
How studying law helped me with programming - colinscape
https://hackernoon.com/how-studying-law-helped-me-with-programming-6af88ac77a8e#.uwyw7d89j
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custos
Studying programming will help you understand other subjects as well (to a
degree).

After working in enough industries, you get good at distilling the business
rules and domain model to the parts that actually matter. You apply that
mindset to a new subject that interests you and zero in on those important
parts for increased study until you start connecting the dots.

I remember the day I finally realized that most of pharmacology is incredibly
analogous to a message passing and any cast network routing.

Obviously a little more complicated than that, but a drug (a ligand in this
situation) is a message passed through the bloodstream in an broadcast/anycast
routing fashion (X amount to be consumed by first X cells to come in contact,
before being released and repeated, until metabolized). When a ligand binds to
a receptor, the cell consumes the message and executes an action based on the
type of cell it is and the ligand's payload (could be an agonist, an
antagonist, along with other variables).

You get side effect when target cell in organ X has receptor A that you want
to activate. However organ Y also has cells with receptor A.

So when the drug is given, if there isn't a way to prevent it from reaching
organ Y, organ Y's response will be a side effect.

Example: Benadryl. Anti-histamine is targeted for reducing allergic response
related cells, but can cross the blood brain barrier affecting cells that
respond with sleepiness.

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I remember after reading about how cells physically do these things, and
realizing that metabotropic cells use the g protein channels almost like
hardware circuit switched controls for inner cell functions, and ionotropic
receptors are more like open and close buttons for ion channels (nervous
system messages use ions).

I then wondered if a neurotoxin is just like throwing a mechanical wrench into
the cells machinery, which IIRC, it is by jamming into and blocking ion
channels.

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My interest in AI development lies far more on the psychopharmacology side and
reverse engineering the human brain, but I think I'm too old to go back to
school for 8 years to major in that stuff -_-;.

