1. Doctor finds anecdotal evidence that people are passing kidney stones after riding on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World
2. Doctor makes 3-D model of kidney, complete with stones and urine (his own), takes it on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 60 times
3. “The stones passed 63.89 percent of the time while the kidneys were in the back of the car. When they were in the front, the passage rate was only 16.67 percent. That’s based on only 60 rides on a single coaster, and Wartinger guards his excitement in the journal article: ‘Preliminary study findings support the anecdotal evidence that a ride on a moderate-intensity roller coaster could benefit some patients with small kidney stones.’”
4. “Some rides are going to be more advantageous for some patients than other rides. So I wouldn’t say that the only ride that helps you pass stones is Big Thunder Mountain. That’s grossly inaccurate.”
5. “His advice for now: If you know you have a stone that’s smaller than five millimeters, riding a series of roller coasters could help you pass that stone before it gets to an obstructive size and either causes debilitating colic or requires a $10,000 procedure to try and break it up. And even once a stone is broken up using shock waves, tiny fragments and “dust” remain that need to be passed. The coaster could help with that, too.”
SCIENCE: IT WORKS
Update:
“In all, we used 174 kidney stones of varying shapes, sizes and weights to see if each model worked on the same ride and on two other roller coasters,” Wartinger said. “Big Thunder Mountain was the only one that worked. We tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and both failed.”Wartinger went on to explain that these other rides are too fast and too violent with a G-force that pins the stone into the kidney and doesn’t allow it to pass.“The ideal coaster is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside down or inverted movements,” he said.
I just love this because it’s HILARIOUS and yet also a perfect archetypal example of The Scientific Method:
1. Hypothesis
2. Experiment
3. Results
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
6. GOTO 1 (the scientific method is iterative, don’t forget that part)
was this like… done in cooperation with disney management or did some random scientist go through bag check with a 3d printed kidney and a bottle of piss and start looking for big thunder mountain fastpasses
Of course, the researchers had to get permission from Disney World before bringing the model kidney onto the rides. “It was a little bit of luck,” Wartinger recalls. “We went to guest services, and we didn’t want them to wonder what was going on—two adult men riding the same ride again and again, carrying a backpack. We told them what our intent was, and it turned out that the manager that day was a guy who recently had a kidney stone. He called the ride manager and said, do whatever you can to help these guys, they’re trying to help people with kidney stones.”
General strikes are a big deal. They need organization, mass support, an agreed-upon list of demands, related demonstrations, etc. It’s not as easy as 10k people across the country at multiple different jobs not showing up - despite what you think, that will be seen as 10k independent occurrences and will result in several thousand firings for no call/no shows with no other notice paid. Even if this wildcat general strike gets enough traction to be seen as an actual threat (which is unlikely as just a viral tumblr post), the government will simply respond with arrests and brutality as they have in the past, and no part of this post prepares people for that
And don’t just decide to do it on your own - talk to your coworkers, get in touch with local unions and your IWW branch, talk to local chapters of climate activism groups like Rising Tide, 350.org, and Transition Towns to organize concurrent demonstrations and actions, and spread the word as much as you can so we can get some steam behind this in the 2 months we have to prepare
“Fuck Work Day” would probably just make things worse while scaring people off from participating in the real coordinated action less than a month later
It’s remarkable to me that he could personally afford to fix Puerto Rico’s critical infrastructure, and still be among the top 10 billionaires in the USA afterwards. He could afford to completely repair Puerto Rico and still have enough money to be in the top 20.
Jeff Bezos could afford to personally end world hunger for a year and still be among the top 10 US billionaires. He could feed the entire planet for 3 years and still be in the top 20.
If you had $133.2 billion in a savings account with an interest rate of 0.06% (the average rate), you would receive $79.9 million in interest every year without having to do anything. All he needs to do is keep breathing, and he will make 57 times more this year than an average US citizen will make in their entire lifetime.
He could spend $80 million this year and would not even notice its absence.
It’s estimated that it would take $55 million and a year of work to fix Flint, MI’s water supply.
“Free market” capitalism does NOT care about raging forest fires, it does not care about endangering firefighters, it does not care about people dying due to lack of healthcare insurance. Unregulated capitalism cares only about making profits, apparently at any and all costs.
I believe in free education, one that’s available to everyone; no matter their race, gender, age, wealth, etc… This masterpost was created for every knowledge hungry individual out there. I hope it will serve you well. Enjoy!
FREE ONLINE COURSES (here are listed websites that provide huge variety of courses)
Please feel free to add more learning focused websites.
*There are a lot more learning websites out there, but I picked the ones that are, as far as I’m aware, completely free and in my opinion the best/ most useful.
my advice: have fun and play–play is learning | always be watching real life to see how things move | also be watching cool animations to learn from them | it’s hard but so worth it when things turn out well, good luck!