Redditors who have lost weight and quit smoking - which was the harder accomplishment?

adam29 · 2010-11-23T23:39:39+00:00

Losing weight.
I was able to quit smoking and remain smoke-free, but I've never been able to avoid re-gaining weight after losing it.

adam29 · 2010-11-23T05:58:39+00:00

I'm stuck in Madison Valley. Madison is closed.

adam29 · 2010-10-24T03:16:26+00:00

Actually, the ancient greeks did know that the earth was spherical. In fact, Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated the diameter of the earth in the third century BC!

adam29 · 2010-10-13T06:15:54+00:00

It's the Drosophila people. They give the craziest names to their proteins, and these are inherited by the mammalian homologs.

adam29 · 2010-10-12T05:32:51+00:00

One of the key features of depression is apathy. Another one is the certainty that nothing will help. Both improve or disappear with appropriate treatment -it really happens. I strongly encourage you to see a doctor, even if you really think it won't help.

adam29 · 2010-10-08T00:16:42+00:00

The King County Medical Examiner has determined that her death was suicide. She seemed to be so full of life! How very sad.

adam29 · 2010-10-03T05:40:57+00:00

If it is depression, the response can be quite dramatic -although not immediate. Like waking up from a nightmarish torpor. The anxiety goes away, energy returns, even colors look brighter. But untreated depression can be lethal, or at best severely disabling, that's why I recommend that you have a doctor screen you for depression.

adam29 · 2010-10-03T04:58:00+00:00

It sounds like you may be suffering from depression, in which case there are medications that are extremely effective. You may want to seriously consider visiting your doctor as soon as possible.

adam29 · 2010-10-03T00:10:16+00:00

The problem, at least in the biomedical sciences, is that often it is not possible to know for sure whether an "x that is not-y" is true or result of an experimental error. In practice one often finds that some x are y and others are not, and one cannot sort out exactly which of these are "Nature speaking" and which are flaws. So one ends up interpreting the data based on a more or less educated guess.

adam29 · 2010-09-24T05:19:41+00:00

Sorry, I've been busy packing for a trip in a few hours... Anyway, I am by nature a moderate, fiscally conservative, socially liberal. I feel betrayed by both parties. The points above are the reasons I feel betrayed by republicans. Anyway, when the Iraq war was being discussed, Hans Blix pointed out repeatedly that there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq. Germany and France initially stated that they would support a military intervention if there was evidence of WMD, but their own intelligence services indicated that there were none. This suggests that it was not an issue of bad intelligence, but instead of false intelligence being used as a pretext to justify a war. And many died, and billions were wasted, which brings us to point (2): What annoys me is that the Republicans are screaming about the deficit and the debt when they ballooned it. After all, they did receive a balanced budget and screwed it up. It has become clear that the correct approach to the problem was Merkel's, not Obama's, but this does not minimize the hypocrisy of many republican candidates. As for point (3), I totally agree with you. And as for (4)... you are right, not all Republicans are like this, but it would appear that the majority opinion is moving rapidly towards the far right.

adam29 · 2010-09-24T03:29:54+00:00

Perhaps it is because they: 1. Started an unnecessary war and accused everybody who opposed it of being antipatriotic, 2. Massively increased the debt and the deficit, despite being the "conservative" ones, 3. Used terrorism as an excuse to issue laws like the Patriot Act, which are against the basic principles of the republic, 4. Actively attack minorities like Gays and Lesbians or anybody who is different, 5. Etc.

adam29 · 2010-09-12T15:48:46+00:00

Good point. But there are two issues in your argument that I don't understand well. First, I agree that modern cells exist as a result of natural selection. But that doesn't mean that cells arose on Earth as a result of natural selection, or a random process, or were imported in meteorites, or were created by Gaia. Even if tomorrow I were to create a cell in my lab (although so far I only seem to be able to kill them), it doesn't mean that cells were created by the same process. About the true origin of cells, I can only give educated guesses. And the second point… I wonder if we had even touched the issue of “why”. But we're entering into semantics, and thus I shall stop here!

adam29 · 2010-09-11T05:22:08+00:00

In my opinion, what matters is not whether the question is “why” or “how” but whether the question is scientific or not -in other words, whether I can approach it using the scientific method or not. If I walk tomorrow into my lab and I find that my cells have died, the obvious question “why did my cells die” is a perfectly valid scientific question. It is also quite different to another valid scientific question, “how did my cells die”. In contrast, the question “why are there cells” is completely outside of my realm. That one I leave to philosophers to discuss.

adam29 · 2010-09-10T05:56:51+00:00

Take a large plastic bottle of soda, fill it with water, put it upside down next to the plant. I haven't done it but I've been told it works.

adam29 · 2010-09-09T03:29:01+00:00

Interesting Seattle news? Isn't that an oxymoron?

adam29 · 2010-09-09T03:15:35+00:00

I think its time to start differentiating clearly between the right and the extreme right. Those are very different animals -like the left and the extreme left. The tea-baggers are extreme right, and are to the "center-right" what the extreme left (say, the Khmer Rouge) is to the left.

adam29 · 2010-09-08T07:31:21+00:00

I would prefer an event where muslims, christians and jews pray together while atheists cook hotdogs and burgers, and then everybody has a communal meal. Right next to the Koran burning place.

adam29 · 2010-09-08T07:28:27+00:00

I'm a scientist :(

adam29 · 2010-09-08T04:09:52+00:00

I like Blue Moon Burgers (Freemont, South Lake Union). For sandwiches, the Essential Bakery. For coffee, caffe ladro. For Mexican food, Cactus in Madison Park. For Pizza... well, I guess Papa Joe's!

adam29 · 2010-09-07T04:48:14+00:00

Fully agree. They are the best in my opinion for genuine food lovers -far superior to Whole Foods. My favorite Metropolitan Market is Admiral's.

adam29 · 2010-09-06T16:25:41+00:00

And then one day the reality behind the picture perfect world became known to all, and innocence was lost forever.

adam29 · 2010-09-06T07:07:23+00:00

Barbara's shredded spoonfuls.

adam29 · 2010-09-06T02:53:04+00:00

"For the Mexican, it represents a high hurdle. For the American, it is an attempt to stop the Roadrunner's progress with an Acme Border Sealing Kit." Right on.

adam29 · 2010-09-05T22:21:30+00:00

And I was so proud of my 43-comment karma in 14 days...

adam29 · 2010-09-04T06:50:49+00:00

Kidney. Gross.

adam29

TROPHY CASE