teslabox

While it's a good to think about childcare, something more constructive needs to be done about growing up in the modern world than extending the caging of modern children.

John Taylor Gatto (iirc) advised keeping kids out of school as long as possible, as nothing important is learned in the first few grades that wouldn't be learned anyways, or couldn't be learned more efficiently later. http://johntaylorgatto.com/

If the government were to extend school-as-childcare, it could be done in a way that restores the ability of children to learn from the real world. I don't know what 4, 5, 6 and 7 year olds should be learning, but imho Pre-K, K, 1st and 2nd grade "classrooms" are stifling.

Gatto's essay, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, is all over the interwebs.

What did Native Americans teach their 4 year olds?

As best I can figure that one's in a box of books. If I ever get a chance to unpack them all, it's one of the books I'm looking for. I'll favorite your comment here, and try to get back to you. :)

This is not the reference, but something I just found on google books about the efficiency of dairy cows: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Farming_the_Business_Ma...

(responding to request for the reference for the dairy cow as an efficient converter of grass on rocky hillsides).

This is a nice review of one of the problems with LED lighting, and how the color output can be 'tuned' to provide a better experience.

Another problem is that too much light is commonly used, and that blue light is both overpowering and damaging to our eyes.

My local grocers have blinding spotlights in their stores. One grocer has okay lighting (aside from the spotlights). The other just replaced their fluorescent lights with LEDs that are "too bright" at night. I've taken to wearing my yellow-tinted blue light protection glasses while shopping. Just yesterday I noticed that the strips of LEDs in the one grocers' freezers are (now?) shielded, so that customers aren't blinded with strips of LEDs pointed into the aisles. The LED strips on the new refrigerator cases aren't shielded, and while they could be pointed at the merchandise, they're haphazardly directed. Many of the strips waste a lot of light by being pointed at the customers.

I was at the hardware store the other day and overheard staff asking another customer if they wanted a warm or cool bulb. The customer didn't know what that meant. I interjected: "cool is the kind that blinds you with blue light". She wanted the warmest bulbs they had.

At home I make an effort to use low-blue lighting, with a variety of amber, red, and orange LEDs, some halogen bulbs on dimmers, and a few 2700K LED/CFL bulbs. I found some 2200K amber LED bulbs for my brother's remodeled kitchen. These made his hipster hanging lamps useful, rather than blinding. The lights look nice when they're off, but they didn't realize when they were installed that light bulbs hanging at exactly eye level are terrible.

I found some Citizen CLU048-1212C4 COB LEDs on clearance at RapidLED.com a few years ago - they are "Amber" / 2200K. The spectrum is similar to that provided by a High Pressure Sodium bulb, with a little hump in the blue portion of the spectrum (HPS bulbs are almost blue-free). I put a couple of these on retired CPU heat sinks and put them on top of the cabinets with a dimmable power supply/driver. This lighting is terrible for photography, but great for getting around the kitchen in the evening before bed. All the light in the room reflects off the ceiling. Even amber light is overpowering when you're directly exposed to the light source.

My usual bedroom lighting is a collection of orange and red LED bulbs. These replaced a terrible 5000K 48" fluorescent bulb -- even though this was completely hidden on a shelf above the closet, the blue light from this bulb was overpowering. The fan has halogen bulbs on dimmers, for when I need more than red-orange light.

Over the last few years I've put dimmer switches on a lot of my lighting circuits. There's nothing worse than walking into a dark bathroom, flipping the switch & getting blinded. There are two kinds of dimmers: ones that start off and gradually ramp up the light level ("Slide-to-off Dimmer"), and ones that have an on/off switch separate from the dimming feature. At first I had the second type in the bathroom, but found that I'd frequently forget to check the brightness level before turning the switch on. The slide-to-off dimmers start at the minimum amount of light possible and gradually increase to provide the amount of light you need.

The dairy cow is the most efficient means of turning grass on a rocky hillside into human-usable protein [0].

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20061802

I think volcanic winters deserve more preparation than the possibility that the climate scientists are right. If the climate scientists are right, it'll be a slow moving disaster, and we'll have to gradually abandon all the buildings next to the ocean that will have to be abandoned anyways (e.g. Surfside Condos in Miami Florida collapsed because the life of reinforced concrete isn't much more than 100 years).

