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divia

divia on Hacker News

Re:The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men on Thursday March 29, 2012 @08:52PM (#3773982)
Read Sex, Lies, and Menopause: http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Lies-Menopause-Shocking-Replacemen...

The book references tons of studies.

Re:J.D. Salinger Dead at 91 on Thursday January 28, 2010 @02:03PM (#1084664)
RIP indeed, though I can't help but think of this passage from The Catcher in the Rye:

That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say “Fuck you.” I'm positive, in fact.

Re:The best running shoe may be nature's own on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @06:45PM (#1082395)
I've spent a lot of time walking around barefoot (no Vibrams either--never felt like spending the money on them) in cities (NYC and SF), and your feet get used to the concrete thing really quickly. Your feet toughen up and it's not a big deal. I agree about barefooting being annoying in cold weather though.
Re:Mockingbird: New tool for building mockups, written in Cappuccino on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @05:00AM (#921415)
Heh, nice notice of nonsense name :-).
Re:Mockingbird: New tool for building mockups, written in Cappuccino on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @10:33PM (#920900)
http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/index.html?project=ebdb...
Re:Mockingbird: New tool for building mockups, written in Cappuccino on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @10:08PM (#920837)
Here's a picture my friend made that I like: http://gomockingbird.com/mockingbird/index.html?project=73c3...
Re:How to Drop Out on Monday November 02, 2009 @06:21PM (#918194)
Seasteading (http://seasteading.org/) hopes to be the next release valve.
Re:Antidepressants Target the Wrong Thing, and Only Work 50% of the Time on Saturday October 24, 2009 @04:33PM (#900905)
The rats, after decades of development, are believed to be the most depressed in the world.

I'm not against animal testing in general or this sort of thing in particular, but I found that sentence strangely evocative.

Re:Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Halluci... on Thursday October 22, 2009 @05:22PM (#897692)
Heh, sorry to state the obvious. I had such a good time in the tank that I tend to be a bit of an evangelist. If you trust them at all, it's also been studied by the National Institute of Mental Health and they think it's safe.
Re:Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Halluci... on Thursday October 22, 2009 @02:23PM (#897329)
One thing about renting a tank for an hour that makes it quite different from what's done at Gitmo is that you're free to get out of the tank at any time. If you're curious, I'd recommend doing it.
Re:Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Halluci... on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @10:06PM (#896081)
Interesting. That makes me want to try an anechoic chamber :-). However, the flotation tank also has body temp air and water, no light, good soundproofing (I've also always gone in wearing earplugs). It's true that if I were splash inside, I'd probably hear it some, and that if I floated to the side, I'd feel the edge. But when I went floated, I always lay as still as I could for the whole time, which was pretty still. So I don't really see what would make it all that different, other than maybe the fact that you're lying down instead of sitting.
Re:Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Halluci... on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @09:34PM (#896037)
I find these results surprising. For what it's worth, I've been in a sensory deprivation tank around five times (for an hour the first time, and for an hour and a half all subsequent times), known a handful of other people who've tried it too, talked to the two women who ran the place I went to, and leafed through The Deep Self by John Lilly, which includes many descriptions of people's time in the tank. All of these things led me to believe that hallucinations after just 15 minutes were quite rare. Granted, half the participants were picked because they tested as prone to hallucinations, and maybe there's something about the room they used that makes it different from the tank, but I'm still quite surprised.

If anyone's interested in reading about my experience the first time I went, which was less dramatic, I described what I could remember here: http://divia.posterous.com/my-first-hour-in-the-flotation-ta....

Re:Freaky Sleep Paralysis: Being Awake in Your Nightmares on Saturday August 08, 2009 @02:42AM (#749063)
I've had sleep paralysis pretty frequently over the years during afternoon naps. For me it's always the same: someone is calling out to me, but I can't respond or get up because I'm paralyzed. Usually I realize what's going on before too long, and it's not a big deal. But this past Monday, for the first time ever, I managed to not only realize what was going on, but close my eyes, concentrate on my hypnogogic imagery, and transform it into a lucid dream. If you can pull that off, I'd highly recommend it.
Re:Altman says Loopt to be profitable in 2009 on Monday May 18, 2009 @04:52PM (#615662)
"Big money isn't hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of singleminded devotion to acquiring it and making it grow into more money, to the utter exclusion of all other interests. They say that the age of opportunity has passed. Nonsense! Seven out of ten of the wealthiest men on this planet started life without a shilling--and there are plenty more such strivers on the way up. Such people are not stopped by high taxation nor even by socialism; they simply adapt themselves to new rules and presently they change the rules. But no premiere ballerina ever works harder, nor more narrowly, than a man who acquires riches."

-A Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Re:ASCII Fighter II Super Hyper Text-Based Championship Edition on Friday May 08, 2009 @05:08PM (#600248)
If you like Nethack at all, though it's been a few years since I've played them, I highly recommend Angband (http://www.thangorodrim.net/, somewhat outdated website, but I'm not sure what the current one is) and its variants. ToME (http://t-o-m-e.net/main.php?tome_current=0) is one I know of that's in active development these days.
Re:Do Parents Matter? on Wednesday April 15, 2009 @09:45PM (#564529)
Can you extend that observation to the adopted kids you know? The adopted children I know are far less like their parents than the biological children I know. Granted, the adopted children I know were not implanted in their adopted mothers' wombs, so it's not a perfect comparison, but I definitely think it's worth thinking about. Observation about parents and children who are biologically related doesn't seem to me to be particularly informative when thinking about nature and nurture.

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