Midweek Mania - 17 January 2007

[silveradept]

As it turns out, some of what I was trying to do isn’t even needed for the styling of the website for class. This is fantastic. Glad to know I’m just running myself into the ground trying to get ahead. Hopefully, in lab tomorrow, I’ll get the whole thing done.

Democrat versus Republican, liberal versus conservative, AM versus FM? Could open up a whole new sequence of fighting - although the XM/Sirius crowd might look at the AM/FM crowd and laugh from their perceived superiority.

Muhammad Ali turns sixty-five years of age. He’s probably done more in sixty-five years than most of us will ever get to in one hundred.

The changing tastes in women over the years have one constant - a small waist is timelessly sexy, apparently, even where tastes in all the other things have changed. The article then goes on to talk about people in Brazil that are adopting (have adopted?) the diet craze in search of the popular sexy body. To which I say: we have enough neurotics about their image in this country. We don’t need more popping up elsewhere.

The cost of the undeclared war continues to escalate. A columnist in the New York Times tries to put into perspective what $1.2 trillion U.S. could have done for the country, had it been spent in the country, rather than on war. So much could have been done with that money. On the actual military front, Iran shot down an unmanned spy plane that was going into Iranian airspace. Escalating tension and rhetoric - is the Decider going to be able to go through with another ill-thought-out idea? Meanwhile, there is a protoype robot being developed that is 3ft high, 200 lbs heavy, and can hit a pie plate at 875 yards. That being sent in and remotely controlled could mean a lot for what warfare is. I wonder if that will increase aggression, rather than decreasing it, because it’s robots doing the fighting, rather than humans. If we start equipping Navy ships with railgun technology (tested successfully today) as well as deploying robots as ground troops, Metal Storm devices as support... it could be that the process of war only has humans pushing the buttons and the robots doing all the killing. Which is probably the worst thing that can happen to it.

In nonmilitary matters, the warrantless wiretap program will not be reauthorized, the Attorney General says. I suspect it’s to avoid a raking by the Democrats, and that the actual processes in place for obtaining the authority will not change a bit. The Administration doesn’t need it to be warrantless, but it was probably easier by a small amount when it was.

Evanglelizing to men with testosterone, cussing, and the avoidance of being a "Christian Nice Guy.". The people doing this claim that traditional services are emasculating and more suited to women. Sounds like “Praise God and pass the ammunition!” isn’t going to be a mockery cry anymore. There’s something wrong with the idea of macho Christianity... I just can’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps these GodMen should take a spin at God or No God, the latest game show where contestants try their hardest to find the all-knowing, all-loving, benevolent God they want by selecting one case out of twenty-six and eliminating the rest. Shadowing the contestant the whole way is The Theologian, who wants to make sure that the contestants leave with either a lesser god than the one they were seeking, or a god that doesn’t really suit them all that well. It’ll be a hit, I swear.

Wired features a library extending and expanding service to a group that wants digital downloads. Of course, with downloads cometh DRM and OS exclusion and other difficulties. I’m not real fond of the idea of a library using a DRM-powered scheme, but there’s really no other way to be able to put up digital content available for download. For all we know, some enterprising geek will crack the DRM and make the media enjoyable to all. Until accused and probably convicted of illegal reverse engineering and music piracy.

The University of Alberta is looking into dichloroacetate (DCA) as a possible way of reviving normal mitochondrial function in cancer cells. Such function could then kill off the cancerous cells. And if it becomes a viable treatment, it can be administered with little-to-no effect on healthy cells. No more chemo, just DCA? Oh, how we hope. And hope that it will be something that cancers can’t develop a resistance to. If that option doesn’t work, University of Kentucky researchers have mapped a gene that regulates adult stem cell growth. With an increased stem-cell generation capacity, chemothearpy could be administered more frequently - so if it worked, then it could be used more aggresively. With the big stem cell debate, though, being able to generate and regenerate more stem cells could very well make it much easier for people to regenerate other parts of the body. Or it may turn out that trying to up the stem cell count only results in cancer. Maybe they’ll learn something from that about the way cancer works and devise a treatment there.

This is what Wal-Mart looks like after the zombie invasion. Or if minimal effort is made to restock, reshelve, and clean up the place. But really, I like my idea better.

In Calgary, procrastination may be explainable by the principle that people like small rewards today, rather than larger ones tomorrow. So the Wimpy principle does apply, in some ways - the hamburger today is taken, even though the payment on Tuesday could be much more disastrous.

Speaking of procrastination, I think I’ve spent enough time putting off sleep. Been having a little bit of trouble actually managing to get to sleep - sometimes it takes nearly an hour from when I lay down before I actually find sleep. Rather disturbing. Suggestions? (In the morning, I need to e-mail my Infant and Child Development professor with the topic I’ve selected for my Big Gigantic Paper of Doom(ish) so that I can get or start hunting up resources.)

Comments

[urbankotq.livejournal.com]

We're making Daleks now? Oh, great.

875 yards, huh? How accurate is it against a moving target? Can its operators detect and respond to enemy tactics like, say, circumventing its superior range by sneaking up on it? And--this is the big one--just how much punishment can it take before it becomes inoperative (and the enemy grabs it for intensive study and reverse engineering)?

Somebody missed the point that Chrisitianity was never a "macho" religion.

