Monday, September 29, 2008

Comments on the debate

It's old, I know, but during the bailout I really had nothing to say (... I was just pretty darn perplexed). Then after the bailout I tried writing about politics and explaining my ideas, but I just hated it, so here's the only thing I liked about that post--commentary on the VP debate:

I'm watching the VP debate right now, and I've got to say that it's pretty darn funny. It's pretty clear that Palin hates Biden's living guts, and that Biden respects Palin about as far as he can throw her (probably less--she's pretty small). It also seems like he really believes that everything he says is convincing.

(it's in quotes, but there's no way it's right-->) "McCain says that Obama voted against funding for the troops, but McCain also voted against funding for the troops!!" huh? ... really? "He voted against funding for the troops because there was a 'timeline'!!" Ooooooh right. yeah, I remember that. So? there was a freakin' timeline on the bill!!

Tell me who that statement was meant to sway? The Obama-voters already agree with Biden, the McCain voters think that makes Biden sound like an idiot, and the undecideds already know that McCain would never support a timeline and that Obama does. wow.

And I just have to mention what a friggin airhead Palin looks like up there. Dodging questions and using her *nudge nudge wink wink* personality to make jokes and almost disrepecting the debate altogether ("You want to listen to me, or do you want to tell your little jokes?" "I can do both" -SN). Obviously she is not used to debating these 'Washington types'. That last bit was in a South Texas accent ;-). I say obviously, because as my friend mike points out, Biden got Palin to say she supports completely equal rights for gays and lesbians. I disagree a bit, I think it was more Gwen Ifill and less Biden (and that it was a bit unprofessional of Gwen Ifill to pull this, but she was a jerk to Biden at one point as well, so it's cool), and I also think that Palin thought she was being clever, but everyone was involved ... Anyway, no matter how the pretty pundits spin it, I think it was a pretty terrible and useless debate.

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Friday, September 26, 2008

Yes, I have a tire guage

Hey people. If you click the title up there, you'll be directed toward the blog of my friend Patrick. He works for the channel 6 news in Tulsa, OK. I really wanted him to show me the studio, but he's a busy man ;-). Anyways in this post he has some ideas on using up half-charged batteries, and wanted my opinion (and yours, because you know better than I do ;-)). If you'd like for the rest of this post to make sense, you should probably go read his first, because, well, I'm lazy, and that's that.

Alright, Patrick, you engaged me, but there's no way I'm just going to comment on the battery thing. One at a time, then ...

Let me start with: Frankly, I was a little annoyed with Obama's tire gauge comment. I know how to take care of my car. I own several tire gauges, and Obama instructing me to go out and check my tire pressure to save on gas was just a little bit insulting to me. Dude, you are running for public office--not lead mechanic. Don't tell me how to look after my car. Granted, the comment probably wasn't intended for folks like me who understand that low pressure in tires is no good for many reasons. But actually, I *do* expected everyone to have a tire gauge and check their tires when they look a little low. To not do that is irresponsible and dangerous. That should be part of the driving test. What pressure should your tires be filled to?

And sure, they ignored the rest of Obama's energy policy after that, but that's what they do! McCain's energy policy is grossly overshadowed by the fact that he wants to expand domestic oil exploration ... maybe they should read the rest of his energy plan as well.

I agree that the gas 'crisis' is more of an inconvenience. But I'm not making minimum wage and raising a family, etc. It might be a crisis for those families--I couldn't say ...

And then there's recycling. Yay, recycling!! I also love it. I'm thinking about getting my restaurant to let me recycle their old ketchup bottles, because right now, they just throw them away :-( I'm also pretty terrible at taking my own recycling to the site (we don't have a pickup program in Norman), so it usually just sits in my apartment for awhile and annoys my roommate. I should move that actually ...

Patrick has an idea to use up the often wasted half-charge batteries channel 6 throws away by making a big old circuit board dealy and plugging in the used batteries and sending the power back into the grid, or whatever.

I want to say that no, the idea does not really sound plausible. Sorry, man. The voltage is really low (only 1.5 V in your standard battery), and they all have varying amounts of charge left which could royally screw things up, and I don't know enough about electrical engineering to try to devise a way to do it. I've gotten solar power to work, but you can adjust the voltage on those things, and I was in a group, and I'm not sure I could do it again on my own ... I'm thinking about it, and I'm not actually sure I know any electrical engineers. I know a computer science dude that had to take a few EE classes, but I think that's about it. Hey guys, did I forget someone? (Mike D, you're the closest to an EE who actually reads my blog ... what do you think?)

Patrick, I think the easiest solution to this problem would be to use rechargeable batteries instead, but that would take some work convincing your higher-ups, and rechargeables don't work forever . . .

