TIL that when mice are put in an enclosure with limitless resources, they overpopulate and social behaviours degenerate into non-sexual, narcissists and pan-sexual cannibals.

Mozen · 1 day

This is interesting but is completely non-applicable to humans for a number of reasons.

No entertainment or exercise. You'd be surprised the MASSIVE changes this makes to mouse behavior. This is like putting humans in a prison and providing unlimited food than it relates to a city. Minimal stimulation is bad news for all animals.
Humans aren't trapped. One thing humans aren't running out of any time soon is space. Seriously, this isn't Dark City, the trains don't all go in circles and there aren't walls at the end of every street, anyone can leave and people who get over stressed do leave. Imagine the mouse colony but with the ability of mice to vanish back to the natural world with predators etc, it would probably stabilize the population quite differently.
Humans are much more social animals. Humans can handle cohorts in the 150 range and communicate much more easily than mice. This means we can handle much higher population densities than mice do (naturally).

lampost86 · 1 day

I really like short stories by Phillip K. Dick they usually have big ideas and sci-fi concepts addressed by the actions of small men. They feel very different from most sci-fi. I particularly like:

The Hanging Stranger and The Last of The Masters

no_front_teeth · 2 days

Right, but I fail to see why the natural argument suddenly stops at vegetation.

no_front_teeth · 2 days

Eh, I had no problem with the killing of small pox.

no_front_teeth · 2 days

I'll play devil's advocate.

Marijuana is much cheaper to produce per effective dose than any legal drug. A pack of cigs contains an ounce of tobacco. There is no reason to believe marijuana would be harder to grow than tobacco (and some evidence it would be less). This means, even with incredibly high taxes applied (and note taxes do have a limit before a 'grey market' appears) a joint would cost around 10-50 cents.

Imagine for a moment what the consequence would be if alcohol's price dropped to 10 cents for 3 shots, now imagine alcohol had no hang over or associated nausea. The effects on society would be massive. Hundreds of industries that did not even realize they were competing would be wiped out over night, replaced by a low cost, low employment alternative industry. (Possibly including alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and many many others) The usage rates would skyrocket across all age groups. Any consequence of usage (lower activity etc) would be dramatically amplified. If it lead to even a moderate increase in heavy alcohol consumption this could have massive health consequences. (Of course if it reduced heavy alcohol consumption this would be good news, it's unclear which way it goes, studies find both.)

So all of this combined, means that legalizing marijuana is playing Russian roulette with the economy and health of the country. What is the benefit of legalization? Basically none. The Mexican drug cartels are only funded 15-26% by marijuana. The number of arrests for marijuana are minimal compared to the rest of the drugs. The number of sometimes users is huge but the number of 'everyday' users is very low.

The 'it works in other countries' argument doesn't work as the countries with legalization lack the ability to produce weed on a large scale.

no_front_teeth · 2 days

I disagree, the reason fewer people farm is because there is absolutely no need for farmers. We already massively overproduce calories per population to the point where growing food without a huge force multiplier (like fertilizers and fossil fuels) is completely uneconomical. If anything we need more people to live in cities. People in cities take fewer resources and waste less space than people out 'living on the land' (With their electricity, plumbing, and car trips into town every week). Manual labor that can be easily replicated by any force multiplier (computers/electricity/fertilizers) is for schmucks and unless you are doing it for general enjoyment you are wasting your time.

(Peak oil might be a problem, but mitigation strategies exist they are just expensive relative to the current cost of energy)

Colomusi · 4 days

Bumi is a non-bender born into a family of incredibly powerful benders. All of his grandparents (minus Sokka's dad) were killed by firebenders. He could have learned the bending block technique from watching his dad. He would have been raised near the royal family and therefore had access to Tai-Lee (the first or at least a very early chi-blocker). It's hard to imagine Aang raising someone who hates benders, but it's possible.

sekai-31 · 4 days

Spider-man is Marvel.

tedtutors · 4 days

Alicia's body did not appear to be moving at the end when Reese approached it. Hard to say though, she might still be alive.

