But It's XBox LIVE, not XBox LIFE

Heh©. And no, I do not know exactly what he means. Just slightly.

 

 

Hansen's, How Could You?

So, I was reading this story on energy drinks. Of course, if caffeine is involved, I'll take a quick look. Nothing surprising in the article: kids are being targeted, it's not really healthy, bad habits could could start along with being prone to addictive behavior. Big deal. But, the graphic to the left caught my eye. Monster is made by Hansen's. You know Hansen's Soda, that healthy stuff with no artificial anything in it. Yeah, they're corrupting youth with green, disgusting, caffeine soaked, carboloaded swill. Wow. I had no idea. Shame on you Hansen's, for making a buck off green-teethed teenagers. I'll still buy your strawberry soda, but I won't enjoy it as much. Hmm, how is Cactus Cooler doing these days?

Expensive and Wrong

The main concept of Anthropogenic Global Warming has always annoyed me. Climate change may be occurring, and the planet may be warming, but that the ratio of greenhouse gases had to be in such a balance on its tipping point, that the meager contribution of carbon dioxide that industrial economies throw up into the atmosphere, started the boulder rolling down the hill? Pardon me, but that's laughable. I'm an ex-astronomer, and I know astronomical odds when I see them. Unfortunately, the environmental activists have so successfully tied man-made Global Warming with plain old global warming, that policy makers and politicians think that we humans can actually do something about reversing it. Similar to the Illegal Immigration debate here in America, activists have been so loud and vocal with tying all immigration to the debate, rational thought has left the arena.

So now, Britain, which has been totally hornswaggled about Man's arrogance, first that we are so powerful to affect the planet so, and second that we are still so powerful to reaffect it, has published a government report that dealing with climate change's effects over the next century will cost between 5 to 20 percent of a country's GDP. But, saving grace of all saving graces, countries can spend only 1 percent of their GDP's and reverse Global Warming. Um, what if you're wrong, and we are not this all powerful acne rash on Mother Gaia's face, and we spend this money, but Global Warming happens anyway, so that we've ruined our economies and we still have to deal with drought, coastal intrusion, and stronger hurricanes? Pretty expensive gamble, don't you think?

Now, this report is based on the "science" of climate change as it exists today. What if those theories are wrong? What if the warming we saw in the 1990's was a brief phenomenon? It's pretty unwise to base your next 50 years of economic and environmental policy on a science that is only accurate to a timeline of 100 years or so, based on data taken during a trend of 10 years. But here's the other side of the gamble the Greens are willing to take: if the warming trend peters out, and we've placed all these carbon credit scams all over the world, they can claim that we acted in time and reversed global warming. Although, other climate scientists can call shenanigans on that since it takes 30 to 50 years for carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere now to affect global temperature. But who cares? No one listens to those rational climate scientist Today, so why would we listen to them in the future? But, the Greens are collectivist at their philosophic core, so slowing down the elite economies, and transfering their wealth to developing countries through the carbon trading scheme, will be all to the benefit of their ideology.

However, even if the Greens are wrong, and spending all this crap to reverse Global Warming doesn't work, and Global Warming happens anyway, they can claim we waited too long, other countries didn't do enough, or Mother Gaia was angrier than we thought. It doesn't matter, because global economies would have been ruined, industrial wealth would have been redistributed, and capitalist powerhouses would have been weakened, so the "little" countries could compete with them. A more even playing field would make it easier for socialist policies to spread. It really is win-win for the enviro-bats, whether the Earth cooperates with them or not.

Just Don't Think of Mean Kittens

You know, in every ensemble hero story, there's always the inept character that just needs to increase his focus to become the badass. Sometimes, it's for love, but other times, it's just mindless rage. There was the Incredible Hulk, who was a loner in his story arc, which was the template, but then there was also Mr. Furious in Mystery Men. And then there's my new favorite, Michael J. Caboose, baby hater.

 

"Your toast has been burned and no amount of scraping will remove the black parts."

 

I'll Have a Red and Tan?

I'm not so sure this is a good idea, but if Guinness can keep the stout tasting the same, I really don't care. According to the story, the new color will be a deep red. I'm sure the Irish will love that.