1816 was The Year Without A Summer. At the time people in Europe didn't know why it didn't heat up that summer, but it was a catastrophe for humans who lived in the northern hemisphere, in every sense of the word.

Catastrophe: an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering; a disaster. "a national economic catastrophe"

> The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).[1] Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record between the years of 1766–2000.[2] This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.[3] > > Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (known today as Indonesia). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the extreme weather events of 535–536), and perhaps exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

1816 Summer in France was 3 degrees celcius cooler than average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#/media/F...

How do you prepare for both a certain "volcanic winter"-type events (losing growing seasons in the northern latitudes) and the possibility of anthropogenic climate change?

How many people would die if we had two volcanoes go off, in 2022 and 2023, like what happened in 1814 and 1815?

Volcanic Winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

My understanding is the 1814 and 1815 volcanic eruptions reduced the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans [0]. By 1816 the oceans were super-chilly, and didn't have enough heat to give off for Europe to have a normal summer.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013166

Climate is variable. Deal with it. Volcanoes are much more of a threat to humans than slow moving disasters.

MCA (manufactured citric acid) is on my list of ingredients to avoid, as it seems to cause sores on the inside of my mouth. I don't get the same reaction from lemons/limes, so I figured it's the fungus contaminants.

Juices are commonly contaminated with MCA. I refer to MCA as a 'cosmetic food ingredient', which are added to change mouthfeel of a manufactured food and do not provide nutrition. Gums are the other common cosmetic food ingredient - they are added to change the mouthfeel or storage properties. Most gums are safe; I avoid all foods with carageenan, as this one supposedly has inflammatory properties.

The fine article says that Italy used to make citric acid from lemons, but that this got too expensive. I didn't realize fungus-derived citric acid has been in use since 1919.

She was trapped with hunger cravings, and would try to satiate herself with sugar-free (stevia/etc) junk foods.

At one point she came up to me with my haagen daz ice cream container and asked, "why does my brain work, when I eat haagen daz?" I told her about how the brain runs on glucose AND fructose, that she was starving her brain of glucose, and that when a brain doesn't have any fructose it transforms some of the glucose into fructose, and that trying to go no-carbohydrate is very inefficient.

Eventually I think she decided it'd be okay to eat fruit.

Many stores have Bob's Red Mill Organic Masa. A friend was visiting, I was trying to get her to give up on her no-carbohydrate ambitions. She scarfed down her flour tortillas that were included with the meat she'd purchased earlier. Then she tried my lumpy home-made corn tortilla: "that's delicious".

Corn (and other seeds) have a lot of anti-nutrients - this is one reason people have gravitated to refined grains. The anti-nutrients are deactivated when the seed is boiled in an alkali - the process is called Nixtamalization [0]. Native Americans boiled their corn in wood ash. Lime [1] is now used for this purpose.

It's said the European explorers took Corn back to Europe, but didn't realize the wisdom of boiling corn in wood ash. Corn has a good amount of Vitamin B-3, but eating a diet of non-nixtamalized corn causes Pellegra [2] (Vitamin B-3 deficiency), due to the niacin not being available on account of it being locked up in the starch. (I think the Slate Star Codex blog talked about this phenomenon. Similarly, Cassava (yuca) root was taken from South America to Africa, but they didn't share how important it is to remove the cyanide in the outer shell and stem in the center...)

Making your own tortillas is very easy. I follow the directions on Bob's Masa [4] package: corn, salt, water, wait, spoon onto plastic wrap, fold plastic wrap, crush into tortilla-like shape, apply to hot plate.

I have ambition to use the lime I purchased at the mexican grocer to make my own masa, but I haven't gotten past watching videos on Youtube. I need some corn... Maybe I should grow corn this summer. I might have enough time to get some seeds in the ground. :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(material)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#Epidemiology

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava#Potential_toxicity

[4] https://www.bobsredmill.com/organic-golden-masa-harina-flour...

I have the report behind Phoenix, Arizona’s early-1980’s lighting ordinances. Orange sodium lights had many advantages over the lights they replaced beyond the energy improvements. There are LEDs that retain most of the benefits of the sodium bulbs. I think they’re not used because of humanity’s tendency to forget.

