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Second of two phone interviews today. Still unsure about how those things go, and this one had me more confused than most, because of the way it tailed off. Not much for a “well, this is how we’re going to look at things for the next couple weeks. If you’re selected, we’ll get back to you” sort of thing. Just a “have a good day” and that was it. I don’t think it was intentionally rude, but it did throw me for a loop at how suddenly it ended. I hope it wasn’t a bad sign that things went horribly. I’ll know eventually, anyway, whether I did well or poorly. I feel a bit like a one-track record these days, that the only potentially interesting thing in my life is that I’m looking for a job. Probably means I need to get out more. Social events ahoy, or something like it. Wouldn't want to get depressed by fixating on temporary things, after all. For most of the night, there’s been thunder rumbling outside my window and the occasional lightning flash. That, and the gentle sounds of rain make my night. Gets the temperature and humidity down, too.
Moving onward, then, into things odd and strange, like weight changes in our friends may result in weight changes ourselves. Being the social beings that we are, this makes a certain amount of sense - we might be eating a bit more or less or differently around friends who are eating a bit more or less or differently. The study itself was on obesity, but I would think that the trend would also work in reverse, and there’s some hint at the end of the article that it does. What we consider “acceptable weight” or body image changes with our friends, apparently. Continuing in the food and oddities vein, He Only saved A Billion People chronicles Norman Borlaug, credited with bringing the idea of “dwarf wheat” to poor areas to increase their yields. He’s someone a lot of people probably owe their lives to, but most of us haven’t heard of him, with the obsession over the latest Hollywood DUI. Even worse, the rising price of food results in less aid to poorer nations. Something like “dwarf wheat”, that could increase crop yields sufficiently to combat that kind of increase would be a welcome thing. Maybe the future will notice Me. Borlaug and place him in the history books.
Another reason to leave medication as a last resort, rather than a first one, in the cases of ADHD - Ritalin stunts growth. It’s not yet known whether or not this is a permanent stunting, but at least in the short term, kids on Ritalin tend to be smaller than their peers. If there are permanent effects, then it’s a very good reason to keep the medicine for last - wouldn’t want to ruin Johnny’s dreams of NBA dunking, after all. Or maybe, just maybe, it’ll be an excuse to get us to do some parenting, adjusting, and work trying to figure out whether or not the kid really needs Ritalin. Shocking, I know.
Something for the “cats know more than they let on” life. Oscar, a cat raised in the dementia unit of a nursing home, predicts which of the patients are about to die with surprising accuracy. Rather than being chased out as a bad omen, though, Oscar’s warnings are generally taken well and families are beginning to be notified when Oscar curls up next to someone. It’s usually only a few hours after Oscar settles in that the patient dies. I wonder what it is that Oscar picks up on.
Wired has a preliminary blurb on a patent filed by Apple for an anti-theft system that will prevent a stolen gadget from charging if it's plugged into an unauthorized charger, or if it leaves a specified area. What’s great about this is that it looks like the user is fully in control of how they want to set it up, it’s not going to be restricted strictly to Apple-only products, and multiple chargers can be registered. It’s not trying to be restrictive or cute, just effective, and it lets others play. Way to go, Apple?
Want to know why keeping your web site up to date is a good idea, and worthy of attention? To avoid having an eight year-old girl call what she thought was a sexual assault victim line, only to get a phone sex line. Accidents happen, yes, but maintaining your web site helps to avoid those accidents.
You’ll feel right safe about the TSA and airport security checks after reading an insider's look at just how secure airports and planes really are. Hopefully there’s at least some statistical comfort in the odds that your plane on your flight might be one that others would like to use for their purposes. Coupled with dry runs of potential terrorism being reported on, you wonder just how much the paranoid knows and how much is just, well, paranoia. (Trust the Computer, Citizen.) For all we know, of course, the next big scare might be a bioweapons accident that gets out of hand, rather than a directed terrorist attack. We’ve seen how slow disaster agencies can be to respond. That could be compounded by the reluctance to report the accident because of the consequences likely to come down the pipe.
Thus, having bounced around politics for most of the entry, let’s dive right in. To (where else?) but Iraq, where Mr. Bush's regular talks with the Iraqi prime minster discuss their faiths and the United States ambassador accused Iran of meddling in Iraq. With they way things are, Janus may be the patron god of the United States in this era, as the United States tops the list of countries viewed as greatest foe and greatest ally. In differing countries, though, is the trust and mistrust. Still, that’s the way the policies seem to be this time around.
I can see some paranoia all the way out here from an article in the Washington Times that says China's economic growth was bigger than the United States' economic growth. I’m sure you can hear it, too - “Soon, we’re all going to bow to China as the economic superpower. The Maoists will rule!” And do what, precisely? Disrupt their entire economy by invading somewhere to try and obtain more natural resources?
The odd theme returns with a vengeance here in a drug bust that netted $207 million U.S. in cash. If you ever wanted to see what $207 million looks like (or some large fraction thereof), check out the picture. That’s a lot of cash. And some part of me wants to add on to the end “in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills” to the end of it, but that’s probably from watching or reading too many bad robberies.
The landing point for tonight, totally unrelated to anything above, as best I can tell, is a project that looks at emotions in a different way, by using emotional “states”, governed by logic, in a robot as a trigger for changing heuristics and decision-making behavior. For example, in planning and navigation, starting out in “hope” would plan what looks to be the best route available from the data. As objects or blocks appear, “fear” may increase, and with that, the robot might start recalculating routes on the fly to deal with real or perceived objects in its way, proportionate to the “fear” that it has on this route. It’s probably been documented somewhere, but I wonder how much emotion in humans changes our decision heuristics...