Do You Have a Zombie Plan?

Here at Helmety Goodness Fridays, we also like to inform, as well as entertain. With the recent nuclear test in North Korea, and terrorism in general, emergency preparedness plans are a necessity. And with Halloween coming up, we all want to make sure everyone is safe and survives whatever may come. But with Halloween comes the spectre of possibilities too horrible to imagine: Zombies! So please, pay special attention to this very special message.

 

"...Briiiiiaaaan, I want Briiiiiiaaaaan..."

 

 

[cross-posted at Teh Squeaky Wheel]

 

How Lance Really Feels about the French

Remember when Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France for the 7th time, and he made that nice speech at the end? You could tell he still had some issues with the French, and how they treated him during those seven years. What if he said what he really wanted to say? Hmm... what would that look like?

 

"That's right all you li'l Pepe LePieus, Lance Armstrong is large and in charge!"

 

Familiar Territory

I'm not sure why, but this alien situation seems awfully familiar. Could be just me, I dunno.

 

 

Not Bringing the 'A' Game Today

You know, sometimes I just can't get excited about the stuff that really interests me. For example, here's a great story on eating vegetables to keep your brain young. Lots of material in that story, especially about listening to your mother, or even that it is a model of how a science story should be written. Or this one on the Hubble, in which people want to keep it up even more years past its shelf-life. But I've already written my opinions on making it a Smithsonian showpiece. There's even this story on global warming that belongs in the World Politics news section, instead of the Science section. Just more bias at work. Or this ridiculous story on the Russians being prepared to spare us from an asteroid disaster movie.

So, what's wrong with me? I've got this headache from yesterday, which must be a leftover effect from heatstroke. I must have kept my heartrate too high for too long in the heat, and I just can't concentrate on anything. So, what I'll do is give you guys some Helmety Goodness Tuesday, and show you two of my favorite characters, Sarge and Caboose, doing what they do best, making quoteworthy dialog.

 

"What the Samuel Helsinki happened here?"

 

Alternative Medicine Doesn't Work

At least, that's what all the clinical trials have shown over the past seven years. Robert Bazell from NBC gives a very good summary on the state of testing efficacy of the popular drugs touted in the homeopathic aisle of your pharmacy. Interesting notes are the proven benefits of acupunture and contact therapies, such as massage or acupressure, as complementary medicinal aids. There are some diet supplements which obviously work in controlling weight, and testing these would give us a better idea of what works and what doesn't. Of course, Bazell is a doctor, and has his own biases against "competitors," but when you have enough tests pointing out the same thing, I believe more weight should be given to these data, instead of the anecdotal testimonials given in magazine ads. Read the whole thing.

Because You Can't Have Enough French Jokes

Bucky T. Katt says things, so we don't have to. Plus, he gets to take a swipe at the Swiss for their WWII behavior.

 

 

CRT's Will Be The Next Boutique Electronic Device

Sometime next year, more Flat Panel video monitors will be sold than "regular" tube monitors. But something in this AP story caught my eye:

Digital CRT sets sold today are capable of handling high-definition TV, and video experts say CRT technology still represents the gold standard in picture quality with the deepest blacks and best color accuracy.

But the performance of LCD and plasma displays have improved dramatically in just the past two years, making the differences in picture quality insignificant to all but discerning videophiles.[Emph. added]

As the son of an audiophile and videophile, I know the buzzwords that the salespeople and installers use for the "One Percenters." Words like, "gold standard," "picture quality," "color accuracy," and "insignificant to all but discerning videophiles." These "One Percenters" are the same people who insist on vacuum tubes for their amplifiers, platinum styluses for their LP record players, and horn geometry for their loudspeakers. I call them dinosaurs. Do not ever tell a dinosaur that a digital signal is just as good as an analog signal. Hoo boy, you wanna see a red face?

Now, I need to make a distinction between One Percenters and sound engineers and video engineers. To the engineers, the raw analog signal is better, since "all" of the signal is present before they do their work on it. But they have instruments and detectors for all that. The One Percenters only have their ears and eyes, and digital signals, engineered properly, fool those senses all the time. It really is a case of The Emperor's New Clothes, where only the "best" or "most discerning" can detect the differences. That all being said, the CRT will still be sold for many years to graphic arts departments because the tube really is the standard for color accuracy, much like photographic film is still the standard for resolution. When it matters, the analog signal is the best. But does the analog signal really matter in your own home? Truly, the money spent on that 20,000 dollar LP player can be spent on something else.

