Lissa

There is in no way sufficient evidence in this study to draw this conclusion. This study was in no way designed to provide causal evidence. At best, what we can say is that the people who tend to take sildenafil also are less likely to have alzheimers. It could very well be that the people who take sildenafil are more active, and that activity level staves off alzheimers. Or any number of other third variables. This is not as big a deal as the article is making it out to be. Spurious correlations happen all the time, and it behooves us to be measured in our excitement.

Holy confounders, batman, that article sure does make a big logical leap with insufficient evidence!

For me, the gateway was via palm pilot careware. My dad had a PDA when I was a kid, and he let me learn how to program it. Then I learned that there were websites to download software for it, and some of that software was “careware”, ie pay only if you’re able. Something clicked in my head that I could both write and access software without cost being a barrier, and that got me reading about FLOSS philosophy as I entered high school and suddenly I was dual booting ubuntu on the intel iBook I had saved up for and then it was too late for me: FLOSS had me.

Quadrilateral Cowboy!