iammandalore

Nerve agents aren't based on chlorine. Most are organo-phosphates like VX. They act as cholinesterase inhibitors. The short of it is, the nervous system sends a chemical signal to the muscles to contract, immediately followed by a signal to relax. The cholinesterase inhibitors bond to the second chemical, preventing the muscles from relaxing.

This leads to full-body muscle contractions, trouble breathing, excessive drooling and tearing of the eyes... It's not fun, and a shower won't fix it.

Does this disproportionately affect people who speak English as their second language, or who use dialects like AAVE? I assume the answer is probably yes, but I'm curious about your perspective.

I went to BBY with a gift card once with my wife, to get her a laptop. We ended up settling on a Lenovo Ideapad Yoga. The gift card was for $250 I think. We stood in line for a while, then, because it was taking so long, got shuffled to another line.

We stood behind this couple trying to buy an Apple laptop, not sure of the exact model. They argued and argued with the sales associate and manager. They were getting a student discount on the laptop, I believe, as well as a percentage off for signing up for a BBY credit card. I want to say this ended up bringing the price of the laptop down from about $1000 to $750 or so, and the manager knocked another $50 off just for kicks and giggles. Despite the steep discount, they continued arguing about how the laptop should be cheaper.

We got shuffled back to the first line and did our best to be polite, despite the huge wait time at that point. The manager brought us to the line personally and told the associate to give us another $50 off the laptop we were getting. The manager ended up handling our sale when the girl looked a little unsure how to do that. he also made sure we got Office 365 with her student email address and he threw in a $50 gift card.

And that's the story of how we got an $800 laptop and several movies for $500. As we left I'm pretty sure I heard the manager telling the couple that they were getting $300 off an Apple product and that was all they could do, and that if they thought they could get it cheaper elsewhere they were welcome to try.

So... I guess the moral of the story is: I'm sorry for people who work in retail.

So when does the black hole eat us?

Also: where are you hiding Gordon Freeman?

Modification to first question: When do you estimate the portal to Xen will be opened?

---

Seriously though, this is some cool science you guys are doing. What's your favorite part of it all?

Does Kaspersky and GReAT spend much time reviewing the effectiveness of hardware solutions for security? As part of an overall solution for information security, my company prefers to install Fortinet firewalls for customers. How do you think the various hardware security solutions are keeping up with advanced, targeted attacks and is anyone out there doing anything that puts them ahead of the pack in that regard?