...and as our goodbye salute to this entry, completely unrelated to that, is a lubricant gel may block the spread of HIV and genital herpes when applied. The animal trials give it 85-100% blocking, which in the case of both of those viruses, is a pretty steep margin of error. However, even if it’s not effective enough to be used with reliability on humans, it might give some clues as for how to develop other treatments that will be 100% effective to inhibition, and from there, neutralization and destruction research can take over and toast what’s there. Stopping the spread would be a major victory by itself, and be an excellent prelude to the eventual defeat of HIV.
Moving onward, then, into things odd and strange, like weight changes in our friends may result in weight changes ourselves. Being the social beings that we are, this makes a certain amount of sense - we might be eating a bit more or less or differently around friends who are eating a bit more or less or differently. The study itself was on obesity, but I would think that the trend would also work in reverse, and there’s some hint at the end of the article that it does. What we consider “acceptable weight” or body image changes with our friends, apparently. Continuing in the food and oddities vein, He Only saved A Billion People chronicles Norman Borlaug, credited with bringing the idea of “dwarf wheat” to poor areas to increase their yields. He’s someone a lot of people probably owe their lives to, but most of us haven’t heard of him, with the obsession over the latest Hollywood DUI. Even worse, the rising price of food results in less aid to poorer nations. Something like “dwarf wheat”, that could increase crop yields sufficiently to combat that kind of increase would be a welcome thing. Maybe the future will notice Me. Borlaug and place him in the history books.
Another reason to leave medication as a last resort, rather than a first one, in the cases of ADHD - Ritalin stunts growth. It’s not yet known whether or not this is a permanent stunting, but at least in the short term, kids on Ritalin tend to be smaller than their peers. If there are permanent effects, then it’s a very good reason to keep the medicine for last - wouldn’t want to ruin Johnny’s dreams of NBA dunking, after all. Or maybe, just maybe, it’ll be an excuse to get us to do some parenting, adjusting, and work trying to figure out whether or not the kid really needs Ritalin. Shocking, I know.
Something for the “cats know more than they let on” life. Oscar, a cat raised in the dementia unit of a nursing home, predicts which of the patients are about to die with surprising accuracy. Rather than being chased out as a bad omen, though, Oscar’s warnings are generally taken well and families are beginning to be notified when Oscar curls up next to someone. It’s usually only a few hours after Oscar settles in that the patient dies. I wonder what it is that Oscar picks up on.
Wired has a preliminary blurb on a patent filed by Apple for an anti-theft system that will prevent a stolen gadget from charging if it's plugged into an unauthorized charger, or if it leaves a specified area. What’s great about this is that it looks like the user is fully in control of how they want to set it up, it’s not going to be restricted strictly to Apple-only products, and multiple chargers can be registered. It’s not trying to be restrictive or cute, just effective, and it lets others play. Way to go, Apple?
Want to know why keeping your web site up to date is a good idea, and worthy of attention? To avoid having an eight year-old girl call what she thought was a sexual assault victim line, only to get a phone sex line. Accidents happen, yes, but maintaining your web site helps to avoid those accidents.
You’ll feel right safe about the TSA and airport security checks after reading an insider's look at just how secure airports and planes really are. Hopefully there’s at least some statistical comfort in the odds that your plane on your flight might be one that others would like to use for their purposes. Coupled with dry runs of potential terrorism being reported on, you wonder just how much the paranoid knows and how much is just, well, paranoia. (Trust the Computer, Citizen.) For all we know, of course, the next big scare might be a bioweapons accident that gets out of hand, rather than a directed terrorist attack. We’ve seen how slow disaster agencies can be to respond. That could be compounded by the reluctance to report the accident because of the consequences likely to come down the pipe.
Thus, having bounced around politics for most of the entry, let’s dive right in. To (where else?) but Iraq, where Mr. Bush's regular talks with the Iraqi prime minster discuss their faiths and the United States ambassador accused Iran of meddling in Iraq. With they way things are, Janus may be the patron god of the United States in this era, as the United States tops the list of countries viewed as greatest foe and greatest ally. In differing countries, though, is the trust and mistrust. Still, that’s the way the policies seem to be this time around.
I can see some paranoia all the way out here from an article in the Washington Times that says China's economic growth was bigger than the United States' economic growth. I’m sure you can hear it, too - “Soon, we’re all going to bow to China as the economic superpower. The Maoists will rule!” And do what, precisely? Disrupt their entire economy by invading somewhere to try and obtain more natural resources?
The odd theme returns with a vengeance here in a drug bust that netted $207 million U.S. in cash. If you ever wanted to see what $207 million looks like (or some large fraction thereof), check out the picture. That’s a lot of cash. And some part of me wants to add on to the end “in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills” to the end of it, but that’s probably from watching or reading too many bad robberies.
The landing point for tonight, totally unrelated to anything above, as best I can tell, is a project that looks at emotions in a different way, by using emotional “states”, governed by logic, in a robot as a trigger for changing heuristics and decision-making behavior. For example, in planning and navigation, starting out in “hope” would plan what looks to be the best route available from the data. As objects or blocks appear, “fear” may increase, and with that, the robot might start recalculating routes on the fly to deal with real or perceived objects in its way, proportionate to the “fear” that it has on this route. It’s probably been documented somewhere, but I wonder how much emotion in humans changes our decision heuristics...
...and as our goodbye salute to this entry, completely unrelated to that, is a lubricant gel may block the spread of HIV and genital herpes when applied. The animal trials give it 85-100% blocking, which in the case of both of those viruses, is a pretty steep margin of error. However, even if it’s not effective enough to be used with reliability on humans, it might give some clues as for how to develop other treatments that will be 100% effective to inhibition, and from there, neutralization and destruction research can take over and toast what’s there. Stopping the spread would be a major victory by itself, and be an excellent prelude to the eventual defeat of HIV.
