Perenti

In my experience as a medically complicated person, generics generally work, but may have different side effects, both in scale and style. One of the worst was a duloxetine generic that came on so hard and strong that I felt serontoninised.

My friend the John the Pharmacist explained that the binders etc can accelerate absorption. His advice was be careful the first two days of a new generic formulation.

I would assume the NHS (like the TGA here in Oz) looks _very_ carefully at the side-affect profile before they buy any particular generic. Government agencies tend to try not to poison voters.

The paragraph on the relation to Brugada Syndrome hits home, as I have that rare disease. What isn't clear is if it's safe for Brugada patients - a hell of a lot of drugs are not advisable for us. As I also have CRPS type II (complex regional pain syndrome) I'd like a non-narcotic strong pain killer that doesn't induce arrhythmia.

In the third paragraph the authors state:

"For example, the Lotka-Volterra model accurately captures predator-prey dynamics using systems of differential equations."

This is incorrect. The validation of the L-V predator/prey model was considered to be the population dynamics of the Snow Shoe Hare and Canada Lynx as seen in Hudson Bay Company records. The data actually models the fashion cycles in Europe, showing prices and demand from Europe drove the efforts of the Company and the trappers. This is in the standard texts from at least the mid 90s AFAIK.

We used to steal Iodine crystals from the chem lab at High School, and set "traps" for the unwary. I have no idea how many clothes we ruined by putting NI3 on seats.

We also wired cans in || and wired up the boys' urinal so that they could "complete the circuit".

Ah, the Good Old Days before Workplace Health and Safety, or MDS.

I think Wolfram may be ignoring what we already know of brains with more neurons than most have. We call them "austistic" and "adhd".

More is not always better, indeed it rarely is in my experience.

The debate ran for about 3 months. He refused to acknowledge the validity of style guides and grammar. I tried, but he was resolute that because _he_ likes semicolons, other people could easily read his long and rambling sentences.

No assumptions involved, except the one that RMS wanted people to be able to read and comprehend his writing. I'm not sure that he did though.

This reminds me of a "debate" I had with RMS. Back in '98 I was involved with the Gnu Documentation Project, which was about improving the often very out-of-date Gnu documentation.

RMS tends to use semi-colons where others use commas, with _MANY_ subordinate clauses. I suggested he use shorter sentences, and commas. His response:

"But I like semicolons"

That's when I realised that regardless of his bizarre brilliance, there was no way to discuss some issues with him. I still respect him, but he's a shocking writer.

It appears to this reader that BGP would be a lot more stable if the various hardware vendors agreed on a standard for handling these types of things.

Is the real issue that each vendor wants lock-in, so won't standardise?

DISCLAIMER: My understanding of BGP is hollow and shallow, I am not an expert.

Given what the verb "root" means here in Oz, this seems extremely friendly, although possibly unhygenic.

Yes. In our modern "compassionate" society the goal is to keep people alive regardless of the quality of life of the individual.

This is why the study of physics and chemistry is important, so you can exit when it's no longer worth staying, with the help of Engineering.

I don't fear death. I've been there, done that, and it was very nice. Bloody doctors and my implanted defibrillator keep bringing me back.

And those that don't vote have to show a very good reason, or pay a fine, or face gaol.

Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA. Historically there have been problems in the past (30 years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral boundaries to ensure no more gerrymanders.

Greed. Capitalism.

Mostly because people keep agreeing to pay a premium for the convenience of spending before the money comes in.

Poster claimed fluoridation was unnessecary in many parts of the world. This is true of places with natural fluoridation. But not everyone has access to fluoridated toothpaste, or even toothpaste. To assume otherwise is assuming everyone is neurotypical in a developed country.

Not true. Every time I see a dentist here in Queensland (non-fluoridated water) he asks me where else I lived as my teeth are so much better than what he usually sees, and if drilling my teeth are much harder than most Queenslanders.

My early years were spent in Melbourne, where fluoridation was introduced around 1970. That's the only time I lived with fluoridated water, for about 3 years. yet dentists can see the effects 50+ years later.

I don't use a toothbrush or toothpaste, and haven't ever really, as my ASD makes it unbearable.

Something else about FLStudio - you can run it on multiple machines with a single license. So ImageLine don't charge you for each computer you use it with.

Yes. They do have subscription cloud services, but you don't need it.

Something quite amazing is that it's written in Delphi. I love Fl Studio. It's possibly the best commercial software I've ever seen.

Both Corel and Lindows tried this 25 years ago. People did not like it.

Most parrots will become stay-at-homes if you treat them well. Lorikeets that become human friendly even bring wild friends home to enjoy the humans.

Things are slow at Harvard these days, when they have to boast about things known for decades.

Given the number of people with budgies (parakeets to those who speak broken English) I'm amazed no-one has taken advantage of this to get published before.

Was. Was the brain drain destination #1. It's been Europe, India and SE Asia for a while now.

Not everyone with a brain just wants more money. Some want to do interesting research that doesn't have a short term commercialisation strategy.

I know of many biological computers with AGI. I've even made 5 myself.

What I find hilarious is that a 20-50% hallucination rate suggests this is still a program that tells lies and potentially causes people to die.

Yes, there is a pattern. Most of my relatives are very quick, those tested all come out 120+. Two of my sons have absurd IQs like me. My second is about my level (170+), and my youngest is some kind of megamind mutant. His brain scares me. He's very very clever.

I used to work at a university. There were people there who found me interesting. No accounting for taste with some people.

I'm talking about sit down in a room with a psychologist for hours, lots of questions, coloured blocks, tricky pictures, with stop watches etc. Reciting lists of numbers backwards and forwards, the _real_ tests, not pop quizes.

Yes. IQ tests are easy. Life, now that's a real challenge.

IQ measures how good you are at IQ tests. I'm brilliant at those tests, I consistently score 5+ SD above 100.

I'm also an idiot, and pretty much an asshole. IQ itself puts no beans on the table, and has little to no relationship to how good a human being you are.

I grew up on a small poultry farm. Most farmers I know are very very good at recycling and reprocessing. There's very little "rubbish" if you are clever about it. If it can't be fed to an animal, and it doesn't rot (compost), it's probably something you can build with, either a machine or a structure. Meanwhile you use animal waste to improve the garden, producing more food, the scraps of which go back to the animals.

The biggest exception was in the case of disease, which we managed with fire. Burning diseased bird coops along with the corpses of dead birds was very cost effective on our small scale.