Our modern standard of living is as precarious as it's ever been.

> Solar storms have their roots in an 11-year cycle that shifts the polarity of the sun's magnetic field. The magnetic forces at work on the sun get tangled during the process, and can punch out through the surface, sending the sun's plasma into outer space and potentially triggering storms on Earth.

I avoid refined oils that are high in polyunsaturated oils. This mostly means seed oils from non-tropical seeds: canola, soybean, corn, cottonseed, grape seed, etc.

Palm oil has a significant percentage of Omega-6 oil. If it's in whatever's available to eat I don't worry about it too much. I understand Coconut oil is mostly refined without solvents, and that the refining process mostly has the effect of removing the allergens. Trader Joe's has a partially-refined low-odor coconut oil that I sometimes pick up. Extra virgin olive oil [EVOO] is okay in moderation; I prefer 'unfiltered' olive oil to plain EVOO.

Chicken fat is mostly polyunsaturated, as is pork (reflecting the fats in the animals' diets), so I try to avoid those fats too.

I never noticed a benefit from Omega-3 consumption. Omega-3 is an unstable polyunsaturate too. Avoiding the Omega-6 oils improves my ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 without any other efforts on my part.

I use polyunsaturated oils to attempt to preserve the wood used for my raised garden beds. While vegetable-oil preserved wood might not be as long-lasting as a modern chemical stain, modern stains have various amounts of heavy metal, which I don't care to put in close proximity to plants I intend to eat. The catalogue has a paint sold for raised beds, but discarded vegetable oil is free.

Paints and stains were traditionally made with linseed oil/soybean oil (and other similar thin oils) because these combine spontaneously with oxygen in the air to form a hard film. Modern stains are made with petroleum distillates.

Dietary polyunsaturated oils facilitate the creation of lipofuscin [0], the age pigment. Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids also drive lipid peroxidation [1] chain reaction, whereby unstable unsaturated oils combine spontaneously with oxygen in the body to break down in an uncontrolled manner. The end products of lipid peroxidation wreck havoc by combining with proteins to make "fluorescent polymerized compounds" [3], etc. Eating polyunsaturated fat won't make you fluoresce, it'll just make you old prematurely.

The Omega-6 polyunsaturates are especially good for facilitating inflammation, due to their use to create Prostaglandins [2].

I do not consider polyunsatured oils edible, and read labels to avoid them.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipofuscin#Formation_and_turno...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin

[3] https://europepmc.org/article/med/7001991

Flagstaff makes an effort to enforce their lighting ordinances, Prescott makes no effort whatsoever.

I think the problem is that all the people who knew why the lighting ordinances were passed retired. Because Prescott doesn’t have Lowell Observatory in the city limits the reasons behind the ordinances were forgotten.

Blue-white outdoor lighting should be prosecuted as a public nuisance.

'Why do I have a tab with a search about NovaMin open already?'

NovaMin was mentioned in a comment by @dannyw two days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26642987

The author of this Medium post mentioned this link in a comment ~10 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23345716

Some comments mentioning NovaMin over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1609372800&dateRange=custom&...

Probably more of a geopolitical survival strategy. The Republic of China and the People's Republic of China don't get along too well:

> The political and legal statuses of Taiwan are contentious issues. The People's Republic of China (PRC) claims that the Republic of China government is illegitimate, referring to it as the "Taiwan Authority".

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Political_and_legal_sta...

Matt.Might.net has had many submissions to HN [1]. Professor Might pivoted from CS to medicine on account of his family's success figuring out Bertrand Might's (their first-born son) medical problem. Further context for this link is provided in HN-moderator dang's comment on a 2018 submission about the family's efforts to improve diagnosis and treatment for rare diseases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17962575

I read Cristina and Matt Might's blog posts [2] in 2010, when they were in the midst of their search for a diagnosis for their son. In 2012 they determined [3] Bertrand had a glycolysation disorder caused by inheriting two malformed copies of the NGLY1 gene [4] [5]. The family moved from Utah to Alabama for the University of Alabama's medical school [6], and probably also for the change of weather (Utah: substantial snowfall every winter. Birmingham, Alabama: 1 inch snow/year). They eventually decided the odds of their having a second child with Bertrand's NGLY1 disorder were acceptably low; their other two children are not affected by Bertrand's genetic condition.

