Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Thankyou! I presume this will bold*

Of course, I was referring to the inverted U effect earlier ~ given we guess that HN is full of highly intelligent people, they'll not see as much benefit as others. However, the USA currently has a glut of anxiety / depression based disorders, and I suspect that HN has statistically more "introverts" than many other places on the web. i.e. I guess that social anxiety will be higher here than say, "Jock McGee's NFL Tavern" forum.

I'll attempt to only use PubMed links in respect of people not having to tunnel through paywalls:

Anxiolytic effects of aniracetam in three different mouse models of anxiety and the underlying mechanism. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11412837?dopt=Abstract...

Antidepressant activity of memory-enhancing drugs in the reduction of submissive behavior model. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11959085?dopt=Abstract...

Free but via paywalled garden

Piracetam: A Review of Pharmacological Properties and Clinical Uses http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1527-3458.2005....

Modulating effect of the nootropic drug, piracetam on stress- and subsequent morphine-induced prolactin secretion in male rats http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1476-5381.1996....

There's plenty of evidence that these drugs might be very useful for exactly the social induced psychological issues that plague modern society.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Reading the forum rules here, I'm at a loss why a user has gone through my posts on this thread and flagged each one, without a reason.. especially since the first rude post was the one that deserved nuking, not my responses, and didn't get one. Nuke the rude abrasive one, not the ones offering more, unless you've a reason?

The thread I responded to is still lacking in quality, esp. references ~ but I learnt down-thread s/he's a known poster, so I guess the rules don't apply.

Charming. ZZzzz.

[Edit: I'm having trouble finding the paper on this, for reference below, it's from a Welsh University ~ it might have been removed and/or hijacked for use for something else]

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

I'll show you mine when toeknadult shows me his: The original post had zero real references.

But, of course: most of the papers I can throw at you are about huge impairments...because humans at this point in time barely understand what's going on where there's a MASSIVE TUMOUR IN YOUR BRAIN or YOU'VE SUFFERED 8% LOSS OF FRONTAL CORTEX MASS and so we focus on fixing those.

Hint ~ we get to the good stuff by fixing the really obvious / awful stuff.

Racetams will help you if you're over 25, and have ever taken a drug that is known to damage your brain (ahem, alcohol) or you live in a city with noticeable air pollution, or you live in a society that adds various nasties to your food supply.

Hint: This is a large majority of the people living on Earth.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Well, do a simple bit of logic there (sorry; the study I had in mind is locked). From the age of 20 > 30, there's a quantifiable degradation of DNA replication, or as we call it "ageing". We can all agree that ageing seems to impair certain functions, and if these types of drugs improve "impaired" individuals, then... ?

As stated: the greater the impairment, the greater the effect. Now, you might not want to spend $x on a mere 5% improvement, but we do it all the time in reality ~ tinfoil hats off, but why do we fluoridate water supplies or make sure children have nutritious meals? [in the old model of society that seems to have fallen away].

Note: I advise strongly against over-dosing or using the stronger types without some knowledge of what's going on in your brain. Although, most people fuck around with their brain chemistry happily enough on pleasure receptors anyhow, so it's better than even the legal abuses you can get up to [pain killers, alcohol, nicotine-purely-to-lungs].

Bottom line: it ain't going to kill you like other stuff, and there's no evidence it can actually damage you either [barring affective behaviours which will subside as the drug is removed[1]]. Try it, be sensible, and then whatever.

The entire theatre of this thread, set by the idiot who made the 1st post is ridiculous. Learn some science, maybe?

[1]You might get some slight mania etc depending on your base chemistry, but it's not going to be permanent.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Racetams have proven effects on healthy adults. [Do you want to know more?]. There's a scaled effect which is notable, but most adults over 30 will benefit from them (i.e. the 'smarter / less damaged your systems are' the less benefit you get).

Do you really not have access to common papers? This might be a question of me assuming common access to information where there is none.

Or, think of it this way ~ unless you're living in a pristine environment (which most of you aren't), then they'll help you. Most humans are swimming in a whole sea of chemicals [airborne, ingested] and bacterial processes that you're not aware of. Heck, every human being's weight is 1Kg (ish) of non-human DNA and complex ecosystems.

Yep, that's right: you're a huge ecosystem of your own, revel in it. So take off 1kg off the scale, that's other beasties at play.

Ye Gods, most of you are firing off megadeath levels of antibacterials, chromosome damaging chemicals, metal-based-nasties and so forth just by getting ready in the morning.[1] Your brain chemistry is a whole lot more complex ~ and although we're getting there on understanding it, we've a while to go.

