Beardy Physicist

The 'Naughty Lola' of the title is a 'typical beardy physicist'. Is it only irony, or does he dress up?

Note that dressing up does not involve booze or food yet is heaps fun. Sometimes it is more fun shikkered, and usually more fun with an audience. Food and booze are amplifiers of good company and fun times. Still, maybe we should sell more pirate costumes and less booze. A latex nurses' uniform instead of the fifth pot. Let's get the TAC to fund it!

You accuse someone (me? Donald Rumsfeld?) of wanting to sterilize life so as to live longer. Naughty, naughty-play the ball, not the player. Accusing the other team of being killjoys is a broad swipe. Bit like the sassy daughter accusing the mum of being frigid by proxy only from lack of opportunity. Might be true, but the daughter should still at leastuse a condom...

Risk management is a very personal issue. Health is a really important personal issue. I think we agree that we need to take risks in order to be happy. I thought we were arguing about data?

Lets delve into risk. Smokers usually claim happiness is more important than health, but there is a temporal factor. Happiness now versus sickness later. Guaranteed happiness now versus possible sickness later. _One_ won't give me a stroke. I have heard, as I am sure you have, similar arguments applied to comfort eating by really fat people. How sane are these arguments about risk? Crucially, how much happiness? Ecstacy is worth a fair bit of pain down the line.

Let's face it, many (what academics mean when they want to say 'most' but need to cover their ass from point-scoring seminar tools) heavy users are abusers, which means that they are probably addicts more scared of removal of their dependancy than excited by their habits. This is not happiness as I see it, it is the fading warmth of a wet nappy.