andrewducker

I'll post the same comment that I did when nwhyte posted the link to Rosi Sexton's blog -- that her advice is good, but:

1. Although megaloads of cardio are less use than strength training to you, everyone should be doing some sweaty cardio and that will help a lot with improving sleep quantity and quality, and:

2. Sugar doesn't have to be refined to be bad for you in quantity -- see your other link on fructose as an example. Wonderful unrefined sugars like whole dates and honey are still 'sometimes' foods.

Absolutely, on both counts. I rarely find I'm not strong enough, but at least a couple of times a week I wish that my cardio-fitness levels were higher. And any kind of sugar, or anything that's very quickly converted to sugar, is definitely to be taken in moderation.

Lol. I almost never want more cardio fitness in life but frequently more strength. And I never do cardio, well, some swimming, but I hardly thrash it.

Hahaha foxed it with a lookbehind.

Unsurprisingly, the discussion on HN also started with "Look, it doesn't cope with this!"
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4996927

Eh programmers. First thing we do with something is try and break it!!!

Oh yes. Any experienced dev knows that software breaks, and that it's vitally important to know what will break it, so that you don't do that again!

Hey there - do you use a blogging s/w to crosspost between here and dreamwidth? If so, which one?

DW will do it itself - if you look under "settings" and "Other sites" then you'll find the necessary options.

The Telegraph's scientific ignorance article oddly (to me anyway) doesn't mention that C.P. Snow said exactly the same thing in 1959 in The Two Cultures. It seems nothing changes. Humanities people don't care about science and no-one beyond the discipline cares about History and Philosophy of Science.

Yes, I was just coming here to say the same thing. Though I'm glad you linked to the Wikipedia page, because I'd forgotten the amusing point that Snow's original example was that none of those arty people could name the Second Law of Thermodynamics – which, thanks to Flanders and Swann, there's now at least some chance they might :-)

Indeed, I'd argue that Snow was building on Wells' Time Machine and the frolicking, ignorant "Eloi" within it.

-- Steve thinks we should be invoking Wells and Huxley (Brave New World) when discussing this with the educated-but-sci-ignorant crowd to put the problem in their own terms.

I care about Philosophy of Science! But that's because I studied philosophy at university for two years :->

We had some HPS lectures in my natsci course. Hated them. If they'd done HISTORY that might have been interesting. But no. it was bullshit about interpreting QM (I don't give a shit).

Being vain about stuff that doesn't do much takes more defensiveness than being vain about stuff you can point to the results of.

I wish I could remember who came up with the definitive rebuttal to the Two Cultures thing: “There aren’t two cultures. There are only half cultured people.”

The scientific pig ignorance thing is a manifestation of a wider "some knowledge is uncool to know" problem. I bet we all know someone who is proud not to know anything about popular music or celebrity gossip or computer games or soap operas etc. Knowing x should ALWAYS be better than not knowing x.

He's absolutely right though. I fear the influence of my alma mater (or at least certain colleges) in the British establishment may have something to do with this. There was a very definite arts / science divide when I was there in the early 90s (I was on the arts side). Beautiful people did arts subjects (not that I was especially beautiful). Ugly smelly nerds did science subjects. Or at least that's what the prejudice was.

When the college science library was moved into the main college library, one arts student wrote a not entirely un-serious anonymous letter to the college newsletter complaining that the science students' body odour made it difficult to concentrate.