Update: an inverter? Would that help? Me and electricity do not mix. It just seems like such a small amount of power ... I'm not sure, but I would guess the power it takes to run the studio lights/cameras/televisions/computer/whatever is orders and orders of magnitude greater than the little battery you just plugged in, thus making it insignificant ...

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Don't Panic

Perhaps everything in life should, much like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, come with a 'Don't Panic' sign. It occurs to me that people tend to freak out about things that haven't been decided or don't really matter yet. We can use BPA as a demonstration of that, but I'm pretty much tired of writing about that, and I also feel it's pretty self explanatory. Pretty much every study ever conducted needs to come with a Don't Panic label. In politics and finance ... we really need that label. Just about the only thing I know about the causes of the Great Depression is that the market started slipping ... and we panicked (I just found it very strange that the past tense of panic--with a c--is panicked--with a ck .... weird) and everyone tried to pull all their money out and save it, and then *crash and burn soundbyte*!! Because of this, I'm always nervous when the media gets all upset when the market goes down a certain amount that doesn't really have any context for me. So you can imagine how nervous I became when I come home to eat lunch and turn on the TV to find John McCain talking about how he is going to put his campaign on hold to work with the rest of the government to resolve our financial crisis.

I listened to that whole speech. Nowhere in there did he once say "Don't Panic." You laugh, but I'm completely serious. The whole CNN front page is exploding with Bush and McCain and Obama and CNN Money and oh look! The new plan they are coming up with is called the bailout! It's as if we are in a little rowboat, and there's a little leak in it, and we are slowly (or not so slowly) gaining water. Well, kids, I think we should name our 700 billion dollar plan after a little tin can an a scooping motion. Good Idea. Seriously. Why can't we call it the "Don't Panic--help out the banks" plan. So was this a bad idea to draw so much attention to the financial woes of the US by pressing pause on the presidential campaigns? I don't think so. It would have been better if he had told everyone not to get too excited! but it's still better than letting the bill go as is which was basically a few pages that said Paulson could really do whatever he wanted with the 700 billion. That makes me more nervous ... but I won't panic!

Don't Panic. We can apply this to many situations! Instead of making everyone 'evacuate' when a hurricane is imminent of the shores of Louisianna or Texas, we should call it 'don't panic, but get the hell out of there as fast as possible.' Don't panic. I feel it instills confidence. I tell that to new waitstaff at the restaurant. Usually they just glare at me, but I'm sure it works ....

Don't Panic. What else should we apply this too? How about conspiracy theories? Or that lady who videos a rainbow in the sprinkler water while voicing-over her fear of what the government could possibly be putting in the water that would make these crazy crazy colors ... But she's not even as bad as the people who believe that contrails from plane engines hanging in the sky are really 'chemtrails' created to poison or test chemicals on the good people of the US ... At least crazy rainbow lady had a more efficient way of testing/poisoning the American people. Don't Panic.

I really can't think of a single good reason to panic. My favorite German band--Wir sind Helden--has a song called "Endlich ein Grund fuer Panik." It means "finally a reason to panic." though, they're pretty vague on what that reason is. Something about trees and running and finding a new home and a heart beating. Sure, OK. whatever that means, it sounds like it's a pretty good reason. But I'm not doing that, so I'm not gonna panic. I'm pretty convinced that picking the best of two guys isn't going to end the world one way or the other, so I'm not going to panic about one or the other--even if they are going to take a week or two off in order to make sure the Secretary of Treasury doesn't buy a new boat with his 700 billion ... and even if the government actually is dumping fun things on our heads ...

Yes, this post was about the presidential race ... I think I came full circle, but ... it's 3 am ;-)
Oh yeah, and

Don't Panic.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Let's write an awesome title.

I'm writing the title for my paper that I should present next year at a conference if everything goes as planned. Soooo here's a couple of options. Let me know which one sounds better/conveys the meaning I'm looking for.

Changes in a, b, c in X mixtures with Y or Z.

Changes in a, b, c in X mixed with Y or Z.

Effects of X on a, b, c in Y or Z mixtures.

So do either of these convey that X is being mixed with Y and the test are being run, and then X is being mixed with Z and tests are being run? That's what I'm going for. Also I like the word mixtures better than mixed ... and I don't have a good reason for that except it pulls up better literature search results than mixed does. And we are all about the literature searches. Though, I might just give up on Z and do that one later, you know, when I have undergrads to do the grunt work and stuff ...

Also I don't particularly like the word 'changes.' I know there's a better one out there somewhere, and I'm sure I'll think of it just after I submit the title to the conference ... 'Changes' is also very vague--there's no mood there. Were the changes good? Were they bad? They *should* be good. We'll just say that. Increases in a, b, c might be better. Show me what you've got!

Thanks!

