pchivers's comments

I was under the impression that Amy Chua (the woman who wrote "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother") gave up the "tiger mom" strategy after one of her children had a breakdown:

"What brings the situation to an end is two horrifying incidents. First, Lulu hacks off her hair with a pair of scissors; then, on a family holiday to Moscow, she and Chua get into a public argument that culminates in Lulu smashing a glass in a cafe, screaming, "I'm not what you want – I'm not Chinese! I don't want to be Chinese. Why can't you get that through your head? I hate the violin. I hate my life. I hate you, and I hate this family!" Her relationship with Lulu in crisis, Chua, finally, thankfully, raises the white flag."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/15/amy-chua-...

This is a great article. The linked article ("Anti-Authoritarians and Schizophrenia: Do Rebels Who Defy Treatment Do Better?") is also very interesting:

"At the 2-year assessment there were no significant differences in severity of psychosis between schizophrenic patients (SZ) on antipsychotic medications and SZ not on any medications. However, starting at the 4.5-year follow-ups and continuing over the next 15 years, the SZ who were not on antipsychotic medications were significantly less psychotic than those on antipsychotics.”

I've had good results with htmldoc (http://www.msweet.org/projects.php?Z1).

This is exactly what I was looking for. I was previously using http://automation.whatismyip.com/n09230945.asp, but the author is no longer making it available for free.

I have no idea who Barrett Brown is, but I found this interesting profile of him:

http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2011/April/How_Barr...

It seems like he's an Aaron Swartz-like character who is involved with Anonymous.

>failing to take into account that only a tiny fraction of the mortgage payment actually becomes equity.

What percentage of a mortgage payment actually gets converted into equity?

(coming from a genuinely curious person who has never owned a house)

I'm not much of a sucker for inspirational stories, but this is one of the best I've read in a long time.

"Those who know me well in the the developer and tech community recognize that I have always tried to conduct myself in a way that builds bridges for everyone."

I couldn't get through the first sentence without laughing. How does shaming two men by posting their picture on Twitter qualify as "building bridges for everyone"? I think she is lacking in self-awareness.

>A good start, but shopping around is hard, if not impossible

I think shopping around, properly conceived, should be the primary care physician's job. If a doctor is referring e.g. 10 people a month to a specialist, then obviously they are going to be in a much better position to evaluate the options than a patient.

I believe that Sherpaa, Jay Parkinson's company, provides this "shopping around" service (https://sherpaa.com/).

I didn't like the article either. The whole thing struck me as melodramatic and narcissistic.

Perhaps there are intelligent commentaries to be written about this culture's abuse of Adderall, but this is not one of them.

It's worth noting that there is no relationship between a U.S. hospital bill and the actual cost of the service:

http://truecostofhealthcare.org/hospital_billing

"Hospitals see no problem in sending bills to insurance companies for five to ten times the amount that they actually expect, because they are simply playing the game that the insurance companies fashioned. But remember, they only produce one kind of bill, and it’s designed to send to someone who holds all the cards (an insurance company), and so can just refuse to pay anything they don’t want to pay. That’s their game. But what happens when you have to play the game with the hospital alone (if you don’t have insurance, or if your insurance doesn’t cover that stay for some reason). Then you’re on the hook for the ENTIRE amount. Most hospitals have a policy that allows people to negotiate for a lower amount, but most people don’t know this. And don’t expect the hospital to tell you about it, let alone help out. So even if you can remember to negotiate while you’re convalescing from a long hospital stay, good luck trying to get the deal the insurance company gets.

For the average person, this is no small matter. In the first case, a two day hospitalization that the insurance company got for $2,100 (after the insurance adjustment), would cost an uninsured person over $21,000. The adjusted charge ($2,100) would be a pretty nasty kick in the finances for most families, but they could bounce back. The unadjusted charge, which is what you’ll get if you don’t have insurance, is an almost certain trip to bankruptcy."

Here is an interesting infographic from the National Post:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07/28/guns-ownership-aroun...

"In 2007, the U.S. had the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. But the U.S. does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the U.S. is well down the list with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people. Below is a list of countries with available firearm data from 2007 starting with countries where firearms are most common."

Yes. I received some counterfeit DVDs many years back and I ended up getting my money back from PayPal.

True, antidepressants are much slower acting than MDMA, but you're still looking at 80-90% of people in antidepressant trials who can correctly guess which group they're in (due to side effects such as dry mouth, sleep problems, sexual dysfunction, etc.).

Regarding the issue of whether or not it is poor blinding, I guess it is a bit like the tree falling in the forest but nobody is around to hear it: if you conduct a placebo-controlled study, but all the participants can correctly guess which group they're in, is it really a placebo-controlled study?

From what I understand this 95% figure is not that far off from what is obtained in anti-depressant trials, but somehow the poor blinding of anti-depressant trials is almost never mentioned as a serious methodological problem.

This is discussed in more detail in Irving Kirsch's The Emperor's New Drugs.

Takeaway quote from the article:

"If you were to go out and start a meth lab in your house, what's the probability that you would ultimately end up doing jail time? It's going to be a lot higher than if you massively defraud a financial institution. It's an endemic problem within the justice system now."

From what I understand there is only one study on the relationship between creativity and LSD:

Psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving: a pilot study. Harman WW, McKim RH, Mogar RE, Fadiman J, Stolaroff MJ. Psychol Rep. 1966 Aug;19(1):211-27.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelics_in_problem-solving...

The results suggested that LSD has a positive effect on creative problem solving. I think it is a shame that no follow-up experiments have been conducted.

I'm sure sitting on your ass 8-10 hours a day is a health risk. Maybe not as bad as working in a factory breathing in nasty chemicals all day, or dodging falling trees as a lumberjack, but a health risk nonetheless.

Vin Diesel is definitely balding. You can see it very clearly in xXx.

Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Vin Diesel...