Apparently there is an association between regular use of anticholinergic drugs and the development of Alzheimer disease.

So switching from getting water from Detroit's water district to the heavily polluted Flint River didn't actually save Flint, MI any money.

Ethan Siegel points out the obvious that science is not the only form of knowledge and that non-science clearly has value.

I don't understand the math well enough to actually know, but isn't the reason why we even have a wave-particle duality because not only do we lack the precise language to describe the things that are waves-and-particles, but we also lack the precise equations to describe things as simultaneously waves-and-particles?

It's funny how people use the example of Copernicus and the heliocentric model as the archetype for scientific progress. The fact of the matter is that, at least initially, Ptolemy's geocentric model actually still made more accurate predictions.

I find it funny that the thing the scientific method and quantum physics and biology taught me is that duality, diversity, plurality is reality. There isn't one right answer to anything. Reductionism can be useful, but it's not reality. And anyone who says it is is trying to sell you something.

As far as our senses and measuring instruments are concerned, the only thing that is real are the shadows. Whatever is casting those shadows is not directly accessible.

So the last (and the first) time I was at Hotel Fig, it was 4½ years ago for a Friendfeed meetup

The first time I encountered the clinical aspects of child abuse was when I was a third year medical student doing my pediatrics rotation. The outpatient portion of my rotation had me going through all the various subspecialty clinics. One of these subspecialties was child abuse.

I decided a long time ago that asking if I was happy was a pointless exercise. You either are, or you aren't, and whatever the answer is, all you can count on is that things are bound to change.

Jeff Croft brings up [version targeting][0] again, and casts it in the old "The Right Thing™" and "Worse is Better" debate.

This elliptical rant about a failed taxonomy for computer users gets me thinking. We (as in, those of us who have been exposed to Western metaphysics) have noted the failure of taxonomic structures for a long time now. While it is sometimes useful to see things in terms of hierarchical relationships, this is likely a relic of our primate ancestry, and it is clearly a kludgy shortcut in terms of understanding the universe.

No, I've learned everything, and I've had to learn it on my own. Growing up we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow the war was somehow our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness, they hate us. And we deserve it. We have created an era of fear in the world. If we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

I realized that I didn't have my charger for my phone (I swear I brought it with me) so I had to go and get one. This required me to go inland.

it's bizarre how they pretty much have a name for everything, how it has become fashionable to call every little personality quirk a syndrome.

“What is real?” asked Morpheus. A quick endocrinology snippet. (Learn something really nerdy and impress your friends.)