Perhaps good to have on hand as first aid, but are you suggesting taking more acetaminophen and trying to protectt your liver with the cysteine? Seems high risk, low reward if so.

Cold/flu, I hate having to spend a week in bed every 8 weeks or so. Any less-known tips?

For example I thought that dealing with ear pain with a cup of pan heated salt poured into a sock and held against it (increases blood circulation and somehow that helps) is pretty universal, but just yesterday it turned out an Austrian pharmacist never heard about it. It may be new to you as well. As a traditional folk remedy, it provides very quick symptomatic belief, works in about 10 mins, but if the pain returns the next day, doctor.

For the record, the known tips are: paracetamol (tylenol) but with muchas caution as it is a liver killer, or ibuprofen (I would say if you have kids, don't even keep paracetamol/tylenol in the house, ibuprofen works just as well and is safer) vit C, hot tea preferably with honey, bed, various kinds of throat lozenges.

No stupid questions thread?

What make a person sexual submissive, sexually dominant, or a switch? Do people ever change d/s orientation?

Atlanta, GA HPMoR Wrap Party

https://www.facebook.com/events/1560468017538610/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/lts/meetup_atlanta_hpmor_wrap_party/

Are there any known groups which have high conscientiousness? I would be especially curious to know about groups with high conscientiousness and openness to experience.

Harry obviousely needs to buy some time, so he'd better start speaking. Patronus V2.0 grants only the "good" kind of power and feeds on caster's maxHP, so it could be revealed easier than partial transfiguration. Some meaningful amount of time is going to be acquired (while explaining HPJEV's viewpoint) that way, because HPJEV and LV oppose death in entirely different ways (one wants to fight it and the other one flees). But that's too easy and either is not in the solution at all or is followed but something more clever.

By the way, nobody said that that quote about falling black robes was from the good ending. Nor we have a 100% proof that Patronus V2.0 blocks any AK: it could be only LV's AK, due to resonance.

Also, assuming that both HPJEV and Hermione survive with their memories intact and have a chance to talk, it's going to be very awkward. Being murdered by LV can be expected, at least, but it's not easy at all to tell Hermione that she has just been brutally resurrected with at least three Dark rituals, has her mind state constantly backed up to a Dark item and regereneration ability similar to the one of the weapon which killed her in the first place.

I think polyamory is big in the rationalist community; what is the consensus on the effects of experimenting with it on later satisfaction with monogamy?

An interesting point, but a bad way of saying it.

I find it credible that people with different genes could have different optimal diets. How much of those difference would be between different ethnic groups, and how much would be between individuals within the same group, I have no idea. I also have no idea how much "what my ancestors ate" is close to "what would be optimal for me to eat". Also, I have no idea whether a diet optimized for a specific human would be significantly better than a diet optimized for an average human, compared with the improvement we would get by switching from an average first-world diet today.

I would like to see this question answered, preferably by someone who already doesn't have their bottom line written either way.

(A few random thoughts: Food allergies suggest that at least some individuals need wildly different diets than their neighbors. I would expect ethnic group differences in eating dairy products, and in vitamin D requirements. If Soylent becomes popular among people from different ethnic groups, we could get some nice data.)

Reposting this because I posted it at the very end of the last open thread and hence, I think, missed the window for it to get much attention:

I'm vegetarian and currently ordering some dietary supplements to help, erm, supplement any possible deficits in my diet. For now, I'm getting B12, iron, and creatine. Two questions:

• Are there any important ones that I've missed? (Other things I've heard mentioned but of whose importance and effectiveness I'm not sure: zinc, taurine, carnitine, carnosine. Convince me!)
• Of the ones I've mentioned, how much should I be taking? In particular, all the information I could find on creatine was for bodybuilders trying to develop muscle mass. I did manage to find that the average daily turnover/usage of creatine for an adult male (which I happen to be) is ~2 grams/day - is this how much I should be taking?

I’m looking for a mentor who is in the software industry.

About me: I’m studying math at a university in Ohio, and I’ll graduate in May. I’m a mostly self taught programmer, but I’ve also taken a few CS classes at school and on Coursera. My most developed skills are in Python and Django, though I’ve also used C, C#, Haskell, SQL, Javascript and a few other technologies.

My goal is to find a job as a software developer, but I face several challenges: - I don’t have any job experience in software. - I don’t know many people in the industry. - My university’s Career Services isn’t very helpful.

So I’m looking for somebody who can answer some questions and give me advice on getting started in the industry. I know it’s a long shot, but there is no downside to asking. If anybody is willing to help, please PM me.