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Comment Re:Sigh (Score 5, Interesting) 341

We ALL know how Politicians get bought and sold so let's cut the "total" bullshit here.

Yes, they do. But not all of them and certainly not in the manner that the GP presented. One needs to actually understand how the system works before one condemns it and/or proposes fixes for it. Incidentally, most of the people in politics hate the system as much as you do. You think they enjoy spending so much of their day begging people for money so they can fund their campaigns? The real world isn't House of Cards, most people actually enter public service for noble reasons, ranging from the mundane fixing of potholes to the desire to advance a social cause. The problem is two fold:

1) Campaign finance reform is inherently suspect because it's passed by people who have an incentive to make it harder for incumbents to lose elections. There's a reason why opponents frequently referred to McCain-Feingold as the "Incumbent Protection Act"

2) Meaningful campaign finance reform would require a Constitutional Amendment; the idea I most liked was the notion of precluding private donations but giving every American citizen X dollars to allocate as they see fit. It's an awesome idea but one that's utterly unconstitutional. Perhaps you should start building a network for this concept rather than spouting talking points about money going into Senators pockets?

Comment Re:Correlation Does Not Imply Causation (Score 1) 281

Having everybody live off a high protein diet is unsustainable. There are whole segments of American society that couldn't afford it, never mind the third world, and even if money was no object it would be completely unsustainable from an environmental standpoint.

It's cute though that you took what I was saying and morphed it into "cutting sugar is unsustainable"; all I did was condemn your silly paleo diet, not the notion of cutting sugar or making other healthy lifestyle choices. One can cut out soda (or even enjoy it in moderation) without adopting a made up diet that claims to be what our ancestors ate.

Of course, physical activity is even better. I eat whatever the hell I want. You can do that when you're averaging 30 miles a week of running. Pass the cheesecake, mmm'kay?

Comment Re:Sigh (Score -1, Offtopic) 341

Of course they will, while comcast is telling them this, they are stuffing wads of money in the senators pockets.

You know that talking point is total bullshit, right? What you describe would be a felony offense in the United States. Nor can corporations give money directly to campaigns. They can donate to PACs, which are a special animal in the American political system, but they can't donate directly to campaigns or candidates. When people tell you that "Big oil/telecom/Hollywood/whatever gave X dollars to Y candidate" they really mean that the employees of those industries gave X dollars to Y candidate. Work at a gas station and donate $20 to your State Assemblywoman? That's added to the total donation from "big oil" when her opponent needs a talking point.

I realize such intricacies don't make for good talking points but it would be extremely helpful if people would at least learn how the system works rather than spreading FUD that only serves to undermine the tenuous amount of faith we have left in our system.

Submission + - Some raindrops exceed their terminal velocity (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: New research reveals that some raindrops are “super-terminal” (they travel more than 30% faster than their terminal velocity, at which air resistance prevents further acceleration due to gravity). The drops are the result of natural processes—and they make up a substantial fraction of rainfall. Whereas all drops the team studied that were 0.8 millimeters and larger fell at expected speeds, between 30% and 60% of those measuring 0.3 mm dropped at super-terminal speeds. It’s not yet clear why these drops are falling faster than expected, the researchers say. But according to one notion, the speedy drops are fragments of larger drops that have broken apart in midair but have yet to slow down. If that is indeed the case, the researchers note, then raindrop disintegration happens normally in the atmosphere and more often than previously presumed—possibly when drops collide midair or become unstable as they fall through the atmosphere. Further study could improve estimates of the total amount of rainfall a storm will produce or the amount of erosion that it can generate.

Comment Re:Correlation Does Not Imply Causation (Score 1) 281

Try doing any cardio of moderate to heavy intensity (which you really ought to be doing, if you want to live a long life) without carbs. Your diet is a fad and an utterly unsustainable one (from an environmental standpoint) at that. If you really want to live like our ancestors did start having sex at 10 and forgo modern medicine. You'll be dead in your 20s and the carbon impact of your selfish lifestyle will cancel itself out.

Comment Re:Not Net Neutrality (Score 0) 531

And all the other stuff the US had first, that was just coincidence was it?

Yes. Same goes for the things that USSR had first.

Really though what the left like to call the traditional or nuclear family is nothing of the sort. It's an artifical creation put in place to give returning soldiers a place to go.

You forget the soldiers that return dead. This is the missing workforce women were set to replace.

You know your Rosie the Riveter quit her job after two weeks, right?

Who cares about one specific woman? It is only an anecdote, not data.

Read up on the events immediately following the 1917 revolution. They don't agree with your narrative.

Maybe you have read the wrong books then? In the USSR women worked literally everywhere, there were no jobs considered "too manly". In modern capitalist Russia the position of females became, in fact, way worse. But if you really want to know about things that happened immediately following 1917 revolution: USSR was the first country to legalise abortions. USSR had equal rights and women's suffrage starting with the first constitution of soviet Russia - in 1918. Compare that to the 19th amendment which is from 1920.

The thing is, second world war has slashed the soviet male population by a huge amount, thus after the war has ended there were far more women in the workforce than men. Actually, if I remember correctly then women were the majority (51-52%) of the soviet workforce for decades.

Comment Re:Correlation Does Not Imply Causation (Score 1) 281

she says this while sat there drinking coffee

What's wrong with coffee?

If she doesn't change her lifestyle, i'm estimating she will be bedridden within 5 years and dead within 10, whereas if she put some effort in, she would have a chance of living a lot longer.

Except she won't be. And that's the problem. If they take their blood pressure and cholesterol meds they fucking live forever and just keep on eating. Meanwhile the rest of us get to subsidize their lifestyle choices because our healthcare system doesn't allow insurance underwriters to take lifestyle choices into account. The 40 year old sedentary fat ass pays the same as the 40 year old marathon runner.

Comment Re:Correlation Does Not Imply Causation (Score 1) 281

Yeah... and I have found something that works extraordinarily well at burning fat: sprinting. I do a 15 min jog and then 10 reps of 20s sprints/10s rest. Somehow, this basically just completely bypasses the normal laws of physics and starts telling your body to burn fat immediately

Fat metabolism doesn't work that way; your body can metabolize a finite amount of fat in a given time and when the muscles call upon more energy (as they invariably will if you're sprinting) the difference is going to come from glycogen. It does take a few minutes for the fat metabolism to get going -- this is one of the reasons why distance runners warm up and/or start slow in long runs -- though there are interesting studies that suggest caffeine can accelerate the process.

Comment Re:Correlation Does Not Imply Causation (Score 2) 281

The human body is designed for long periods of rest and short bursts of activity, e.g. running away from / after some animal. While sustained exercise does burn a lot of calories and have other benefits, short bursts put muscles into high energy mode constantly so as to be ready.

The human body isn't "designed" for anything but it is remarkably adapted to endurance events. You almost can count on one hand the number of animals that can keep up with a human through a moderate endurance race (5k or 10k) never mind a marathon. Horses, dogs, the ostrich, and a few others. It's no mistake that we domesticated the first two in that list. Humans have even been known to beat the horse at a marathon on particularly hot days.

Point being, I'd question your claim that the human body is "designed" (adapted is really a better word, FYI) for long periods of rest w/short bursts of activity. What you've described there are the big cats and other ambush predators.

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