electricfence

Torie Bosch says that you should elope. There was a time in my life where I was much more sympathetic to the viewpoint of “small wedding, save for downpayment on the house.” Much to my surprise, though, I have actually come around to the idea of big weddings, to whatever extent they can be afforded.

Vaccinate.

Maybe all of our fixation on the early years of life is misplaced.

Aeon magazine looks at the science of sleep, and technological efforts to negate the need for as much of it.

Makes sense: Heroes and psychopaths have similar personalities. You know who knows this? Supervillains. They like say it all the time. Superheroes, on the other hand, tell them they’re wrong. Supervillains 1, Superheroes 0.

Will Linux be a solution for small businesses that reject Windows 8? I’m skeptical, but am starting to compile lists of what exactly is preventing me from making the transition. The lists aren’t as long as they used to be. Meanwhile, Microsoft wants control of your preboot.

The Reagan tax cuts may be responsible for as little as 30% of the increase in income inequality. Dave Schuler has some thoughts.

Before we left Estacado, we had to get Clancy’s Camry fixed. She went to the dealership and they quoted $4,000. I called them back and they almost immediately started talking $1,100 (so angry were we, we went somewhere else – and paid less than $800). So the fact that women are overcharged doesn’t surprise me. It’s interesting how it can be mitigated, though.

Buildings made of ships.

In the minds and hearts of rats, and probably humans, empathy and disgust go to war with one another.

Though not the enemy that some have feared, Obama has not entirely been a friend to the oil and gas industries, so it’s a bit ironic how much heavy lifting oil and gas are doing for him, economically.


Category: Newsroom

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5 Responses to Linkluster Thirty Touchdowns (w/PATs)

  1. says:

    You seem very interested in reducing the need for sleep. While I think the research may be valuable for certain situations like military deployment, I’m skeptical about its application to wider society. First, the article mentions that “we still don’t really understand enough about why we sleep in the first place” in the discussion about stimulants. It goes on to say that long-term effects of sleep reduction are particularly poorly studied, but already we do know that long-term total sleep deprivation can kill laboratory animals. Don’t you think we ought to know more about the properties of sleep before wholesale mucking with the system?

    What about the effects of sleep on learning and information processing? Have you never woken up the next morning and understood something better that you read the day before or had an idea that came to you in a dream? Those things do happen. The best case of the latter phenomenon that springs to mind is the idea for Otto Loewi’s frog heart experiment demonstrating chemical transmission across nerve synapses. He claimed afterwards that the idea came to him in a dream.

    Another concern is that this technology will be exploited in civilian environments to rob employees of more of their lives. Giving up sleep may become compulsory rather than optional. It would be nice to know that the sleep reduction aids don’t have harmful long-term side effects before being forcibly subjected to their use.

    • trumwill says:

      I think the prospect of capturing more hours in our day would just be awesome. Or, even on a temporary basis, being able to be awake for the number of days it would have taken for us to drive across the country.

      You’re right to be concerned about side-effects. It’ll be something to keep an eye on. It would probably be inadvisable to use it for extended periods of time without knowing what the risks are.

      I wrote an entire post on the ramifications of workplace requirements, if you recall. I would expect increased requirements as a product of such an innovation to take time. Hopefully, in that time we would become acquainted with the potential side effects and risks.

      • says:

        Yes, I should have referenced your previous post. I still think you’re overly optimistic. Spending more than half a decade in residency and fellowship training made me very sensitive to coercion and arbittrary, unreasonable expectations on the part of employers. Even as an attending, my specialty is in a bad position to resist demands of its customers. If they decide to try to force us into a 24-hour continuous cycle of productivity, we may have to yield. My life sucks enough as it is, and I don’t like my job enough to do it nonstop for days at a time with minimal breaks – not for what I’m being paid now and certainly not for what I gather the bureaucrats think physicians should be paid. Sorry if that sounds bitter. I am indeed a very bitter person.

  2. Zoink says:

    The solution for small businesses that don’t like Windows 8 is to buy a used desktop with Windows 7 on it. We require as minimum specs: any version of windows 7 but starter, any full version of Office 2007 or later, a first gen i5 processor or better, and any dedicated GPU card. These go for about $250.

    Another option is a new PC with no OS installed, which a good computer vendor will sell for $60 less than one with windows 8. Then get a grey market student version of windows 7, which costs about $50 and can be used on 2 PCs. Total cost per PC is thus $25. Or reuse your old key from an old or broken PC.

    To Microsoft’s credit, installing their OS is much easier than it used to be because Windows is so good now at auto detecting and installing all the needed device drivers.

    • trumwill says:

      Do businesses buy used computers? It’s one of those things that can make sense on a personal level (I own multiple used laptops) but I’ve never seen an employer do.

      I am pretty impressed with Windows 7’s driver base. Which is good, because for XP, Linux was blowing it out of the water, and that should never happen.

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