Somebody must not be old enough to remember Amazon before AWS. Maybe you also don’t remember that Amazon started selling books before becoming the world’s largest fencing for selling stolen merch. They used to be the butt of many jokes for losing so much money for so many years while they expanded warehouses.
It’s mostly an English language site and there are a lot of English speakers in “the West” - I would expect that if there’s a China equivalent there aren’t that many Americans having discussions there.
Maybe the German, French, and Russian classics from around 1830-1950. The material that was considered the backbone of modern literature. At least War and Peace was mentioned in the list.
They might be a bit heavy reading but pretty much understandable even for less educated reader. The literature before that is written for people who know the Bible, Homer, Ovid etc, classic philosophies and European history thoroughly. For others it looks like nonsense or they might read it but not really get much out of it.
I don't agree with the pricing comparison, it is factually incorrect. For instance the digital ocean equivalent in AWS would not be an EC2 but a similarly sized light sail instance which is $40/monthly flat. There are also other factors like region, on demand vs reservations that are ignored.
To be clear - they shot down one F-16 with their aging MIG 21. Pakistan has a habit of denying everything. They denied Bin Laden's presence, but guess what...
Just to chime in. If you have concerns because you've heard that "vaping is bad", do some research into it. While there are billboards and other advertisements against vaping in the USA, Public Health England says that vaping is at least 95% healthier [1].
Just because it's better doesn't mean it's good. Inhaling large amounts of steam or smoke is bad for your lungs, even if it doesn't contain any carcinogens. Also, nicotine is addictive, so taking it "just because" is a bad idea (taking it to treat something is a different story, obviously). Of course, if you're looking to intake nicotine for some reason, vaping is vastly superior to smoking.
"5 people killed in riot" is still a 95% improvement over "100 people killed in riot" but that doesn't make it a good thing.
Yes, nothing is better than breathing fresh air. 100% agree.
That being said.. people are going to do it anyways. Sugar, caffeine, McDonalds, and hundreds of other things on the list that are not great for you but people do anyways.
If people are going to do it, why not choose the healthiest way to do it?
I actually don't think vaping is good because it allows the nicotine user to never realise it's possible to get over their addiction instead requiring constant replacement of smoking. This is not needed if they accept fully the difficulty of giving up but realise that every exertion of will power promotes their escape and weakens smokings hold on the user.
1. Many people that vape use it as a method to wean themselves off of nicotine completely. Since you can adjust the level of nicotine, they just use less and less until they aren't having any at all. Out of people I know that vape 3 have quit vaping/nicotine completely after a year or two, 1 vapes with no nicotine, and I vape with 1mg/ml of nicotine.
2. If someone has tried to quit smoking but keeps falling back, isn't vaping a better alternative? If someone is going to be addicted to nicotine, isn't it better that they vape rather than smoke since the harm is drastically less?
I just believe vaping makes it harder to quit for me; it is better if instead I can convince myself that it's a process that takes time but I'm improving at. For example hardly wanting to smoke after a delicious dinner tonight is great progress, if I'd have vaped I would have got a nicotine hit that wasn't as enjoyable as smoking and I would have wanted to smoke keeping me trapped in the idea I need a puff to be happy.
While I certainly don't encourage anyone to just start vaping for the sake of it, there is noting good about putting anything into your lungs other than air. But if you have tried everything else to quit smoking and nothing has worked. Vaping can help. I've seen quite a few who have just given up on the idea of quitting smoking simply because there was no alternative to the nicotine addiction. It can be a life saver in those cases.
True, but being healthier than smoking is not exactly a high bar.
If you must take nicotine as a nootropic, take it orally. Vaping is much more addictive than letting a 2mg lozenge slowly dissolve. Relative addictiveness of different ROAs is directly correlated with how quickly the drug takes effect, and when you vape the nicotine hits your bloodstream within seconds.
Also I can't mention enough that if you take an MAOI you should stay far away from nicotine.
You can vape with no nicotine at all, or you can vape from 0.1mg/ml all the way past 50mg/ml if you wanted to. "Vaping is much more addictive" is like saying sugar is more addicting from a glass of chocolate milk than than it is from a bag of gummy worms.
And I'd say 95% healthier is a pretty good margin.
You should understand that different drug delivery methods will have different impacts on a drug's half life and effect (intensity) on your body. Inhaling is more powerful than taking orally. Shooting up is more powerful than inhaling.
Inhaling cigarette smoke is an almost instant intake of nicotine. Vaping it is not nearly so. It’s still an open question as to why, but the current thought is because the atomized liquid droplets are much, much larger than the smoke particulates that come from burning tobacco. The atomized liquid doesn’t make it into the alveoli where it directly enters the bloodstream. Instead, the vapor coats the bronchial and nasal passages and is slowly absorbed that way.
There’s still debate as to whether the bulk of the nicotine is even absorbed in the lungs vs. deposited vapor in the nasal and oral mucosa. But whatever the route, vaping is significantly slower than smoking—something that a lot of “switchers” don’t appreciate. (They don’t get the instant gratification that they did when taking that first drag off of a cigarette.)
I don’t mean to refute your point. The hierarchy of drug intake is legitimate. But vaping is more like “inhalation*” with an asterisk. Maybe faster than a lozenge or patch, but definitely slower than smoking it.
On the other hand, I would say smoking crack is much more addictive than snorting cocaine but that's just my opinion. Maybe someone with more exerience could weigh in?
I would tend to agree that lozenges might be a better option, unfortunately for myself I get hiccups from the lozenges and nightmares from patches so I have made the choice to vape over smoking. I am a bit concerned with the glycerin and glycol that is enentering my bloodstream may be causing me to gain weight but that might just be me self medicating with food aswell. Hands down vaping is better than smoking as a nicotine delivery method..imho
part of the problem with this is that, from what i've heard, the actual action of putting the cigarette to your mouth is addictive as well. in many cases, people will advise smokers to do the action with a pen or some such to help with that. i can only imagine that vaping would be even closer, and help even more
"Currently available evidence indicates that electronic cigarettes are by far a less harmful alternative to smoking and significant health benefits are expected in smokers who switch from tobacco to electronic cigarettes."
