31 Aug 2006
20 Things You Didn't Know About... Death

My favorite:Number 3: "No American has died of old age since 1951." Number 4 explains that "That was the year the government eliminated that classification on death certificates."

Go figure.

Newsflash: we're all going to die. But here are 20 things you didn't know about kicking the bucket.

(link) [Discover Magazine]

12:25 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Radio Shack E-Fires 400 workers

What a bunch of gutless wimps! Letting people go is the toughest thing any manager (or owner) has to do. It doesn't matter if you're firing a worker for being an idiot or just laying them off because you've been an idiot with your money, it's still wrenching to face somebody and tell them they don't have a job anymore.

But it's also common human decency. In the case of distance, a phone call will suffice, but to do it by mail, electronic or otherwise, is just cowardice.

You've got mail! ...and no job! The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that RadioShack has notified 400 workers by e-mail that they are being laid off. The e-mails state, "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated." Nothing says thank you for your years of service to our company quite like an e-boot out the door.

(link) [Slashdot]

05:46 /Home | 3 comments | permanent link

30 Aug 2006
Cloned Beef Coming Soon?

There are so many things wrong with this on so many levels that I don't know where to start.

First off, apparently the cloned beef is awaiting FDA approval for safety. How's that? What could cloning possibly do that would affect the safety of the meat? This is just paranoia - but, in this case, I'm kinda happy for the paranoid, because they're slowing it down.

Line breeding for enhancement is a time honored method of raising animals: you can find the gory technical details here if you're interested. We try not to line breed here at Hammerstead, on the premise that if it's a bad idea for humans, it can't be a good idea for cattle. It's true that you'll get some enhancement of good traits this way: but you'll also get a higher percentage of genetic defect, and in our opinion that percentage is unacceptable. But no matter how rigorous the line breeding program, you'll never get a genetic clone.

Cloning, as in other cases of genetic engineering, will effect biodiversity in a big way if it catches on. Imagine whole herds that are genetically identical - not just similar, not just related, but identical. No natural breeding program is possible without the highest degree of consanguinity between the mates: you'd effectively be telling your cattle to go fuck themselves!

That's a bad idea. A very bad idea.

But an even worse idea is "to grow just the meat itself without the animal". What the Hel is the meat, anyway? It is the animal - no animal, no meat. This "grown" and "harvested" steak would be the mammalian equivalent of tofu - and the texture would probably be more similar than it's proponents would care to admit.

The whole "ethical" problem with meat eating is nothing short of ridiculous: eating is killing, pure and simple. Do these "moral vegetarians" really think plants aren't alive? Do they believe that a cat commits a moral evil when it eats a mouse? There are vegetarians who won't eat meat because of peculiar digestive issues, and there are those who won't eat factory farmed meats, milk or poultry. That's understandable. There are serious ethical issues that are raised by "modern" farming and ranching practices. But I cannot for the life of me understand the "ethical problem" of simply killing for food. Every breath you take, every move you make, everything you eat: you're killing something.

Does anyone seriously think an individual carrot, for example, doesn't want to survive? Try stressing it - watch it grow deeper. Pull off it's top - watch it grow another. And when you pull it from the ground and slice it for you salad, imagine it screaming for it's very life, because it probably is, if we but had the ears to hear it.

The only possible ethical objection to killing for food is intra-species predation. Which is incredibly uncommon in any event in the animal kingdom for creatures above the level of the insects or a few reptiles, not counting carrion or egg eating. That can be framed as a species survival issue - things that eat each other have less of a chance of survival than those that don't, especially given the lower rates of offspring in the higher animals.

Finally, thinking that cloned beef would help in disease resistance is exactly wrong: monocultures are more susceptible to disease, not less.

To sum up, this piece points out many if not all of the problems our culture has with it's food supply. From a reliance on technology to "solve" non-existent problems to the denial of the reality of death, it covers all the bases.

According to this article at Popular Science cloned beef may be coming soon. It talks about using meat within 48 hours of slaughter to allow cloning the best possible specimens, something that is not possible to determine while the animal is still alive. Apparently only 1 in 8000 animals is truly the best. Personally I'd love to see us progress to the point where it was possible to grow just the meat itself without the animal. That would end all the ethical issues with raising an animal for food, potential issues from mad cow disease, bird flu and whatever the next media induced panic is.

(link) [Slashdot]

22:16 /Agriculture | 6 comments | permanent link

USDA Terrorists?

