proteinbased

If you interpret "computer" as a concepts rather than a specific class of devices, your view might shift.

Regarding bicycles, I feel compelled to share one of my favourite articles on wikipedia. [1] Still, I think the point you made is valid.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamic...

- Noticing that thinking constantly about things using language puts reality into categories that are essentially made up.

This is a revelation of even higher magnitude for me. Especially if you are multilingual, you notice how many of your ideas about the world are shaped (or at least influenced) by the language you use, which might be helpfull to some, and limiting to others. I think this is what Wittgenstein wanted to express in his famous quote: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world"

I did not claim that legumes are some kind of wonder food with the ideal balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. Of course you need to eat different kinds of vegetables/fruit/plants. As for fats, nuts are a good choice. But you can also buy all kinds of oils, if you are afraid that an all vegetable diet will leave you with too little of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetable_oils

Depends on your interpretation of plants. Legumes do contain a fair share of protein.

https://xkcd.com/1102/

great eli5. I attended a lecture by one of the Wendelstein-7X engineers a month ago, and the main reason why they would construct such a thing (took 10 years), from what I figured, was that a tokamak is operated in short pulses, whereas the stellarator runs smoothly.

Wiki: However, stellarators, unlike tokamaks, do not require a toroidal current, so that the expense and complexity of current drive and/or the loss of availability and periodic stresses of pulsed operation can be avoided, and there is no risk of toroidal current disruptions. It might be possible to use these additional degrees of design freedom to optimize a stellarator in ways that are not possible with tokamaks.

I thought it would be 'luxury yacht' ;)

I did not indent to convey that the empirical findings in biology/chemistry are not important. I agree that you do not necessarily need a quantum description to understand biological phenomena, but sometimes (eg single electrons in photosynthesis , bond breaking/formation) you do. Molecular simulations however were not what I was picturing when I wrote my comment. If I understand you correctly, you think because of the emergent character of biological systems, the physical approach is too reductionist. But the emergence we observe is due to (non equilibrium) thermodynamics, which is studied primarily in statistical physics. I guess what I want to say is that we should be aware that many interesting problems are found at the borders of disciplines which were shaped by historical happenstance. Example: there is immense overlap between chemistry and solid state physics, still they are considered as distinct disciplines.

I think just the opposite is true. Biology can not explain life without physics, there might not be a complete understanding yet, but physics and math are the only tools that will get us there. Chemistry too, needs physics all the time. I think separating science is a historical relic, everything we know is physics and math, even if it might be hard to recognize in some biological phenomena. But after all, they tend to be rather complex. I am not sure what indistinguishable from physics is supposed to mean, but it sounds philosophical to me.

I am not a communist, but I must point out, that it works exactly the same way with capitalism too. If you got some time, there is a great documentation called 'The Century of the Self', which shows (among other things) how modern marketing in western countries started and evolved.

Short answer: because he was employed by tobacco firms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher

I like the writing style and assume this piece is well-intentioned. However, speaking as someone who had confidence problems all his life I think what he describes as (over-)confidence was actually confidence mixed with arrogance. I think confident people can not really be generalized, as confidence can be based upon many things. They might even be perfectionists. (no mutual exclusion here) But when arrogance and superiority feelings, and "I have done this for so long, I can do it in my sleep"-feelings kick in, it's where it gets dangerous.

I'm not so sure about the richness, though I get your point. (I recently pondered about the german word "jenseits" not in the sense of heaven, which it may mean, but rather as a pompous form of beyond).

I agree with the FORTRAN 77 part. But this is a misleading example. This "small" language has a very specific audience in scientists and engineers (not even computer engineers). I think the point the top comment makes assumes we all wrote something like python with C and FORTRAN extensions used when appropriate.