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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I wasn't going to bother

But I was sent articles reporting this study from 2 3 (now) different people from 2 3 different places (Thanks Steph and Aunt Wendy--glad to know I have the crazy BPA girl rep down). The Reuters article is much more level than the consumerist post (surprise, surprise). BPA is still hot. I suppose the scientific community likes how easy it is to attract media attention just by releasing a BPA study. This new one decided study health problems in relation to BPA. If you look hard enough for some sort of relation, I betcha one will pop out at you.

The study tested urine samples for BPA, and it found that the people with higher concentrations of BPA in their urine had higher risks of heart disease and diabetes. Sounds scary, right? It's the 'had higher risks of.' That phrase implies causality--that BPA gives people a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes ... oops

It reminds me of a study done a few years ago that found that people who drank diet soda were at a higher risk for being overweight or obese. My local news (not your station, Patrick) reported it just like that, and then afterward the newslady said "so you may want to think twice before drinking those diet sodas." I couldn't believe she said that. I also couldn't believe this was news. If I were overweight or obese, I would probably drink diet soda, also. Doesn't sound so scary when I say it that way, does it? If you read the article linked above, it's actually a fairly balanced account of the study, that is if you read all of it and don't stop after the first couple of paragraphs (way to go WebMD, btw. The link I previously posted that presented all the sides of the BPA story pretty fairly was also from WebMD) Higher risk is also a deceptive term. It makes one think that if they drink diet soda, they are more likely (at a higher risk) to gain weight, when what it actually means is the average health of the people in the study who drank diet sodas was such that they would probably gain weight or had gained weight. AKA overweight people drink diet soda, and most people I know who drink diet soda do so to keep from drinking regular soda which would make them gain more weight. I know that's not as exiciting as the irony of diet sodas actually encouraging weight gain (irony check, Alisha!), but it's the statement that is not fabricated to stop at nothing to get you to watch the news every night ...

Another common misleading word used in the Reuters article is 'linked.' "Common Plastics Chemical Linked to Human Disease" It's not linked! It'snotlinked, it'snotlinked, it'snotlinked. Ok, well, maybe it's linked: the same way that I'm linked to anyone else in the world possibly through 6 degrees of separation--possibly not. Correlation does not imply causation. Who knows what causes the correlation. It could be that things that people who tend to have diabetes and heart disease consume often have containers which incorporate a polymer that uses BPA. It could be a complete coincidence! There's no way to know .... so don't freak out.

Information travels so fast on the Internet that anything can become viral. Except apparently logic and critical thinking ...

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An important question

The University of Oklahoma Career Office has a website to connect OU students with companies and organize the interview processes. I just opened an account because the career fair is coming up. On the account information form where you tell them what skill set you have (reliable, communication, managing people, hey look what I can do!), there's also a place to fill in a website. My important question (I should think it would be obvious by now) is should I put kendallcorner on a job site? It's not in any way a professional website, and there are a few pictures from college on it, but I think it says something about me that I actually do have a website, and it's a pretty good representation of how I think and the things I am interested in. Also, at some point I'd like to start posting more information about my research on other parts of the site. So what do you think? Please comment! I know more people read this blog than often comment ;-). Thanks!

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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I can't get anything done today

Because I can't stop reading/watching videos on youtube about the Large Hadron Collider! The more I read about it, the more excited I am. yay physics! I don't understand any of it, but it's still pretty cool, and the videos make it sound easy. I've been finding background on the LHC, how the accelerator works, and even how the massive ATLAS detector works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9XotvwgnaY (nice accents ;-))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQNpucos9wc (really cool, you should totally check that out)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzcATqu5NtY&NR=1 (whaa?? wow)

That last one has some pretty weird fantasia music going on, but it's still really cool. I've also picked up on some info about what great things could come of this experiment.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/09/lhc-top-5-best-and-worst-things-that.html

And then I found a play-by-play of the 'first beam' on September 10th.

http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2008/09/pins_and_needles.php
(it works!!)

And as goes with something really awesomely brilliant and breakthrough in science, so go the crackpots. I'll be honest with you. I haven't found many real crackpot just looking today. I've heard about them, and I do recall watching one a month or more ago, but I didn't keep track of it, and now I can't find it. The internet is so overwhelmed with people making fun of the crackpots, that I just can't find the true crackpots today (this makes me really happy), but I'll keep looking. If you didn't know already, there's a few interesting experiments planned for the LHC, and with some of these comes the possibility of creating microscopic black holes, and once crackpots hear about this, they freak out a little bit. Some people are afraid that these blackholes are going to pull the earth in and end existence as we know it ... wow. Do you think a physicist would even attempt an experiment like that if they thought they might even have the remote possibility of pulling the whole earth into a tiny blackhole?? Of course, it's not like they would have any ramifications if this did occur ...

