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PDF Forgeries Are Surprisingly Rare (2022)

59 points · 48 comments · 1317

  1. 55555 · · focus · HN ↗

    [dead]

    1. dudisubekti · · focus · HN ↗
      <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gwern.net&#x2F;nicotine" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gwern.net&#x2F;nicotine

      This one?

      It seems to be listing the pros and cons of nicotine and is well-sourced...

      What &quot;damage&quot; do you see caused by this article?

      1. simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
        Yeah, once you remove the hazards inherent in cigarette and&#x2F;or cigar smoking from the discussion, the only solid objection I&#x27;ve heard to nictotine consumption is that it&#x27;s probably more addictive than caffeine.

        I understand why personal vaporizer use was demonized, but -goddamn- that&#x27;s going to be a public health disaster only an order of magnitude or two smaller than when folks started demonizing nuclear power back in the mid 1900&#x27;s.

        1. mschuster91 · · focus · HN ↗
          &gt; the only solid objection I&#x27;ve heard to nictotine consumption is that it&#x27;s probably more addictive than caffeine.

          s&#x2F;probably&#x2F;massively. You don&#x27;t see ads and public health messages for quitting coffee, you don&#x27;t see bans for coffee advertising, but you do see a whole lot of things aimed at reducing or quitting nicotine products.

          Besides, nicotine withdrawal is utter hell. Caffeine withdrawal usually is solved by a night of good healthy sleep - most people drink coffee (or energy drinks) only because they are forced by circumstances to work against their chronotype.

          1. simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
            &gt; You don&#x27;t see ads and public health messages for quitting coffee, you don&#x27;t see bans for coffee advertising...

            That&#x27;d be because -unlike cigarette and cigar smoking- coffee doesn&#x27;t create a substantially elevated risk of cancer.

            Had we had the tech for portable personal nicotine vaporizers back in the 1600s [0] and retained it until today, I very strongly expect that -other than the &quot;Drugs of all kinds are bad!&quot; moralizers- you&#x27;d not see much of that sort of concern.

            &gt; Besides, nicotine withdrawal is utter hell.

            Waaaay back when when I quit cold turkey after smoking for a couple of years I was very grouchy and irritable (and knew that a cigarette would fix it) for like a week. That was it. I&#x27;ve not tried nicotine vaporizers, but I&#x27;d be interested to see if -given similarly sized nicotine doses- quitting vaporized nicotine after a couple of years is as annoying as quitting cigarettes was.

            &gt; Caffeine withdrawal usually is solved by a night of good healthy sleep...

            That tells me that you haven&#x27;t gone through serious caffeine withdrawal. The effects from quitting caffeine cold turkey last for less time, but way more unpleasant than quitting cigarettes.

            [0] ...or whenever it was that tobacco smoking started to become A Thing...

            1. vablings · · focus · HN ↗
              As an avid consumer of both nicotine and caffeine I can say a few things.

              Caffeine is way worse for me, the days that I consume zero caffeine I pretty much always end up with a migrate and minor. If I don&#x27;t use my vaporizer, I get mildly irritated by not having it around but no prominent physiological effects

              1. simoncion · · focus · HN ↗
                &gt; ...I pretty much always end up with a migrate and minor.

                Minor what?

                And yeah, two things:

                1) It&#x27;s telling that -despite the fact that the closest store that I get my coffee and tea from also sells cigarettes (and that I&#x27;m so obviously old that they don&#x27;t ask me for ID, so that minor inconvenience isn&#x27;t a factor)- I&#x27;ve been able to quit nicotine, but never able to quit caffeine.

                2) I can&#x27;t even count the number of times I&#x27;ve consumed a mug of tea or coffee for no other reason than to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Cigarettes were never like that for me. Just like caffeine, I inevitably developed a tolerance... but working through nicotine withdrawal was annoying, rather than _painful_.

                1. vablings · · focus · HN ↗
                  Ironically, I wrote that post with a migraine. Migraine and a minor headache are what I meant to say.

                  There are lots of yummy drinks that contain caffeine which is a shame for those quitting but a boon for myself, I personally like the taste of redbull much to my dentists dismay

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