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explodingman

34 karma · joined November 12, 2020

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explodingman··on Stockpile 72 hours of supplies in case of disaster or attack, EU tells citizens
Emergency services get 72 hours grace before they have to feed people. It’s for their benefit in planning responses.
explodingman··on Geoengineering (Wrong 2)
I remember an article on this in the New Scientist a long time ago. It opened with telling us that our grandchildren will be able to identify old photos by the blueness of the sky. SO2 in the sky will reduce the intensity of its colour.

More substantially, the distribution of cooling by latitude from SO2 is different from the distribution of warming from CO2. You can put enough SO2 up there to get the same average cooling as the average warming from the CO2 but either the poles will be warmer and the equator cooler, or vice versa (I forget which way it goes). SO2 is not actually “anti-CO2” at all.

So weather patterns will be quite different in a CO2 + SO2 world, and decisions about the “right” amount of SO2 to pump out will be highly contested

explodingman··on Weight-loss drug found to shrink muscle in mice, human cells
In its trials, Ozempic was combined with intervention/guidance from nutritionists and fitness advisors, and doctors are supposed to reproduce this by referring patients. You can't do that with mice.

I think if I were taking Ozempic I would ask my doctor to halve the rate of progression to higher doses to make the whole process easier to manage, not just managing muscle loss but also the whole of life impact. The official protocol is very "crash diet" in style.

Anyone thinking of taking Ozempic should be aware that many people abandon the drug within the first two years, due to too much nausea, diarrhoea and cost.

explodingman··on Jaywalking legalized in New York City
Good reference. Thanks!
explodingman··on GLP-1 for Everything
Love that word "pleiotropic", nice vocab builder.

So it looks like GLP-1 may have positive side-effects beyond what can be explained as consequences of weight loss. Surprising linkages between biochemistry/hormones and temperament.

I am slowly (1 kilogram per month) losing weight by eating nothing but meat 2-3 days per week. My understanding is that the extra GLP-1 secreted by the gut when digesting lots of protein leads to appetite suppression. It works, and is surprisingly easy to do (no feelings of hunger).

So will I also be getting the beneficial side effects of GLP-1? If so, high-protein dieting becomes the smart way to lose weight.

explodingman··on US proposes banning medical debt from credit reports
It doesn’t exist in Australia
explodingman··on Understanding UMAP (2019)
Really enjoying this
explodingman··on Show HN: Free web app to read YouTube transcripts and highlight them
Has downloaded fine just now
explodingman··on Astronauts could run round 'Wall of Death' to keep fit on moon, say scientists
I’ve read of a Japanese body building practice that involves using a blood pressure cuff to restrict the dispersal of blood. The muscle marinates in its metabolic waste, which has an anabolic effect. Don’t know what they do for muscles in the torso.

https://www.outsideonline.com/health/running/you-should-prob...

explodingman··on Augmenting the Markdown Language for Great Python Graphical Interfaces
How do you pronounce “taipy”
explodingman··on Metformin could treat gum disease and help with healthy aging, study claims
How would an Australian get some?
explodingman··on Japan wants 85% of men to take paternity leave but they’re too scared to take it
> exploding heads …

I love this!

explodingman··on She was denied entry to Rockettes show, then facial recognition debate ignited
> if you're suing me, I don't want you in my house.

The "me" in the article is not a person, but a corporation. The person suing is not the lawyer, but whoever engaged the law firm. And an entertainment venue is not somebody's house.

How about ... If you work for a company that is engaged by a company that is suing us in a business dispute, we will harass you by excluding you from an unguessable amount of venues and events. We're warning you of this but we won't give you a list of those venues and events, you'll just find out when you get excluded as you go about your private life. And we don't have to get a green light from a magistrate to do this, and we might continue doing it after the dispute is over if we don't like your attitude.

explodingman··on Females on average perform better than males on a 'theory of mind' test
The data in the article equally well supports a heading like “Males on average perform better than females on a ‘systematic thinking’ test”
explodingman··on [dead]
His inconsistencies are consistently to the right

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33951797

explodingman··on Australia: Excess deaths in 2022 'incredibly high' at 13 percent
The report divides deaths into three types: those who died of covid, those who died with covid and excess deaths. The excess deaths are more numerous than the with covid deaths.

