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Education

Monkeys Exhibit the Same Economic Irrationality As Us 254

grrlscientist writes "Laurie Santos is trying to find the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primates make decisions. This video documents a clever series of experiments in 'monkeynomics' and shows that some of the stupid decisions we make are made by our primate relatives too."

Comment Re:yeah. its much better to be p0wned (Score 1) 552

I somewhat agree with you. I think the idea of making everyone buy health insurance is ludicrous. That is the "Let them eat cake!" attitude to fixing things.
The problem is not that there aren't enough people buying health insurance, it is that it is too expensive to afford.
To fix that we need to fix the way we practice medicine and the way health insurance companies operate.
Quite frankly, I have no beef with Medicare. I'm not old enough to participate, so i have no first hand experience, but it sounds like there is less red tape, corruption, and profiteering than most health insurance companies.
I would love to see a single-payer system set up that actually worked. I'd even be willing to settle for a public health insurance option, so long as it is not tied to employment.
However, I agree that none of the options on the table currently are very appealing and the thought of government mandating people purchase health insurance coverage is ridiculous and does not solve the true problem.

Comment Re:Public Service Anouncement (Score 1) 709

Aren't all religious holidays in the US "stolen-by-commercialism."

Valentine's day: You must buy things to please your significant other, or they will leave you.
Easter: You must by candy for your kids, or they will hate you.
Christmas: You must buy things for everyone you love, know, or are acquainted with in any way, or they will think you are cheap or poor.

The only holidays that aren't commercialized are various memorial days (but even then, there are sales to be had at the local mall).

Comment Re:First you need a semantic context (Score 1) 264

yeah, well there are a lot of strange features in american engineering. So it's all based off of carbon. 12 g of carbon is a g-mole. 12 kg of carbon is a kg-mol (or kilomole). 12 lbs of carbon is a lb-mol. it might have something to do with the fact that the exact value of Avogadro's number wasn't known until the early 20th century. By that time, i think lb-mol was already established. Perrin (a french guy) figured out that a g-mol is 6.022E23. I think he chose to use grams because he was French.

Comment Re:First you need a semantic context (Score 1) 264

Not to an american chemical engineer. I frequently see things in lb-moles. The OP is a bit misleading. A lb-mole of NaCl is 58.44 lbs. A g-mole is 58.44 g. A kg-mole is 58.44 kg. The mole always needs to have a unit of mass in front of it, or it is useless. It is by convention that by "mole," we mean "g-mole."

Comment Re:Uh Oh. (Score 1) 995

unless you believe that slavery, definitive tiers of haves and have-nots based on who's a member of the official state religion, definitive tiers of haves and have-nots based on which genitalia you were born with, and an admonition to subjugate, enslave, or otherwise wipe out anyone who doesn't believe in the state-sponsored religion can actually be a "religion of peace."

So I guess by this standard no western religion is a "religion of peace"

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