Bertrand Might suddenly passed away in late October 2020, not quite 13 years old.

***

Growing up is like getting to the Moon and back. Most people make it to adulthood, but we all need help getting there. Parents are our Mission Control. Matt and Cristina found themselves in an Apollo 13 scenario [7] -- "Houston, we have a problem" -- soon after Bertrand's birth. One of Bertrand's symptoms was lack of tears. Matt posted a writeup after they pinpointed the genetic cause of Bertrand's condition: "My Son's Killer" [3].

Matt added 'precision medicine' to his undertakings. They rose to their occasion, found their answers and almost had Bertrand back to Earth ("A significant gene therapy trial is on the horizon" [8]). Suddenly losing their son is tough (but not entirely unexpected), as it is for all parents who outlive their progeny.

My condolences to the family.

***

[This is a moderator-initiated repost of my November 2020 submission.]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=might.net

[2] http://www.overcomingmovementdisorder.com/

[3] http://matt.might.net/articles/my-sons-killer/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGLY1_deficiency and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGLY1#Clinical_significance (Bertrand Might was the 2012 patient mentioned in this section -- references [40] and [46][47][48]).

[5] https://www.ngly1.org/

[6] https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pmi/matt-might

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13

[8] http://bertrand.might.net/#glycocauses

Bones grow in response to the stress placed on them? I think that's a general principle...

The article makes a point about recent generation of Japanese people having gained 5 inches height since adding more protein and dairy to their diets:

> For instance, since World War II, a switchover from heavy rice consumption to more dairy and protein in childhood has been linked to Japanese men gaining around 5 inches in average adult height.

Dairy is a much better source of calcium than rice and meat. I think children who have calcium-poor diets will develop smaller jaws, but the article doesn't mention calcium.

At least it knocks genetics:

> Assuming that genetics are chiefly responsible for the sudden modern rise of these dental maladies does not make sense, said Ehrlich. “There’s not been enough time for evolution over the span of only several generations to have made our jaws shrink,”

tl/dr: make sure the children in your orbit get adequate calcium and foods that need chewing.

My Aunt's friend's liver had failed - I think she was going to get fluid drained off her liver semi-regularly [0], and was getting worked up for a liver transplant. Eventually she started hospice care. This woman tested negative for COVID-19 a week before she died, but the postmortem test came back positive.

My uncle (an MD) blew his gasket, "SHE DIED OF COVID", but I think really she was dying anyways. Maybe the virus pushed her over the edge, but she most certainly did NOT "die of covid". I should look up this death certificate.

The years of life lost to COVID-19 is minuscule - many deaths are simply "pulled forward" by 6 months or a year.

The deaths of teenagers and young adults who kill themselves because of the response to the pandemic are tragic [1, for example]. 60+ years of life lost vs. 0 years lost by my Aunt's friend (who was already on hospice).

[0] https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/leaflets/files/110215pa... says fluid buildup in abdomen is commonly caused by liver disease

[1] https://nypost.com/2020/12/08/maine-teen-commits-suicide-ami...

(minor edits)

I found this to be an Interesting article on the origins of an early microprocessor, before even the Intel 4004. I wonder what else from that era is still classified.

I accidentally clicked on a link and found myself looking at the Weston A Price Foundation's website. 'hmm? how odd I thought I was at Wired.com' [...] 'Oh, her mom founded the Weston A Price foundation. Got it.'

I like this quote from Ray Holt:

> “We are trying to find out what the kids are really interested in,” he says. “Some like to build, some like to program, some like electricity.”

IMHO schooling should mostly focus on helping kids figure out what they're really interested in.

Public schooling started with Pennsylvania providing a teacher for every community. One-room schoolhouses provided enough structure to help the kids learn how to learn, without giving the system space to indoctrinate children.

John Taylor Gatto was a prolific writer about the problems of modern schooling.