The 'Fixer' who figured out Root at the last minute and tried to warn Reese. Reese and her seem to have an attraction. Zoe Morgan I think.

P8ntBal1551 · 4 days

I think this show is actually an attempt to make a 'realistic' batman. Finch is Bruce Wayne and Reese is Batman (they even call him 'The man in the suit). Carter is Commissioner Gordon and Fusco is that other cop who was dirty. This is enforced more by the fact that Johnathon Nolan created this show and was also part of the creation of Batman Begins.

The Machine even has parallels to the machine created that the end of The Dark Knight.

tedtutors · 4 days

Extremely exciting. A few thoughts:

It's funny that they pulled the same thing they pulled with Elias again. Funny that it worked.
I wonder if they are going to make the battle with Root a season long fight or a 3 episode season opener kind of thing.
Is the 'helper' character going to be the new 'Finch' for the first few episodes or will The Machine.
It feels like the menace of the city is really reduced at this point. HR has been taken down, Elias is behind bars, there really isn't a 'crime-ridden city' feeling like there was before. I wonder how this will change things. The cops being ineffective/corrupt was one of the major reasons for Reese/Finch to matter in the city. Also, with no Snow there is really no enemy of Reese.
If it really is Root vs The Machine it kind of feels one-sided I mean on one side you have a super machine that sees all electronic communication everywhere. On the other hand you have a punky hacker who is a good guesser. I mean Finch doesn't even know there is a back door into The Machine.
It's a shame they kind of threw Alicia away like that. It adds some weight to the actions, but still.
I wonder what Reese's handler is up to, if she tortured Snow she probably knows The Machine exists (assuming the Chinese Machine and American Machine are linked), will she try to destroy it?
Fusco and Carter are now pretty similar characters, I wonder how the show will handle that. (Especially without HR around). The big difference is Fusco kills people.
The last scene is totally a homage to the Matrix. A man speaking to a machine and the payphone ringing, fantastic.
I bet they bring Elias back in some way.
I wonder if Root will torture Finch? How does Finch stand up to torture? We know Reese can be tortured forever. Finch I suspect, is not so durable.
The "You created God" line was great.

Marine54 · 5 days

I'd argue The Nameless Mod and texture packs helped keep interest in the game high after the second game was a flop. The game is 12 years old and still sells very vigorously. Part of this is due to the fact that it's very often on sale, but part of it is fans keeping it alive. I'd also argue that fan interaction and improvement of the game helped keep it popular long enough to have a prequel made.

Ozymandiazzz · 5 days

It gets better, it starts pretty weak. (But it's definitely made by one guy, the writing is not amazing at any point).

Ozymandiazzz · 5 days

For those interested in exploring this in another game I suggest you check out Iji (It's free). It's a fantastic game that keeps track of the number of enemies you kill throughout the game and hugely alters the flavor text in journals you find/boss fights/character reactions based off how many enemies you have killed. I'd advise playing it through once as a mass murderer and watch the journals slowly begin describe you as the hunter killer and listen to your character's progression from saying 'sorry' with each kill to issuing war screams. Then play it through as a pacifist and see how hugely different it is.

schrodingers_cumbox · 6 days

You could install this and whitelist reddit and it will track. But it will count an open tab. This would measure your time and compare it to the rest of the world. I don't know how many days they track over though.

mepper · 7 days

Marijuana is a small part of the Mexican drug trade, probably around 15-26%. [PROOF]

kodark · 8 days

Sadly, has not stopped the reviews.

kodark · 8 days

Perhaps you haven't checked it's ratings on Metacritic or Amazon yet. It might be a great game but the fans are KILLING IT in ratings. It's got 2.5 stars on Amazon and a 3.5 fan rating on metacritic. Fans don't care how good or bad a game is, they just go along with the tone of the crowd (and right now the crowd is complaining).

