robonerd

36 ms·

481.
by robonerd 4y ago
Alcohol objectively causes physiological CNS depression. Whether or not it necessarily causes the mood of depression or 'major depressive disorder' as diagnosed by clinical psychologists or psychiatrists is another matter.
482.
by robonerd 4y ago
Yes. Suppose the year is 1770 and I am a sailor on one of Captain Cook's expeditions. A fellow sailor breathlessly tells me about the advanced civilizations with flying machines we might encounter, reasoning that such constructions a
483.
by robonerd 4y ago
> People definitely report it and genuinely believe they have it.. This alone is not convincing, since hypochondriacs have never been rare in the first place and for the past few years have been encouraged and doubtlessly felt very vin
484.
by robonerd 4y ago
I don't doubt the statistics. I simply don't think the statistics warrant the level of fear the media tells me I should be experiencing.
485.
by robonerd 4y ago
> This is like ants arguing that life outside their ant hill will likely have 6 or 8 legs because all the life they've seen so far have had 6 or 8 legs. I wouldn't scoff at those ants. Ants who conclude life outside their an
486.
by robonerd 4y ago
That's the impression I get from the media. But if not for the media, I wouldn't know anybody was dying of anything. Nobody in any of my social circles have died in over 3 years. Going off what I've personally observed, I&
487.
by robonerd 4y ago
> likely You say 'likely' but you're talking about an a priori belief. Post-biological civilization is purely speculative science-fiction at this point, there is not a single real example that we can point to yet. This
488.
by robonerd 4y ago
Seeing a pretty woman smoking a cigarette makes me want to gag, and they make men look like idiots. However they were perceived in the past, that spell is truly broken now. Cigarettes being seductive is a dying meme and I say good riddan
489.
by robonerd 4y ago
> There's a Universal Declaration of Human Rights that could quite easily be applied as a baseline. "Quite easily" is a stretch, that document is a well-intentioned mess. It omits rights that many take for granted, and
490.
by robonerd 4y ago
It seems like a manifestation of the old adage that when you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
491.
by robonerd 4y ago
> People are being told to pull down feeders, to ignore those birds now begging for food at the window. Good luck enforcing that rule. "Bird-feeder? No no, that's my squirrel feeder."
492.
by robonerd 4y ago
FWIW real "magic water-cloth" actually exists, but only works some places some of the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_collection > The mesh netting is where the condensation of water droplets appe
493.
by robonerd 4y ago
It's not really about the word 'suggest'; the subtitle touts the chemical analysis, but the stronger evidence seems to be the structural analysis. They analyzed several shards found in the same area. They found traces of su
494.
by robonerd 4y ago
> This is the unintended consequence of making pharmacies liable for filling prescriptions to people who were addicted. Indeed. CVS, Walgreens and other pharma companies recently settled a $860 million lawsuit with Florida for their
495.
by robonerd 4y ago
Cerebral is a telehealth startup heavily promoted by influencers on TikTok and other social media platforms, and has been criticized as being a pill mill. Earlier this month they announced they would suspend prescriptions for Adderall for
496.
CVS Will Stop Filling Controlled-Substance Prescriptions for Cerebral and Done(wsj.com)
12 points by robonerd 4y ago|7 comments
497.
by robonerd 4y ago
I agree. Furthermore, besides the mention of Mars they're also talking about cislunar space in that same paragraph, but chemical propulsion seems sufficient in cislunar space. It's only takes a days to return from the moon with
498.
by robonerd 4y ago
I'm skeptical too, but DARPA is saying the DRACO program is for getting to/from Mars quickly: > The DRACO program intends to develop novel nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) technology to enable time-critical missions over vast
499.
by robonerd 4y ago
Maybe? I believe LH2 has about 35 mols of hydrogen per liter, while water is 55 mols per liter. Storing hydrogen as water seems practical from that perspective, but what of the power needed to split that water? I think you'd need
500.
by robonerd 4y ago
Apparently Bruno has been talking about two orders of magnitude improvement to Centaur V's duration. Seems far fetched to me, but I think months of duration would be necessary to make this engine worthwhile (the PDF is talking about t
501.
by robonerd 4y ago
It's tangentially related insofar as SpaceX says they're planning to go to Mars, and this NTR engine is also for going to Mars. But according to the DARPA announcement, DARPA determined that Falcon 9 doesn't presently suppo
502.
by robonerd 4y ago
The PDFs here have a lot more information: https://sam.gov/opp/af490b568d2a438498afa1e80bce63e5/view A few takeaways; they intend for such an engine to eventually support long duration human spaceflight (going to
503.
by robonerd 4y ago
That may be true, but I find it hard to believe that an uncontrolled proliferation of antitank weapons/etc in Europe could be the final mistake that undoes America. It could certainly cause a big mess for our European allies, but des
504.
by robonerd 4y ago
It seems chronologically plausible that Chinese grenade making found it's way to the Middle East by then. But I think the subtitle of the article overstates the case: "Residue analysis suggests it was a grenade but can't co
505.
by robonerd 4y ago
Unfortunately this seems to be well beyond what the human lungs can do. I found this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1501025/ suggesting that the most human lungs can do is about 1 meter o
506.
by robonerd 4y ago
The problem with all webchat, regardless of microphone quality, is the erratic latency and frequent hiccups every time somebody's neighbor microwaves a burrito. Consistent latency is generally tolerable if kept to a reasonable minimu
507.
by robonerd 4y ago
Maybe one in ten meetings qualifies as "essential", and I'm being generous.
508.
by robonerd 4y ago
Audio quality is always worse than conference calls in the 80s and 90s (until people started using cell phones.)
509.
by robonerd 4y ago
> pumping infinite weapons to former soviet republics will be the stupidest and final mistake that US does. Can you expand on that? Are you suggesting Ukraine will turn on Europe or something?
510.
by robonerd 4y ago
Not so much for the direct economic impact to myself, but rather for the civil unrest that might come with it.

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