k0n2ad

I chuckled

Although it isn't exactly off-base to say that this (article/comic?) is an attack on the current state of society, it IS off-base to equate the attack to the "oft-repeated wail that capitalism ... thrill seekers."

I would just like to remind everyone that BNW (the examples you chose seem to be parallels to BNW rather than 1984) doesn't have much to say about "capitalism." There seems to be a conflation here of capitalism with "consumerism" - consumerism being one of the pillars of the dystopia that the novel imagines, capitalism notwithstanding. You have to be careful where you draw the parallels. For example, the hedonistic thrill seekers in Brave New World were quite literally engineered to be that way - they were born in test-tubes and raised in a finely tuned environment. If anything, BNW is an argument against a utopia, not against a free market and the opportunities it provides. Actually, "opportunity" is unnecessary in BNW, because everyone is already mired in consumption and ecstasy. Nobody wants or needs it.

Whether capitalism is leading to that type of dystopia is another argument entirely, and one not addressed by the book... or even the article/comic.

"The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself." - Kierkgaard

Sorry, had to chime in with that

Learn the shortcuts and remove the toolbars.

Up-voted because I sort of agree: although it's fun to see achievements pop up, and some of these are comical ("I’m Sorry – Created a new Visual Basic Project") some others might encourage bad practices ("The Mathematician – Defined 15 local variables with a single character name"). I mean if they were just in the periphery, that's cute. But if people actually try to "achieve" these achievements, as they do in Steam games, I have a feeling that company might quickly decide to remove such functionality from their VS.

Just my 2¢

Darn, I was planning on having a Submit! button for when I become supreme dictator. Of course I'd have my own website.

That being said, I just pulled some stuff out of my code that I really shouldn't have :) Thought I was going to start a revolution there.

Point taken - but are we talking about "common wisdom" in general, or "common wisdom of what's possible"?

"One of the traps of age is growing to accept the common wisdom of what’s possible and not."

Only if you accept it.

Kurzweil's retort falls apart in several places:

"It is true that the brain gains a great deal of information by interacting with its environment – it is an adaptive learning system. But we should not confuse the information that is learned with the innate design of the brain."

He is misunderstanding Myers here - Myers is talking about the physical ontogenesis of the brain during development (in utero), proteins interacting with proteins (and the environment and such) during its development, not the development of the brain through "adaptive learning"

"But we can take a much more direct route to understanding the amount of information in the brain’s innate design, which I also discussed: to look at the brain itself. There, we also see massive redundancy. Yes there are trillions of connections, but they follow massively repeated patterns."

"Yes, the system learns and adapts to its environment..."

Again, Kurzweil is failing to address the crux of Myers argument, that the design of the brain is not only in the genetic code, but in the intricate "playing out" of cells during brain development. Myers did not talk about the brain adapting to a system in the holistic or psychological sense, but on a much more fine-grained biological level.

If this comment was meant to be sarcastic then it was expertly executed! BTW, you really don't need a teacher to learn meditation... just sit down, shut up and focus on your breathing for a few minutes each day... and watch how wild your mind is.

Back in school we used to call them "Think Sticks" in spite of those that called them "Cancer Sticks". In reality I guess they are both, as nicotine does have proven cognitive benefits.

I woke up on time this morning.

It's like saying that voting for Nader was taking votes away from John Kerry :P

I found that turning off addons helps a tremendous amount - on both Windows and Linux. Also, 3.6 appears to be much faster. I don't think Chrome is a safe browser.

yup

Just thought that was hilarious.

Furniture porn always reminds me of the scene in Fight Club where Ed Norton is cataloging the furniture in his apartment. Still, I want that chair.

"These technological details are, at their core, indistinguishable from the previous technologies"

cough cough

There are too many points on the path where something could go wrong. Given that this is the first time that I am hearing about Google Calendar being a problem, I doubt it's the actual problem. What email service are you using?

"When most of us think about computer programming, we think of typing in lines and lines of code with semicolons and complex syntax. This common perception about computer programming helps keep people from getting excited about computer programming" I don't know about you guys, but that GETS me excited...

No doubt, there are plenty of cases when medication is the right option. However, there are many more cases where it's not.

How we do psychology? We take a bunch of symptoms that seem to coincide with a group of individuals and we label it as a disorder : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhd#DSM-IV_criteria

The fact that these symptoms exist and cause problems for many individuals is of no question - that's why we have a "disorder" label associated with it. There is no dispute that medication is effective in treating these symptoms, either.

However, the claim that medication "even more effective" is flimsy, if not flat out wrong. The problem is that there are many more studies devoted to the "effects of ritalin on ADHD" than there are to the "effects of exercise and ADHD." Or meditation, or biofeedback, or eating 7 lbs of celery a day, or whatever. To make the claim that "drugs are more effective" is easier because studies of this nature are more prevalent - but it doesn't make it right. That would be a total confirmation bias.

