alejohausner

30 ms·

301.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Yep. So, enjoy yourself and ignore death until you reach retirement age. Then, keep looking over your shoulder to see if the grim reaper is catching up on you.
302.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Humans are different from other primates, in this respect. For example, chimpanzees don't have menopause: female chimps continue to give birth until death. Elephants too. And Galapagos tortoises, I think. This fact argues against t
303.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Granted, sudden changes to the environment would kill off the less fit individuals. So I'll change my argument a bit: Suppose you've overcome infant mortality, and have also solved the problem of adult mortality, so all subsequen
304.
by alejohausner 11y ago
This also gets me thinking about pesticides in apples, of all things. I read Michael Pollan's "The Botany of Desire" a while ago, and was really struck by the story of Johnny Appleseed. For those of you who didn't grow
305.
by alejohausner 11y ago
The article addresses Gompertz' law: the probability of dying in any given year increases exponentially with age (older people have ever higher death rates). This is an EMPIRICAL FACT . As you live longer, this probability accumulat
306.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Apple chose to always have an active menu at the top of the screen because of Fitts' law, which roughly says that bigger buttons can be clicked on more quickly than small ones (see wikipedia for a more precise mathematical description)
307.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Processed foods can be better, in some cases. For instance, frozen vegetables are picked ripe, and packaged very close to harvest, whereas "fresh" vegetables are picked green, and spend weeks in a truck traveling across the count
308.
by alejohausner 11y ago
The article mentions a "distance to occluder buffer". I suspect this is like a shadow buffer, which normally is obtained by rendering the scene using the point light as the eye point, and saving the resulting depth buffer. Perha
309.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Back in Roman and Medieval times, torture was not considered inappropriate. There was no need to conceal it. Typically the accused was assumed to be guilty, and torture was a just a way to get him to confess to what the court already &quo
310.
by alejohausner 11y ago
I think that intelligence gathering is just a cover, or a rationalization, for something more base: some nasty muslim guys killed 3000+ Americans on 9/11, so let's get some revenge on another set of muslims and torture them. It&#
311.
by alejohausner 11y ago
A few weeks ago I heard a psychologist on the radio talking about how the social group of people who are just above the poverty line are extremely opposed to welfare systems because it would give the folks who are just beneath them social
312.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Most government spending benefits the middle class, not the poor. Roads for your car, schools for your kids, basic research for your devices, police to keep poor people from stealing your stuff, subsidies to keep your company profitable: t
313.
by alejohausner 11y ago
I think a lot of folks here are missing the big question: charity involves an exchange. When you give to the poor, you get something back. It's subtle: The issue is not about eliminating poverty. It's about how to motivate rich p
314.
by alejohausner 11y ago
Nice idea, but I doesn't really do justice to wetting, I think. First of all, water doesn't stick to everything: some materials are hydrophobic, and as Saykally points out, it's that dual ability to attract some parts of mol
315.
by alejohausner 11y ago
The word "wet" is a technical term. If you spray a water repellent like Scotchgard on your clothes, they will become hydrophobic, and water won't cling to the cloth, nor penetrate its surface. In other words, hydrophobic ma
316.
by alejohausner 11y ago
This may sound harsh, but, given the feeble success of any cancer treatment, why should people give money to a lost cause like cancer research? So, donations to all cancer charities should be avoided.
317.
by alejohausner 12y ago
You bring up an important point. If you STOP taking an SSRI, you will feel depressed, because your serotonin levels will drop. What's happening is that the SSRI has been fighting your body, pushing up your serotonin levels, and your
318.
by alejohausner 12y ago
My favourite is Nietzsche's "Genealogy of Morals". Here is a taste, from a section on punishment, in his second essay (text from http://home.sandiego.edu/~janderso/360/genealogy2.htm ): In order to
319.
by alejohausner 12y ago
I was particularly taken by this passage near the end: "There is something unsatisfying, almost nihilistic, about this idea. It deprives us of answers". It got me thinking about the big mistake that we often make about evolution
320.
by alejohausner 12y ago
This is exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted. The goal of terrorism is to push a country towards a police state. Subjected to increased police powers, people will blame the government, and will rise up against that government. So terror
321.
by alejohausner 12y ago
Greaber's book on debt was really interesting. The cancellation of debts is from Leviticus 25: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a j
322.
by alejohausner 12y ago
How about doing Vigenere in your head? This is what I do: I actually write my passwords down in my little black book, which I carry in my pocket. I use a simple Vigenere cypher in case I lose the book. Each password is encrypted with the