I could be wrong, but I think only people majoring in English and related studies are required to take 300 level courses.
If I had to take a 300 level course in a field I wasn't very interested in, I would take the class that seemed most interesting to me. In English, it would probably not be a zombies course.
Grabage. If I wanted to watch 16 zombie movies, I would watch 16 zombies movies. If I wanted to write a screenplay about zombies, I would write a screenplay (and if it sucked, then hopefully I'd learn and the next one would be better). If I wanted to spend either my parent's money, or the taxpayer's money, or money own money in the form of student loans to hang out with the lame ass people that like zombies because its currently a popular meme and don't realize the only reason most people like zombies is because its a currently popular meme, then I would take this course.
Disclaimer. I like some zombie movies. I hate zombie-everything just to mention zombie which has zombie become popular nowadays zombie zombie zombie zombie. Zombie.
Moderate drinkers > Heavy drinkers > Abstainers
So now the discussion here can be was the study flawed in some way or is this true and alcohol has some effect, physically, psychologically (because how one feels does have an effect on health) or both on humans that is beneficial to living a long life.
There is one slight error in your very good writeup on how binaural beats works. What you described, playing two notes on two different sound producers (in this case tuning forks), causes an actual, physical, "beat". The sound waves interfere or combine with one another in physical space, and a new sound wave (or a composite of the two, same difference) is created and propogated through air, the medium of sound.
The binaural beats mentioned here work a little differently, in that a recording is played, and it must be listened through headphones. One ear hears a certain pitch or frequency, the other ear hears a different pitch or frequency. The difference here is that neither ear "hears" a beat, the beat is created entirely in the brain of the listener. I am not a neurobiologist so I cannot explain the exact mechanism, but it appears it has something to do with how the brain processes sound and attempts to internally combine the two different sounds into a single perception/experience for the consciousness.
I checked out some binaural beat programs once. Basicly just sine wave (or fancier) generators that let you pick the frequency for the left output and right output. If I listed on one ear only using headphones, I hear a single frequency. If I listen to both ears, I hear the two frequencies, AND I perceive a beat in addition to that, that only exists in my brain. Its at the very least neat. At the very most I didn't notice any particular effects on myself, and didn't get addicted or anything to it.
The claim or assumption of the binaural beats people is that the low frequency beats can be used to simulate in the brain the delta waves or alpha waves or whatever waves are associated with deep sleep, or relaxation, or whatever. Again I am not a neurobiologist, so I can't say if this does anything.
Playing two tuning forks together or tuning a guitar is pretty neat to me too.
And I'm ultimately unimpressed. Here's Blizzard's history:
I honestly cannot tell if you are being sarcastic or not. In the event that you are not being sarcastic, allow me to elaborate on your points.
Warcraft -- First RTS
It was not. Usually Dune 2 by Westwood Studios gets credit for this. Warcraft 1 did have some innovations, but both of those games are really horrible if you try to play them now.
Warcraft 2 -- Added sea/air units, multiplayer
Thats innovation isn't it?
Starcraft -- Asymetric factions, battle.net
Ok, now here is one where the innovation, or at least the execution, cannot be overstated enough. There weren't just three factions each basically the same with slightly different units and maybe a faction specific unit and building or two. Starcraft had three entirely different factions, with almost entirely different build mechanics, and definitely with entirely different feels and strategies that work. They also managed to balance the factions fairly well, after many balance patches (they never quit making balance changes until it got to be just right). People are still playing it now, 10 years later. In Korea it has become something of a sport (leagues, teams, televised games, etc) and over here it is gaining momentum, and has been since I got into it two years ago. Oh, and the best players in the world don't play on the Battle.net server, they play on a server called ICUP
Warcraft 3 -- Hero units, 3D
Maybe not as much innovation. It took balls though to not just rehash SC or Warcraft 2. Blizzard's main competition was the Command and Conquer series of rts games, and those got rehashed and made into so many sequels that I didn't even know C&C 4 came out a week or a month or something ago, and didn't care either. Also, WC3's map editor is quite robust and has spawned many interesting games, including something called DoTA, which in itself is becoming a new genre of competitive multiplayer gaming
Starcraft 2 -- I can select 255 units at once now?
Is there anything I'm missing other than a conspicuous lack of risk or innovation?
Probably, yeah.
Yada, yada.. So, they ripped of FreeBSD and Linux..
...Which were totally original creations and didn't borrow and extend from anything that existed prior...
It is apparently inconceivable to you that the mind can be conquered and made subservient to the **fill in the word for whatever would go here, common ones are soul, spirit, consciousness, "I"** and that a person could do that. Well, there are religious/spiritual practices and traditions that have been around for a very long time whose goal it is to bring people to states like this. Perhaps the followers become mindless zombies, perhaps they attain a sort of enlightenment, but to assume that the man was on serious drugs is an ignorant statement.
I would like to note that the 4 articles you link are to studies that show connections to mental disorders, and have nothing to do with physical dependence.
Please, lets stay on the subject. The assertion is that Marijuana, Cannabis, THC, etc are not PHYSICALLY addictive, and that there is no scientific evidence to counter that assertion. In my own studies, it appears to be true, and peoples perceptions of marijuana are based less on fact and more on a subtle and not so subtle manipulation of the public opinion, by people that are basicly liars.
All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin