I don't know what effect neurotransmitter precursors have on endogenous production, which is why that information would be useful so we can better judge their safety. The steroid example was to point out that there could be substantial repercussions from taking a substance which you produce naturally. You don't even have to take excessive doses -- take in only as much as you would normally make and your body's production may drop to zero, since it's now being completely replaced. Steroids must be cycled down gradually, because going off cold turkey just leaves you with a crashed endocrine system. If neurotransmitter replacement works similarly, one can imagine a few problems that might crop up with a crashed brain.
> Choline precursors don't seem to have these same "down-regulation" harmful side effects when taken in moderation to bring brain acetylcholine levels back into "normal range."
"Don't seem"? Human studies needed. Maybe these already exist -- that would be handy. I'm not familiar with neurotransmitter supplementation.
Taking something because you have a deficit is indeed different from trying to massively exceed your nominal levels.
In the context of performance-enhancing mental drugs, exceeding your typical levels is of course the point of the exercise.
> "programmer burnout" which likely involved depleted acetylcholine levels in the brain
Possibly, but that assumption seems like it could be quite a leap.
Kind of like saying coffee works because of depleted caffeine levels in the brain. In fact, we have no data on what caused his particular case of "burnout". We can well imagine that an adrenaline shot, cocaine, ephedrine, and many other drugs could well "restore performance", but that doesn't indicate there was a deficit of those particular substances.
Provigil and Ritalin may also help but that doesn't mean there was a deficit of those, either.
An ACh deficit is only one of a bazillion possible reasons for "burnout".
12.5m users is pretty impressive considering what they're up against.
Facebook is vulnerable. The obvious way to hijack is to pull a Facebook on Facebook itself -- ask for your FB password and then copy out all your information, and msg all your friends.
If you could click a button and do a horizontal transfer to an equivalent service any time some other service crossed the line of what's acceptable to you, people would migrate in droves. Big companies survive because of inertia -- the truly disruptive technology that the Net should enable is to remove it.
"Plan B (R) is not a substitute for routine birth control. It's important to remember that Plan B (R) does not protect you from HIV infection (the virus that causes AIDS) or any other sexually transmitted disease (STD)."
There's a converter for 2.x to 3.x. Or you can transition code by hand -- there are some differences in some places. Breaking backward compatibility just means not everything is guaranteed to work the same -- it does NOT mean that now everything is different. It's still Python.
Being "out of date" doesn't make any sense -- today's libraries aren't suddenly going to become less functional later. The stuff that works today will still work 5 years from now.
You change versions IF the new version gives you something you need. You don't change just because it's new.
And, always, the paper tiger is better than the real one. Not doing something today because it'll be outdated in a few years would mean never doing anything in the computer industry.
"Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex, which is the next phase of the Blue Brain project, due to begin next year. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain."
GIYF. "Dimethylaminoethanol is related to choline and is a biochemical precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine" (ACh).
"In the central nervous system, ACh has a variety of effects as a neuromodulator, e.g. for plasticity and excitability. Other effects are arousal and reward."
Do you remember Andro (androstenedione, used to be available in stores, used by Mark McGwire)? It's a testosterone precursor. Your liver converts it to testosterone (and also some amount converts to estrogens). So a neurotransmitter precursor would seem to be a bit like steroids for the brain.
Not sure how external supplementation affects endogenous neurotransmitter production, but with hormone precursors the biofeedback loop tells your endocrine system to stop its own production. E.g. if you take testosterone, your body shuts down its own production (when your testosterone level hits a certain point, your body thinks "oh, that's enough for now" and hits the off-switch on your testicles. This turns off ALL their functions, so it's actually also a form of birth control. And since they aren't doing anything, they atrophy).
Fun note: Your body tries to keep your testosterone:estrogen ratio at about 50:1 (for young men). So if you take androgenic steroids, your body increases its own estrogen production. Once you hit a certain absolute amount of estrogen, you're growing breast tissue.
Then you are a man. With titties.
(Bodybuilders combat this by using certain steroids that don't aromatize into estrogen as much, and also using anti-estrogens that either bind to the aromatase enzyme to stop conversion into estrogen, or bind to the actual estrogen receptor sites like Clomid. One interesting effect of Clomid -- that makes it attractive to male porn stars -- is it causes big pop shots.)
Equating education with school is kind of silly. Government (public) school is just about the worst environment for learning.
But I'm glad you enjoyed your slavery, comrade.