A difficulty in comparing medication to other methods is that medication = instant gratification and instant results. You eat a pill. A half hour later, you are focused, less scattered and more attentive. In the similar way to how coffee wakes you up if you are tired. It's easy to make an experiment out of such results. Exercise, in contrast, isn't instant. Exercise increases levels of nor-epinephrine and dopamine... but not nearly as rapidly (or with as little work) as an amphetamine compound. Steady and healthy levels of serotonin (which is now being studied as another player in the ADHD game) don't begin to rise until weeks of daily exercising. It may be slower, but our bodies are capable of changing, and for quantities of any given chemical being pumped out to increase, you need to keep doing things that keep causing it to be released. You need to form habits that make your body more effective at producing it's own chemical cocktails. Take a basic course in human physiology or neuroscience if you don't believe how amazing and capable our bodies and brains are at adapting and improving.

Furthermore, a disorder label can easily be misconstrued by a young individual with ADHD. They might think to themselves, "Wow, finally, a word to describe all the problems I'm having. It's not my fault after all, I'm sick, and I need medicine." It sucks because instead of really trying to go beyond the condition by using their will, they may give up and go the route of altering their minds externally - just to keep up with their peers. Is that a bad thing? Well, I'll leave that up to the reader.

It is my personal opinion that that overcoming challenges of ADHD is not only possible through other, healthier methods (exercise, meditation and learning/coping strategies), but is more rewarding as well (speaking from personal experience).

However, no one can do this by themselves - and it sucks that some people do not have the support, and that schools don't have a 15 minute exercise break every 3 hours, and that they don't let you eat snacks in class, and that we are constantly exposed to electronic stimulation from a very young age, that some of us don't learn how to control our intake of these things. Television, video games and other forms of electronic stimulation have been proven to release dopamine (Jeez, what doesn't?). A person with ADHD can easily focus to a show on TV with quickly changing camera angles, loud sounds, constant dialogue and continuous novelty. We grew up with this. But, when we are in class, we fidget, and daydream and blurt things out because this stimulation is not present, so our bodies are attempting to mitigate the dopamine withdrawal through the constant production of activity, of both the mind and the body.

Finally, Ritalin hasn't been studied for 70 years. It's been about 40. It didn't start being used for ADHD until The late 60s, and wasn't in widespread use until the 90s - which is when the more serious studies began to come out.

There's much more to say, but I'm getting tired :)

Sources: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-26-adhd-treatmen... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041220013546.ht... http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/565830

No matter how you look at it, Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta and similar drugs are amphetamines or amphetamine analogues. You can take them (at a threshold dose that is unique to your body), and you will feel more focused, concentrated and on top of things. Take too much of it (this includes people with "ADHD") and you will have manic symptoms.

Do the medications help people with problems concentrating, impulsiveness and attention (collectively known as ADD)? Yes. Are there healthier ways to change your brain? Most definitely. I'd like to see a kid who is on ADHD get prescribed an exercise/meditation/therapy routine and compare the results to someone treated with medication. I'm sure the results would surprise a lot of people. Our body is a feedback-oriented system. "Chemical Imbalances" in the brain are often remedied with lifestyle changes. This includes "diseases" such as depression, anxiety and adhd. The corporations that research these conditions are quick to jump to conclusions based on limited scientific information if it means they have a good chance of success. It's been scientifically proven that exercise and diet play an enormous role in helping you concentrate and pay attention. But you know what? Advertising exercise won't make Shire Pharmaceuticals any richer. It's way easier for parents to resort to a medication as well. Who has time to monitor their kids anymore? Advertisements would have you believe that it's your only choice. AND they make everything sound all scientific, when in reality they are picking and choosing data. It's really a sad situation, but I hope there are enough people out there who know about the alternatives. It sucks being so dependent on these stimulants that you can't focus without them - you are bound to used them for the rest of your life. And who even knows what the long term effects are? The results are just starting to come in...

I think that if the person gets bored and wants to be elsewhere, then that is not the person you want to hire :) Though I do agree that those terms are annoying (degrading even). I always thought that a codemonkey was someone who coded only for a living, and often in a disgruntled state:

"An affectionate term for a specific kind of underpaid, overworked (often by volition), increasingly underappreciated indentured servant, otherwise known as a Software Programmer." - Urban Dictionary

I loved the ridiculous physics and damage modeling in this game. You could literally get your car bent in half and still drive around... barely :)

"In additional to the intellectual stimulation, you get more cream cheese, because there is slightly more surface area." Finally, maximum cream cheese intake problem solved.

With smoked Gouda and a side of caviar.