Matt.Might.net has had many submissions to HN [1]. Professor Might pivoted from CS to medicine on account of his family's success figuring out what was wrong with their first-born son, Bertrand Might. Further context for this link is provided in dang's comment on a 2018 submission about the family's efforts to improve diagnosis and treatment for rare diseases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17962575

I read Cristina and Matt Might's blog posts [2] in 2010, when they were in the midst of their search for a diagnosis for their son. In 2012 they determined [3] Bertrand had a glycolysation disorder caused by inheriting two malformed copies of the NGLY1 gene [4] [5]. The family moved from Utah to Alabama for the University of Alabama's medical school [6], and probably also for the change of weather (Utah: substantial snowfall every winter. Birmingham, Alabama: 1 inch snow/year). They eventually decided the odds of their having a second child with Bertrand's NGLY1 disorder were acceptably low; their other two children are not affected by Bertrand's genetic condition.

Bertrand Might suddenly passed away about three weeks ago, not quite 13 years old.

*

Growing up is like getting to the Moon and back. Most people make it to adulthood, but we all need help getting there. Parents are our Mission Control. Matt and Cristina found themselves in an Apollo 13 scenario [7] -- "Houston, we have a problem" -- soon after Bertrand's birth. One of Bertrand's symptoms was lack of tears. Matt posted a writeup after they pinpointed the genetic cause of Bertrand's condition: "My Son's Killer" [3].

Matt added 'precision medicine' to his undertakings. They rose to their occasion, found their answers and almost had Bertrand back to Earth ("A significant gene therapy trial is on the horizon" [8]). Suddenly losing their son is tough (but not entirely unexpected), as it is for all parents who outlive their progeny.

My condolences to the family.

*

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=might.net

[2] http://www.overcomingmovementdisorder.com/

[3] http://matt.might.net/articles/my-sons-killer/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGLY1_deficiency and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGLY1#Clinical_significance (Bertrand Might was the 2012 patient mentioned in this section -- references [40] and [46][47][48]).

[5] https://www.ngly1.org/

[6] https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pmi/matt-might

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13

[8] https://bertrand.might.net/#glycocauses

I think the primary disadvantage suffered by c-section births is related to not having the cranium compressed on passage through the birth canal. The cranium has 8 bones. In an infant these are separate and somewhat mobile, eventually fusing as the body fully matures. Passing through the birth canal compresses the head and body to prepare it for the first breath.

Midwives had a body of knowledge related to childbirth that was lost in the medicalization of childbirth. They didn’t always have good results, but the doctors could have contributed to improve midwives’ practice, rather than do the takeover/exterminate routine. Modern midwives are mostly subsumed into the medical hierarchy, and many of the techniques passed from Midwife to midwife were lost.

Julius Caesar was an early c-section birth. IIRC, his mother did not survive. Just because modern doctors can extract a baby without killing the mother doesn’t mean this should be a common occurrence.

With that said, Weston A. Price DDS had some observations about well-nourished female children growing up to have hips big enough to facilitate easier childbirths... some women may need c-sections because they have small hips, for various reasons...

It's very hard to get control of invasive species. In a story here about tumbleweeds I said these were an invasive species from Russia, wondered what from the Americas had invaded the rest of the world, and a bunch of responders provided examples [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21967020

Senestech's system for controlling rodents [1] is an ovary poison that stops female rodents from reproducing. The system is deployed continuously to keep rodent populations down in cities. But trying to kill all the rats in a city is probably not a good idea either: "A Vancouver rat study is showing us how pest control can backfire... " [2]:

>> [Rats] may be just as much a part of our city as sidewalks and lampposts. We would all be better off if, under most circumstances, we simply left them alone. [2]

Invasive ferrel/hybrid pigs are not comparable to rats, and I don't think a case can be made to let them alone. Maybe something like contrapest [3] could be developed for these invasive hybrid/ferrel pigs.

[1] https://senestech.com

[2] http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/the-case-for-leaving-city-ra...

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContraPest

> It's intriguing what data is considered to be the most title-worthy in cases like this.

I would have taken the title from this quote:

> In the Antarctic, sea ice extent is now well above average and within the range of the ten largest ice extents on record, underscoring its high year-to-year variability. The annual maximum for Antarctic sea ice typically occurs in late September or early October.

> Unlike the order statistics in the intro/title, this figure is quite irrefutable.

Polar ice waxes and wanes as the seasons progress. By some accounts summer 2020 had record temperatures in the northern hemisphere, but I think something else is going on too.

