I was on Topiramate for a couple of months for migraines. I completely lost interest in drinking alcohol - and eating.

I love when engineers enter the room

Instead of harvesting real ones from mainland China.

> JWST is the gift that keeps on giving

Sometimes I do this thing where I write down upcoming events and their expected dates on small pieces of scrap paper and tape them to the wall near my desk. Basically, significant upcoming events that interest me, but nothing so crucial that I need to put in an app to remind me. Often they are things that I tend to completely forget about for months at a time when there are no updates or whatever. They get removed as they occur.

I had one with JWST written in sharpie, which had been there for yeeears! I kept moving it back in the queue, as the launch kept getting rescheduled. At first, the paper had a year on it, but that part got cut off and I just taped a new year on a smaller paper every time. I was so freakin excited about it, but I had to not think about it or risk getting frustrated and disappointed by the delays or a lack of news. It was a long slow pain.

After the launch, I was somewhat happy to tear that one down, but also having to wait for more months as configs were done, then waiting for image captures, etc. It was such torture.

So happy it's up and running now. I'll probably never stop wanting more discoveries from it.

I feel like this is still a very long time away. We might crack household quantum computing before organic machines. Organic machines IMO would have to many hurdles like manteinace, aging, infections and the like. From our profit driven economy they don't make sense.

I had hallucinations and delusions, was noticeably stupid, and lost a ton of weight. That was the only good part.

I’m fifty pounds up (so, fat), and not as stupid. I think I’ll take it? It was so bad.

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Hey I have never seen the : symbol used in this way before. Are you mimicking the back and forth movement of the word shudder? Or is it trying to express something else?

It sounds like these studies are a complete mess and are likely heavily biased by the researchers own opinions.

Things like tattoos, piercings, being very open minded and unique, taking risks, etc are considered rebellious by the older generation, but increasingly the younger generations encourage these traits in their own children so in that context they are definitionally not rebellious.

Any study into rebellion is going to be difficult to gauge because what constitutes 'rebellion' in the context of family and upbringing is going to vary wildly between families and even individuals. Nearly every trait that could be described as 'rebellious' could also be regarded as a positive trait by some parents.

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Last time I heard the word organoid it was a race of machines in Zoids

Exactly. Just because you're having a problem with your suspension doesn't mean it's going to show up in the oil.

I was on this evil drug for 6 mos. to treat chronic headaches. While it was effective in treating my headaches, the crappy side effects where much worse than the headaches.

Astronomers have the downside that their field can't as boldly claim to one day cure cancer or provide limitless clean energy.

It demonstrates undue prejudice, that's for sure. Is that weird? No, unfortunately, but it's wrong.

The world was different at the time Born to Rebel was written, and even moreso when the author was being brought up. At that time, tattoos were practically anathema.

To dismiss the history of the world like that and how much it impacts today is a bit silly. That generation had their own living ancestors who were just as old-fashioned to them. And if you have grandkids, you'll experience the same prejudice as you are exhibiting toward older people now.

It's just kind of how it goes. There are even 17th- and 18th-century media that demonstrate just how long this has been going on. I'd wager it's as old as civilization itself.

Mine would be the equivalent of a core 2 duo

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I see we are going for that synthetic victory then?

Then you don’t know the history of body art.

Someone give it to Bert

Consciousness is a function whose input is environmental stimulus and whose output is a cyclical thought, and/or a physical action (muscle contraction). The more environmental-semantic information this entity encodes in its memory, the more “conscious” it is, but consciousness is not binary.

Logic gates form if:then statements that, when assembled together, creates a system of behavior that acts in somewhat logical ways. Human biological neuron cells form these.

Consciousness inherently requires at least some memory, input, and processing. Every neuron in the human brain is technically computable because it’s just input and output of electrical signals.

A nerve cell is effectively just an analog neuron with a few extra properties. It’s not logical to assume that consciousness is just a bundle of nerve cells. It’s a very architecturally-dependent bundle of if/then clauses and memory that, when combined, simulates consciousness.

If a system can be described by if/then, then it is computable.

Also, if you cut a living brain in half, it ceases to become conscious. The reason for this is that the architecture becomes incoherent. When you are asleep (beasides REM/dreaming) you are also unconscious.

Regardless, all my points to say: consciousness is computable through architecture, not simply through nerve cells. Biological human nerve cells are neither necessary nor sufficient for consciousness.

Studies in mice rarely, if ever, translate to human models. It's such an obscene waste of research dollars and time to continue these efforts to cure mice when we all know it's not going to create any benefit for humans.

One step closer to Warhammer 40k.

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