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forthewar

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hubskier for: 4106 days

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yahoo.com  ·  #uspolitics  ·  #eu  ·  #eu
forthewar  ·  3933 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The decisions we make -What pulls at your time that you wish you could eliminate?

Sorry for the late response, but yep. US-centrism, pardon me, haha

forthewar  ·  3936 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The decisions we make -What pulls at your time that you wish you could eliminate?

Sometimes sports takes up a fair amount of my time. Trying to follow four leagues (the big 4) while working and trying to stay on top of everything else in a productive life is kind of hard.

forthewar  ·  3944 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations

He's protected himself from Manning's great fault: he didn't release documents all willy nilly. That's going to remove one of the major arguments I (and others) had against Manning.

forthewar  ·  3989 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: George W. Bush is smarter than you | Keith Hennessey

I understand. I completely understand you consider intelligence irrelevant when compared to results. But how does that relate to someone attempting to simply explain Bush is intelligent to people who doubt otherwise?

forthewar  ·  3989 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: George W. Bush is smarter than you | Keith Hennessey

I get what you're saying, just it doesn't matter in the context of this discussion.

This article itself does not win/lose any debate about the merits of the Bush presidency, because it simply doesn't engage that debate at all. It does however, dispel the notion of Bush being unintelligent, which is an issue entirely separate from success/failure of the presidency. I have no idea why you are conflating the two. It's a non-sequitur. Like someone writing about the great Vitamin A content of potatoes and you talking about how monoculture of potatoes led to Great Irish Famine. About the same general topic, but you're railing against something that isn't the point.

Basically, my point is, I have no idea why you're upset this essay didn't to respond points it wasn't even attempting to respond to in the first place. Thesis of the essay: Bush is smart. I'd say they proved that. Why are you looking for something else?

forthewar  ·  3989 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: George W. Bush is smarter than you | Keith Hennessey

I'm under the impression this is not a defense of his presidency, merely a defense against the general "Bush was/is an idiot" attack by some on the left.

forthewar  ·  4048 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What would you do with an infinitely fast computer?

Attempt to solve de novo structures of any protein I could think of. That's the holy grail of computational biology pretty much, and overnight we could be closer to solving thousands of diseases

forthewar  ·  4068 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Black history month has been a failure

I don't understand this argument. Because a celebration has been unable to erase centuries of systematic exclusion of a people's history, it's a failure? I think Black History Month has been doing it's job, and it just has to continue doing so.

forthewar  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Scott Brown will likely not run for Senate in MA

The thing is, at this point, he'd have a well oiled machine of a campaign for Senate by now. Governor's race is a different ballgame.

forthewar  ·  4076 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Ask Hubski: Do you (or have you) work(ed) in research? If so, please read on...

Hey, I know this wasn't directed towards me, but I'm just getting started on Hubski so I don't have a name for myself haha.

I'm a structural biologist, specifically I work with glycosidases, enzymes that break down glycoproteins. These proteins are the reason for many of the lysosmal storage diseases. Generally, the one most people are familiar with is Tay-Sachs, though that is a result of failure of a lipase, not a glycosidase. Our lab works to solve the structures of these enzymes so possible pharmacological chaperones can be tested and possibly discovered.

As for whether enough resources are allocated towards science...eh. Every sector is selfish, and every sector wants to get more pieces of the pie if it can. Do I wish the NIH had more money, so then my PI would get more grants and therefore I would have more equipment and leeway? Sure. But I also realize the federal government is in a crunch and it's not just me and my field feeling the crunch. I think politicians realize how important science is.

forthewar  ·  4100 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Congress passes $9.7B Sandy relief bill

I thought their reasoning was that it didn't come with deficit cuts