Many people have been rebutting the crackpots.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/09/why-world-wont-end-on-september-10.html

Or just making fun of them

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/large-paranoia.html (end of the world playlist!)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7607548.stm (even the news agencies are doing it)
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=2914 (in case of imminent world destruction, break glass)

And some people point out the negative ramifications of this outlash of crackpot crazies who don't know what they are talking about!!

http://depletedcranium.com/?p=810 (MIT dude gets death threats for his experiment!)
http://scienceblogs.com/sunclipse/2008/09/doomsday_fears_claim_a_life.php (a girl in India died!!)

Idiots still make me angry. Just tell me when you get tired of reading about dumbasses on my blog, and I'll try to write about something else that bothers me ... like when people don't push in their chairs. Weird thing to have, right? Anyway, next I'll start watching some CERN propaganda.

http://lhc-first-beam.web.cern.ch/lhc-first-beam/Welcome.html

That site has a page about the safety of the LHC stating that these hypothetical black holes are no more dangerous than cosmic rays which have been hitting the earth since ... well, as long as any of us can remember ... oh the homework you crackpots need to do ...

Update: I forgot the best one http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/ Though I'm sure most of you have seen this one already.

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Thursday, September 4, 2008

I should change the name of this blog

To "Hi! You're an Idiot." Because that's my favorite thing to do. Point out how idiotic people are. One major difficulty I have with the internet is stupid people. Really really. They just kill me. Might literally someday ... you never know. I read a few blogs because they're entertaining and smart, and the bloggers aren't morons! They don't talk about what they don't understand. usually. When they talk about what they don't understand, you just can't prove them wrong, and don't even *try* to prove the commenters wrong, cuz that's just silly. I have come to the conclusion (which perhaps you have already attained) that the people who write blogs and comment are ... well, mostly unwaivering in their beliefs. They either know what they are talking about or have such specific research that they are certainly right (which I like), or they're morons who infer and have nothing to backup their claims and don't understand the full situation (which I do not like). And while it is moderately hilarious to read people making moronic asses of themselves, they are reenforcing the misinformed ideas of other morons who also don't understand everything. I try not to do that ... I also try to be devil's advocate which doesn't turn out very happy for me usually ... I would also say that I'm a rare blogger who doesn't resolutely stick to her position. Maybe that's why I have a small readership ;-)

Anyway here is just one example, but it's the simplest one to pick out and explain. We're back on BPA, btw. Hooray, Bisphenol-A! Anyway, as I have said before, the FDA said BPA is cool, and that's good enough for me thus far. They have some pretty good guys over at the FDA, one of them being one of my old professors from MIT who is smart as shit (seriously, how do you think he got where he is). He didn't work with BPA as far as I know, but still, if they've got him, they must have some big guns. The FDA said it wasn't harmful, but people are still complaining, (that's what happens when morons explode on the internet) and the consumerist wrote this post about an article printed by the Washington Post. About the 4th comment down, someone decides to post this graph. Let's see if we can point out everything wrong with this picture ...

So first of all, there's no reference and it's done in excel! If s/he wanted to make all this up, s/he totally could have. But I'm very clever and actually found the main site where the picture is from, and it looks to be a biotech company, but I still have no idea what this graph was intended for. I just got the URL of the pic, and I bet if you click on my pic you'll get the URL as well. So now you've got about as much information as I do. So since it's a biotech company who's obviously hurting for money since they are using excel to make graphs for what I assume are presetations or papers they are publishing, we'll just go ahead and say that the data is not BS. Accept the premise! So let's look at that increase. Whoa! that looks like a 200% increase in the last 30 years. We learned about this the 5th grade, so I make fun of it all the time. These people obviously want to make it look like cancer rates have gone up a lot. If I wanted to make it look less like cancer rates had gone up, I might, I dunno have started the y-axis scale from 0. This is actually only about a 27% increase. Which by itself is still a little disconcerting. I guess it just didn't look scary enough on the 0 graph, which, incidentally, excel defaults to. I'm just saying that they obviously had to do some work to make it look like that.

What next, friend? Well futher down, other people (thank god) start talking a little sense and point out that people are living longer and that by itself means there will be more incidences of cancer. Also that there are millions of carcinogens out there, and how do we know which causes what? And there's absolutely no evidence on that chart relating cancer rates to BPA use! There's not even a 'use of BPA' chart alongside it going up with the cancer rates ... that and we've been using BPA since before 1975. come on, buddy. And then some one made another lovely excel chart relating global warming to the number of pirates on the high (and low) seas. See, now that's funny.

The internet is such a vast and informative place. Where you could actually read the FDA review and the papers published examining the BPA as a carcinogen and actual scientists' responses to these papers. Why would you listen to the dumbass that posts on consumerist with a fake chart that is designed specifically to look like cancer has gone up dramatically more than it has? Or even the Washington Post or your local news? So many people have pointed out over time that these people know about as much about science and technology as you do. If not much much less (if you are one of my friends, you probably know what I am talking about). I never understand it ...

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