28 Feb 2007
Eating ice cream may help women to conceive

Ya know, I'm a "high fat" kinda guy: I think low fat dairy is not nearly as good for you as real milk, and generally tend towards as natural a diet as I can get.

But even considering all that, this study is bunk. It's a mathematical mash-up:

...adjusting for various factors such as age, parity, body mass index, total calorie intake, physical activity, smoking, drinking and contraceptive use ...

In other words, they took the data they collected and correlated it against dozens of other studies, using criteria that was derived, in part, from the very studies they're correlating! Be selective about the factors you choose to include, and those you choose to ignore and you could probably prove that women with the letter "A" in their first name have a higher incidence of [fill in your favorite problem].

So let me not be accused of ignoring bullshit research with outcomes I like: despite my preference for real dairy, this is just another Study in Stupidity.

Drinking whole fat milk and eating ice cream appears to be better for women trying to become pregnant than a diet consisting of low-fat dairy products such as skim milk and yogurt, according to new research published in Human Reproduction journal. Researchers in the United States have found a link between a low-fat dairy diet and increased risk of anovulatory infertility.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

07:28 /Home | 1 comment | permanent link

Patently Bad Move Gags Critics

For a real look at the absurdity, move it to meatspace. Imagine if it was proved that you could open a padlock with a toothpick and the padlock manufacturer sued for patent infringement...

A company finds a sneaky new way to silence security researchers: Claim that defeating its products infringes on patents. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.

(link) [Wired News: Top Stories]

07:26 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Feb 2007
Who Checks Your Credit Report?

Eye opening. IANAL, but I wonder if the Fair Credit Reporting Act comes into play at any point: who can legally check your credit, and for what reasons?

It's conventional wisdom: You build credit to get more credit. Your credit history determines whether you can even get that credit card, mortgage, or car or small-business loan. Then it directly affects how much you'll be paying in interest for years to come. What conventional wisdom often ignores is that even nonborrowers need to keep track of their credit records. Plenty of financial players besides lenders care about your past.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

21:26 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

US 200-year porn sentence stands

Methinks that perhaps we have things a bit reversed here: a conviction for rape in Arizona carries a minimum of 5.25 years and a max of 14 years.

The US Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal by a teacher jailed for 200 years for possessing child porn.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

07:16 /Politics | 3 comments | permanent link

26 Feb 2007
Early Europeans unable to stomach milk

Interesting stuff - not sure how much I believe from 7000 year old DNA "evidence", but the theory seems to make sense overall. Interesting that Africa gets a brief mention - the Masai are among the finest herdsmen in the world, and milk is an integral part of the diet. But no mention of Central Asia, where mares milk is heavily used.

The first direct evidence that early Europeans were unable to digest milk has been found by scientists at UCL (University College London) and Mainz University.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

22:32 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

CodeGear polishes Delphi jewels

An IDE for PHP ... what an interesting idea. I wonder how long it'll take to catch on?

CodeGear, Borland Software's tools subsidiary, has added support for Windows Vista and PHP to Borland's Delphi integrated development environment for Windows.

(link) [The Register]

22:30 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

25 Feb 2007
More SPAM from the Insane Asylum

SPAMIn the process of checking out the renewed efficacy of my SPAM blockers, I happened across another for my (sort of) series I call SPAM From the Insane Asylum. No sales pitch of any sort - just random "musings". And this one's a dilly:

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Kinda like Walt Whitman meets Allen Ginsberg over a steaming cup of LSD...

11:06 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Microsoft told to pay Alcatel $1.5bn in MP3 patent spat

This is utterly ridiculous: M$ has been paying licensing fees for this very technology to the real rights holder (Thomson and Frauhofer) for years, and now these bozos come along with a submarine patent and demand a piece of the action. Not even the Evil Empire deserves this treatment at the hands of a legal system run amok.

Microsoft is reviewing its legal options after a US court ordered it to pay Alcatel $1.5bn for infringing the French telecoms' company's MP3 technology in Windows.

(link) [The Register]

08:15 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Whew!