Grammar makes a comeback...

...will spelling be far behind? According to a story in the Washington Post, one side effect of the addition of the writing portion to the SAT, is a return to teaching sentence diagramming and grammar in high school. One thing I did not know about the writing section, is that there is actually a short multiple choice section on grammar. It is to be sure, that the number of college-entry students taking remedial math and writing courses is a large number at 4 year institutions, and the majority at junior colleges for students wishing to transfer. Could it be, that adding the writing section would force teachers to admit that the holistic language arts program started in the 1980's is actually a failure in teaching writing? A standardized test seems to point that out. Hmm, no wonder teachers unions and administrators hate standardized tests, especially the ones tied to funding. The SAT exposing a student's shortcomings in his education could also explain why more students have begun taking the ACT, in order to avoid the writing and grammar section.

There are a couple of issues brought up by the new trend of teaching old grammar. First, the teachers weren't kidding that they would be influenced into "teaching to the test" when learning performance would be tied to federal funding. This is the lazy way of designing a curriculum: it helps the school, but doesn't help the student. Perhaps the performance tests should now include a writing and grammar section? I can just imagine the gnashing of teeth and the demonstrations from the teachers' unions that would incur. The second issue is the adoption of education theory in the 1980's which took a non-hierarchical view of child development and applied this view to all methods of instruction. Child development, especially cognitive development, happens in stages, and curricula used to incorporate that view. But the "holistic" approach gathered adherents, because it stressed discovery, individuality, and self-directed learning. All these are great things for adults, but not for children. The application of self-directed learning methods had to include self-esteem fostering, because, if the child did not feel successful in its self-directed learning, the child would withdraw, and the fostering of discovery would end. We now see the effects of grade-inflation, non-grading, whole language, and whole math approaches in a generation of young adults that can't write, can't add or subtract, and can't think logically.

I worry because this generation will soon be old enough to take over the policy direction duties of our governments. Making emotional judgments with specious logic is good enough to satisfy your college professors when you agree with their views, but the real world has real consequences. Being able to apply the lessons from grammar, that there is a correct way to express an idea, may influence a future generation, that there is a right and a wrong way to think.

TEH L33T R0XX0RS!

Here at Helmety Goodness Fridays, we are always striving to improve quality and customer relations. Sometimes, we even extend Friday to Sunday just because a strange idea hits us squa' in the head as we get up in the morning. So, to test this squa' head-hitting idea, we have provided this test of our L33T blogging skills. Below, you will find a web-only machinima talk-show. Bear in mind, every person moving around, besides the "host" and the "cameraman" are audience participants in an online game over XBOX-Live. So, please, M33T TEH L33T.

Update: Now the longer format works.

 

"Forget that meatspace stuff, you're only delaying evolution."

 

Ah, Magical Coffee!

Heh.© I wish, but I'm halfway there. I have a cordless mouse!

 

 

British Species Move to Avoid Annoying Scientists

Crikey! I got to get to Scotland!

Actually, I'm not sure if that's the reason some 80% of a 300 species survey are moving north in Britain, but I could have given any other reason besides climate change, and still be within the scope of the research study. A study put out by a conservation biologist, describes a "mass migration" of 240 species of flora and fauna northward, on average of 40 to 60 miles during the last 25 years. No other speculation for causes besides global warming are put forth in the story. Not increased pollution from southern cities, not urban encroachment into habitats, not animal conservation policies changing species demographics and populations, not hitchhiking species. Nope, it's gotta be global warming. That half a degree celsius must really be painful to those ferns and foxes.

A Clone Apart - Episode 2 - Part 1

Oh my! I can tell you that Monday was a great day because Illusive Entertainment released the next episode of the dumbest, most incompletely trained clone ever to time travel 20 years into the future. Hey, cool plot summary, huh? Now that you're all caught up, enjoy the reappearance of the dancing trash can. Oh, other stuff happens too.

