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Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

alexkrupp.typepad.com

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Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#11

Post by rms »

Tichy wrote: post #8
rms wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not treat your body right AND improve yourself with prescription drugs? Surely both will have more effect than one alone.

The reason why I don't like drugs: if they are so beneficial, why doesn't the body produce them by itself? It seems to me evolution would have figured out a way to do that by now. If it hasn't, maybe there are some side effects that diminish fitness. Same goes for genetic engineering, I remember the story about the memory gene for mice - if all it takes for a better memory is to flip one gene, surely evolution would…

The body also produces some drugs that are outright bizarre. DMT occurs naturally in the brain and is one of the most potent naturally occurring psychedelics. I would be extremely interested when and why the brains of humans or our predecessors started producing DMT.

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#12

Post by Tichy »

rms wrote: post #10
Tichy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why I don't like drugs: if they are so beneficial, why doesn't the body produce them by itself? It seems to me evolution would have figured out a way to do that by now. If it hasn't, maybe there are some side effects that diminish fitness. Same goes for genetic engineering, I remember the story about the memory gene for mice - if all it takes for a better memory is to flip one gene, surely evolution would…

The body doesn't produce certain drugs because they have nothing to with our survival. Even if we don't need them, certain drugs can give you a decided competitive advantage over your peers. Of course, you have to be willing to put something in your brain that alters it in a way that no one truly understands. I'm sure it is prudent to err on the side of caution when it comes to messing with your body, but I'm very co…

I am not against genetic engineering, it is just that when something seems too easy I get suspicious. Obviously medicine is helping in a lot of ways, the body is not able to fix every problem by itself.

Perhaps I am missing out big time by not using drugs. Some famous works of art are probably the result of drug use (how much of it, I don't know). I also remember a recent anecdote about a rock musician meeting Tony Blair and asking him how he manages his workload. Answer: "Certainly using different drugs than you" - of course it could just be "enthusiasm" being the drug, I don't know.

If you could become a world famous artist in exchange for living 10 years less, would you do it? Or whatever is your ambition (invent the Google killer, whatever).

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#13

Post by rms »

Tichy wrote: post #12
rms wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The body doesn't produce certain drugs because they have nothing to with our survival. Even if we don't need them, certain drugs can give you a decided competitive advantage over your peers. Of course, you have to be willing to put something in your brain that alters it in a way that no one truly understands. I'm sure it is prudent to err on the side of caution when it comes to messing with your body, but I'm very co…

I am not against genetic engineering, it is just that when something seems too easy I get suspicious. Obviously medicine is helping in a lot of ways, the body is not able to fix every problem by itself. Perhaps I am missing out big time by not using drugs. Some famous works of art are probably the result of drug use (how much of it, I don't know). I also remember a recent anecdote about a rock musician meeting Tony B…

My ambition is to develop or help develop a serious medical breakthrough, like curing HIV. So yes, I would take 10 years, 50 years, maybe even instant death for making such a profound positive impact on humanity.

I'd also like to take over Equatorial Guinea, but the current regime may fall before I get the chance.

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#14

Post by MobileDigit »

"if I were launching a new website, here's what I'd do. Instead of hiding the Feedback link in the upper right hand corner, I'd place a form right on the main page. A big form. And I'd bend over backwards to get people to use it."

What are the two lines of code to produce this?

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#15

Post by brlewis »

MobileDigit wrote: post #14

"if I were launching a new website, here's what I'd do. Instead of hiding the Feedback link in the upper right hand corner, I'd place a form right on the main page. A big form. And I'd bend over backwards to get people to use it." What are the two lines of code to produce this?

I'd like to know too. You could do something like the following, but that would mean an ugly email message and ugly thank-you page.

[(define-input feedback) (mail '("foo@bar") feedback)]Thank you for your input.

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#16

Post by vlad »

jaggederest wrote: post #6
vlad wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoid milk and cereal, avoid foods with corn syrup, eat more meats and fish (with water), avoid manufactured (versus baked) goods like PopTarts, avoid microwaved foods, and replace those fluids by drinking water from the faucet instead of the soda and coffee (remember, your tap water meets higher standards than bottled water does), and eat small meals 4 times per day or more, and you will be alert and not need prescr…

| Often when your body feels "hungry," it is actually thirsty for water. Complete bullshit. Penn and Teller killed this one pretty convincingly. Basically, if you eat a 'normal' diet (which most people don't, ironically) including enough veggies and fruits, there's no real need for outside water sources. For most people, enough water that you don't feel thirsty is sufficient. There's no need to force yourself to drin…

Thanks for the reply. First of all, I would not take dietary advice from Penn and Teller, just by using common sense and looking at Penn. But, on top of that, you went out of your way to call what I said "bullshit", basing your belief on what a magician said in a TV show by the same name, without ever quoting what the magician actually said.

