‘Tis the season for these powerful things. Turns out sneezes can travel up to 8 m, coughs up to 6m and they can linger in the air for up to 10 minutes. All the more important to make sure you’re doing your Dracula sneeze into your sleeve.…‘Tis the season for these powerful things. Turns out sneezes can travel up to 8 m, coughs up to 6m and they can linger in the air for up to 10 minutes. All the more important to make sure you’re doing your Dracula sneeze into your sleeve.WWW…
Idempotence is essentially an operation that, no matter how many times you do it, you’ll still get the same result, at least without doing other operations in between. A classic example would be view_your_bank_balance being idempotent, and withdraw_1000 not being idempotent. It’s a property that’s often handy as you can retry the operation without worrying about unintended effects. Idempotence is a concept from mathematics and computer science but can be applied more generally. For example, simple on and off buttons are idempotent, a property that can be very useful in emergencies.…Idempotence is essentially an operation that, no matter how many times you do it, you’ll still get the same result, at least without doing other operations in between. A classic example would be view_your_bank_balance being idempotent, and withdraw_1000 not being idempotent. It’s a property that’s often handy as you can retry the operation without worrying about unintended effects. Idempotence is a concept from mathematics and computer science but can be applied more generally. For example, simple on and off buttons are idempotent, a property that can be very useful in emergencies.WWW…
It took me many years to figure out that if you stand diagonally you brace yourself better for both front-back jolts and side-to-side jostles.…It took me many years to figure out that if you stand diagonally you brace yourself better for both front-back jolts and side-to-side jostles.WWW…
The nocebo effect is how the expectation of pain or negative effects of a treatment increases the chances people will feel them — even if they're aren't any. So, tell someone that a treatment will hurt or have side-effects and they're now more likely to feel that pain or find something wrong. Taken together with the placebo effect I guess we might do well, for normal affairs, to let people know that what they will get will probably help them and not raise unnecessary expectations that something might hurt. HT: Dan Schooler…The nocebo effect is how the expectation of pain or negative effects of a treatment increases the chances people will feel them — even if they're aren't any. So, tell someone that a treatment will hurt or have side-effects and they're now more likely to feel that pain or find something wrong. Taken together with the placebo effect I guess we might do well, for normal affairs, to let people know that what they will get will probably help them and not raise unnecessary expectations that something might hurt. HT: Dan SchoolerWWW…
The placebo effect is the remarkable yet commonplace fact that when people expect a treatment to help, it can, even if the treatment doesn't actually do anything. But where do we get these placebos? Also see: The nocebo effect The dilution effect…The placebo effect is the remarkable yet commonplace fact that when people expect a treatment to help, it can, even if the treatment doesn't actually do anything. But where do we get these placebos? Also see: The nocebo effect The dilution effectWWW…
Which is kind of amazing. The magnetic field is produced by some remarkable result of the convection of molten hot iron alloys in the core of the Earth. Kind of hard to really get your head round if you’re sitting calmly at your desk or walking on a nice stable surface. Periodically, the poles switch round it seems but at the moment the magnetic South pole is actually near the point we’d normally call the geographical North pole. They’re pretty close, but the geographic axis doesn’t exactly coincide along the geographic axis of rotation of Earth. And the lines of force go from magnetic North to magnetic South so your compass needle is actually pointing towards magnetic South. Remember iron filings and bar magnets from physics class?…Which is kind of amazing. The magnetic field is produced by some remarkable result of the convection of molten hot iron alloys in the core of the Earth. Kind of hard to really get your head round if you’re sitting calmly at your desk or walking on a nice stable surface. Periodically, the poles switch round it seems but at the moment the magnetic South pole is actually near the point we’d normally call the geographical North pole. They’re pretty close, but the geographic axis doesn’t exactly coincide along the geographic axis of rotation of Earth. And the lines of force go from magnetic North to magnetic South so your compass needle is actually pointing towards magnetic South. Remember iron filings and bar magnets from physics class?WWW…
