A lot of people in this discussion are suggesting that pot users may be "self-medicating" and this may explain the correlation with schizophrenia. I don't follow the science closely enough to be able to cite specific studies that contradict this, but it's unlikely for the following reason. Marijuana and the drugs that are used to treat schizophrenia have *opposite* effects on the brain. THC increases dopamine; anti-psychotic drugs decrease dopamine.
I had this problem, nearly a year ago, and as a result had to move my website from pages.google.com to my self-hosted website at www.danielpovey.com (I explain the situation there).
What happened is I made available online a preprint of a paper that I had submitted to an Elsevier journal... this is explicitly allowed by the terms you agree to (the preprint is the draft version that you submit to the journal, before the reviewers suggest changes). Anyway, Elsevier's people submitted a DMCA request to Google, even though what I was doing was 100% allowed, and this caused Google to take down my whole homepage. Google restored my website about a week later, after I submitted a counter-notification or whatever they call it, but by that time I'd decided to move to self-hosting.
They have a section on "European Communist Countries" but it does not include Russia. I guess that part of the report was not released? That was the only thing I was interested in as there are some scary rumors out there about what they have (ebola/smallpox hybrids, etc.)
This kind of phone will be like the Encyclopedia Galactica of phones. Much better than the standard phone (i.e. the Hitchhiker's Guide), but slightly more expensive, a bit boring, and nobody will buy it.
In the book "Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone", the author mentions that Chris Dodd visited his station there, and he devotes a couple of paragraphs to the fact that he thought Dodd was a total dick. Basically his recollection was that Dodd was asking him questions, but they weren't really questions, he had some kind of stupid agenda, and all in all, he was left with a bad taste in his mouth from the encounter.
I used to work for IBM and I recall that they used to disallow Skype. They had the particularly lame reason that "because Skype is not open-source, it is against our business strategy" or some such nonsense. [Yet they had no problem with Windows!].
Yes, when I saw the picture of their device I was concerned about winds.
They make a big deal about the fact that it's made of out lightweight alloys. But the forces due to wind would be much greater than the gravitational forces, and the structure doens't look as if it is built in a way that you could collapse it somehow if a storm is expected.
>> Correct, because plants are more efficient than solar cells due to cholrophyll, so less sun power is wasted.
Er, I think you're wrong about this. The numbers I recall are about a 2% max efficiency from plants, and 10%-15% from solar cells. So solar cells are actually much more efficient. [The downside is that they do not automatically replicate themselves the way plants do.]
That may well be true from a formal point of view, but I doubt it helps. You need a strategy that also works if no-one else is trying a similar strategy (if these strategies as a group are only profiting from each other, there's no reason to get in the game).
Dan
To follow up on my own post-- from looking at the rest of his blog, it looks like Christian Marks is a real mathematician, probably with an interest in finance (e.g. he solves a math problem from the journal Advanced Mathematical Economics). So that part is for real, but I still suspect that the only ones who know for sure that this is bogus are not telling because they are earning seven figure salaries.
I am wondering whether this story is some kind of practical joke.
As someone who understands math to at least a certain degree (I publish in what is effectively applied mathematics), I know enough to say that this is bogus. The Wikipedia page on ordinal collapsing functions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_collapsing_function) shows that they relate to transfinite numbers (various orders of infinity). It is, to me, beyond plausibility that this could have any practical application in trading-- unless it's some kind of weird fad that only the mathematicians understand is a joke. I think someone needs to dig down further into this source.
I am quite skeptical that this could work. I know someone who spent a lot of his life trying to create such a system using the same ingredients (planetary gears), and heard from him that someone had proved in a paper that it was impossible. He was trying anyway. I suspect there is some hidden catch.
I'm an inventor in the IntVen network. It means that a few times a month I get a list of dozens - or hundreds - of problems to address. They're well worked out, not the "we need a better energy system" type question but real-world, grounded, well-defined problems with existing art, marketing, and business cases needed. And when I come up with an idea, the IntVen team hashes it over quite thoroughly, expecting detailed drawings, concepts, descriptions, and - in one case - modeling simulations to prove the idea would work.
Well, whoop-de-doo. You made money off Intellectual Ventures. How does this change any part of the discussion? The point is that they don't make this stuff, they just sit on the patents and then extort money from those who are really producing value. The fact that you made money from this is beside the point. Were any of your ideas turned into products by them?