But, the Racetams have so far proven entirely benign, and helpful. They should be given to everyone by deafult, if we're in the realms of fluoridating water supplies.

[1] No, I like science. I love science. We all love it. Still doesn't change the fact that processes like decaffeinated coffee production had stupidly large amounts of cancer producing drugs in them until recently. Or DDT.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Sartre, and many others have used amphetamines.

The real question is not that of the shill above, but: which major figures in the last X years were NOT on some kind of drug.

Americans...

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Nooptroics work, otherwise they'd not have FDA [insert whatever system you're under] approval. A quick glance at the crap fluff piece above shows that many of them are simple supplements [i.e. distilled stuff from a normal diet], but some are real pharmaceutical drugs.

Obviously, we immediately cull anything that is available from a normal diet, and ask the questions of the others. As such, your entire argument is ignorant, as it fails to ask the simple question: in what cases do these drugs work?

They're designed for a purpose. They must be efficacious for that purpose. They might have other beneficial side effects. They might have negative side effects.

Your comment is ignorant as hell, and it's depressing that you're the top comment.

Hint: drugs such as modafinil, caffeine, nicotine are part of daily life because they have a demonstrable effect.

This is a white-wash, and a pathetic piece of propaganda. Major pharma companies, and entire caffeine / nicotine based economies of industrialised <> developing world countries and the multi-billion $ profits involved state you're full of shit.

/HN, what a crock.

HINT: Military forces have been STUFFING a whole slew of drugs into their people since they were discovered. Where do you think heroin came from? Where do you think amphetamines came from? Where do you think most of the research (hello LSD) was focused towards in the last 40 years? Where do you think the newest batch of stuff came from?

Here's a "duel" for you: find a serving member of combat (esp. Airforce) and then ask them if they can fly without taking their pills. They. Are. Not. Allowed. To.

Enhancing drugs work ~ go investigate the fucking Tour-de-France, you idiot. And if you need data on the mental realm, then nicotine & caffeine have full documented papers on their effects. This isn't even the prescription / FDA / illegal stuff out there.

You really are a shill.

Gaaahh... Muppets.

p.s. "On Muppets". Why the hell doesn't standard HTML tags work around here? Retro-chique? Kinda... odd for this type of forum.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

To second this, perhaps a little more solidly:

Q) Who owns Reddit? Q) Who owns the Gawker<->Jezebel<->"to infinity and beyond" series of sites

...

And so on. Then add the 6 major players, and the actual Corporations who have entire multi-million dollar departments of people doing this stuff, and handing it off to other major companies. You know, those old school "Mad Men" type establishments. Then the other tiers of viral media, advertising and so on. Then the "cool" players who get free stuff before the market to generate desire.

The OP needs some serious perspective. In the eyes of everyone looking at your site, you're not an entrepreneur, you've just told everyone you know 0% about how the market works.

>Painful. This shit flies with HN? Interesting.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

Note: I'm aware that this analogy is metaphorically and intellectually broken.

If I had time / inclination, we'd re-work the OP's example into Facebook and Steam etc being protozoa, Zynga would be some bacteria living inside Facebook with our users as the host and introduce all kinds of biology comparisons. Zynga-as-Virus as an analogy wouldn't be too useful as it's not a case of simple self-replication in attacks / predation on the host; it's also camouflaging itself as other fauna to fool the hosts' current anti-body set, as EA, a much larger protozoa, is trying to eat it for as competition. There's also the fact Zynga would have to live inside Facebook in a mutalistic relationship, while they both feed off each others' intakes from the host.

Would be fun, modelling it all.

Now I urn for the Spore-that-never-was, damn, but we wouldn't want to scare the hosts when they realised the real lions, tigers & bears out there, I suppose.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

This struck me as an interesting take, due to your analogy: (some) viruses[1] can be inoculated against. Looking at this through a 'real world' lens, rather than a mimetic one, suggests something stronger.

Your argument is that is, Facebook has an interest in providing inoculation against viruses to their users, while the viruses themselves (Zynga) have a vested interest in removing possible inoculating effects within their ecosystem. i.e. Facebook should provide inoculation against Zynga. Now, your argument revolves around the "active/positive" end of this, where you make an appeal to Facebook to reduce the most egregious examples of this[2], as it will increase user pleasure, enhance the ecosystem and provide you with healthy users. To be fair, this approach has produced some movement from Facebook on the more obvious ones (such as the early phone ads).