Here's a report of record cold in Australia in August 2020:

https://watchers.news/2020/08/07/tasmania-record-cold/

And a report from New Zealand from June 2020:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/weather-news/121823020/wint...

I think climate is more complicated than the anthropogenic catastrophists would have us believe.

It's a good video, but it's also a case study in being 'almost right'. The almost-correct interpretations cascade and result in a faulty conclusion: that blue-white LED streetlights are better than orange-white streetlights. Various comments object to the faulty conclusion ([1], for example).

At the end he at least addresses his ignorance:

> [18:39] You may have noticed that I didn't talk about the blue light from LEDs, and how this is supposedly ruining our eyes. That's because the "science" behind this is questionable, at best.

> [18:55] [discussion of chart with percentage blue light of various light sources]

> [19:04] [...] but considering that our eyes can withstand the intensity of sunlight, which is far far greater than any normal artificial light source, and also has a lot of blue light, and ultraviolet, which definitely is harmful, I think the 'blue light' thing is just fear-mongering. If someone can point to some verified, peer-reviewed research supporting this, and not a dodgy website, I'll consider changing my stance. In any case, the high flexibility of LED technology means it can be tuned in pretty much any way we like.

The research on the harm of blue light is out there -- For example, one of the comments links to "Effects of blue light on the circadian system and eye physiology" [0]. (only partially read at this point - I don't know if this paper gets into the mechanism of damage done by blue light, as I understand it...)

The sun hangs high in the sky and casts light on everything. We never need to look at the sun directly, we use the sun's light indirectly, after it bounces off of things. The atmosphere scatters the sun's blue light before it gets to us [2]. Artificial lights hanging on poles emitting photons we can't avoid having beamed directly into our eyes... Blue photons have relatively higher energy levels, and different physiological effects, than orange photons... [note to self: expand on this.]

The preceding video was about High Pressure Sodium lights, which I thought was good too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1dMlVwUsrA

My transcription of the video's faulty conclusion (italics added):

> To conclude: although the High Pressure Sodium light is very efficient, its primary output color is misaligned with our nighttime visibility. Only about 1/4 of its light is actually effective at stimulating the cells in our eyes. Although the cool color temperatures of many LED replacements is harsh and aesthetically displeasing, studies have shown that it is not only more efficient, but also makes driving at night safer. There is, however, the potential for greater circadian rhythm disruption and larger amounts of skyglow, using these bluer light sources.

> Still, it seems clear that the High Pressure Sodium is on its way out. Advancements in LED technology are happening at a breakneck pace. Just 10 years ago, they weren't seen as viable, but today even the least efficient of LED replacements ends up emitting the efficiency of High Pressure Sodium once scotopic light output is considered.

> As it stands in 2018, we are faced with the choice of efficiency over aesthetics. I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy roadways lit with relatively-warm 3000K LEDS, and these also wouldn't disrupt sleep much. But you can save a lot more energy, and potentially have safer roadways, with 5700K lighting.

> Either way, it seems clear that LED technology will very soon overtake the tried-and-true High Pressure Sodium lamp, just as the High Pressure Sodium itself replaced the mercury-vapor lamp. And in 40 or 50 years, who knows what technology might light our roadways.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734149/pdf/mv-... - "The radically different power spectrums can look similar when viewed directly by the eye, irrespective of how much blue emission is present."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIC-iGDTU40&lc=Ugx6MYdsMY6I_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_scattering#Cause_of_t...

edit: this page has a discussion of drop-sag lights vs. proper fully-shielded lights: http://www.skykeepers.org/good-bad-lights-cv.html

There are various advocates for allowing the USPS to return to the banking business. They would put the exploitative check cashing stores out of business.

Ellen Brown's has written a copy pieces advocating for postal banking.

What We Could Do with a Postal Savings Bank: Infrastructure that Doesn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime - https://ellenbrown.com/2013/09/23/what-we-could-do-with-a-po... (2013)

This piece concludes by suggesting the postal service is being looted so its property portfolio can be sold off.

