N=15 is a normal size on FMRI studies. It is about the smallest size you can have and still make your significance cut offs while still detecting decently small effects. The time and cost is so much higher than other studies. Some of the bigger FMRI studies start to reach 30-40 ppl. Getting into clinical trial sizes of subjects is unheard of.

The other thing with FMRI studies that most everyone doesn’t understand is that they aren’t actually looking at activity. They are looking at the BOLD response (blood oxygen level dependance) and that is then correlated to activity. Meaning You can only see blood oxygen uptake. You are not seeing neuron firing, just the metabolic side effect of oxygen use after increased neuron use. This is why you will never be able to see something like a “thought process”. You can only track structures/locations used.

At the same time we know that no two brains are wired the same even for the smallest of tasks, but they will “structure” their wiring the same. There have been literally hundreds of studies that indirectly see that. Soeach other. Plot out cultural differences versus individual differences would be basically two variance plots on top of eachother.

Participants 120 We analyzed fMRI data from N = 15 (2 male, 13 female) participants aged between 22 and 35 121 years (mean: 25.5) who took part in a previously published fMRI study about color vision 122 (Bannert & Bartels, 2018). The participants were the subset from the prior study for whom the 123 cortical retinotopic representations of the visual field were measured along both the polar and 124 the eccentricity axis of the visual field. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal visual 125 acuity and were tested for normal color vision using Ishihara color plates (Ishihara, 2011). Each 126 participant gave written informed consent before the first study session. The experiment was 127 approved by the local ethics committee of the Tübingen University Hospital.

Ignore the numbers 120-127, those are line numbers.

Doesn’t say. To be fair, you normally aren’t allowed to collect biographical data or any additional identifying data without a specific purpose tied directly to your research question. If they wanted to answer your question they would have to redo the study under a different IRB application. Interesting question, but I would guess you wouldn’t see a difference in an fmri. The voxel sizes for functional are normally 2mm while what you are eluding to is the difference of a few thousand neurons wired a little differently. That difference would be extremely difficult to detect with 2mm voxels. Even at 1mm it would be difficult. When it comes to brain structures there really aren’t significant different between races or cultures more than the variance that already exists between people.

Every person eating out of a dumpster is a failure of the system. How has our economy not incentivized creating a method yet to maximize the wealth we could be extracting from these people?? We could slap a simple coin op slot onto those dumpsters and operate them like an unregulated vending machine. We could come up with a subscription model to allow monthly access to eating out of them. We could even figure out some form of alternative decentralized money system to get around FTC regulations and pesky labor laws on how we pay and receive the money from these homeless people. Capitalism is the greatest economic system ever created and we need to find a place in it for the homeless to contribute their fair share to the shareholders.

I love a good impossible burger over a normal burger for the big reason of how I feel after. Eating a normal burger as I am getting older means that I feel full in a gross way after, like I can feel the fat from the burger slowing me down, and I feel tired both physically and mentally and I sometimes feel borderline sick for an hour or so after. But with the impossible burgers I can just feel full in a healthy way. I love it. I will admit to also getting it with bacon though for that extra flavor.

I an pretty anti factory farm and love the idea of cutting out at least burgers from their industry. I also enjoy their sausages. Highly recommend them if you have not tried them. I try to cut out bulk meat eating for the environment and keep it to occasional, smaller portions, and even then it is normally chicken. Impossible meat helps scratch that itch if I want some meat but don’t want to commit to blowing my personal weekly allotment of red meat.

There are some great lists here. I am just going to add- put a whole home water filter on the cold water line of the kitchen sink. It has changed my life. I only need to replace the filter at most once a year, it is on the cold water line that is almost as good a fridge water dispenser would be, but with more pressure. And now when I make pasta, fill up the coffee pot, make tea, or whatever other random kitchen thing that needed water, it is filtered water. Not to mention the clean taste.

I’ve been writing a 175k word One Piece fanfic for about 6 months.

Imma pause you right there. I’m in the middle of writing a dissertation and from the bottom of my heart struggling to find the words- fuck you. 175k in 6 months? I have good days writing 175 words. Fuck you. I wrote a scifi book that is around 75k words and it took about a year to get the draft done.