EDIT: I think I was not super clear here. I was saying that fans will swarm and downrate things that are actually good because of small drama (day 1 problems etc). I'm not saying Metacritic or Amazon has anything validity. The same thing happened to ME3 and many other fairly good games. I was explaining what the comic was saying about DE3 where users are attacking an otherwise good game because of minor complaints.

myfairlady91 · 9 days

Why? Gay people can teach, as can people who have kids, who don't have kids, who have kids out of wedlock, who are crippled, who have cancer, who might have cancer, who are S and M enthusiasts, who are any race or a mix or races, who have scars from fires, or really any number of other things. Why does having a face tattoo from 10 years ago make someone a bad teacher? Why does getting a face tattoo in my private life yesterday make me a bad teacher?

As to the article, just because the law doesn't protect someone doesn't meant the law shouldn't protect someone.

myfairlady91 · 9 days

You exactly explained why they need equal protections under the law. If someone feels a 'need' to get a facial tattoo, it's no more a 'choice' than whether or not they are gay. There isn't a part of the brain that says "Yep, I'm the deciding part" and a part that says "Yep, I'm the chemical part". It's all the brain.

You say, poor decision making, but then isn't 'not acting so gay' just poor decision making? What if I don't want some gay dude representing my company. It turns out, you are supposed to hire people to do their job, not based off how they look or what they do in their free time.

(It's not really my cause, I'm not really into the whole BME thing. But, I can understand why you shouldn't be denied employment for your whole life because you decided a barcode under your eye looked cool at 18 or because some customer thinks tattoos are 'deviant'.)

myfairlady91 · 9 days

A large majority of jobs won't hire them. I assume you could say something about the justice system here, but the justice system has enough problems with race already that face tattoos are probably a secondary matter.

iLikezTheCheeze · 9 days

Unfortunately, research on cannabinoids is very new. The brain's cannabinoid system was only really discovered about ten years ago.

Some preliminary evidence: cannabinoids appear to activate the amygdala of rats. This is a fear center and rats given agonists (things that activate) to the CB1 receptor (THC activates this) they show enhanced fear memory. 1 General audience

In a human study, humans given just THC showed more disrupted thinking, including focusing on minor details and ignoring major ones and showed some disruption in their PLC and striatum. People given CBD (cannabidiol, which has not well understood pharmacology, it appears to act as an antagonist, but might also have peripheral effects) showed better focus on salient details. 2 General audience

So, some of the effect difference is probably a brand difference. Some of it is probably due to coping mechanisms different people have and some of it is due to neurochemical differences. The only one of those associated with 'personality' would be the middle one. But, at this point any mechanism is based off very sparse evidence.

Also, esquesque's neuroanatomy is wrong. The hippocampus and amygdala aren't twins. You have two hippocampi and two amygdalas.

Anglophilia · 9 days

Fixed, somehow I lost an l on my .html

Anglophilia · 9 days

Looking up the volume of an average looking microwave we have 8.7" x 14.5" x 15.7" which comes out 32.5L. This might not sound like a lot, but it is huge. 32.5 L of gold is worth 30 million dollars. This means if you could get your hands on a maxed amount of gold (perhaps by explaining your machine to rich people) you could become a billionare (and collapse the gold market, c'est la vie) overnight. This is a nice table of most value by volume for liquids, though I suspect making 37,500 liters of LSD would tank it's street value.

But why stop there, the real value/power of this device is not in reproducing 3 different items, it's in making 1 million times the volume of one single item. (or one billion of the item is small enough) You could make a hundreds of thousands of copies of a single diamond.

I'd probably take application from scientists (mostly in nanofab) suggesting the most useful/sellabe item to make 1 billion of.

Either that or I'd just black mail Da Beer's, whoever has the most gold, whoever has the most platinum, and whoever has any compound that couldn't stand 37500 liters being released on the market. Each industry pays me 1 million a year or I replicate their item and end them. This might end in my death.

EDIT: More thoughts, after performing two replications, it might be worth our time to sacrifice the third replication to figure out how the device works or even to have a chance and pull it apart to figure out what makes it tick.

cdcox

TROPHY CASE

cdcox

TROPHY CASE

you'll need to login or register to do that

create a new account

login