I'd be quite curious to see this combined with [transcranial] photobiomodulation - a two-pronged approach to healthy mitochondria might pay healthy dividends.
For those hearing about PBM and feeling skeptical, I was as well, especially with all the claims of therapeutic "red light therapy" circling the internet. But do a quick search in pubmed and you will see that at this point there have been thousands of studies exploring the use of PBM (808-1064nm)
I quickly found these two which relate to sleep quality:
If anyone is interested in PBM I gave an overview presentation a few months ago to a lab studying noninvasive neurostimulation, I would be happy to send it your way.
Yes this is true, but we actually have a lot more data to back this on than exclusively fMRI analysis - for example the ADHD medication guanfacine works only because the alpha 2 receptors happen to be wired differently in the prefrontal cortex than it is in other areas of the brain (a2 is inhibitory for most brain regions, but in the PFC they're positioned to amplify connections between neurons) , so by stimulating alpha 2 we allow for a more “top down” control from the prefrontal cortex than we do without, which improves executive function.
So that is one extremely robust way to understand neurological conditions like ADHD or Parkinson’s
If this article resonates with you in even the smallest way, I urge you to read Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business".
I am currently re-reading this book and am amazed by the apparent accuracy of his analysis, which is that the mediums in which we communicate or express information (print vs. TV vs. TikTok) have a massively understated role in the quality and type of communication we participate in. That is, as print lends itself naturally to logical argument and less to emotional knee-jerk reactions, the type of conversations taken place in long-form print will by nature be more logical and intellectual. Compare this to TV or short term videos, which captivate us using more primal forms of distraction (bright lights with moving images, fast talking, "Gotcha" type rhetoric, cool dances, sexual/romantic behaviour, or background subway surfers), and it is obvious that the nature of what we see is inherently less based around logic and reason.
And as a consequence, if we are what we consume, it is only natural to surmise that the quality of the mind follows the quality (and qualia) of our media.
I think the prior probability in the bayesian sense is that the two entering cohorts are equally skilled (assuming students were randomly split into two sections as opposed to different sections being composed of different student bodies). If this were the case, the implication is that performance differences in standardized tests between cohorts are due to the professor (maybe one of the profs didn't cover the right material), so then normalization could be justified.
However if that prior is untrue for any reason whatsoever, the normalization would penalize higher performing cohorts (if it were a math course, maybe an engineering student dominated section vs an arts dominated cohort).
yes, I definitely agree here. We've known for a long while that 1:1 therapy isn't the only way to treat depression, even if we aim to use psychotherapy methods like CBT/DBT.
David Burns released his CBT guide "Feeling Good" in 1980, which he labels as a new genre of "Bibliotherapy". His book is shown to have clinically significant effects on depression remission. Why can an LLM not provide a more focused and interactive version of this very book?
Now, I agree with you and the article's argument that one cannot simply throw a gpt-4o at a patient and expect results. The LLM must be trained to both be empathetic and push back against the user when necessary, forcing the user to build nuance in their mental narrative and face their cognitive distortions.
This is also useful for power-constrained systems - 128T x 35W is less power than 2 x 64T x 35W which gives a larger power budget for whatever h100-type device you have connected to these drives
Hey sorry to hijack a comment, I saw your comment elsewhere about the Georgia Tech's MS Computer Science being a waste of time and I was curious to learn a bit more about your experience.
I'm currently considering the online masters but still was curious to your experience if you don't mind. Reply here or an email would be appreciated
Performance gains wouldn’t be that large as enterprise SSDs already have internal capacitors to flush pending writes to NAND.
During typical usage the flash controller is constantly journaling LBA to physical addresses in the background, so that the entire logical to physical table isn’t lost when the drive loses power. With a larger capacitor you could potentially remove this background process and instead flush the entire logical to physical table when the drive registers power loss. But as this area makes up ~2% of the total NAND, that’s at absolute best a 2% performance benefit we are potentially missing out on.
> EA is diffuse and deliberately amorphous; anybody who wants to can call themselves an EA... But with no official leadership structure, no roster of who is and isn’t in the movement, and no formal process for dealing with complaints, Wise argues, it’s hard to gauge how common such issues are within EA compared to broader society.
Moral of the story: be weary of groups with low accountability and vague power structures. In a vacuum, power structures will always emerge, so it's generally better for them to exist in the light than in the dark.
True, I suppose there are the "extreme" users of amphetamines which I haven't considered. Though I wonder if those who take megadoses of adderall are the same people who already are willing to consume methamphetamine or other street stims.
This isn't the same person as the student or office worker who prefers taking low dose methylphenidate to their usual two cups of coffee. If the drug was obtained illegally, many consider this to be misuse or abuse of the drug, and this is the caffeine/ADHD med cultural discrepancy I was pointing out.
So I suppose it is fair to ask: with the availably of black market stimulants, to what extent does restricting ADHD medication availability cut down on stimulant abuse?
Something I'm curious about: why do you think that an excess of stimulants is societally damaging? For the past few years I'm of the opinion that these substances should be available to those who find them useful (maybe with a doctor check-in required for blood pressure and dosage regulation).
While the abuse potential for adderall has a stronger case, something like methylphenidate has a relatively low abuse potential and has been shown to be neuroprotective (unlike adderall which may be damaging long term). Requiring people to go through a semi-permeable ADHD screening and visit a doctor every 3 months for refills is unnecessary load on an already overburdened health care system (I'm in Canada).
Why are caffeine pills ubiquitous and accepted as a means to improve productivity, yet other stimulants are not? In my mind, this parallels the argument as to how alcohol is given a pass compared to other recreational drugs since it is already culturally accepted.
I love this idea in theory, but recognize that you are moving the discussion from providing effective, safe, and equitable transportation towards solving homelessness.
Both issues are important, but in the context of this article one must ask, "what is best for the majority of public transit users?". It's certainly possible that a $2 rate improves quality or security meaningful ways.
The problem of "sketchy homeless and mentally ill people" is large enough that I personally prefer cycling over public transport when possible.
I think the parent comment is referring the homeless population which is violent or too public in their drug use/paraphernalia.
Pick the right bus line in Vancouver. You will notice mentally ill, violent people, and it certainly discourages the public from using public transit. Now, will waiving a $2 fee change this meaningfully? Hard to day. But it's not helpful to ignore the problem.