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of people in this discussion are suggesting that pot users may be "self-medicating" and this may explain the correlation with schizophrenia. I don't follow the science closely enough to be able to cite specific studies that contradict this, but it's unlikely for the following reason. Marijuana and the drugs that are used to treat schizophrenia have *opposite* effects on the brain. THC increases dopamine; anti-psychotic drugs decrease dopamine.
Just re... member that you're standing on a planet that's evolving...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWVshkVF0SY
http://www.danielpovey.com/dmca.html
I have better things to do than to sue Elsevier. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you have no such recourse against false takedown notices.
What happened is I made available online a preprint of a paper that I had submitted to an Elsevier journal... this is explicitly allowed by the terms you agree to (the preprint is the draft version that you submit to the journal, before the reviewers suggest changes). Anyway, Elsevier's people submitted a DMCA request to Google, even though what I was doing was 100% allowed, and this caused Google to take down my whole homepage. Google restored my website about a week later, after I submitted a counter-notification or whatever they call it, but by that time I'd decided to move to self-hosting.
So yes, fuck Elsevier.
Dan
I wonder how long before someone claims it's faster than running Linux directly on hardware?
Funny.
The part on the USSR only covers tissue culture, it seems to be separate from the biological weapons reports.
They have a section on "European Communist Countries" but it does not include Russia. I guess that part of the report was not released? That was the only thing I was interested in as there are some scary rumors out there about what they have (ebola/smallpox hybrids, etc.)
Um, wow. Where to begin?
"eth0" doesn't live at /dev/eth0. It's not a character device....
This kind of phone will be like the Encyclopedia Galactica of phones. Much better than the standard phone (i.e. the Hitchhiker's Guide), but slightly more expensive, a bit boring, and nobody will buy it.
In the book "Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone", the author mentions that Chris Dodd visited his station there, and he devotes a couple of paragraphs to the fact that he thought Dodd was a total dick. Basically his recollection was that Dodd was asking him questions, but they weren't really questions, he had some kind of stupid agenda, and all in all, he was left with a bad taste in his mouth from the encounter.
I don't know on what planet a PhD in math can automatically give you this salary.
I used to work for IBM and I recall that they used to disallow Skype. They had the particularly lame reason that "because Skype is not open-source, it is against our business strategy" or some such nonsense. [Yet they had no problem with Windows!].
Yes, when I saw the picture of their device I was concerned about winds. They make a big deal about the fact that it's made of out lightweight alloys. But the forces due to wind would be much greater than the gravitational forces, and the structure doens't look as if it is built in a way that you could collapse it somehow if a storm is expected.
Er, I think you're wrong about this. The numbers I recall are about a 2% max efficiency from plants, and 10%-15% from solar cells. So solar cells are actually much more efficient. [The downside is that they do not automatically replicate themselves the way plants do.]
For a similar thing for maths, try "The Princeton Companion to Mathematics".
It was obvious even from the Slashdot summary that the writer had an agenda.
That may well be true from a formal point of view, but I doubt it helps. You need a strategy that also works if no-one else is trying a similar strategy (if these strategies as a group are only profiting from each other, there's no reason to get in the game). Dan
To follow up on my own post-- from looking at the rest of his blog, it looks like Christian Marks is a real mathematician, probably with an interest in finance (e.g. he solves a math problem from the journal Advanced Mathematical Economics). So that part is for real, but I still suspect that the only ones who know for sure that this is bogus are not telling because they are earning seven figure salaries.
As someone who understands math to at least a certain degree (I publish in what is effectively applied mathematics), I know enough to say that this is bogus. The Wikipedia page on ordinal collapsing functions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_collapsing_function) shows that they relate to transfinite numbers (various orders of infinity). It is, to me, beyond plausibility that this could have any practical application in trading-- unless it's some kind of weird fad that only the mathematicians understand is a joke. I think someone needs to dig down further into this source.
I am quite skeptical that this could work. I know someone who spent a lot of his life trying to create such a system using the same ingredients (planetary gears), and heard from him that someone had proved in a paper that it was impossible. He was trying anyway. I suspect there is some hidden catch.
Well, whoop-de-doo. You made money off Intellectual Ventures. How does this change any part of the discussion? The point is that they don't make this stuff, they just sit on the patents and then extort money from those who are really producing value. The fact that you made money from this is beside the point. Were any of your ideas turned into products by them?
This storyline sucks because it has no moral ambiguity in it.
See original article here (from '88) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3191066?dopt=Abstract