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Comment Re:Old Guys? (Score 1) 237

I listen to the ones who are from someone I actually want to talk to, the rest of them I just delete. If I'm listening to them without the visual voicemail interface, I just hit 7 about 4 seconds into the voice mail, otherwise I look at the caller ID on the VVS and hit the delete button. My phone is not someone else's tool for forcing me to talk to them. I get 3-4 calls a day from very low quality technical recruiters. I get a call every couple of months from someone I might actually want to talk to.

The only people who call me at work are IT people in response to online tickets. Then I get an E-mail from the phone system that they called me and I have to look them up and send them an E-Mail politely reminding them that, as I explained in my ticket, IT doesn't seem to be capable of installing a phone at my desk and that they're better off emailing me. Not to mention the fact that all my voicemails go to a null number and the size of that mailbox will eventually crash the corporate phone system. I also sit in a location they are incapable of finding or accessing if they do actually find it. I mostly just submit tickets for the comedy value, once or twice a week. I'm over 40, so I suppose they were probably talking about me.

Comment Re:At a guess . . . (Score 1) 179

I actually use yellow tinted goggles after 6PM this time of year. The sunlight is so short and weak this time of year my sleep schedule gets totally messed up. When that happens in the summer I just get up in the middle of the night and work until bedtime, but that doesn't work here in December because there's not enough light during the day to get synced up.

So I try to go outdoors every day for an hour around noon, particularly if its overcast. And I wear those stupid goggles after 6PM, which is a PITA but beats lying in bed awake all night only to fall asleep at noon.

The particular pair I use (Uvex S1933X) cost only $8 and are, surprisingly, optically pretty good. There's slight distortion at the edge-of-field but they're fine in the center of the field. They don't actually block much blue light, but by looking at color swatches I've determined the cut off violet quite dramatically. When I put them on, all those irritating "blue" LEDS (which are actually violet) simply disappear. You can be looking straight at one with these puppies on and you'd never know it was lit, much less annoyingly bright. Subjectively, my eyes feel less tired too, although the lenses need frequent cleaning.

Another thing I find useful is a word processor called FocusWriter. It can edit ODT files, but it ignores all the color styling and hides all the Windows controls. The intent is to eliminate writing distractions, but I find it useful to eliminate blue-violet light exposure. I set the display background to black and the text background to amber, and those are the only colors on screen. I'd pay good money for an epaper ereader with an amber backlight. As for tablets, Amazon's Kindle App doesn't give you any nighttime-friendly options; the best is black text on sepia, but it's far too bright. Moon+ Reader is a good alternative for ePub files; Cool Reader is a GPL'd ebook reader that can be configured for comfortable nighttime reading, although it's UI isn't quite as polished as Moon+ Reader.

Comment Re:Who will get (Score 1) 360

Companies should be free to hire cyber mercenaries to decimate their attackers. Maybe that's what's going on here? Or maybe they're getting a little US Mil support.

I have this sinking suspicion that this could be the common state of affairs for the Internet's forseeable future -- various unknown parties constantly breaking various things on the Internet, with the rest of us never really figuring out who is doing what to whom, or why.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a global game of Core War, being played on everyone's servers, forever. :P

Comment Re:Good now you go and take care of her judge! (Score 1) 187

Okay. So now Sandra is entitled to welfare and liable in civil suits as well as criminally responsible.

Neither necessarily follows as a consequence of personhood. Children cannot be held liable in civil suits and in most cases very young ones cannot be held criminally responsible, not because children aren't human, but because they can't reasonably be expected to take a responsible, independent part in human society.

Welfare for animals is not a consequence of animal personhood, but a consequence of humans taking animals from their natural environment. Once you have custody of an animal, by the norms of our society you are responsible for that animal's welfare. When I catch a fish which I don't plan to release, I pith it with a sharpened screwdriver, not because the fish has human rights, but because letting an animal die a slow and painful death when it's easy to kill it quickly and painlessly is needlessly cruel.

I have thought on this often and equality to humanity should be measured in terms of what sets us apart from Sandra. The ability to abstract and to use language is one part of that. The ability to abstract and to use language is one part of that.

Well, what about people with aphasia? Do they lose their human status because they can't use language? Also, when reasoning about the abstraction capabilities of great apes it's important not to reason from assumptions. I've had the good fortune to work with primate field researchers, and there's good reason to believe that chimpanzees (for example) plan ahead; this necessarily involves a concept of "self" and "other", "now" and "in the future", all of which I think can reasonably be called abstractions, in fact I'd say they're the key ones. "Freedom" means nothing to an animal that has no concept of self or future.

