Phi for All

And not even their own toilet. Like a gas station toilet.

I don't mind this so much as long as one doesn't give up on this life, thinking they'll do a little better in the next one. I believe you only get the one life, and you have to stand up and live it. I think getting better should be less of a gradual thing, and more of a constant struggle against whatever stands in the way of making your own choices and living the life you want.

I was just talking to a cardiologist about cholesterol and Gram-positive bacteria, and the connections being made. This morning, in fact. Interesting coincidence. As to the question from the OP, I don't think we have enough information to even guess. Patients vary, infections vary, diets vary.

If you've started making changes, then you aren't "remaining" anywhere. As for your choices, part of the problem is your perspective. The choice you're making is in viewing your behavior as negative in terms of society. What if your view is negative, but in a good way? Some folks are hyper-aware of their immediate environment, always checking out anyone or anything that comes into it, mentally cataloguing all the various aspects of their surroundings. They can view that as paranoid and abnormal, or they can see themselves as an alert person who is unlikely to be a victim of those who prey on the unaware. I know a woman who is right on the borderline of being overly obsessive/compulsive. If things aren't a certain way, she makes everyone's life miserable until it's fixed. She could think of it negatively, but she doesn't, and she manages a huge office for a company that would be lost without her. When the employees do things her way, the whole place runs like a top, and everyone's happy. She's a stickler for detail in a business that relies on all the little parts working smoothly together. I know people who shun much of the social technology available these days, some of them half my age. They don't have FB pages, they often don't carry their phone, they don't "like" things, or abbreviate their feelings in 140 characters, or send pictures of their lunch to all their friends. They could view this negatively, speaking ill of those who use all those things, but they don't, and instead they go listen to live music, or see a play, or just hang out IRL with friends instead of staying in with the TV, phone, or computer. I know you hit your 1st day limit of 5 posts, but I'd like to know what you think negatively about. Is it mostly about how things/people/events in the world are, or about how you are?

High-density lipoproteins?

You're reading about the wrong Dyson.

You're a human, the sum total of an evolutionary path that led to intelligence of such complexity that we alone amongst millions of species have figured out how to leave our own planet. You're also just a member of a species on a planet orbiting a minor sun in a galaxy full of suns, in a universe full of galaxies. I think you need to realize how small and insignificant you are before you can realize what a fantastic thing it is to be human. We're nothing in the bigger scheme of things, which allows us to appreciate being something with regard to our personal lives. It's very common to think you have to find a "place" in life. What you have to find is a way of looking at everything to find why it has meaning for you. It sounds weird, but I love coffee and used to have a coffee maker that would hold several cups. When I was through with one cup, I'd pour another. Eventually, I realized I wasn't really enjoying it. I started buying better coffee, I used a French press, and now, even though it takes longer to make and has more details to it, I really appreciate my coffee a LOT more. By crafting it the way I do, I drink less but enjoy more. It's the ritual I've imposed to remind myself what a wonderful thing I'm doing for myself. For most cooking, I now try to use the same technique, hand-crafting meals to be fresh and tasty, not overly processed, because it gives me a more pleasurable experience. You have everything you need to determine your value to the rest of the world. The people who raised you did a pretty damn good job if you can make music and serve your country. You have access to accumulated human knowledge, and it sounds as though you appreciate it as one of the top three parts of your life. The very fact that you can question yourself shows you're a good person. Try figuring out some small things to reassure yourself that people like you, they need you, and they're better off having you around. You sound young, so let me pose this as well. Stop picturing yourself like someone who has to find his "place". You aren't some marble rolling around looking for a low point to settle in. You think of your "place", but others might call that "pigeonholing". Maybe you have more than one place to fill in your life. Your negativity is a choice, so look for small ways to make your life more positive. Discussing science is, of course, the #1 remedy for excessive negativity. One cannot study the natural world and not be impressed, especially when you realize how much you are part of it.

Oooh, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Welcome back my friends!

And growth rate is different depending on where the hair is, correct? Head and facial hair can grow much longer than the hair on arms and legs. Was the growth rate of our early ancestor's head and facial hair affected at all by inventing tools that could cut the hair?

The filters don't think, they look at people with fewer than 5 posts and flag their posts for approval if they have ANY links. The software isn't judging, nor would we want it to. It's just there to stop the hundreds of spam posts we get monthly. Sorry for the "atrocious" filters and the hassle, we're all volunteers, the site is non-commercial and only makes enough money to pay for the upkeep. You did cite the source, much appreciated. You just didn't use any of your own words, so it seemed odd that you chose discussion as your medium, when it looked more like you wanted to lecture using someone else's arguments. Not a huge deal, but I was trying to explain why your post was flagged for approval. Perhaps we require more rigor than you're used to? Not sure. What you did was copy/paste part of an article that was entitled "Is Psychedelic Research Closer to Theology Than Science?" and re-titled it, "This Is The First Time Science Has Recognized the Existence of God". Anyone should be able to see the problem with THAT. Then you posted links to YouTube, which is always a big red flag for us, since so many people try to use us to promote their videos. It's part of our rules that posters can't require folks to go offsite or watch videos in order to participate, rules you agreed to when you signed up. We use links to support our arguments, and to show what we base critical thoughts on. The article you quoted was lean on science, and the links made it look like you wanted us to go searching offsite for the evidence to back up what someone else was claiming. I agree, great first impression.

