barbarian818

barbarian818 t1_jac4sip wrote

Dude, that IS NOT a safe way to cross ice where there is an open hole. You are likely to break the edge or find a weak spot and up in the drink yourself.

What you're supposed to do is lay down on your belly and slide so your weight is better distributed.

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barbarian818 t1_j9dr51b wrote

Yes. In fact, in some ways it's already been done. Back in the early 60s Dr Jose Delgado did experiments with brain implants. In his most famous experiment, he implanted a radio receiver into the brain of a bull wired to very precise locations in the bull's brain.

The result was that he could get into the ring with that bull, get it mad enough to charge him like in a bullfight, press a button and make the bull totally lose interest in charging.

Basically, he could use a remote control to turn off anger.

In I.T. circles there is an old adage "always mount a scratch monkey". But not everyone knows its origin. Back in the late 70s, U of Toronto researchers had a monkey trained to swim, use a scuba breath regulator and so on. Mable the monkey also had many electrodes implanted in her brain so they could record the signals that her autonomic system created.

Note that this was research using 70s era hardware and a lot of kludged together signal amplifiers and processors all feeding into basically a mini mainframe in another room.

At some point, the computer Mable was hooked up to developed a fault. The manufacturer field technician got there and ran some diagnostic tests against the hard disk. However, this also meant the same diagnostic commands were also being amplified and fed into Mable's brain.

They basically tried to run a format and reinstall on a monkey's brain stem. Mable died in a massive seizure.

More recently, there have been several efforts to help paraplegics walk again by bypassing the damaged part of their spine. Think splicing a broken wire with a patch cord. Some approaches use wires and chips, others try growing new nerves and implanting them at the site of the injury. There has been just enough success to justify further research but not a complete cure.

So from a hardware perspective, we totally could remotely control another person. But getting the exact spot, would be enormously challenging. Achieving coordinated movement would take a huge jump in technique. About the best we could do mentally is turn moods on or off. We don't know enough about cognition to actually change thought.

Now; as for the challenge of controlling a dead body. Luigi Galvani back in the 1700s successfully made severed frog legs twitch and jump in response to an electric impulse. But a key fact is that he was using very recently killed frogs in his experiments. (Publication of his results was a big part of the inspiration for Frankenstein)

But muscle movement is not a purely electrical phenomenon. Electric signals act as the catalyst for chemical reactions. Some of these chemicals get used up with each movement. Living tissue just replenishes them. (A supply of oxygen and glucose is crucial) ALL of the chemicals involved start to degrade after death. Within a very short time, the chemicals no longer respond to electrical stimulation.

This is why it is physically impossible for zombies from dead bodies to exist. Zombies as living beings infected with a sentience destroying disease is at least possible, albeit wildly improbable, at least as an overnight phenomenon.

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barbarian818 t1_j5n9wch wrote

Mechanically speaking, you only need to replace the sections that have failed.

But aesthetically you may be better off replacing all of it. But from the description, it sounds like you only really need to replace the bead running around the perimeter of the tub.

There's really not that many possible colors for caulking. Transparent, white and almond are the most common. But other colors do exist. Colors do shift as the caulk ages and gets bleached by cleaning chemicals, so you will not be able to perfectly match the colors.

But getting at least close in color should be good enough.

My advice about installation is

  1. Cut away all the failed caulk, don't caulk over failing caulking

  2. Use a plastic caulk scraping tool to make sure all caulk has been removed.

  3. make sure the tub surface and surround surface is very clean and dry.

  4. use your finger to smooth over where the new caulk joins the good caulk. You want to make sure there is no gap there.

  5. remember: you can't ruin it with a bad caulk job. At worst, you have to scrape clean and try again.

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barbarian818 t1_itu1w0v wrote

I know the feeling of not wanting to use what seems like your last hope.

I haven't tried a full trip. I have a history of what doctors call a paradoxical response to certain psychoactive medications. Basically, anything with a hypnotic effect may instead trigger bad hallucinations and major aggression.

So I hesitate to take a full dose

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barbarian818 t1_itshfr0 wrote

I know. Right now I am doing 200 mg every other day. I plan on staying at that level for at least 6 months before making changes.

My big concern right now is on potency and varying chemistries. I know cannabis can have very different effects depending on the exact strain. I assume that shrooms are similar to that.

Plus, it's my understanding that there is a lot of variation in potency within a strain or even with the same batch

Where I am, I can't consistently get the same strain and there's no chance of having an assay done to gauge potency.

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barbarian818 t1_itsbkf2 wrote

I'm currently experimenting with psilocybin microdosing to treat depression and anhedonia.

When I started this, there seemed to be early results that supported the idea. Small samples, a lot of anecdotal information. Not much peer reviewed material, but very encouraging all the same.

Since then, I've seen other reports that any beneficial effect might just be the placebo or expectancy effects at work.

So, what's the current understanding in the scientific community? Has it reached a consensus either way?

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