I’m inclined to believe that this happens because there are strong incentives to being able to add to your resume “Directed digital modernization of Museum of Note”.
Indeed. But that is a false equivalence - this is conflict of desires between small companies and creators and an AI-corp where the AI-corp wants to steal their content and give it to users with their shop branding.
The debacle of failing to convey the concrete reality of aerosol transmission and failing to convey the concrete reality of masks that gape at the sides (“surgical masks”) fundamentally and obviously not protecting against aerosol transmission while masks that don’t gape at the sides (N95/FFP2) fundamentally and obviously and provably do protect against aerosol transmission.
The thing with the masks is exactly the same as if public shopping efficiency authorities had consistently put out the large-scale message that “bags” work to carry groceries but conflating mesh bags with non-perforated bags; Yes, mesh bags do tend to get upwards of 30% of the objects you purchase to your home. There’s an underlying insult to common sense and people are actually not stupid.
Likewise, I would add "obviously": I have never seen "obvious" used to describe anything which is obvious, only things which are not.
The phrase "common sense" is even worse, as about half the time it points to claims that are in fact false.
So, in this case, surgical masks: you say it's "obvious" they're not good enough and compare them to a mesh bag. Perhaps they are that bad, but it's not obvious, and "common sense"* suggests to me that surgeons, who are necessarily working with unwell and often immunocompromised people, will desire something that doesn't let one of the surgical team put a random bacterial mix into someone's new kidney when they sneeze.
* I am aware of the irony; and yes, despite this I can also name a famous example where surgeons collectively were very wrong
Indeed!: The case with surgeons continuing to use masks which only serve the function of arresting kinetically emitted saliva droplets when they could be using masks which afford much greater protection against a categorically wider range of complication-inducing pathogens is part of the debacle.
I chose my words carefully. Those are actually the right words.
It is plainly obvious and indisputable that the academic record shows a swath of scientifically acquired data on aerosol transmission and masks-which-do-not-gape-at-the-sides. This basis would have informed a completely different approach and result to public health authorities’ education and emission of sensible information to raise common sense to an ethical standard, if public health authorities operated… non-debacularly, to choose a word.
Having had to figure out a physiological puzzle involving histamine as an alertness-promoting neurotransmitter, and getting to see adult-onset Type 1 diabetes up close where histamine is intimately related to everything as a core part of glucose metabolism – both these aspects of histamine are well known but surprisingly underdiscussed! — I have come to see histamine as sort of a “tissue opener” signal. And with all as the vantage point, the perspective afforded even just by the headline makes immediate and intuitive sense.
Interesting!, thanks! —and also: I’m sorry you had to go through that
Had an experience with a missed type 1 diabetes diagnosis causing neuropathy in a loved one. There is a surprising amount of actionable scientific literature out on neuropathy and all sorts of other issues commonly discussed as best-you-can-do-is-wait-and-see. Once you happen to dig in and start reading.
I remember reading papers on acetyl-L-carnitine helping with diabetic neuropathy, and it was our clear experience that it did help.
There were other supplements which helped with various similar repercussions of a severe and prolonged state of elevated blood sugar, which causes oxidation and tissue damage, and isn’t dissimilar to B6 toxicity as it seems. I don’t remember exactly which nutrients/OTC medications seemed to help neuropathy, but I’d suggest looking into alpha lipoic acid (ALA; more specifically Na-R-ALA), argine, maybe BCAAs in the context of mitochondrial function. Probably some other stuff that has results out on it too.
I’d also suggest reading the molecular biology and neuroimmunobiology on NMDA receptor antagonists and 5-HT2A receptor agonists, classes both of which are shown to be “profoundly immunomodulating” as one paper put it – reducing inflammation, including neuroinflammation – as well as encouraging neuroplasticity, which is also useful in peripheral nerves. The discussion of these known molecular-biological results and implication is unfortunately swamped by various social effects; the best-known NMDA receptor antagonist is called “Ketamine”, haha, and 5-HT2A agonists are usually known as psychedelics and, uh, yeah… molly. The partying and the “wheeee” factor isn’t interesting to me; the neuroimmunobiology of it is!! And I, yeah, I emphatically recommend reading the scientific literature on that.
And generally looking for recent papers on nutrients/supplements/OTC medications in the context of all kinds of similar issues. There are often results in one sub-specialization which are applicable to other things. You don’t need to limit yourself to randomized controlled trials, especially
if considering supplementation of compounds known to be safe, rather than medication; Molecular biology is molecular biology, and it’s implausible to me that the placebo effect will reliably improve things like chronic neuropathy. Or insulin sensitivity. I’ve seen direct results on continuous glucose meters and all manner of labwork that confirm this view. —Don’t believe me; I deeply and emphatically recommend reading academic literature.
To paraphrase a nice-seeming guy,
Read papers. Mostly published. Not too slowly.
ps.,
Claude is unusually good at navigating the scientific landscape!
Experiences may vary; I’ve tasted and smelled NAC.
The smell is reminescent of a high-potency cannabis strain. (Sulfur-containing molecules.)
The taste is very acidic and a bit astringent.
Generally the smell and taste of something isn’t a concern with medication. I don’t think acetaminophen tastes great.