Many bottled beverages today are consumed largely because marketing convinces people they want yellow food coloring and brominated vegetable oil (Mountain Dew) as a source for sugar and caffeine. Other modern drinks are science-inspired products with b-vitamins and amino acids in addition to the old standby, caffeine. These provide the functional boost the old herbal beverages provided.

Before caffeine, amino acids, b-vitamins, et cetra, could be synthesized, humans got their performance-enhancing substances from plants: Kola, coffee, tea, coca leaf, etc.

I noticed this list of ingredients from the fine submission:

> The recipe calls for sassafras, sarsaparilla, hops, chamomile, cinnamon, ginger, green tea and molasses, said Belding. “I think it’s going to taste like a spicy root beer. [...]"

Wikipedia suggests most of these ingredients have properties beyond flavor:

Sassafras: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras#Traditional_medicina...

Sarsaparilla: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilax_aristolochiifolia#Medic...

Chamomile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matricaria_chamomilla#Use_in_h...

Green tea (as a source of theanine & caffeine): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tea#Theanine...

Cinnamon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnamon#Health-related_resear...

Ginger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger#Research

My comment on a previous submission on herbal beverages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22958420

One of medical practitioners' patient compliance problems is you've built an aura around your profession as miracle workers with magic bullets. And while sometimes you swing and hit a grand slam, more often than not you hit the ball foul. Which is okay, as long as you keep working with the patient to find a solution to their complaint.

Slow and steady usually wins the race, but magic bullets pay better.

Look at the rebellion that doctor started in New York, with his youtube videos about how futile and absurd it was to ventilate lucid/non-distressed SARS-CoV-2 patients, solely on the basis of their oxygen saturation meter readings. Later reports from the front line said 'hey we're doing much better not ventilating our COVID-19 patients even when their oxygen saturations are super-low...'

> and even then, a large percentage who reject it outright (e.g. the number of people who reject that calories are the primary determinant of weight).

/methinks it is simplistic and wrong to decree that a calorie is a calorie.

My working hypothesis is that bad medical advice is the primary etiological factor behind most cases of morbid obesity. Decades ago the medical industry decreed saturated fats as the cause of heart disease, and advocated fat-free diets, or low-saturated-fat diets failing that.

Butter has been vindicated of the charges against it, but I have yet to see an official apology for giving bad advice. Indeed, the heart profiteers are still [1] flogging a dead horse [2].

My retired-MD uncle recently came to visit, and shared that he now makes his own salad dressing to avoid the cheap oils in commercial salad dressings. He had some great stories of patients he'd helped (trauma from car accidents and knifings), but also of exercises in medical futility (e.g. cancer).

Why doesn't conventional medicine warn patients of the hazards of cheap oils? Now is the perfect time. You could refer to Wikipedia's article on Prostaglandins [0], and speculate that minority America's overconsumption of Omega-6 oils is one factor in their susceptibility to the SARS-CoV-2 (emotional stress is another factor).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin

[1] https://www.heart.org/en/news/2018/05/01/advisory-replacing-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flogging_a_dead_horse

"Blister agents" refers to obsolete medications such as the extract from Spanish fly [0], which was used to try to help President George Washington recover from his cold:

"other treatments they gave [George Washington] during that period were enemas and drugs to make him vomit and something called blisters, where they applied Spanish fly onto his throat, which raises a painful blister, again to remove these terrible humors that are caution the inflammation."

-Bloodletting and blisters: Solving the medical mystery of George Washington’s death, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bloodletting-blisters-solv...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fly [473]

> It's not the ventilation that was killing patients. It was the covid-19 that was killing patients.

I'm not a professional with years of slinging the lingo. But I think Kyle-Sidell's retweet of "Barotrauma is a real phenomenon" [0] implies [edit] that aggressive ventilation was actually what was killing people. Is it so unreasonable to propose that many of the prematurely-ventilated might have survived, if not for their ventilation?

Wikipedia has a page about Barotrauma, which is damage to bodies caused by pressure differentials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barotrauma

Dr. @erikfreyrMD's earlier tweet said "I don't know where this dogma of 'intubate early' came from. Intubation is a death sentence. " [1] (emphasis added).

[0] https://twitter.com/erikfreyrMD/status/1243775103071973376

[1] https://twitter.com/erikfreyrMD/status/1243697159037259776

[edit1: means -> implies]