dukeleto
1yr ago
This is the first time I have heard this conspiracy theory and the thing I don’t understand is if something existed with these properties wouldn’t someone have figured out how to make it synthetically? I mean we can make insulin, somatropin, and plenty of other fabulously complex drugs with less incentive.
dukeleto
1yr ago
How safe are muzzle loaders? I think they seem like they might be lots of fun but am wondering if they result in more accidents from having to handle gunpowder directly.
Also do they aways use black powder or are smokeless powders typically substituted ?
dukeleto
1yr ago
Keep an eye on you’re blood pressure, I liked bromantane but it spiked mine so I quit using it
dukeleto
1yr ago
One thing I’d like to know is if trump had any documents which were compartmentalized, Joe Biden actually did and top secret conpartmentalized is a much more meaningful designation
dukeleto
1yr ago
I think your intuitions that most charitable organizations will rip you off are correct. I’m not really sure how rich you are, but if you can afford 20000$ checks why not get involved in local politics instead? Even slightly improving you’re local government would be a hugely consequential charitable act relative to almost anything else you could be spending on.
So I didn’t realize that for you local government meant Seattle, which might be too big for you to have any meaningful influence. Although I will note that in general, every municipality has a mix of competent and incompetent politicians. At this level they really aren’t functionaries to nearly the same degree that any other politician you will encounter at the state or national level and having slightly better/less corrupt/smarter leadership really can improve quality of life for lots of people.
I think it’s also sort of ridiculous to assume that the city is competently run, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing unless you had worked for the city or had some political involvement. Corruption in municipal governments is absurdly common and only the most outrageous cases (such as this https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-payscandal-arrests/mayor-officials-arrested-in-california-pay-scandal-idUSTRE68K40N20100922 ) ever result in prosecutions. This is historically how the us has worked (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall as the most famous example in the us)
Finally I said you should get involved. This involves donating money but volunteering is probably more important. The benefit of a donation is that it will make you specifically known to the politician you are supporting.
dukeleto
1yr ago
That’s fair, I accidentally replied to the wrong person below and didn’t realize that local meant Seattle.
dukeleto
1yr ago
I have never lived in Seattle (just visited and not since 2019), and it aways struck me as one of the more functional American cities. Also wondering how much different Bellvue is politically?
dukeleto
1yr ago
It’s interesting because the main constraint on insect size is oxygen concentration. During the Carboniferous, when the oxygen concentration was nearly 35%, bugs were huge! https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/carboniferous-giant-insects/
dukeleto
1yr ago
I don’t think that jk Rowling is arguing that trans people should be denied treatment but asserting that everyone else isn’t required to acknowledge the trans person’s chosen gender. This isn’t the same thing
dukeleto
1yr ago
I enjoy the old atomic weapons test films, many of them where well produced and quite cinematic:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EeyEXkVAifM Plowshare device designed for canal digging
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ge865CR9pN8 Castle bravo
dukeleto
1yr ago
I agree, I think a lot of people are pretty desperate to reframe this to somehow make Paul look bad because they don’t like him. He is clearly the victim here and Musk and everyone else who was pushing ridiculous conspiracy theories about this attack should simply move on to other topics.
dukeleto
1yr ago
Or the numerous times this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fagan_(intruder) broke into buckingham palace. Most people don’t maximize physical security because our social contract doesn’t require it.
dukeleto
1yr ago
Something I never understood is why Russia hasn’t taken any nuclear action. Last year there seemed to be very serious concerns that Russia would do something nuclear and now they don’t even seem to threatening nearly as much or as loudly. What happened? I was strongly expecting them to preform a nuclear test or some other demonstration, I’m delighted that they didn’t, but find it hugely suspicious that this issue just seemed to evaporate over night.
I was wondering if anyone can recommend a good abstract algebra book? It’s something I have been wanting to learn a bit of. I am a geophysicist so I have pretty strong linear algebra, calculus and general numerical
Methods background, but have never taken set theory or real/imaginary analysis.
dukeleto
1yr ago
Dang that is expensive (even the international edition is like 60$!). I’ll start with Ash!
dukeleto
1yr ago
It is at least very certain that bombs where placed on the pipelines since the explosions where recorded on seismic instruments https://www.gpb.org/news/2022/09/27/seismologists-suspect-explosions-damaged-undersea-pipelines-carry-russian-gas
dukeleto
1yr ago
I have never taken Zeihan that seriously, but will conceded that with respect to Russia I think his record is actually pretty good. I mean his book explicitly stated that he thought Russia would invade sometime during the 2020’s and they did, seemingly for the reasons he thought they would (I.e Russias bad demographics and obtaining a more defensible border with Europe).
dukeleto
1yr ago
I’d be interested in who you follow on China (I agree Zeihan is a clown on China).