I’ve never encountered or seen the digestive issues that are often mentioned. I’ve seen other side effects which were noticeable – mast cell and histamine related I believe, kind of weird ones, like psoriasis kind of drying out a bit and the skin on the lips “refreshing” itself. (Really!) Subtle side effects and hard to put into words without making them seem bigger and weirder than they are, but NAC can nonetheless be a sort of histamine and mast cell “flusher”, so to speak and as it seems. Beneficial in the long run imo ime, but tricky to package universally.
Still, NAC is also tragically unknown and unused! There’s tons of fascinating literature on it. They fried rats’ brains with methamphetamine and fixed them with NAC; Brutal study, intriguing results on very significant mechanisms.
I take NAC to help with hangovers, I used to get smashing headaches and people would recommend random Korean and japanese 'hangover supplements', I was obviously very skeptical and googled every ingredient to check it is safe. The ones that worked had NAC or gluthanione. Looked into it and bought some and always take it when I drink or have panadol. Have not noticed any other subjective effects
Nausea or vomitting is rare, I imagine if it were common those hangover cure sellers would go out of business
Interesting!, thanks! NAC is all over the place; I didn’t know about this application.
And yeah I was 100% skeptical too!
Now I’m more sceptical of the kinda “nothing is known, nothing is knowable” angle, you know? There is so much knowledge, actionable, often unread, often unused.
(Have to mention it, if useful: Na—R-ALA (alpha lipoic acid) and ambroxol are kind of in the same vein. Ambroxol is strangely a sort of bromine counterpart to NAC and its sulfur atom. Sold as a mucolytic but is… alllll over the place. Funny
how mucus, mucous membranes, the nervous system, and oxidation/redox stuff is all so adjacent it seems.
I have no idea why but after a severe period of stress, I happened to take Na-R-ALA as sometimes do and 60mg of ambroxol as mucolytic cough syrup. For a cough. And… the feeling was like in the movies where they stab someone with a giant syringe to revive them. Trainspotting or Pulp Fiction or whatever. I felt like I gasp-crawled out of a pit inside myself. It makes no sense. It was… a very distinct experience. And it didn’t seem like an airway clearance thing, more like my nervous system was refreshed.
So I hit the books. And it turns out ambroxol crosses the blood-brain barrier and is an antioxidant, and affects ion balance in neurons, and there are studies indicating it helps with… Parkinson’s and fibromyalgia (!!!). And those papers are pretty interesting and appear to be constructed on solid molecular biological premises.
That's interesting I took r-ALA before, cannot recall dosage but felt nothing of that sort or subjective/psychoactive at all. Several people I know report acute changes too when taking lion's mane but I don't
As a detail, I clearly experience the better bioavailability of Na-R-ALA. Often marketed as “stabilized”. As well as what I believe is the increased bioavailability of Na-R-ALA dissolved in water.
The main point I wanted to make is that it occurred to me when reading your comment that I know myself to be somewhat “oxidatively burdened”, if that’s a term? I have mild psoriasis, which is known to use oxidative and redox capacity in the immune system’s activation in the rash. (afaik immune cells “fire bullets” of oxidization at perceived intruders.) There are other stressors in my life which are also inherently oxidising in the molecular biology of it. I’d bet a nice bottle of Oban that that is a factor in the sense of relief.
I burned a heck of a lot of tokens on Claude Opus 4’s extended thoughts on this and the answer is most enjoyable!:
Taking this question seriously leads us into surprisingly rich territory! It's actually at the intersection of several fields that have been quietly revolutionizing game design.
The Alpha Centauri map works brilliantly because it balances several mathematical tensions:
* Resource distribution follows power laws that create natural chokepoints and valuable territories without being too predictable
* Distance metrics between faction starting positions that ensure interaction without immediate conflict
* Terrain connectivity that creates interesting path-finding problems and strategic depth
Here's where it gets really interesting:
Flow Theory Mathematics: Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow has been formalized into mathematical models. The ideal difficulty curve follows something like: `D(t) = S(t) + ε`, where difficulty matches skill level plus a small challenge margin. For maps, this translates to ensuring players always have meaningful decisions at their skill level.
Information Entropy: Good maps maintain optimal information entropy - not too random (chaos), not too ordered (boring). Researchers have found sweet spots around 0.3-0.5 on normalized entropy scales for terrain variation.
Graph Theory Applications: Maps are fundamentally graphs, and metrics like:
* Shortest path distributions (travel time variance)
...all correlate with player engagement.
The Deeper Insight: What seems naive is actually profound - by taking "fun" seriously as an optimization target, we're forced to confront what makes human decision-making satisfying. The best mathematical frameworks don't try to define fun directly, but instead optimize for decision richness - the number of meaningful, non-obvious choices available at each game state.
This is why procedural generation in modern games increasingly uses these frameworks, creating maps that aren't just random but mathematically tuned for engagement.
Most of what it said is fitting math to heuristics - “don’t put starting points too close to each other” and “have some chokepoints so there’s some battles” and “give everyone equal access to resources”
The map was likely developed iteratively via playtesting - no need even for heuristics then. Just play & ask “is it fun?”