This is all well and good ~ however, you're ignoring the "negative/passive" way in which this is done.

Zynga actively creates an ecosystem that ensures that the most successful viruses (i.e. your social game) have to conform to the most successful strategies, precisely because it is so metric / psychologically driven. If you want to compete against a dominant virus, aping the same Skinner-driven models (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/28/1931246/more-on-why-...) makes sense, both in market terms and ecological terms.

But you're aiming at the wrong target. Facebook isn't purely a host, it's also a virus. In fact, it benefits from a relationship where it isn't the "worst" virus, as this makes it more attractive to users (i.e. changing security / functionality / sharing of user data being the more obvious examples), while the ecological impact Zynga provides allows it to act more aggressively as a virus (i.e. your user base becomes used to virus tactics). The relationship is mutalistic, as the market well knows.

Your real target needs to be inoculating the user, so that they either recognise the strategies of the viruses and produce anti-bodies against them (the "Steam model", where your user will only react favourably to positive behaviour by a virus, because they react violently against negative behaviour, forging a symbiotic relationship[3]) or by producing a product that is more suited to your environment. i.e. is better at virus intrusion than Zynga, either in camouflage ("we're-nice-but-secretly-screwing-you") or by creating antibodies against other viruses ("I get such an empathetic bond with this virus, I'm not sure why, it just makes me feel good"). (The distinction is purely in the awareness / active interest of the user).

Wall of text: right gripe, wrong target. Facebook and Zynga both know their core market, and the real question is: why don't most users have such antibodies against viruses automatically?

Answer: probably due to culture & this being the first true generation of users experiencing such viruses. Of course, without being too cruel, there's some that will never produce antibodies, as we all know. http://www.bogost.com/blog/cow_clicker_1.shtml

[1] Never virii, never. [2]Which, as we all know, was/is Zynga, especially in the more outspoken criticisms at certain Cons.(http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091108/1122426850.shtml - please note, I might well be making a joke from where I'm getting my sources from), [3] In a purely user<>host example here, there's problems with Steam just as any other DRM / software provider [4] This example broke down in the first instance by not treating Zynga as a producer of viruses, and multiple other problems due to me typing quickly and not wanting to turn this into ecology 101. I hope that it was at least a little bit interesting / useful.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

For reference for the negative score ~ " . " is a common mark of respect, denoting a loss. I see it was removed / formatted out. (Original comment started with " . " one line).

Are we to Ignore the fact that it's commonly known that the higher levels of playing EvE are notorious for ruthless / sociopathic behaviours, and that praising his on-line skills might have irony to it?

I'm not sure being remembered as "that total bastard from GoonSquad" is expressing quite what you all intend.

[Out of Thread] [.]

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

As an aside ~ I find it an interesting convergence of 'our future' that the man used social engineering / diplomacy / subterfuge to excel in the most cut-throat and blood-thirsty game on the market, where sociopathic tendencies are often required to 'win'.

Oh, and he played EvE well, apparently.

[He "worked IT" for an embassy in a war zone, and modelled complex 'interpersonal' relations in a vast virtual world. We've come a long way from Pong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Carpenter]

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

I was (snarkily) suggesting something through hyperbole, but of course you're correct. However:

    August 15th, 2012: 268 million shares, 10% of shares outstanding.
    October 14th: 249 million shares, 9% of shares outstanding.
    <b>November 13th: 1.332 billion shares, 49% of shares outstanding.</b>
    December 13th: 124 million shares, 5% of shares outstanding.
    May 17th, 2013: 47 million shares, 2% of shares outstanding.

60%ish of shares haven't been released yet, with Nov. 13th being 'the big one'. Given the speed / size of the price collapse, and impending tax bills and so forth, there's a good bet to be made that they'll tap at least some of that $10bil reserve.

In short, I can't logically see how the extra 50% swimming free will raise their share price. But then again, that's why I'm not paid the big bucks to work at JP & the Street, there's no doubt some plan afoot.

Pongo_the_Great

14년 전discuss

[i]He is, by far, the single most responsible for having created a $60 billion company, something few can ever even hope to do.[/i]

Two things:

Q) Wasn't this $100 billion not so long ago? A) Yes, and if things progress, it'll be $2 billion in six months.[1]

Q) Who provided MZ with the finance, the clout and the film, not to mention a whole lot of other perks? A) The people who really made Facebook what it is.

Anyone who thinks that the Facebook saga is one lone libertarian hero proving Capitalism need to... re-evaluate their maturity levels.

[1] Please note the # of total shares about to hit the market.

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