in the mice by hurting their paws, but rather by offering a boring and pedestrian selection of cheeses.
Exactly. There are many things that like acupuncture that have been used medicinally for centuries. Just because we may not, at the time, understand any underlying mechanisms doesn't mean that they don't work.
Except acupuncturists claim to have a mechanism. It's integral to properly practicing acupuncture and to achieving the effects they claim which go well beyond simple pain relief.
Traditional medicine often has some basis in reality, but it varies how closely the actual practice is connected to that reality. Traditional medicine unsurprisingly gets encumbered by tradition, and with it comes both rules and results that don't matter and don't happen, respectively. It's understandable how this happened long before the existence of concepts like "confirmation bias". You put the needles in the way you were always taught to put the needles, your patients get better sometimes, and hey two days after treatment your neighbor passed that kidney stone.
Which is why I'm all for studying all of these traditions with science. We can find the part of it that really works, and discard the parts that were because nobody bothered with double-blind studies back then.
Bloodletting and leeches like you mentioned in another post are actually perfect examples. Finding them useful for some things doesn't equate to validating all the other uses they were put to. Research was done, they figured out that hey leeches are actually helpful for keeping a wound clean and preventing coagulation, and there you go. The real benefit, minus a bunch of illogical and unhelpful crap.
Heck, people thought they saw enough therapeutic benefit from using quicksilver that they kept prescribing that.
If the results of this study carry over to humans, then it could mean that acupuncture does really work for pain relief by stimulating the release of natural anesthetics. Which is great. But it doesn't seem to matter where you put the needles, the mechanism doesn't suggest anything beyond temporary pain relief, and the greater claims of acupuncturists have yet to pan out after investigation.