justasitsounds

If David 'Avocado' Wolfe said that water is wet I would reflexively have to check the faucets.

'Chocolate is an octave of sun energy. In fact it's the energy of the center of the sun. It's a male energy that comes down off the sun and it.. actually, of all the plants, the cacao is right on line target the center of the sun, which we call in our body, the heart, and actually cacao is right up with the center of the sun, which is the center of the heart, which is called the sacred heart.'

- David Wolfe, new-age huckster and scam artist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80O4gezNSnY

Surely the danger can be largely mitigated by siting the flywheel underground, surrounded by some energy absorbing walls - assuming the catastrophic failure mode ejects debris in the same plane as the flywheel is turning

I always wondered how they dealt with gyroscopic forces in flywheel vehicles. Maybe I'm being naive and the effects can be compensates for with gimbals, but I'm stuck with the mental image of cars that don't turn corners

The problem comes from people conflating the term 'amateur' (does not pursue a paid-for career in the chosen field) with 'ignorant' or 'unskilled'.

Article contains a link to a story about how conservationists are trying to 'teach' quolls (Australian native marsupial) by negative association with toad-meat sausages laced with a nausea inducing compoound : http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2017/...

> There are clear and massive positive externalities to fossil fuel, and anyone arguing otherwise needs to take a deep breath. They are the foundation of modern civilisation, and we all get non-economic benefits from the era of unprecedented peace and prosperity that we live in. If we price in all the externalities, fossil fuels probably do deserve a subsidy. The renewables debate is about whether we have an alternative that is better than the historically magical substances we call fossil fuels.

I think you'd have to be pulling a pretty long bow to argue that fossil fuel extraction and use has no environmental externalities - this paper for example (http://insight.jbs.cam.ac.uk/2015/measuring-fossil-fuel-hidd...) shows that for 2008-2012 "the implicit subsidy exceeded post-tax profits (averaged over five years) at all 20 of the largest oil, gas and coal producing companies studied".

We're already (globally) subsidising the fossil fuel industry, I think it's only fair to ask for some of that money back - it's not like they would 'unpollute' the sky and sea if they could anyway.

While they may be the foundation of the modern era, fossil fuels are also a dirty relic that should be left in the past. Leaving aside the environment impact I don't think I'd have to argue so hard that they have a not-so-great legacy when it comes to huge injections of capital into the middle east and it's concomitant propping up of dictators and despotic dynasties.

That is what I was implying - but people do act irrationally in the aftermath of a traumatic event like that

Bets the driver was voluntarily impaired?

There should be a phrase that evokes the ability of the porn industry to innovate, eg: "this haptic VR technology is really at the fapping edge"

It is the way jokes work, however

Cue legislation to make kites, balloons and RC aircraft illegal

I've heard that too. Along with the apparent external signs of an 'uptick in mood' (for want of a better phrase) when someone resolves to end it: IE. a lifting of a burden.

I'd also like to say, to anyone reading this who is entertaining thoughts of self-harm or suicide: Please, please reach out for help. In my mother's case her suffering was almost certainly compounded by an irrational shame and self-imposed stigma. I'm just an armchair critic, if you are taking medication and you feel like it is helping - it is. If it isn't helping, please talk to your healthcare professionals about alternative treatment - there are always other options that don't involve hurting those who love you

Like all side-effect warnings I'm pretty sure the warnings about increased suicide risk are only added after the drugs have been on the market for a while (and having accumulated a few lawsuits). As with the generic 'this product may contain nuts' warnings on food these smack of post-hoc ass-covering to me.

While my scepticism of 'alternative' medicine, magical thinking and general woo-woo is as strong as ever, my experiences of the last couple of years have really shaken the former certainty I used to express in the rigour of science-based medicine. I still believe in the method, but the execution seems to leave a lot to be desired. Not entirely unrelated, I'm reminded why I became disillusioned with my biochem undergrad studies - specifically the labwork. We were repeatedly told to ignore results that didn't produce the 'correct' result and were even docked marks for effectively honest reporting. Although I'm sure it was mostly crappy technique that was to blame.

Thanks for your kind words

There seems to be an increasing number of non-academic articles, essays and books that are expressing the idea that the Serotonin hypothesis of depression is flawed. It seems like the drug industry just picked up this idea in the 70s and has been running with it (to the bank) ever since

Anecdotally, I have come to believe that SSRIs have a temporary mood-altering effect, possibly combined with a placebo effect that wears off over time - as your body adapts to the induced serotonin imbalance. The only answer from the medical profession? Increase the dose.

I saw this with my own mother. She went from being a mildly depressed retired housewife to suicidal within the space of 12 months. She started on low-dose SSRIs which seemed to work for a while before she regressed. Each time she started to feel depressed again she would be prescribed with an increased dosage. This pattern repeated until she was taking the maximum 'allowed' dosage, by this point she was delusional, paranoid and suffered terrifying, persecution-style hallucinations - perhaps not surprising seeing how much her brain chemistry must have been out of whack.

Sadly, I'm making these observations with hindsight, she took her own life in 2015. I wish I could share this article with my dad, if I knew it wouldn't break his heart. Both she and my father couldn't share with their children how gravely ill she was until it was too late. They both trusted their doctors implicitly. What they weren't prepared for was the fact that the theory that formed the basis of her treatment was, it seems, no more than guesswork supported only by publication bias, wishful thinking and greed.

Ironically, one of my first web development jobs, way back in 2000, was at a 'medical communications company' where I created an intranet site for GSK (IIRC) for use by their salespeople to shore up the claims of the effectiveness of Seroxat/Paxil and counter negative studies. So, I guess that makes me complicit in all this too.

Have been with vivid for about 12 months, was supposed to be a temporary arrangement while I waited for my building's strata to fix the internal wiring between my apartment and the MDF in the basement. All of the NBN horror stories and the strata's malignant incompetence mean I'm still using it and it's pretty solid in my experience.

I'm in central Sydney and normally average around 10mbps down

possibly could have been better phrased: I was trying to point out that a woman 'using her sexuality for personal gain' only works if men treat her solely as a sexual object

How many times do you have to choose to not walk down a particular street at night because of the real risk that you will be raped?

How many times have you have to 'politely' brush off some random creep, without hurting his feelings, to avoid being intimidated, coerced and assaulted?

It's almost impossible to comprehend if you don't live with the very real possibility hanging over your head that today is the day when someone, most likely someone you know, is going to try to rape you

And the women in this locker room regularly pressure their juniors into having sex with them? I don't get the equivalence here.

Sure, women talk dirty too, rather less of them are guilty of sexual coercion and assault then their male counterparts, I would hazard

And the name 'Argentina' come from the Spanish and Italians, not from the Querandí, Mapuche, Serrano, Charrúa, Minuane or Guaraní.