Messages

It pisses me off that a lot of places are passing laws to treat e-cigs the same as regular ones. It's that fucking punishment fetish culture coming through again... "Oh shit, they found a way to enjoy something pleasurable without the cancer or bothering anyone! We need to punish them, STAT!"

I was looking forward to e-cigs catching on because I doubt the vapors will throw my lungs into fits like smoke does.

As opposed to dat cord ovah deah.
...Hi new poster.  Are you a human?
P.S.:
I don't think it's so much we're interested in discord as it's just an emergent property of our beings.
Hail Eris.

I am human but I have robot friends. And I don't be told what to do so no shut up. My teeth hurt.

Suggestion: whiskey helps with toothache.  Especially if you swallow it after swishing it around in your mouth a bit, and then repeat liberally.

...Follow advice at your own risk.
In fact, do everything at your own risk.

I have to admit, I'm a little surprised that in the year 2014 that's still a hot topic.

It really seems like its more of a hot topic than it was even ten years ago.  Or maybe I'm just paying more attention now.

There's an atheist movement now. They're building their own 'churches' and having their own 'services' on Sunday and whatnot. It's officially become a new cult/religion.

...On my days off I am not getting out of bed until noon, voluntarily, for anybody. 
I have a deep suspicion of anyone who would make me do otherwise for my supposed self-betterment.

...one of the main reasons the US tends to prop up awful regimes throughout the world is to field-test theories and practices in the most effective way to implement absolute rule.

That's a disturbing thought.
I figured it was just that resources, human and otherwise, are easier to extract cheaply with corrupt bastards in power; and that it didn't go farther than that...
Until now...

I'm marginally happier with confusion than a facebook account however.

Same here, I think.

Besides that, I'm thinking certain members of my family will sleep better in their tidy Christian beds not knowing me that well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/science/new-truths-that-only-one-can-see.html?ref=science&_r=0

Paradoxically the hottest fields, with the most people pursuing the same questions, are most prone to error, Dr. Ioannidis argued. If one of five competing labs is alone in finding an effect, that result is the one likely to be published. But there is a four in five chance that it is wrong. Papers reporting negative conclusions are more easily ignored.

Putting all of this together, Dr. Ioannidis devised a mathematical model supporting the conclusion that most published findings are probably incorrect.

Other scientists have questioned whether his methodology was skewed by his own biases. But the same year he published another blockbuster, examining more than a decade's worth of highly regarded papers — the effect of a daily aspirin on cardiac disease, for example, or the risks of hormone replacement therapy for older women. He found that a large proportion of the conclusions were undermined or contradicted by later studies.

His work was just the beginning. Concern about the problem has reached the point that the journal Nature has assembled an archive, filled with reports and analyses, called Challenges in Irreproducible Research.

Among them is a paper in which C. Glenn Begley, who is chief scientific officer at TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, described an experience he had while at Amgen, another drug company. He and his colleagues could not replicate 47 of 53 landmark papers about cancer. Some of the results could not be reproduced even with the help of the original scientists working in their own labs.

Well, fuck.  *Gets out rum bottle*.

Given what is at stake, it seems like a moral failing that the titles of the papers were not revealed. That was forbidden, we're told, by confidentiality agreements imposed by the labs.

I'd suggest that they have a moral obligation to break that agreement. There's literally lives at stake.

...I think so too...

The two most godless cities in America are Providence and New Bedford

...Was looking at that, and Cedar Rapids is a hotbed of secularism???    In fact, I'm surprised it's a hot bed of anything.

Also surprised Detroit scored as high as it did; I would think Detroit residents would know their God to be a vengeful and uncaring bastard.

UPDATE: Cancer scare was, apparently, a false alarm.

YAY!  ... I hope the pain either goes away on its' own or can be treated.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/when-lyme-disease-lasts-and-lasts/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Long and boring-ass story, but not lyme.
cpnhelp.org

Ah that's a shitty one. But what's with the self-diagnosis and black-market (and potentially lethal) self-treatment?

I'm enrolled in the county indigent medical system.
In Texas.   
...All my specialists are n00bs, doctors doing residencies.
I have a psych dx too.
Nobody's bothered to culture, even after sinus surgery #2 and a decade plus of illness,and me begging.
I'm not taken seriously,and I don't expect that to improve.

...Don't have access to better, so rolling dice on DIY.  I seem to have a really resilient liver anyway, so it'll probably be fine.

I tell myself that everytime I go to the Houston Free Thinker Page. They just keep tearing each other apart.

This doesn't surprise me.  Local lefty movements here seem to turn into circular firing squads pretty rapidly.

[It's not a question of if humanity will survive. We will. It's just going to blow. Especially for people living in coastal cities.]

Thing is, those changes were usually gradual. And when they weren't they lead to mass extinctions.

The interesting about Homo sapiens is that we are actually adapted for hotter temperatures. The problem is is that we've kinda ditched that a little and made high density population centers on coastlines. It's not a question of if humanity will survive. We will. It's just going to blow. Especially for people living in coastal cities.

Correct.
Dunno if I linked this before, if so sorry for repeating...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-the-city-of-miami-is-doomed-to-drown-20130620

Congrats.

[brain function]

I prefer nightshift.
Why?
So many fewer live humans to deal with.

I'm just there to let in the eyeball-collecting people, really...

It has profound effects on the body, altering everything from hormones and body temperature to athletic ability, mood and brain function.

Dunno about rong, but there wasn't much brain function going on here anyway...

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/when-lyme-disease-lasts-and-lasts/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Long and boring-ass story, but not lyme.
cpnhelp.org

*Deleted for stupid*

Rog had that brain infection thingee...he actually might be able to get off the drugs in time, ought to be taking lots of b vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids and such.

Roger is very well aware of his condition, and will never be able to sleep properly without medication.

Roger would appreciate not getting diagnosis or prescription advice from the peanut gallery in the future.

Roger thanks you in advance for your cooperation in this matter.

Pardon, and apologies.
I would never attempt to tell you what to do, as you're smarter than I am, and I don't live in your head.

Besides that, I'm up to 3 psych drugs, 5 asthma drugs, all the OTC antihistamines, quercetin megadose,  vitamin d3, N-acetyl cystiene, and vitamin c.
...This in addition to self-treating something I believe myself to have but that's not been diagnosed...the self-treating involves taking one interestingly-sourced antibiotic that makes me puke, and another that might kill my liver...and taking both for at least 18 months.

...So telling anyone to get off meds would be hypocritical as hell coming from me.
I just don't wish this *points to own head* on anyone, yanno?