Weekly fluctuations in excess deaths correlates strongly with covid deaths, so people who want to pretend that the excess deaths are due to something other than covid (ie, vaccinations or lockdown measures) are barking up the wrong tree.

https://www.actuaries.digital/2022/12/07/covid-19-mortality-...

explodingman··on Ten Minute Physics
If you get anywhere, put a link to your code here. I’m bookmarking this spot and I’d appreciate a look at some python code when I come back to this (kinda busy right now).
explodingman··on DoorDash lays off 1250 employees
> The people I think of as most ambitious might not even have careers

Could you expand on that?

explodingman··on My best employee quit on the spot I wouldn’t let her go to her college grad
This!
explodingman··on Why highly intelligent people suffer from more mental and physical disorders
Only if intelligence leads to greater fitness in the Darwinian sense. Don't confuse higher socio-economic status with Darwinian fitness. Plenty of people of quite modest intelligence and limited achievement are successfully passing their genes on to the next generation.

Recommended reading: The Marching Morons by Cyril Kornbluth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

explodingman··on Pre-infection vitamin D3 levels association with severity of Covid-19 illness
Correction: the Astral Codex article gives a 25% chance that vitamin D might do you good.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-mo...

explodingman··on Pre-infection vitamin D3 levels association with severity of Covid-19 illness
> From the perspective of your immune system's cells, what exactly does the vitamin D molecule do?

Probably nothing. High vitamin D levels are a side effect of being outdoors a lot and therefore getting more exercise than the deskbound population. I recall during lockdown listening to a Slate Star Codex article (on the Astral Codex Ten podcast) which went through a stack of papers and concluded that there was nothing to see here.

The article should be retitled "Pre-Infection exercise levels associated with severity of Covid-19 illness".

explodingman··on Review of Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshiro Kageyama (2011)
Another entertaining non-leetcode book on go is The Treasure Chest Enigma (a go miscellany) by Noriyuki Nakayama. The core of the book is a collection of essays originally published in the Igo Club magazine in 1975 and 1976. Great read!
explodingman··on U.S. university reverses decision to remove Olympic protest posters
For a long period it was against the law for an Irishman to own a horse worth more than 5 pounds. Englishmen could assault an Irishman with a horse worth 50 pounds, steal it, and throw a 5 pound note at the owner's feet, and the (English) magistrate would say that no offence had been committed. A young Catholic Irishman who converted to the Protestant branch of Christianity would get title to his Catholic father's house and could evict his family or charge them rent. There were also more systemic laws limiting Irish peoples' access to education and careers.

But the Irish remained the top ethnicity in Ireland and their population increased fast for most of that period, so I have no clue what the IRA were going on about.

explodingman··on U.S. university reverses decision to remove Olympic protest posters
> For which no one was held accountable IIRC.

If you're used to a system in which the courts assume the prosecutor is always right and so the judge's only task is to decide the sentence, then a trial with rules of evidence, burden of proof, etc., will seem very slow.

explodingman··on U.S. university reverses decision to remove Olympic protest posters
Not sure if that is a troll or not.

CCP policy and behaviour towards Xinjiang shows a clear intent to eradicate Uighur culture, possibly the Uighur people, on the part of the CCP state. Simlilarly for Hong Kong, Tibet. A warcrime by an Australian soldier is being dealt with as a matter of military discipline.

There is no equivalency between the two. Pretending that a crime is equivalent to state genocide is classic "wolf warrior" trolling.

A better equivalency would be between what's happening with the Uighurs and what happened to Australia's first nation people in the nineteenth century. Modern China does have more than a little in common with those old European colonial empires.

explodingman··on Gish Gallop
Classic example https://scienceornot.net/2012/04/27/classic-example-of-gish-...
explodingman··on Why Does the Myth of the Confederate Lost Cause Persist?
Reminds me of The Culture of Defeat by Schivelbusch https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/nov/29/history.higher... Very good book.
explodingman··on Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test
> If there was even the slightest expectation there would be a judge,

Okay, I'm confused. My anecdote, which comes from Australia, indicates a 100% expectation of a judge. Are you saying that in Texas, a $US6K matter is likely to be considered too vexatious/trivial to receive a trial?

Or is it actually possible to decline a lawsuit in the USA?

This is an "explain it to me like I'm five years old" moment. I really don't know what you guys are talking about.

explodingman··on Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test
The appropriate course is to sue the other driver directly and ignore the insurance company. A person cannot ignore a court summons, not even in Texas.

The judge will know that the other driver's insurance will ultimately pay, so he can punish the insurance company for its intransigence by putting a heavy financial penalty onto the other driver.

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