 

"...and enjoy the stale, reprocessed air of this rebel blockade runner with me."

Update: Here is the full second episode. The Helmety Goodness post that had the second part originally posted on YouTube, will just be linked back here. Thanks again go again to Illusive Entertainment's A Clone Apart series for finding a new home.

Mauna Kea Scopes Down After Earthquake

Electronic Technicians Robert Novak, left, and Gary Anderson repair the Keck II telescope drive and control system after it was damaged by an earthquake.

I was wondering how the greatest collection of astronomical telescopes in the world were doing after the Hawaii earthquake. Looks like they're okay, but need a few weeks of minor repair and calibration. The repair work won't take that long, but the re-calibration is where all the effort will take a while. The position of the scopes, even in relation to each other, have to be known to within tenths of a nanometer. According to the Keck Observatory's spokesperson, Laura Kinoshita:

She said inspection showed the telescopes came down on the radial pads and brakes with about 100,000 pounds of force during Sunday's temblor. Once these are replaced, the Keck's engineers will have to recalibrate both telescopes to account for the seismic shifts that moved the Keck I telescope more than 1/8 inch and the Keck II telescope more than one inch.

To move two 300 ton structures 1/8 of an inch and more than 1 inch, respectively, gives you an idea of how strong the Hawaii earthquake really was. Also, the Keck I and Keck II can be linked to run interferometry experiments, basically making a new telescope with a virtual diameter as wide as the scopes are apart, for measuring distances. The operators will have to know what the new distance between I and II is, hence all the re-calibration effort. Hopefully, the two largest telescopes in the world will be back up and running very soon.

Iranian Telecom Ministry Slows Down the Internet

This is totalitarian genius at work. The telecom ministry has cut the internet connection speed to cafes and residences in half, offering no reason behind the move, but denied they were pressuring "opposition journalists, academics and students." At 128 Kbps, audio and video streaming becomes annoying, not impossible, but annoying. Iran can't control that most of the online media is in text with strange ideas of freedom of expression, celebrity news, and technological achievements. Luckily for Iran, the stories are in other languages than persian or arabic. Unlucky, for the totalitarian regime, is that internet media are full of accompanying pictures, audio bits, and video. Even if you can't understand the text, you can still look at a picture, a video, and appreciate a rockin' beat.

Dilbert will be the next Che!

These are all things that a government that needs to control a population should be worried about. Images and music, placed outside the proper context, in Iran's case, Sinful, might give people ideas, ideas that are not allowed. So, betting on the impatience of an internet surfer to lose interest in foreign websites which offer pictures, music, and video, the Iranian telecom industry is gambling on thought control. According to the story, businesses will not have their internet speeds reduced. Will the next wave of opposition originate from a cubicle farm?

"I'll have a cup of less sadness, please."

Sometimes, Dilbert demonstrates my basest nature.

 

 

Carbon Trading Mess

This is a bad idea. Everywhere a free-market system has been set-up for energy utilities, disastrous high prices have followed. The carbon-trading scheme can only work if all the energy companies in the world have no choice. Those who don't opt-in can go to other states, and make money by selling their energy to other consumers or utilities. We saw here in California that an open energy trading scheme allowed some to game the system and drive prices sky high and cause shortages. The same thing will happen with a carbon-trading scheme. A study in Australia for their proposed interstate carbon-trading system showed that energy prices would increase and especially affect the end-user consumer. The idea with carbon-trading is to make energy producing so expensive for the utilities, that they will have to develop lower carbon emitting energy sources. Motivation like this doesn't work, mainly because fossil-fuel energy is so cheap and will remain cheap no matter what strictures a regulating body can put on the utilities. If the greens want the free market to really motivate the utilities to act, it's the consumers who will have to create the demand.

Making energy expensive so consumers scream seems to be the gameplan for the last 15 years, but all this sin-taxing isn't going to work. Groupthink does not allow a positive demand to be created by introducing negative effects. The groupthink's initial reaction will be to remove the negative reaction, not live with it until outside forces take it away. So, alternative energy sources will only take root when they are cheaper than fossil fuel, because a lower energy bill will be the positive demand. Carbon-trading will increase prices, but the consumers will know that it was the government that caused it, not the utilities. The Greens' attempt at fast-forwarding the research for cheaper alternative fuel will backfire.