You've got to read this post at NoNAIS to believe it! Are there no depths to which the government won't sink in order to shove this travesty called "animal ID" down our throats? I'm one of those fellows who'd like very much to believe that political differences of opinion in the United States don't usually result in threats and intimidation: sadly, it appears that I may be mistaken.

09:50 /Agriculture | 1 comment | permanent link

Brain scan of nuns finds no single 'God spot' in the brain

I could've subtitled this "looking for the gods in all the wrong places", but they were only looking at monotheist nuns remembering, not while actually having, mystical experiences. This may be a memory study, but it has nothing to do with detecting the divine.

So I hereby declare this a Study in Stupidity, and wonder aloud how many taxpayers dollars from the good citizens of Canada were wasted on this.

A new study at the Université de Montréal has concluded that there is no single God spot in the brain. In other words, mystical experiences are mediated by several brain regions and systems normally implicated in a variety of functions (self-consciousness, emotion, body representation). The study published in the current issue of Neuroscience Letters was conducted by Dr. Mario Beauregard from the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal and his student Vincent Paquette.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

07:55 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

Gas may be headed back near $2

The one thing markets hate worse than inflation or manipulation is instability. Markets constantly strive for equilibrium, and wildly fluctuating prices make it increasingly difficult to get there.

The upshot is that these kinds of price swings are almost always due to politics, and not the economic forces of the market. And in this case, it's the political pressure for lower petrochemical prices that's keeping the market from developing the alternative fuel sources we need to get rid of our oil addiction. And as long as we're addicted to oil, those pressures aren't going away!

Can anybody say "Catch-22"?

The recent drop in prices at the pump could pick up steam, driving gasoline sharply lower in coming months, USA Today reported Wednesday.

(link) [CNN.com]

06:46 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

What's Next, Ramen Noodles?

The Ramen Industrial Alliance of Asia, or RIAA, goes on a rampage!

Some of the recording industry's copyright arguments can easily be applied to popular food, and they still don't go down easy. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

06:29 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

29 Aug 2006
Robots Wrote This

Interesting, funny and thought provoking. When most people think of robots they think of Robby, not Google. That's about to change.

Machines replace nurses, personal assistants and bartenders. They're even becoming financial reporters. Is there anything robots can't do? Commentary by Momus.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

07:51 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Guitar instruction sites shut down by music industry

Sometimes I don't think the music/film industries will stop until they've developed a mind erasure procedure that everyone must undergo after hearing/viewing a work to insure that nothing is remembered. 'Cause that's the only way they won't have to worry about their precious "intellectual property rights" being violated.

When does learning become copyright infringement? Music publishers are taking action against guitar fan websites which they say infringe songwriters' copyrights. Publishers have started to use copyright lawsuits to shut down sites which share notations to help musicians to play songs at home.

(link) [The Register]

07:46 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link

28 Aug 2006
Microsoft's Music DRM Cracked

As if anyone expected it not to be cracked...

A new app makes it easy to strip the DRM protection from "PlaysForSure" subscription files, creating a massive loophole for acquiring massive quantities of music for next to nothing.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

13:52 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Man throws phone 292 feet to win contest

Now this is a contest I would love to enter, even if I wouldn't win!

AP - Ever heard of the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championship? It was held in Finland this weekend. Old phones were supplied for contestants who were allowed to pick which kind of phone they wanted to throw.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

08:09 /Humor | 1 comment | permanent link

27 Aug 2006
New Rifle
Ruger Model 96/22

11:50 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Offshore Auto Clubs

Winston over at Nobody Asked, But... recently had a relatively hilarious encounter with offshoring. But there's a very serious side to this (obviously) as well, and it cost a motor association a member of better than 25 years standing.

Is it really just coincidental that the American Oil Company is now owned by British Petroleum and serviced from India? There are times that I feel as though I'm living on an infamous Disney ride. Like the ride, today's economic realities are funny in a pandering, kitschy sort of way, but horrifying in their ultimate consequences.

10:53 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

You can't always judge a meat by its label

Excellent summary of the various meat labels and what they really mean.

Claims on meat and poultry labels are confusing, and trying to determine whether they actually have value is even more confusing.

(link) [Seattle Times]

10:40 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Aug 2006
Harris clarifies comments on religion

It's going to take more than pandering to the religious right and running as a female Jerry Falwell to rescue her Senate campaign. Even the Republicans who found her invaluable in 2000 are now finding her an embarassment.

Perhaps some celestial drops would help...

AP - U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

19:59 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link