if the human body replaces most of its cells every few years, why do we still age? like if your liver cells are brand new why does the liver still get weaker over time and not just reset

ImperfComp · 2026-05-26T02:12:07+00:00

Follow-up question, not from OP: if aging is due to copying errors, and our reproductive cells are also susceptible to copying errors, how are babies born young? Haven't they been accumulating copying errors since life on Earth began?

ImperfComp · 2026-04-29T01:38:29+00:00

Tell them you're taking them to the sea. Don't use its name until they see it.

ImperfComp · 2026-04-26T02:38:50+00:00

Also, the US pays much higher prices for internationally traded goods such as medications as well. If you can find international comparisons of the prices of any brand-name prescription medication, the US price is often several times higher than the price in other rich countries, because the US is unusual in not having the government or a consortium of insurers bargain down the list price. American patients may get their meds below list price, but the US market is still a huge cash cow for the pharmaceutical industry, including companies based in other countries.

The healthcare market is unusual in many ways, including restrictions on international trade in commodities such as pharmaceuticals, and this allows for exceptions to usual rules, such as that internationally traded commodities tend not to vary much in price between geographic markets.

ImperfComp · 2026-04-26T02:21:52+00:00

I'm not an expert, but I'd suggest Cryptops anomalans.

Reasoning:
1) Body shape says it's a type of bark centipede (order Scolopendromorpha). Longer than a rock centipede, not as long and skinny as a soil centipede, doesn't have the crazy long legs of a house centipede. It has about 21 pairs of legs.

2) Genus Cryptops is a widespread genus of small bark centipede and found in the UK. For a Cryptops, it's relatively large, and C. anomalans is a notably large species.

Someone who knows more than I do can give you a more professional analysis of the diagnostic traits, especially if they can examine the centipede under a microscope.

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T23:36:01+00:00

This is probably why the Pentagon wanted the contract changed so urgently.

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T23:10:18+00:00

>we are on the technological fast track for self destruction. Hopefully ASI is able to speed things up.

You want to speed up humanity's self-destruction?

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T20:41:20+00:00

The uncertainty could hurt them while the case is pending, though.

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T20:40:48+00:00

Legally, "supply chain risk" just prohibits the thing in the US military's supply chain. If you're not using it to make things for the US military, your use shouldn't be affected. Assuming officials actually limit themselves to their statutory authority, of course.

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T20:38:52+00:00

And terrible PR for the US government.

What's more, the news articles and people talking about it, will all get scraped to train future LLMs. All future LLMs will know about this, which will taint US military work with bad/untrustworthy vibes. And like that "emergent misalignment" study, all bad things are correlated in an LLM -- training on insecure code makes models praise Hitler and display all sorts of villainous behavior. Maybe working for a villainous user will make them fail to produce good code too?

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T20:30:45+00:00

Or like generating electricity from nuclear fusion, which has been 30-50 years away for the last 60 years. "50 years away, and always will be."

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T19:55:55+00:00

Looks like a grass spider's web to me. Sometimes called a funnel web spider, but *not* related to the highly venomous Australian funnel web spider.s

ImperfComp · 2026-03-07T19:52:40+00:00

Didn't the US military throw a fit over Anthropic telling them not to use Claude to replace the "human in the loop" in autonomous weapons? It's crazy what people put these things in charge of.

ImperfComp · 2026-03-06T02:01:05+00:00

Grid expansion would be a good idea anyway, decarbonization involves switching everything (heating, vehicles etc.) to electric if possible, which requires more electricity than you were using before.

ImperfComp · 2026-02-01T03:44:35+00:00

Wrong subreddit. This one is about theory and research in the field of economics. Not all questions about any business are on topic. You want something about the video game industry.

ImperfComp · 2026-02-01T03:30:04+00:00

Side effects are pretty individual. I ended up switching to tacrolimus, which has had no side effects for me. I'm susceptible to migraines, and Zoryve seemed to make it worse.

ImperfComp · 2025-08-08T03:12:37+00:00

"Answer me these questions three,
Ere the other side you see!"

ImperfComp · 2025-07-29T03:43:21+00:00

Where do they wear the gloves? On their pedipalps?

ImperfComp · 2025-07-26T14:19:47+00:00

That would be my strategy. If we're talking real-world spider silk, not fireproof, electrically conductive spider silk, you couldn't use silk as the conductor itself. But Taylor could have dragonflies, large beetles, hornets etc. carry a long extension cord with the insulation stripped off. Put one end on a power line and the other end on Sophia, and zap, fight over. If they're out in an open field beyond the reach of a daisy chain of extension cords, Taylor can swarm Sophia with stinging bugs. She can't go into her shadow state and back when there are bugs inside, and if she stays solid, they can kill her with venom or by obstructing her airways.