Long beards do make a man look aggressive. They also hide facial expressions. I remember reading that women don't find them particularly sexy except for the implication of virility. Do long beards imply a man has more testosterone?

Iirc, beards are one way human males rate each other. Women aren't especially turned on by them. They show other males how experienced and aggressive a man is. Big beard, big man, stay away from his stuff.

Not when you don't include a ton of links in your first post. That's what spammers do, so we have procedures to deal with them. You also pasted a published piece without using any of your own words (except "Suggested Material"). We're used to folks making reference to published work, but your post was all copypasta. That delayed approval as well. And you should know, even though we have a Religion section, it's for discussing religious concepts using critically-thought-out methodology. We're a science discussion forum, and your post made many unscientific claims with no attempt to provide supportive evidence. I realize you didn't write the piece, but you posted it with a controversial title which was not supported by the content of your post. Welcome to SFN.

Perhaps it's wrong as well to refer to the early universe as "tiny", since a "universe" is the ultimate yardstick by which we judge size. "Extremely dense" is more accurate.

Betty Davis eyes, Frieda Kahlo eyebrows, Ann Francis beauty mark, and Freddy Mercury beginner moustache. The next Disney princess!

! Moderator Note Then open a thread in Speculations and support that argument, but don't do it in someone else's mainstream thread. You've been warned about hijacking before.

If a universe holds all the matter we see today compressed within its tiny boundaries, how is that "literally nothing"? Isn't it, in fact, LITERALLY EVERYTHING?

! Moderator Note Moved from Politics to General Philosophy.

Are you looking for tweaks that will make it fail less, knowing it will never do work?

! Moderator Note NO, please don't. Never interject the supernatural into a mainstream science section here at SFN, it's always off-topic. Mainstream offers the most supported explanations for natural phenomena. I don't think this is the right forum for you. We rely on actual evidence, mathematical models, and critical thinking in our discussions. You seem to be using a hodge-podge of misunderstandings and made-up garbage that makes sense only to you. You can stay if you want to learn science through discussion, but if you've come to preach or soapbox about your amazing revelations/guesswork, that's against our rules.

! Moderator Note Capiert, we entertain speculative ideas with the hopes that members with ideas outside the mainstream may pursue them within the methodology we know works best. If you refuse to allow members to correct your mistaken physics, if you refuse to take on board reasonable arguments against your concepts in order to either strengthen or discard them, then you aren't doing science. In addition, because of your refusal to learn, you keep repeating the same ignorant ideas, which means you're soapboxing, trying to lecture/preach to people who can easily see where you keep going wrong, and have been more than willing to tell you about it. Discussing anything with anyone who isn't listening is unrewarding and pointless. Please don't start anymore threads here at SFN unless you're willing to be swayed by superior evidence.

! Moderator Note If you can't say something mainstream in this section, it's best not to say anything at all.

So much of an obvious error, it makes one wonder if it's intentional. While more liberal than their GOP counterparts, the Democrats in Congress still represent the wealthy over everyone else. This time of chaos, when POTUS is looting the country while running up the deficit, drawing attention away from deals done in the shade, it must be very profitable for those with access to the enormous amounts of cash they've been amassing steadily since the last crash. How many times have the Democrats let us down recently? Still trying for bipartisanship when it's been shown the Republicans in Congress don't want anything to do with them. I remember being very critical of Bush II for not taking the opportunity to bring us and our allies closer together after 9/11. The Democrats have had SO MANY opportunities to stop Trump, and they've fumbled repeatedly. They haven't been able to successfully discredit someone like Donald Trump, the creepiest man I've ever heard second-grade his way through a simple speech. Folks with 1%er wealth can't help but be caught up in the political environment that wealth creates. But obviously we need to have better control over those who wield so much power. The 1% must be held to the same laws, and their huge influence on the lives of the other 99% needs to be channeled to do the most good, not simply make them richer. Even though we're seeing more leaders identifying with social democracy, extreme capitalism and thuggish fascism are dominating the news cycles. I worry that Mueller's reasoned, patient, non-sensationalistic approach will be drowned out in the side-show blare. The last thing we need is to remove a pathway to truthful information 60 days before midterm elections. Would a college professor deny students access to research 60 days before midterms?

If you can reverse the fill-the-prisons strategy, reduce the number of guns on the street, and stop funneling public social funds through private investment strategists, what you describe here might be possible. As it is now, it's just a toxic environment that feeds on itself. You can't calm someone down by insisting on it at the top of your lungs while pointing a gun at them.

! Moderator Note This is a science discussion forum, and what you write here is NOT a scientific stance. It also breaks our rules against soapboxing. If you can't be swayed by superior evidence, and refuse to engage with other members offering help and reason, there is no point discussing this with you. Thread closed.