Comment Re:Stone Age diet ? he wants to live all 20 years? (Score 3, Interesting) 441

The interesting thing is when researchers did plots of estimated ages of paleolithic skeletons, the population showed exponential decay from the age of maturity. For modern populations in advanced societies the # deaths vs. age of death curve is relatively flat until you start getting into the 60s and 70s.

What this tells you is that paleolithic people didn't die from age related causes. They got picked off by accident, mishap, violence or infections that cut down people in their prime, so it made no difference whether you were 16 or 30, your chances for surviving another year were the same.

So this kind of makes sense; he's looking to move into a population which does not die from age. It's the kind of thing that makes intuitive sense, but often doesn't pan out. What *might* make sense is a counter-intuitive move: fasting, or intermittent fasting where you fast on alternate days. This reproduces the way paleolithic people consumed calories: not three meals a day on the clock, but feasting after a kill and making

Taking HGH is just proof that having money doesn't make you smart or well-informed. He is going to need that cancer cure soon if he keeps that up. His plan is like pouring oil on a smoldering fire and hoping they develop really good fire extinguishers soon. It also seems very un-paleo to me. Paleolithic people went through periods where they had plenty of HGH (feasting) and periods with low HGH levels (fasting). Some researchers believe the fasting period confers many aging related health benefits.

Comment Yeah, so far... (Score 1) 441

A king who's been dead for 5000 years from Egypt is out in front in this race. We still know THAT guy's name! This guy, I have to scroll back up to the top of the article to remember this one. Sounds like he wouldn't mind having 10000 slaves build him a pyramid, but might be having some trouble motivating them to. His efforts, of course, will be as useless as that dead king's. People have been trying to cheat death as long as there have been people, and all those people are dead. At each point along that time line, they've always used the most modern technologies money could buy. Didn't matter. Dead, every one of 'em. I'm not a bettin' man. Well, actually, I am. And I'll put my chips on Death every time. Will this time be any different? Obviously HGH and The Paleo Diet are WAY more advanced than the humors and mercury the last guy shot himself full of. Oh... heh heh heh, sorry, sometimes I kill myself...

Here's an idea, why not try actually living for a while instead of cowering in fear of the reaper? Why waste your entire life living in fear of something you can't do anything about? Just take what you have, squeeze everything you can out of it and laugh in Death's face when he comes for you.

Medicine

Meet the Doctor Trying To Use the Blood of Ebola Survivors To Create a Cure 33

An anonymous reader points out this article about Dr. James Crowe, who is trying to use the blood of Ebola survivors to develop a cure. "For months, Vanderbilt University researcher Dr. James Crowe has been desperately seeking access to the blood of U.S. Ebola survivors, hoping to extract the proteins that helped them overcome the deadly virus for use in new, potent drugs. His efforts finally paid off in mid-November with a donation from Dr. Rick Sacra, a University of Massachusetts physician who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. The donation puts Crowe at the forefront of a new model for fighting the virus, now responsible for the worst known outbreak in West Africa that has killed nearly 7,000 people. Crowe is working with privately-held drugmaker Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc, which he said will manufacture the antibodies for further testing under a National Institutes of Health grant. Mapp is currently testing its own drug ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that has shown promise in treating a handful of Ebola patients."
Christmas Cheer

Video Goodbye, Alek's Internet-Controlled Christmas Lights for Celiac Research 21

Alek Komarnitsky, Colorado (and the Internet's) own Clark Griswold, has decided to retire as his own props master, programmer, best boy, and effects specialist. After 10 years of increasingly elaborate set-ups, Alek's decided to go out with a bang, with his largest-yet rooftop display of open-source powered, remotely controllable, internet-connected Christmas lights. (This year, he even matches the fictional Griswold's 25,000 lights, but truth tops fiction, with live webcams, animated props, and more.) We talked with Alek last year, too; but now he's got a full decade's worth of reminiscing about his jest-made-real hobby as That Guy With the Lights, and some advice for anyone who'd like to take on a project like this.

Alek has managed to stay on good terms with his neighbors, despite the car and foot traffic that his display has drawn, and kept himself from serious harm despite a complex of minor, overlapping risks including ladders, squirrels, a fair amount of electricity and (the most dangerous, he says) wind. The lights are what the world sees, but the video capture and distribution to the vast online audience is an equal part of the work. Alek has learned a lot along the way about automation, logistics, wireless networking, and the importance of load balancing. It's always possible the lights will return in some form, or that someone will take up the mantle as Blinkenlights master, but this tail end of 2014 (and the first day of 2015) is your last good chance to tune in and help toggle some of those lights. (The display operates from 1700-2200 Mountain time.) Alternate Video Link Update: 12/22 22:50 GMT by T : Note: Alek talks about the last year here.

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