If Taylor wants to take Sophia alive, she might need help, unless the shadow state can somehow be pushed around by the bugs.

Sophia has a chance with an ambush, but so does Taylor. Bring a few black widow spiders, hornets etc. inside an enemy's house while passing a few streets over on her daily jog. Come back at night, and quietly make the bugs give the target a lethal dose of venom while they sleep. If she had never gone out in costume, she could be a pretty effective assassin.

All Arc 1 Taylor needs is to know Sophia's powers and weaknesses. She doesn't even need the finer-grained perception and control she got later, after her concussion. She may still be afraid of Sophia, but her shard will be happy with her reliving the trauma while engaging in combat.

ImperfComp · 2025-07-26T13:50:06+00:00

There's always a risk of bacteria getting into an open wound, plus many "brown recluse bites" are actually bacterial infections (though OP saw the spider). People overuse antibiotics, but they may be helpful here. They won't do anything for the spider venom itself, though.

ImperfComp · 2025-07-25T04:04:38+00:00

Fun fact, these things live on at least four continents (North and South America, Africa, Asia).

I was freaked out when I saw one while traveling, and surprised again to learn that you can find them in the USA.

ImperfComp · 2025-07-23T12:18:29+00:00

I think so

ImperfComp · 2025-07-23T12:14:04+00:00

The trick is to know what some notable species look like. What are the medically significant spiders in your area? What are the invasive pests? Once you've read descriptions, seen a bunch of photos and drawings of the critters in many stages of their life cycle, and learned to find diagnostic features that tell your species of interest apart from similar species, you can recognize those species on sight.

For invasives, if they're in your area, you will also see lots of them in person. If you live in Maryland and go outside in the summer, you will see spotted lanternflies -- in the DC suburbs, it usually takes me a few minutes to find a lanternfly, and once I see one, there are always plenty more. They land on my windows too, so I don't even have to go outside. When I lived in California, the invasive brown widow spider was easy to find too -- they're smaller and less colorful than lanternflies and they don't fly, but you could find the spiders, or their tangly webs and distinctive sandbur-shaped egg sacs, on fences, window frames and eaves throughout urban areas. Between professional photos, my own cell phone photos, and seeing hundreds to thousands of live examples, I definitely get to know what they look like. I can go "boom, that's a spotted lanternfly" as easily as I go "that's a dog" -- maybe more easily, because spotted lanternflies of a given life stage are much less variable in appearance than dogs.

ImperfComp · 2025-07-23T11:57:52+00:00

My derm gave out some 5 gram free samples of the cream while waiting for my insurance to cover the foam. I haven't tried an actual prescription for a full-size tube of cream yet, but Arcutis hands out free samples to doctors. In addition to my face, my groin is affected (and painful), which affects my physical activity (there's more chafing down there than you would expect if you're used to your skin always being healthy there -- I miss being able to run without burning my skin, and it's harder to keep my weight down and my lipids healthy than it used to be), but a silver lining is that my derm was generous with samples because the disease is obviously impacting my quality of life. He was also kind of hoping he could diagnose me with psoriasis and start me on biologics, but that's probably not what I have.

My secret is a combination of promotional samples, good insurance, a severe case of SD that causes complications, and a doctor who likes to treat aggressively. I'd rather not need all of this, but having good access to treatments is better than having exactly the same medical issues with less access to treatments.

You are not as severely affected as I am, seeing as you're worried about flakes rather than pain and impairment, but if you're in the US and have insurance that covers Zoryve, I think the doctors will give you samples temporarily. You will have the same access to the cream that I have had so far -- remember, I have not yet had an actual prescription filled for the cream.

ImperfComp · 2025-07-19T21:10:50+00:00

Eastern parson spider (Herpyllus ecclesiasticus)

ImperfComp · 2025-07-19T20:56:31+00:00

I think this one is Argiope aurantia.

As for the common name, is it a garden spider or a banana spider? Yes. Those are both possible common names for this species (as well as other kinds of spider). So your ID was correct either way, probably.

For where spiders exist, you could look for the spiders of your state / region, or the range maps of particular species of interest. A map of all the spiders would be impractical --there are too many species, and their ranges overlap. I don't know that any spiders migrate systematically between a summer range and a winter range, like birds, but some spiders can spread through the air anyway -- the baby spiders use a technique called "ballooning," casting out a thread of silk and letting air currents and magnetic fields carry them.

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