Also, you claim that people very, very rarely feel hungry when they want water.

It's easy to show you're just guessing. Have you ever eaten a solid meal without drinking fluids? Then how can you be sure that the hunger you felt was just for food, and liquids only to wash it down, instead of hunger for water as well? You can't. It could very well be correlation, and not causation, that when you eat, you want to drink water as well, which means that you were hungry for water all along.

If it's even 1% hunger for water, that proves you are wrong.

Also, there's no such thing as a normal diet.

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#17

Post by Alex3917 »

brlewis wrote: post #15
MobileDigit wrote: post #14

"if I were launching a new website, here's what I'd do. Instead of hiding the Feedback link in the upper right hand corner, I'd place a form right on the main page. A big form. And I'd bend over backwards to get people to use it." What are the two lines of code to produce this?

I'd like to know too. You could do something like the following, but that would mean an ugly email message and ugly thank-you page. [(define-input feedback) (mail '("foo@bar") feedback)]Thank you for your input.

Don't take the headline too literally. :-)

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#18

Post by awj »

Tichy wrote: post #8
rms wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not treat your body right AND improve yourself with prescription drugs? Surely both will have more effect than one alone.

The reason why I don't like drugs: if they are so beneficial, why doesn't the body produce them by itself? It seems to me evolution would have figured out a way to do that by now. If it hasn't, maybe there are some side effects that diminish fitness. Same goes for genetic engineering, I remember the story about the memory gene for mice - if all it takes for a better memory is to flip one gene, surely evolution would…

"The reason why I don't like drugs: if they are so beneficial, why doesn't the body produce them by itself? It seems to me evolution would have figured out a way to do that by now. If it hasn't, maybe there are some side effects that diminish fitness."

You are forgetting the other side to evolutionary fitness: the environment. Human evolution has been progressively stagnated by the invention of adaptive technology. Being hard of hearing or nearly blind is no longer a deadly condition, hence it no longer prevents procreation, hence evolution doesn't factor anymore.

The human genetic structure is largely the same as it was hundreds if not thousands of years ago precisely because we can use tools to adapt to situations much faster than any evolutionary fitness can proof out and spread through the population.

As for the memory gene of mice, that would only have been important if a better memory made mice more successful at what they do. Evidently in the environments mice adapted to this was not the case.

"Of course evolution might have another "idea" of what is good for us than we do (evolution doesn't really care about us)."

Evolution doesn't have ideas. It does not use reason. It does not think. It exists purely as a pattern of change in species over time. There is no need to give it more credit than that, it is quite powerful enough without the addition of sentience.

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#19

Post by jaggederest »

vlad wrote: post #16
jaggederest wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| Often when your body feels "hungry," it is actually thirsty for water. Complete bullshit. Penn and Teller killed this one pretty convincingly. Basically, if you eat a 'normal' diet (which most people don't, ironically) including enough veggies and fruits, there's no real need for outside water sources. For most people, enough water that you don't feel thirsty is sufficient. There's no need to force yourself to drin…

Thanks for the reply. First of all, I would not take dietary advice from Penn and Teller, just by using common sense and looking at Penn. But, on top of that, you went out of your way to call what I said "bullshit", basing your belief on what a magician said in a TV show by the same name, without ever quoting what the magician actually said. Also, you claim that people very, very rarely feel hungry when they want wat…

I'm not citing Penn, per se. He interviewed several doctors and nutritionists, they were the ones who stated that additional water in the diet is largely unneeded, and that rumors of chronic dehydration in the general populace are wrong.

Also, Snopes has addressed the topic: http://snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

Believe what you'd like, but don't try to mislead other people with it.

(Have I ever eaten a solid meal without drinking fluids? fuck yes. are you kidding?)

Re: Double your userbase with two lines of code and a box of Modafinil

#20

Post by albertcardona »

Tichy wrote: post #8
rms wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not treat your body right AND improve yourself with prescription drugs? Surely both will have more effect than one alone.

The reason why I don't like drugs: if they are so beneficial, why doesn't the body produce them by itself? It seems to me evolution would have figured out a way to do that by now. If it hasn't, maybe there are some side effects that diminish fitness. Same goes for genetic engineering, I remember the story about the memory gene for mice - if all it takes for a better memory is to flip one gene, surely evolution would…

Drugs work because your body has the ability to react to them. If your body can react to drugs is, usually, because there are internal receptors that can bind to them. But of course naturally occurring concentrations of 'drug'-like components are much lower and extended over time than a pill, and the components themselves are milder than their drugstore counterparts (except counted instances such as norepinephrines). Besides the fact that generating them requires (usually) exercise (for example, for endorphines and melatonin/cortisol/tyroxine fine-tunning), and/or yoga-style body control.

A report from your friendly biomedical biologists.

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