I don’t know enough about Statins to have a real opinion on it, but do you use fish oil? It reliably lowers triglycerides and seems to have a beneficial effect on cholesterol (it tends to raise hdl a lot more than ldl so even if you’re ldl rises the hdl to ldl ratios are improved https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-fish-oil/art-20364810).
Also if you decide you just want it any way it’s really easy to get something like lipitoir prescribed, I have used this https://plushcare.com/lipitor-atorvastatin-prescription/ for ozempic so I don’t think you would have any trouble with a statin.
I’ve listened to a few episodes of his podcast and it’s often fairly unhinged political ranting. I think that Scott Adams is clearly pretty intelligent, but it’s also obvious that he is (and has) been angling for some kind or right wing commentator gig for a long time. Since getting cancelled is basically a career requirement for that I think it’s obvious what is happening.
dukeleto
1yr ago
As I understand it the main legal issue is that congress didn’t appropriate the money to forgive the loans. Student loans where supposed to be a source of revenue (for example this is partially how Obama care was supposed to be financed https://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-giant-student-loan-con-1480640259 note that this is from 2016) so it seems to be a bit of a stretch that a different older law (the hero’s act) would allow the excecutive to simply take all of this money and spend it on something else.
dukeleto
1yr ago
My father was a serious alcoholic (like had a hard time holding a job down and our family lost a house) kind of drinker. This experience has given me a very negative view of the drug relative to some of its alternatives. For instance, there were two relatively pleasant years during my teens when he mostly stopped drinking and actually acted like a typical dad. During this time he taught me how to ski, helped me with my homework (which was something that had literally never happened during the rest of my childhood) and did other typical dad things.
Eventually he landed himself in rehab and we later discovered that he had been addicted to (or at least using regularly) hydrocodone for most of that time period. I still don’t really know what had happened (I think his doctor may have just cut him off, this was around the time they tightened up prescriptions or perhaps he just didn’t manage his tolerance effectively, it’s my understanding that it’s basically impossible to use opiates regularly without developing physical dependence issues). I still really don’t know how about the fact that my two most pleasant teenage years coincided with a time when my father was substituting opioids for ethanol.
I have spent a lot of time wondering about how he rationalized it to himself. He is actually incredibly sharp and was once quite handsome.
I also wonder about myself. I have tried getting drunk a couple of times and I really didn’t enjoy it. I only ever drink when I feel the social setting requires it and then usually as little as possible.
Basically the only drugs I have ever liked are stimulants and running (and especially running on stimulants). I have had adhd (diagnosed as a child) but I really don’t know if I believe that the pathology is a real thing. I would unquestionably be less successful on almost every meteric if I couldn’t legally take vyvanse. I tried being unmedicated my first two years of college which were a total train wreck. I had a high level of self loathing and insecurity mostly related to my relatively low levels of academic performance and lack of friends.
I eventually went back on stimulants, my grades improved substantially, I made more friends and got a masters degree. now have a high paying job which I love and my life is better than I ever believed it could be. And at times like this I ask myself if the stimulants helped (and continue to help) because they make it easier to focus on things other than my various emotional traumas (essentially making it easier to live in the present). If I had had a more functional family would I even need to be on them? Or is, it the case that some people are just genetically predisposed to be addicted to something. If I hadn’t been given prescription stimulants would I have become addicted to something else instead. Or put another way, if my dad had been given Ritalin as a child would he be more like me today? Do you fix an addict by finding the correct drug?
dukeleto
1yr ago
I’m of the opinion that the overwhelming majority of tech startups are overvalued and only existed as a result of absurdly low interest rates that no longer exist. Many of them would have failed eventually as a result of their inability to raise money and if this pushes some of them out sooner that’s a good thing.
More fundamentally I hope that this pushes some of the intellectual capital currently wasted on basically pointless ventures into more productive parts of the economy.
China did this explicitly a couple of years ago by straight up banning tech startups and I believe it was good policy (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-tech-giants-policy). I’m glad that interest normalization is having the same effect.
It was really bad (had gone on for about 3 hours). I recently moved to a much drier part of the country. I bought a humidifier and now use Vaseline a couple of time a week. This seems to have fixed the issue.
More options
Context Copy link