A big review of recent research into psychedelic drugs. Worth reading simply for the flashing rainbow bar graphs :D
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It is just unreal that so many members of the Israeli public and political class could watch a video of an IDF soldier shooting to death a severely wounded man who was lying on the ground, posing no threat, and still celebrate that soldier as a hero. This is clearly murder by any definition of the term, and the only conclusion to draw is that they simply believe this murder was justified.
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The government's plan for Brexit is apparently "wish on a star" (and presumably "find someone to blame when it all goes horribly wrong")
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Interesting observation. Having learned to drive in South Africa, I think I definitely have more of a tendency to edge forward before entering the stream of traffic than do most people from developed countries (and I've had to adjust that behaviour to extent as I've learned to drive more safely in the UK).
"Maybe there is greater variability in rational assumptions about the other drivers. You may not know how well their cars can brake, accelerate, and perhaps their lane-switching plans and propensities are harder to predict. So by nudging your car out in successive bits, you may be “taking the temperature” of the other drivers on the road. Keep in mind that they, too, may not have a good sense of how well your car can accelerate (furthermore some of the vehicles are tuks-tuks, not cars). A willingness to make more nudges may be telling the other drivers that your engine is pretty good and your will is strong."
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:'( :'(
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"A transgender woman has been found dead in her cell at an all-male prison, apparently the third trans prisoner to take their own life in little over a year...
A friend said the 49-year-old had asked to be placed in a women’s prison and had become miserable, sad and ill after being refused female hormones in HMP Doncaster." Guardian
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😱
"“If you lose sight of your keys for the better part of 20 seconds, you should consider them lost. If you find them later, consider them a souvenir.” Wired
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Wow, this really puts the emission standards cheating on diesel cars into perspective... It turns out you CAN have a (relatively) clean-burning diesel engine, and manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles are building them!
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"Many people think that 2016 was particularly bad, but data tells us that it is not an exception. In fact, we should expect more famous people to die in 2017 than in 2016. Why? The answer is simple: because the number of famous people has increased over time." MIT Media Lab
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"Some hospitals are trying to make caregiving jobs seem manly — like with a recruitment poster comparing the “adrenaline rush” of being an operating room nurse to mountain climbing." NY Times
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I see this dude is well-intentioned, and obviously it's good to raise money for Crisis, but surely it would have been better to commission an *actual homeless person* to write this piece? (and pay them a decent wage for it)
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Speaking of pollution from diesel engines... 😱😱😱
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This just keeps getting more horrific...
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"Soon after the [stand-your-ground] law took effect in Florida, there was a sudden and sustained 24% jump in the monthly homicide rate. The rate of homicides involving firearms increased by 32%. The authors found that in states without a stand-your-ground law over the same time period those rates remained flat, suggesting that a nationwide crime wave was not to blame for the abrupt increase." Economist
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"It seems obvious that if prisoners were not in fear of legal repercussions from doing so, many would choose to use cannabis instead – most users claim to prefer it, and it is undoubtedly less risky. Cannabis use results in less hospitalisation, less addiction and less violence. As a harm reduction strategy, some form of decriminalisation/tolerance of cannabis seems an attractive proposition if it displaced the growing problems associated with [synthetic cannibinoids]."
"...the role of prohibition in driving the prisons crisis cannot be ignored. Along with the 10-20% of prisoners who are jailed for drugs related offenses there are the 50% of the remainder who are inside for crimes related to their involvement in the drugs market or fundraising to buy drugs." Transform
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Apparently the best way to prevent peanut allergies is to start feeding babies peanuts ASAP!
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I love the incredibly alarmist tone of this piece combined with various bits of extremely good news for drug users :D
1) ""Patrick" told us that it's illegal for him to open suspect parcels and there's "nothing he can do about it".'
2) "I've spent 14 years as a postman in uniform and I have never seen a drug dog,"
3) "About a third of people said they'd broaden their drug-using repertoire,"
4) "Tests found the pill's only active ingredient was MDMA"
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The racial overtones of the war on drugs are as apparent in France as they are anywhere else (although the French state, of course, never talks about race or acknowledges its racism)
"French teens have some of the highest levels of cannabis use in Europe, and I noticed that my white, middle-class friends in France seemed to think drugs were already effectively decriminalised. The police don’t bother them about it; it’s no big deal. By contrast, the French people of Arab or African descent I got to know told a different story."
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People, there has *never* been a fatal overdose at *any* supervised injecting facility (about 90 of them exist, all over the world)
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Aha, this clarifies for me the superiority of Signal over WhatsApp for privacy, despite both using end-to-end encryption (WhatsApp stores lots more meta-data)
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Where are the all the conventionally attractive lefties we need to save us?!
"Since good-looking politicians win more votes, a beauty advantage for politicians on the left or on the right is bound to have political consequences. We show that politicians on the right look more beautiful in Europe, the United States and Australia. Our explanation is that beautiful people earn more, which makes them less inclined to support redistribution. Our model of within-party competition predicts that voters use beauty as a cue for conservatism when they do not know much about candidates and that politicians on the right benefit more from beauty in low-information elections. Evidence from real and experimental elections confirms both predictions." Science Direct
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:( :(
"Tonight, January 9th, Backpage.com has removed its Adult content section as the result of ongoing legal and congressional pressure and unconstitutional censorship.
As we and our chapters have previously written, this closure has deeply impacted our communities, removing a unique, low-cost and low-barrier way for some of the most marginalized individuals in the adult industry who otherwise might have relied on a third-party or riskier street-based sex work to earn a living." SWOP-USA
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This article is like "OMG so weird that all these private security firms are based in this cute, quaint little town!" and I mean, come on, this whole ISLAND is cute, quaint and thoroughly militaristic.
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:'( :'(
"... sex workers have long argued that Backpage provides a safe public platform to vet clients and report predators, and that without it, the industry will be pushed further underground. On Tuesday, activists said the termination had removed a source of income for many vulnerable people and would force some with no choice but to work on the streets where they are much more likely to face violence and police harassment." Guardian
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This case raises really interesting questions... Obviously online content needs to be moderated, but how do you ensure the psychological wellbeing of the moderators who may see extremely violent or otherwise disturbing content? Are some people better suited to it than others? How would you design support structures to help people cope? Is it best to have relatively few people doing this sort of work, or would it be better to 'share the load'?
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