Friday, October 12, 2007
More Bivalve Madness
So a quick look at my referral logs suggests that there are a lot of people, all over the world, looking here for information about geoducks. It's been well over two years since I mentioned those phallic clams, but all of a sudden all this interest.
Background: The geoduck is a giant clam, it can live more than 150 years and lay billions of eggs. It's also supposed to be really, really tasty. So, all you googlers, who wants to make me some geoduck???
Background: The geoduck is a giant clam, it can live more than 150 years and lay billions of eggs. It's also supposed to be really, really tasty. So, all you googlers, who wants to make me some geoduck???
Labels: blogging, cuisine, food, geoduck, internet, links, phallic, random
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Malfunctions
Has anyone else noticed that half of the internet is down this afternoon? I can't get to Yahoo, Flickr, Myspace, Facebook, or even Wonkette, thus cutting off much of my ability to procrastinate. Or email people to scheme entertainment options. WTF? It's been like this a few hours, I would've thought something might have popped up on Slashdot by now. Hmph.
Also, I'm going to Chicago this weekend for a very good friend's wedding. The first in a flurry of the damn things this year. "Damn things" only because how is it possible that nearly all of my high school friends are getting married? Scary. The point is that when I reserved my hotel via Orbitz, and they also sold me a shuttle service to and from the airport, at a pretty good price.
The thing is, that when I called the service today to confirm, they told me that they don't serve the South side of Chicago. So I had to spend half an hour on the phone explaining this to Orbitz to get it refunded ("Brian" was very friendly and helpful, even if he had a thick accent and was clearly on a very crappy cell phone). So yeah - caveat emptor, etc.
Labels: annoyance, caveat emptor, internet, malfunction, Orbitz, refund
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Dicks and Assess
A Canadian survey found that 90% of teenage boys admitted to looking at porn, as did 70% of girls. The authors of the study are of course Very Concerned, in that they imagine that viewing 'too much' porn will damage young people's development, et cetera. They don't have any evidence for this fear, but clearly it's the only conclusion Sensible People could make. The report glosses over the much more important finding - that parents aren't discussing sex (specifically: safer sex) with their kids - and instead goes for thinly veiled moralizing about porn.
Speaking of thinking with the little head, remember the study on circumcision against HIV the NIH stopped because the results were so overwhelming? Well, it seems that the results may be even stronger than previously thought - as much as a 65% reduction in risk! The problem, of course, is that the study was not very well designed, selecting control and treatment groups solely by volunteerism, not randomization*.
Moving around to the other side of the anatomy, it seems that perfectionists and high-stress types may be more likely to develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome after bouts of gastroenteritis. Cognitive therapy is prescribed to train sufferers to be less obnoxiously Type-A.
But really speaking of assholes, the Bush administration looks unlikely to grant state governor's requests for extra SCHIP funding this year, to keep those programs going. The programs provide health insurance to children whose families ear too much to get Medicaid, but not enough to afford insurance, and are proven highly effective.
And finally, the good news: the First Circuit has reaffirmed that bloggers aren't liable for commentors' libel**, and it seems that ginko extract may be helpful in treating the mental retardation that comes with Downs Syndrome, by antagonizing GABA.
* This probably isn't as big a deal here, as placebo effects are totally implausible and the men who received treatment may also have been more likely to engage in risky behavior, given expectation of increased protection. All in all, these methodological issues are probably a wash.
** Why doesn't anybody comment here anymore? It was more fun and more interesting when we had some discourse!
Speaking of thinking with the little head, remember the study on circumcision against HIV the NIH stopped because the results were so overwhelming? Well, it seems that the results may be even stronger than previously thought - as much as a 65% reduction in risk! The problem, of course, is that the study was not very well designed, selecting control and treatment groups solely by volunteerism, not randomization*.
Moving around to the other side of the anatomy, it seems that perfectionists and high-stress types may be more likely to develop Irritable Bowel Syndrome after bouts of gastroenteritis. Cognitive therapy is prescribed to train sufferers to be less obnoxiously Type-A.
But really speaking of assholes, the Bush administration looks unlikely to grant state governor's requests for extra SCHIP funding this year, to keep those programs going. The programs provide health insurance to children whose families ear too much to get Medicaid, but not enough to afford insurance, and are proven highly effective.
And finally, the good news: the First Circuit has reaffirmed that bloggers aren't liable for commentors' libel**, and it seems that ginko extract may be helpful in treating the mental retardation that comes with Downs Syndrome, by antagonizing GABA.
* This probably isn't as big a deal here, as placebo effects are totally implausible and the men who received treatment may also have been more likely to engage in risky behavior, given expectation of increased protection. All in all, these methodological issues are probably a wash.
** Why doesn't anybody comment here anymore? It was more fun and more interesting when we had some discourse!
Labels: assholes, circumcision, Downs Syndrome, GABA, HIV, IBS, insurance, internet, law, libel, memory, porn, pron, SCHIP, sex, teenagers
Friday, January 05, 2007
Smarty-Pants
Brains are important. Smart people caused the Democrats to take control of the House and Senate, electing us our first female Speaker, and scientists keep figuring out cool stuff that can make our lives better, and make us all even smarter still!
It seems that millions of people are growing up to be less smart than they could be, and much of this could be alleviated if only they had more toys. That's right: more toys. Well, that and better nutrition, but toys is so much more sensational a thing to say.
Once we get smart, of course, we want to stay that way, and the prospect of Alzheimer's is so scary in part because it takes away our hard-won intelligence and knowledge. The good news is, it seems, that doing simple 'mental exercises' could help stave off dementia, and improve our performance here and now as well.
The results of our smarter selves? Well, there's stuff like this: Johns Hopkins researchers have patented a new sugar combination to fight cancer. By binding cancer-killer butyrate to N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, it allows for quick access to target cells, and seems to effectively kill them. Though the results are only on culture so far, this is a really promising step.
With all this new information flying at us all the time, it needs storage: and smart people at Seagate claim that they've found what looks like a way to make 30+ terabyte drives available pretty soon. What comes after tera?
Finally, people who read this blog are clearly pretty smart. Not just because you're reading it, but because at least 60% of you know better than to read it using Internet Explorer! ...I'm just sayin...
It seems that millions of people are growing up to be less smart than they could be, and much of this could be alleviated if only they had more toys. That's right: more toys. Well, that and better nutrition, but toys is so much more sensational a thing to say.
Once we get smart, of course, we want to stay that way, and the prospect of Alzheimer's is so scary in part because it takes away our hard-won intelligence and knowledge. The good news is, it seems, that doing simple 'mental exercises' could help stave off dementia, and improve our performance here and now as well.
The results of our smarter selves? Well, there's stuff like this: Johns Hopkins researchers have patented a new sugar combination to fight cancer. By binding cancer-killer butyrate to N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, it allows for quick access to target cells, and seems to effectively kill them. Though the results are only on culture so far, this is a really promising step.
With all this new information flying at us all the time, it needs storage: and smart people at Seagate claim that they've found what looks like a way to make 30+ terabyte drives available pretty soon. What comes after tera?
Finally, people who read this blog are clearly pretty smart. Not just because you're reading it, but because at least 60% of you know better than to read it using Internet Explorer! ...I'm just sayin...
Labels: Alzheimers, brains, cancer, computers, dementia, development, HDD, intelligence, internet, neuroscience, nutrition, politics, storage, toys
