Monthly Archives: June 2007

Check the meter!

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//www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2007/06/urban_camping_meter.jpg' cannot be displayed] The newest take on urban camping:

“Sometimes you come upon a product that makes you go: Uh, what? The thing in the picture is one of those. At first we thought it was a Fisher Price attempt at a car cover, until we noticed the scaffolding and the woman — who’s standing up — ‘unzipping the door.’ But when we realized what it actually is, we had all kinds of questions that began with ‘Why would anyone ….’ Wait until you see what’s inside. We won’t spoil the surprise. ” (AutoBlog)

Bush’s European disaster

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Sidney Blumenthal in Salon: “I returned from Europe a week before President Bush departed for the G8 summit in Germany. In Rome and Paris I met with Cabinet ministers who uniformly said the chief issue in transatlantic relations is somehow making it through the last 18 months of the Bush administration without further major disaster. None of the nonpartisan think tanks in Washington can organize seminars on this overriding reality, but within the European councils of state the trepidation about the last days of Bush is the No. 1 issue in foreign affairs.”

I think, therefore I am.

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//anatomy.yonsei.ac.kr/LWT/images/Homunculus.JPG' cannot be displayed] Interesting findings in neural plasticity, from the weblog of neuroscientist Michael Merzenich. He describes the current status of our understanding of cortical representations of the surface of the body (what has been known as Penrose’s homunculus since its discovery several decades ago), emphasizing findings that show it is plastic in realtime. [thanks, Joel] He finishes with what might be considered to be the neuroscientist’s equivalent of the get-a-bigger-penis spam-mails.

And so it ends…

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The Sopranos goes dark: “Instead of taking Tony down out of karmic retribution, Chase got his karmic revenge on us for caring too much about this ‘jack-off fantasy on TV’ in the first place. …immortalized eating onion rings, chuckling, focusing on the good times.” (Salon)

Given the focus on the soundtrack and the abruptness of the fade to black at the end, I myself favor the interpretation based on Bobby’s memorable line to Tony several episodes ago about how you “probably don’t even hear it coming when it happens.”

Dr. Kevorkian’s Wrong Way

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“Dr. Jack Kevorkian — a k a “Doctor Death” for helping chronically ill and terminally ill patients commit suicide — has emerged from prison as deluded and unrepentant as ever. Brushing aside criticism by other supporters of medically assisted suicide that his tactics were reckless and harmful to their cause, Dr. Kevorkian asserted: “I did it right. I didn’t care what they did or didn’t do. When I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right.”

The irony, of course, is that he did it wrong, and in performing assisted suicides so badly, he besmirched the movement he hoped to energize. If his antics provided anything of value, it was as a reminder of how much terminally ill patients can suffer and of the need for sane and humane laws allowing carefully regulated assisted suicides.” (New York Times editorial)

The Disorder Is Sensory…

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…The Diagnosis, Elusive: “No one has a standard diagnostic test for these sensory integration problems, nor any idea of what might be happening in the brain. Indeed, a diagnosis of such problems is not yet generally accepted. Nor is there evidence to guide treatment, which makes many doctors, if they have heard of sensory problems at all, skeptical of the diagnosis.Yet in some urban and suburban school districts across the county, talk of sensory integration has become part of the special-needs vernacular, along with attention deficit disorder and developmental delays. Though reliable figures for diagnosis rates are not available, the number of parent groups devoted to sensory problems has more than tripled in the last few years, to 55 nationwide.And now this subculture wants membership in mainstream medicine. This year, for the first time, therapists and researchers petitioned the American Psychiatric Association to include ‘sensory processing disorder’ in its influential guidebook of disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Official recognition would bring desperately needed research, they say, as well as more complete coverage for treatment, which can run to more than $10,000 a year.” (New York Times )
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Dr. Kevorkian’s Wrong Way

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//www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/06/02/3n_kervor_wideweb__470x337,0.jpg' cannot be displayed]
“Dr. Jack Kevorkian — a k a “Doctor Death” for helping chronically ill and terminally ill patients commit suicide — has emerged from prison as deluded and unrepentant as ever. Brushing aside criticism by other supporters of medically assisted suicide that his tactics were reckless and harmful to their cause, Dr. Kevorkian asserted: “I did it right. I didn’t care what they did or didn’t do. When I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right.”

The irony, of course, is that he did it wrong, and in performing assisted suicides so badly, he besmirched the movement he hoped to energize. If his antics provided anything of value, it was as a reminder of how much terminally ill patients can suffer and of the need for sane and humane laws allowing carefully regulated assisted suicides.” (New York Times editorial)

"It is hard to count all the ways this is sad…"

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The Universe, Expanding Beyond All Understanding: “Our successors, whoever and wherever they are, may have no way of finding out about the Big Bang and the expanding universe, according to one of the more depressing scientific papers I have ever read.

If things keep going the way they are, Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and Robert J. Scherrer of Vanderbilt University calculate, in 100 billion years the only galaxies left visible in the sky will be the half-dozen or so bound together gravitationally into what is known as the Local Group, which is not expanding and in fact will probably merge into one starry ball.

Unable to see any galaxies flying away, those astronomers will not know the universe is expanding and will think instead that they are back in the static island universe of Einstein. As the authors, who are physicists, write in a paper to be published in The Journal of Relativity and Gravitation, “observers in our ‘island universe’ will be fundamentally incapable of determining the true nature of the universe.”” (New York Times )

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Why Is Sgt. Pepper So Overhyped?

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A conversation between David Marchese and Gina Arnold: “I wonder if the reason “Sgt. Pepper” attracts such a conspicuous amount of critical praise is that the songs actually don’t hold up as examples of the band’s best work. Justifying “Sgt. Pepper’s” status requires a lot of bluster.

I can’t really explain calling it the greatest album of all time. One of my gripes about rock critics is listmania. What does it say that “Sgt. Pepper” is rated so highly? It just seems so obvious that “Abbey Road” is a better album, that “Revolver” is a better album.

So what does it say that “Sgt. Pepper” is thought of so highly?

You know, there’ve been a lot of books written about 1968 and 1969 — those are really the seminal ’60s years — but maybe “Sgt. Pepper” exudes something about 1967, an innocence and an optimism that existed before the RFK and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations and Altamont. We just can’t pinpoint it in any one song. “

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Hog Washed!

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//www.astrobio.net/stinkyjournalism/images/fig02.jpg' cannot be displayed] “What’s going on here in these six dramatic photographs posted to the MonsterPig.com website? Stinky Journalism sought the help of retired NYU physicist, Richard Brandt, as press reports cited no scientific opinions about the photos, which locals and hunters alike found suspicious. Stinky Journalism exclusively puts the photos to the test, with resident trick photography expert, and Art Science Research Laboratory director, Rhonda Roland Shearer’s in-depth report. “

Dirty Little Secret

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Are Most Published Research Findings Actually False? “In a 2005 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, epidemiologist John Ioannidis showed that among the 45 most highly cited clinical research findings of the past 15 years, 99 percent of molecular research had subsequently been refuted. Epidemiology findings had been contradicted in four-fifths of the cases he looked at, and the usually robust outcomes of clinical trials had a refutation rate of one in four.

The revelations struck a chord with the scientific community at large: A recent essay by Ioannidis simply entitled ‘Why most published research findings are false’ has been downloaded more than 100,000 times; the Boston Globe called it ‘an instant cult classic.’ Now in a Moebius-strip-like twist, there is a growing body of research that is investigating, analyzing, and suggesting causes and solutions for faulty research.” (Seed)