161–170 of 251 posts
(But good piece nonetheless, Jared Diamond is brilliant.)
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Especially since the TSA actually accomplishes almost nothing in preventing deaths. All a terrorist about to be discovered at the airport security gate would have to do to complete his deadly mission would be to detonate his bomb right then and there. It would cause people to fear airports and security gates and mess up the whole system. Terrorism is all about sowing fear that the government can't protect you. The TS…
Worse than that, the TSA nonsense encourages a non-trivial population to drive when they would have flown. Driving being far less safe, it's probable that Security Theatre has a body count.
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I some similar problems along with significant pain, also caused by falls (and a fairly serious injury that compounded things). I had pain for years, until I stumbled onto a combination of things that completely resolve the issues as long as I stick to them. I'm telling you in case they help. If nothing else it shouldn't hurt anything. In order of importance: 1. Develop & maintain significant muscle mass, specificall…
what a load of balls... the average man should be light and active enough to do a few chin ups with ease and run for a while i have deadlifted over 350. it did nothing for my chronic neck pain and in fact only made it worse by over developing my traps. neckbeard lifting gurus are so full of shit
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Do not dismiss other techniques so easily. The human body is a very complex mechanism and we still don't know exactly how it works. Modern medicine has been based only on the knowledge that we have: which is thus quite limited. I'm not saying that they will work. But acupuncture and yoga are not the same as pixie dust, dung pills or what have you. To give an example of what I mean: the waters of the Ganges were said…
>But acupuncture and yoga are not the same as pixie dust, dung pills or what have you. Okay, so why don't they show any efficacy above pixie dust in double-blinded studies?
It's all deeply frustrating. I tried acupuncture a few years ago (at a doctor's recommendation) and did a lot of reading. It didn't work for me, unsurprisingly - about the only thing it's been shown to have any effect for is some types of lower back pain, and my pain was (is) mostly in my hands.
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In general I shower when my wife tells me I need to. I'm not here to judge you or your lifestyle, but if I were to rely on my significant other to tell me when I needed to shower, I would feel as though I was taking advantage of their good will. I want to take care of myself and be attractive for them, not use them as a smell-o-metre.
use your own heuristic but showering every day, when all you did was sit in front of the computer and walk your dog in 40 degree weather, is wasteful, pointless, and weird.
This is a bit of an aside, but I have to say this: even as a young person, take falls very seriously . I was 22 or so when I slipped in the shower. I was falling to the side and was going to hit my head, so I decided to twist so that I'd fall flat on my back, figuring I'd be fine. Well, I was, until a few hours later, when I started having chest pain and my left arm went numb and started getting shooting pains. Think…
This is a bit of an aside, but I have to say this: even as a young person, take falls very seriously . I was 22 or so when I slipped in the shower. I was falling to the side and was going to hit my head, so I decided to twist so that I'd fall flat on my back, figuring I'd be fine. Well, I was, until a few hours later, when I started having chest pain and my left arm went numb and started getting shooting pains. Think…
Sounds like a herniated disc in your neck. Given the time frame it seems stable -- but the only way to fix it is probably years of difficult physiotherapy or surgery (and then physiotherapy).
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>But acupuncture and yoga are not the same as pixie dust, dung pills or what have you. Okay, so why don't they show any efficacy above pixie dust in double-blinded studies?
Unfortunately, double blind studies of acupuncture are impossible (the person doing it must know if they're putting needles in), and single blind studies are almost impossible (the patient can feel the needles, and tell how far in they are). The only thing than can be tested is the traditional Chinese medicine chi flow idea, and even assuming there's no chi flow along meridians, that doesn't mean the special location…
It doesn't seem completely impossible. You could have someone put the same needles in randomly, instead of in whatever location acupuncture claims they should be put in.
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>But acupuncture and yoga are not the same as pixie dust, dung pills or what have you. Okay, so why don't they show any efficacy above pixie dust in double-blinded studies?
Unfortunately, double blind studies of acupuncture are impossible (the person doing it must know if they're putting needles in), and single blind studies are almost impossible (the patient can feel the needles, and tell how far in they are). The only thing than can be tested is the traditional Chinese medicine chi flow idea, and even assuming there's no chi flow along meridians, that doesn't mean the special location…
Therefore single-blind studies of acupuncture are trivial; just find people who don't know where the needles are supposed to go. A double-blind study could be possible, if you trained two sets of people to perform the procedure (one incorrectly).
In the derivatives world, there's a saying for trying to bet against highly unlikely events with catastrophic risk for small gains: "picking up nickels in front of a steamroller." The issue is when you pick up enough nickels and watch for the steamrollers vigilantly first few times, you grow complacent and think that you are the master of nickel pickers and steamrollers are slow mofo's. You try to pick more nickels a…
To which Merriweather replied "if we’re going to play for those kind of numbers, I’d rather play for real money. Ten million dollars. No tears."
Gutfreund declined. In fact, he smiled his own brand of forced smile and said, “You’re crazy.”
No, thought Meriwether, just very, very good."
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