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epaladin

118 karma · joined December 4, 2013

Aspiring to be something, as it is quite difficult to aspire to be everything. Although I did try for a while.
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epaladin··on When your child speaks a language you don’t
I tested myself to see if I fit the stereotype by trying to explain this joke to a Japanese friend, in Japanese. After a collective effort which determined that there isn't a concise noun phrase in Japanese that's equivalent to "bilingual"/"trilingual" etc (anyone else know if that's actually the case?), I think the point was communicated, which I hope implies graduation to at least some limbo between "American" and "bilingual".
epaladin··on Mike Ey, Microsoft HoloLens designer, killed in hit and run
Another RITer- one of my friends is quoted in the article- I don't think I ever knew Mike's name but we were definitely in the same place at the same time quite frequently. Definitely sad.
epaladin··on Testosterone is the drug of the future
I've wondered about the effect that environmental factors might have on Japan's current predicament- something in the water? did processing of soy products change at some point such that levels of the estrogen analogs ended up being higher? I guess I haven't been quite curious enough to see if there have been any rigorous studies that have compared T levels there over the last few decades.
epaladin··on Testosterone is the drug of the future
Same age... this thread is really making me feel old. Generally I still feel like I'm just getting out here and just getting started still in terms of career, life, etc. I really hope it's not all downhill from 30!

Related to the main subject, I don't think my levels have ever been low, but I've always been surprised at how quickly I lose muscle mass when I'm not working out. That might be more related to protein intake and other genetic factors though, since I've always been pretty lean.

epaladin··on Amazon Is in Talks to Buy RadioShack Stores, Report Says
Well, they're at AT&T stores, many of which are in mall, and it doesn't look like it's helped any.
epaladin··on Being a good networker pays off, but it requires skill as well as shamelessness
Much of the time it's the parents doing the pushing, and the kids in tow for the "do it for the children" factor. The kids probably don't really know what's going on, and don't have to take direct responsibility for any of it.
epaladin··on The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (1995) [pdf]
It's also kind of vital for the balance of the planet's ecosystems, as we're slowly finding out. If we melt it to get materials under there, there's a sizable chance of long term regret.

Whereas Mars doesn't have an ecosystem at present and no species to endanger.

I want to make other planets livable so we can stop killing this one so much.

epaladin··on The Art of Electronics, 3rd Edition, to be released April 2015
I was lucky enough to find a copy of the 2nd ed. in the closet of an apartment I moved into during college. I really need to actually read it sometime!
epaladin··on Being a good networker pays off, but it requires skill as well as shamelessness
I've been intrigued as to why Mormons have such an seemingly disproportionate "success" rate, and ended up doing a bit of research on the matter. It really seems like it comes down to facing failure repeatedly. And most of them get the experience when they're around college age as well. I've been trying to figure out how we could build something secular into normal primary education that would achieve the same result.
epaladin··on How Software in Half of NYC Cabs Generates $5.2M a Year in Extra Tips
Rude service in a taxi in Japan would be somewhat shocking, but they're also comparatively more expensive than most other places. One time I couldn't find a hotel in Tokyo, so I took a taxi- it turned out to be just around the block, but it still cost like $6. But hey, the cars are nice and the white glove thing is always an interesting contrast to NYC.
epaladin··on Tilde.Club: I had a couple drinks and woke up with 1,000 nerds
Maybe we can make a simple gateway page that lists all the pages that would actually render properly in Mosaic?
epaladin··on Poll: How long could you survive without income?
Probably about six months.
epaladin··on [dead]
I believe that's why car rental places exist. Unless you seriously need to have the same car at all of the locations you travel to, which is not rational.
epaladin··on Massive Moniker.com Breach, Valuable Domains Stolen
Guess I'll check mine later also...
epaladin··on Glut of postdoc researchers stirs quiet crisis in science
Lack of unions might have something to do with it. Was in Copenhagen recently and was surprised that even as a PhD student, your salary is negotiated based on your experience- and the negotiation is done by the union representative. When unions aren't abused it sounds like they can be quite useful. But yeah, in the US, PhDs and post docs are used as cheap but knowledgeable labor, and kept around as long as possible by constantly giving them other things to do that aren't directly related to their project.
epaladin··on Glut of postdoc researchers stirs quiet crisis in science
I only recently learned about the Post-Bac program, and I wish I had known about it when I was just out of school- I went to a university that wasn't research oriented, and such a program would have been fantastic for picking up the research mindset before going to graduate school I ended up in a lab staff instead, and learned about real research in sort of a trial by fire manner that's been much more stressful than the postbac probably would have been. So it's got it's possible advantages- let alone working for the NIH looks pretty good on a CV.
epaladin··on Artificial sweeteners linked to glucose intolerance
Which just made me wonder if it's possible to train a hidden markov model for detecting that. Trigger a flag that says "wowzers, now you're in unhealthy state territory". Otherwise it's real hard to tell if occasional engagements with unhealthy behaviors are having an impact on health overall. I imagine we'll get to the point of being able to do this sort of thing in about five years.
epaladin··on The Awful Reign of the Red Delicious
I've never understood why Red Delicious were so popular. Now that I've been living down the street from an orchard in upstate NY, I understand even less. Orchards really seem to push Fuji around here- they seem to grow more of them than anything else. I've always really like macs, and my wife got me into macouns which are pretty similar.
epaladin··on Revisiting the Moon
My interest in longevity is closely tied to my interest in space. From my perspective, significant extension of lifespan (& healthspan) helps solve some inefficiencies we currently have in propagation and persistence of knowledge, which I think could help with solving other really hard problems because experts can keep being experts for longer, with less of their time spent on having to train new experts before they fade away. Lifespan extension also turns many "not my problem" situations into "we better figure out a way to deal with that". Once we're in that mindset, combined with possible gains in research efficiencies, I think we'll be able to address long distance space travel more effectively and efficiently. I'm all for both figuring out how to not trash Earth and figuring out how to colonize other planets at the same time. Certainly research in the sort of climate engineering needed to terraform another world could be applied to saving our current one.