I want to start an appliance company that offers 10 year warranties with an additional 5 year replaceable parts availability promise. The designs will be simple, functionality simple with minimal quality of life improvements, and all repair manuals will be published on the website along with tutorial videos, while also banking on building a product that simply lasts longer.

I’m willing to bet that if that is what you advertise on, the longevity of the product at a minimal price, then the company should do fine.

Everyone always talks about speed queens and I always have to chime in. The cost isn’t worth it. As shitty and consumerist as it sounds, it has been far cheaper to replace every few years than buy a speed queen. For one SQ washer I could buy 3 of my Samsung washers, and for one SQ dryer I could buy 4 of my Samsung ones. I got both my washer and dryer used. The washer was bad within the first year and replaced with a near new referb and it has been good for 5 years. The dryer is still working After the 6 years I have had it. They cost me a fraction of the SQ price even with the extra washer purchase and still work. Even if they both broke every other year and got replaced, my 10 year cost is still less than buying a SQ. The price just isn’t worth it.

It shouldn’t. Older mags with poor tolerances and poorly designed followers used to have this issue and that is where people got into the habit of saying/doing/teaching that. Newer mags with better openings and followers no longer have this issue. This is true for both the AR and the AK platforms, the two most popular platforms in the world.

Look up TASS news. That is all.

To be fair, gas stoves put out a lot of benzene and are known to increase cancer rates in those who live in homes with natural gas stoves. If anything they should be taxed to pay into cancer healthcare costs.

While I understand the resentment of saying an institution is a person, and I agree- they still have constitutional rights. To say that private institutions don’t have a right to free speech is the same as saying that the government is allowed to dictate what companies can and can’t say. Authoritarians would love for you to push that idea.

Under your same thinking (Harvard isn’t a person and has no right to a first amendment? OK): Then Harvard resisting against the trump administration is illegal and we find it treasonous to be funneling in possible spies from adversarial countries under the guise of education. We need to lock up anyine who works at any higher ed institution unless they can swear loyalty to America (trump) because they might be complicit in this spy ring. And don’t forget, the universities can be searched at any time for evidence and assumed guilty without trial because they aren’t a person and don’t have constitutional rights! Can we charge the university entity with state laws or federal laws? Both! They don’t have rights to protect against double jeopardy!

I find it funny that the tankies still think Russia can hold their own in a fight against NATO when they let can’t even beat up on their smaller neighbor with NATO hand-me-downs and previous generation surplus gear.

I would also add:

I like to only make (cloud), so when people ask me for cloud(s) I can just give them (cloud)(cloud)(cloud). It’s the same thing and also more accessible.

Increases in other contracts that funnel tax money into oligarc pockets but provide no value to tax payers, decrease in revenue collected to offset expenses due to IRS cuts and tax code changes, and the other big one is from judicial fund settlements that have already surpassed pre trump levels.

I would also encourage people to go to midnight showings of Tommy Wiseau’s ‘The Room’ and watch as people throw handfuls of plastic spoons at the screen. Also fun.

I miss HEB. family owned and private. Thus why they get away with treating their employees so well, paying them well, and supporting their communities all while also being the largest private employer in the state of Texas. That company is a great example of how a company can both grow to a large size and not be evil. If they ever go public you know all of its charm will instantly get cut in the name of shareholder value.

This article is written with some wild speculations by both the author of the article and the source they are quoting. When cell phones are cracked for evidence they have to use write blockers when they copy the phone. They do the analysis on the copy. The original is then re-copied in court to show what was found. This way the original is never tampered with and made inadmissible, and whatever analysis bullshit you did isn’t mixed in with your court room copy. What this also means is that your AI can hallucinate all it wants and make up any evidence you can imagine all day long, but when you get into the court room and have to then point to where the conclusions came from and you can’t-you will be standing there with a dick on your forehead and with a case being tossed out.

Think of a more direct democracy. I will oversimplify enough to annoy those from Switzerland:

Differing levels of law require differing thresholds. Country votes on a law, the majority above the required threshold vote it in. It becomes a national law. That is easy. What about when it fails? Then look to the state level. Did it pass the threshold for your state? Yes? Then it is a state law. Failed state level? Let’s look at your county/city/local level. Passed threshold? Local law.

Again, over simplified, but general idea.