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All of N_R's Comments + Replies

Advice in fighting depression?
N_R10

Thank you! I read it a while ago, but i couldn't recollect it properly and it doesn't come up within the first 5 sites of search results with "depression" as key word.

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Advice in fighting depression?
N_R10

yes, she has already a fixed date.

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Advice in fighting depression?
N_R20

december 2009

The depression began slowly in September 2010 and is now climaxing.

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Advice in fighting depression?
N_R20

Thank you. What convinced you to take the drug? And where can you inform yourself about the withdrawal symptoms and the effectiveness?

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1mutterc
I'm not the parent poster, but chiming in for crazymeds.us. They'll tell you in detail about the withdrawal symptoms, side effect, half-lives, etc. I've been on venlafaxine (Effexor) for a few years. If I miss my morning dose (rare), by 1600 I'll feel pretty wonky (e.g. dizzy when I move my head). My shrink says if I'm to go off of it I can titrate the dose down to something low, then go on Prozac concurrently, reduce the venlafaxine to zero then come off the Prozac. But that's pretty much the worst of antidepressant dependence, and others are easier to stop taking (though you would likely still need to work your way down). As others have pointed out, they don't make you artificially happy, they "clear the fog" of sadness. There's evidence for this - antidepressants have no "street" value as a drug of abuse. I personally started (with both meds and therapy) upon realizing I needed help, after spending a weekend interested in neither food nor sex. The meds have made a huge difference (not least in employability). Therapy is also a big help, as I can realize what's going on before getting too far down a depressive spiral.
Advice in fighting depression?
N_R40

Thank you. I think the anorexia is mainly a result of the depression. Her blood got checked a few months ago and everything seemed fine, but there is surely room for improvement. She eats very little meat, maybe she has a iron deficiency.

The main reasons for the depression seems to be the death of her father and the chronic pain, wich showed up long before the depression. Maybe there is also a genetic componence because her mother says about herself, that she has also very often "low mood". But she thinks it's just the way things are.

I will read up on vitamins. Do you think you can trust wikipedia in this respect?

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1NancyLebovitz
How long ago did her father die?
Open Thread: January 2010
N_R10

"Imagine the human race gets wiped out. But you want to transmit the so far acquired knowledge to succeeding intelligent races (or aliens). How do you do?"

I got this question while reading a dystopia of a world after nuclear war.

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1[anonymous]
Transmitting it to aliens ain't happening; we'd get them from radio to the present day, a couple hundred years' worth of technology, which is relatively little, and that's only if we manage to aim it right. So, we want to communicate to future sapient species on Earth. I say take many, many plates of uranium glass and carve into it all of our most fundamental non-obvious knowledge: stuff like the periodic table, how to make electricity, how to make a microchip, some microchip designs, some software. And, of course, the scientific method, rationality, the non-exception convention (0 is a number, a square is a rectangle, the empty product is 1, . . .), and the function application motif (the way we construct mathematical expressions and natural-language phrases). Maybe tell them about Friendly AI, too.
Drawing Two Aces
N_R20

I think Scenario 2 is wrong.

If you know, that one card is an ace, the probability that the second card is also an ace is 1/3, because there are two non aces and one ace remaining.

The tricky thing is, that it´s completely irrelevant, if the ace is of spades or of hearts. Remember, the question is if you hold both aces! Just distinguish between aces and non-aces..

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3Bo102010
It helps to enumerate the possible worlds: In the beginning you can have: (1) AS, AH (2) AS, 2C (3) AS, 2D (4) AH, 2C (5) AH, 2D (6) 2C, 2D After answering "Yes" to "Do you have an ace," the possible worlds are (1) AS, AH (2) AS, 2C (3) AS, 2D (4) AH, 2C (5) AH, 2D That is, in world (6) you would not answer "Yes," so it is eliminated. After picking one of your aces randomly, the possible worlds are: (1a) AS, AH -> AS in one possible sub-world (1b) AS, AH -> AH in another possible sub-world (2) AS, 2C -> AS (3) AS, 2D -> AS (4) AH, 2C -> AH (5) AH, 2D -> AH You're counting (1a) and (1b) as 1 each, then dividing by the six worlds to get 1/3, but the trick is that those two worlds are not as likely as the others - (edited for clarity) half the time world (1) evolves into (1a); half the time it evolves into (1b). So if you count (1a) and (1b) as 0.5 each and the rest as 1 each, then the probability of having both aces is (0.5 + 0.5) / (0.5 + 0.5 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) = 1/5.