I'm going to try to help open that longevity door first; I expect there to be quite a bit of exciting possibilities behind it (and probably a great deal of social chaos, but we can deal with that when we get there...).

Longevity will be

epaladin··on Moto 360 review – Beautiful outside, ugly inside
Out of genuine curiosity, what do you use the watch for that you would associate with time savings? I've been curious about these things, but haven't been sure as to if they're a product in search of a problem for the current implementation and limitations.
epaladin··on Why Walking Helps Us Think
Maybe some kind of AR workspace setup based on the new Samsung Gear VR would be feasible? Would look pretty crazy, and still might be a bit of a safety hazard, but it might work. I love standing desks but the closest I've been to a walking desk is trying to type while rolling the laptop cart through the datacenter. It kind of works.
epaladin··on Andrew Kay, founder of Kaypro, dies at 95
Thanks for all the lugables. I have a Kaypro IIx somewhere in my collection, although I think I'm still missing software/bootdisks for it. I tried getting a boot disk on eBay a few years ago but I think something happened and the order was cancelled. Anyone have Kaypro IIx disks they don't need? Anyway, sounds like he did quite a lot in addition to traditional computers in those 95 years.
epaladin··on No One Tweets Like the Japanese, and That Was a Problem for Twitter
It's more like the plural of 'deer' being 'deer'. I don't think I've ever heard anyone attach an 's' to 'kanji' for pluralization when speaking English. Like how it might be odd to say 'sushis' or 'wasabis'. Whenever I need to stress plurality i would say 'kanji characters' or something like that. Oxford English Dictionary lists 'sushi', 'kanji', 'shinkansen', 'katakana' all as being mass nouns or having the plural form the same as the singular. The exception in the words I looked up was 'tsunami' which may be pluralized as 'tsunami' or 'tsunamis'.
epaladin··on Plants in offices increase happiness and productivity
Curious- what country? I didn't think there was anywhere that would actually make that illegal. Does that hold true everywhere, such as in industrial/manufacturing complexes, etc?
epaladin··on Tim Hortons agrees to Burger King offer for $94 a share
All over Rochester NY. I think the coffee is better in Canada though- based on my single experience trying it on the Canadian side of Niagara falls.
epaladin··on Two aid workers infected with the Ebola virus have been discharged from hospital
That's actually an interesting question- were you to theoretically be able to initial effect of Ebola infection, would the immune system eventually be able to create effective antibodies for it? I don't know if it would work the same way if you're introducing antibodies for treatment.
epaladin··on Loss of neurons for sleep may explain why older adults suffer from insomnia
Perhaps also highly correlated with anxiety disorders?
epaladin··on This Is Your Brain on Silence
I've found the dark/quiet room to be useful for brainstorming in general. I've only actively utilized that tactic a couple of times though, I should try it more often. On those occasions I found that coming up with decent ideas seemed to be easier, just by sitting at a table with the lights off. Perhaps this allows the brain to let go of the world in front of you a little bit and lets the creative side take the foreground.
epaladin··on Under the Knife: Why Chinese Patients are turning against their doctors
I think there's also a lot of recruitment of foreign experts for academically-oriented institutions. I've been seeing a lot more biomedical science papers from Chinese universities with non-Chinese names of faculty.
epaladin··on My open source brain data
Vitamin C is in so many things now that it seems unlikely that the additional vitamin c in strawberries would have much of an effect. There's a lot of positive benefit of long-term consistent consumption of various fruits (such as the study that showed an association between blueberries and brain health) but for such an effect on mood in the short term it could be that you just like them :). But hey, if it works, it works!
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