Hey, what's all this about a "Fairness" bill that's allegedly going to mess with conservative talk radio? I don't know about you, but I enjoy listening to those shows. The First Amendment demands that right-wing talk show hosts broadcast their views in an uninhibited manner, no matter how unfounded the opinion or how silly they act. Left-wing pundits do the same thing, after all.

[unoriginal-name.livejournal.com]

The "Fairness Doctrine" used to be a part of FCC policy. The doctrine required that if a station editoralizes on a subject, they would have a responsibility to air multiple points of view on it and be required to do so if asked. This policy lasted almost 40 years (it was officially eliminated from requirements in 1987). Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is looking to run for President again in 2008, said in a speech recently he would like to require it again. The arguement seems to largely focus on the old "the corporations pick and choose the message" vs. "there are other ways to get a message out" debate.

There is no bill as of yet, and I doubt it would get enough support in Congress to get over a Presidential veto.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

you know, I really don't think women ANYWHERE need more articles about how they ought to be thin. Leave us alone!

1.2 Trillion Dollars? wow. too bad the government can't be forced to do what every person faced with a budget has to do - if you run out of money, you STOP what you were doing with your money because you have no more money. It's amazing how much money has been spent on something that's not even a war.

GodMen....I'm not sure I really have a comment for this, other that that it's a wee bit on the strange side.

God or No God....oi. but really, deal or no deal is like selling your soul to the devil....

you know, that wal-mart kind of looks like the one here....

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Wow. Yeah, that's my fault, the point I was trying to make by pointing out the article to Silver is that healthy is beautiful and will always be... that the fundamental ideas of beauty are associated with good health and longevity. Sadly, people who promote anorexia as beautiful or big breasts or anything of that sort are at best supporting short-lived ideals and at worst distorting what is beautiful across cultures and centuries.

Also, the $1.2 T article is a little unfair. The direct spending on the war is somewhat less (closer to $800 B, it's unfair to add in costs such as increased gas prices and costs that would have been spent on the military even at peacetime) but are still staggering. That said, I'm all for increased spending on medical research and maybe even paying graduate students a living wage.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but there's nothing that says that in order to be healthy, you have to have a tiny waist. That article seemed to imply that you need to have a tiny waist to be attractive, which would go against the "healthy is beautiful" bit.

It would be nice if the money was used for education - paying for pre-school for all three and four year olds sounds like a good plan to me.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

Did you read it? The point of the article is that the only enduring attractive quality in women is that of a slim waist. Other features come in and out of favor. And the reasoning is that a slim waist is the only thing that's been scientifically correlated with good health and longevity. Other things (like large breasts or wide hips) while often considered to be attractive in modern women, are not correlated with good health and also do not seem to be enduring features for attractiveness when considered across time or culture.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

A small waist does NOT imply health and longevity, especially if it is encouraging women to start on fad diets that will in the longrun do more damage than good.

What kind of message is it sending to women? It's sending "go out there and make sure you have a tiny waist if you want to be considered attractive". That's not a positive thought to pass onto women.

And yes, I read the article. Clearly, I took away from it different things than you did.

[silveradept]

Yes, I believe I missed that point, mostly because it was encapsulated by the two bits at the beginning and end about the changing faces of fashion and how it tends to upset people or make them starve themselves or such things. I was aiming for the right idea, I think - be healthy and stop being so obsessed about shifting ideals of beauty, but I don't think I got all the way there.

Even at $800 billion U.S., there's a hell of a lot of things more important, in my opinion, that the money should have been spent on rather than fighting and killing and dying in an undeclared war based on false principles and a President who only hears what he wants to.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I think it's your own insecurities that are reading into the article. Seriously. All it's trying to say is that, ACROSS THE POPULATION, a small waist CORRELATES with good health physically and HISTORICALLY a small waist ALSO CORRELATES with beauty. Leave the last century out of this, fad diets are a very modern phenomenon. For example in Brazil, the wide hips have come out of favor and women are dieting to reduce their hip size. However, hip size, the article says, is not timeless.

Now if you want to debate the scientific evidence that a small waist correlates with health, I can start pulling articles. Most notably, in women a waist-to-hip ratio of > 0.8 is the strongest physical predictor of heart disease and statistically correlates with reduced life expectancy. No, you can't do a double-blinded placebo study so this is the best kind of evidence available. Sure some women with slim waists die young and some women with a higher ratio live a long time, but the overarching trend is there.

If anything, the article is saying slim down to be attractive but ONLY because it'll make you healthier and good health is attractive. But really, it's an article about POPULATION perceptions not INDIVIDUAL perceptions. There are guys out there who are attracted to women without slim waists just as there are guys who are attracted to women with smaller breasts. So anyone who reads more than a general population overview into it is seriously overinterpreting the paper. Instead, the best lesson to learn if anything is that health is fundamentally beauty and thus stay healthy. If small waists are such a good indicator of good health in general, consider if that statistic may also apply to you and maybe slim down FOR YOUR HEALTH. Or perhaps you're an outlier and really, a slimmer waist is not better for your health in which case to stay beautiful, stay plumper.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I have no insecurities about my body, C. I thought that one would have been obvious to you.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I was actually referring to insecurities about women's perception. It seemed that your gut instinct about women was that they would respond to an article denouncing the hyper-thin model syndrome in Brazil by trying to lose weight. (And thus, you attack the article, even though it's actually supporting healthy-looking women).