Well, no damage here from Ice Storm 07 - didn't even lose power. Although shutting down my servers proved useful, as I discovered that a SPAM blocker hadn't been reset for updating, and works much better after the reboot. It'd only been catching about 40% of recent SPAM, and this morning it's back up to about 95% - so shutting down was definitely worth the hassle.

08:15 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

24 Feb 2007
Ice Storm!

As if the weather hasn't been crazy enough, now we've got an ice storm! There's already about half an inch of ice crusted on the trees, and the wind is just howling out of the east, so I'm pretty sure we're going to lose power. Probably sooner rather than later.

We've already got water stocked in, and for the critters as well. It's funny - the Highlands hate ice. They'll tolerate hot and cold, rain doesn't bother then in the least, even the blizzard didn't phase them. But tonight all my cattle are in the barns, pushing and jostling with the goats and sheep and really making Hammer skittish. Hope nobody gets their face kicked in - I'm really not set up to have all of them jammed in like this, but at least I managed to get most of the sheep over to the east barn.

Well, I'm gonna make this post manually and then shut down the local server to ride out the storm. Happy Winter! Again!

20:03 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

22 Feb 2007
The UN's new international radiation symbol

I've blogged about this kinda stuff before, as a problem in information science. And honestly, despite it's source, I think this particular symbol is pretty unambiguous...

Seriously, this is what the UN, the ISO, and the IAEA came up with. Should we take it to mean you can run but can't hide from deadly, deadly radiation? (Better start using that Geiger watch again.) Look for this emblem on a cellphone, CRT monitor, or gauss gun near you.

(link) [Engadget]

07:18 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Radioactive Warning for Future Generations

Hmmm - radioactive waste considered as a problem in information science. I must say I'd never thought of this, but it is going to be a problem.

The Los Angeles Times discusses the problems with trying to leave a message for generations down the line. From the article: 'Symbols tend to lose their meaning over time. Exactly how and why Stonehenge was built, for instance, has long remained a mystery. Warnings, they argue, would be misunderstood or dismissed, the same way ancient grave robbers ignored curses inscribed on the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs to seize the riches inside. The curse of plutonium packs a painful penalty.'

(link) [Slashdot]

07:09 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Sex abuse victims go after Southern Baptists

The level of hypocrisy here is just appalling:

Vasquez says she was raped when Amyx was a minister at the now-defunct Calvary Baptist Church in Lewisville, another town north of Dallas.

When she became pregnant with Amyx's child at age 18, church leaders forced her to go before the congregation and ask forgiveness as an unwed mother. But the congregation was never told it was Amyx's baby.

You gotta wonder about this: were they protecting a predator or simply acting out a deeply rooted misogyny. Beginning with Eve, it always seems to be the woman's fault.

Christianity seems to have a problem with sex, and it's certainly not a lack thereof.

The victims' advocates who dogged the Roman Catholic Church over sex abuse by its clergy have now turned their attention to the Southern Baptists, accusing America's largest Protestant denomination of also failing to root out molesters.

(link) [CNN.com]

00:07 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Feb 2007
More Weather Madness

Hard to believe that it was a mere week ago that I was buried in nearly 2 feet of snow, and the air temperature barely made 10°F. It hit 50°F this afternoon, the snow has melted, and as you can see the cows have shed their snowsuits and are frolicking in the creek with some new friends...

I'm beginning to forget what "normal" means, at least in terms of weather. I thought I spied a robin, of all things, this afternoon out my window at work! The prediction for Saturday (which is February 24th) is for thunderstorms! It's almost as if it was March in December and January, January in February and May in March.

21:34 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

20 Feb 2007
Smoking produces changes in human brain like those in animals using illicit drugs

There ya have it: one cigarette and the next think ya know you'll be shootin' smack!

I'm gonna apply for a grant to study the deadly effects of carrots - why, did you know that every single human who ate a carrot before 1870 is now dead! Astonishing how long this threat has gone undetected! But don't worry, I'm digging for the root of the problem - the Orange Menace must be stopped at all costs!

New research shows for the first time that smoking produces long-lasting biochemical changes in the human brain similar to those changes previously seen in the brains of animals that used cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

06:39 /Humor | 3 comments | permanent link