They have already tried to influence the college campuses' thinking toward the need for switching away from from fossil fuels, but they influenced the wrong people. Engineers and physicists are the ones that needed the brainwashing, but it's no surprise to me that the students in the hard sciences have resisted the propaganda without proof. The soft social sciences have bought into the message whole-heartedly, but all they can do is lobby the government, since they've also been taught that they can't do anything for themselves. The Greens should start funding campus research groups into finding cheap alternative fuels instead of trying to get the governments to force private energy concerns to do it for them. Let's see how smart they really are.

Rare Meteorite Found in Kansas

On this week's special episode of Smallville... But seriously, finding a rare pallasite meteorite is very cool because of the crystals found in the iron-nickel chunk. Most meteorites are stony, rather uninteresting, and we can't really learn anything from them. But with a pallasite, which is thought to be a chunk of an asteroid from the core-mantle boundary, we can get an idea of what was in the center of an asteroid. Asteroid cores let us know what the make-up of the very early solar system was, which can give us a better understanding of the processes involved in in planetary creation. Just as long as those crystals in the pallasite don't turn some young kid into the freak of the weak for Clark Kent to save Smallville from, we'll be okay.

New Hardware!

Wires? We don't need no steenking wires! I finally got my wireless USB mouse today. I had to order one up since I found out those cute little laptop mouses don't last very long when you play a click-intensive RPG. Also, my right hand was going to get turned into a claw just using the glide pad, and the hand hasn't been the same since I got the 5 little screws put into one of the bones. So, full-size mouse, here I come! I debated going Bluetooth since my Wi-Fi card can handle it, but decided that radio frequency battery powered solution was still way cheaper. One other cool thing: side-ways scrolling! Also, gotta have the color-coordination thing going on.

Chocolate Igloo Still Melts

At least that's what the survivalists say who built the igloo for the Eurochocolate fair in Perugia. They say the chocolate will melt at 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). They should have used the new Nigerian chocolate, or maybe the Hershey chocolate made for Desert (Dessert?) Storm. Still, 330 big bricks of dark chocolate would last a long time...

Merlot Swilling Mice Have Fewer Strokes...

...according to a study done at Johns Hopkins. Actually, the researchers fed mice a compound called resveratrol, which is found in grapeskins. The team found that "resveratrol increases levels of an enzyme in the brain -- heme oxygenase -- that was already known to shield nerve cells from damage." After feeding the mice the resveratrol, the researchers induced stroke, and the mouse population had 40 percent fewer cases of stroke damage than the control group. If it is shown that the resveratrol works better at higher doses, drinking the equivalent of 1 - 2 glasses of red wine a day would have a preventative effect, since the fermentation process concentrates the compound. Of course, the effect has only been demonstrated in mice, and the report does not say how long the mice were ingesting the resveratrol before their little brains were fried, but here's just a little more proof that alcohol in moderation is good for you. Just remember to drink coffee to offset any annoying liver complications.

Hazard Warning Signs for the Future

These futuristic hazard signs had me laughing out loud. What is interesting about each of these future hazards is that each one exists as a theoretical harmful side-effect of nascent technologies. What I would love to see is science fiction books get these labels on the inside dust covers. That would be a cool plot synopsis device. Let's try this on Michael Crichton's Prey.

 

This story is about nanomachines that go out of control and change their programming, so the accompanying hazard signs would be:

 

 

As you can see, the effective set-up of the plot can be figured out just by reading the signs. Some authors might think that the signs give too much of the plot away, so maybe they can decide with their publishers how many signs to put on the book.

Of course, the sign that would make me panic the most would be:

 

 

(h/t to Instapundit)

"You have lovely... scenery."

My answer to the following question is "the same reason all the treadmills in Vegas hotel gyms face the pool area."

 

 

Air America is Bankrupt

And not just morally. Big surprise, only since they've been battling rumors of their shoddy accounting and piss-poor ad revenue due to ratings for over a year. They will be gone, sooner than later, and even the politically left-leaning listeners won't miss them. They still have NPR.

 

Fun while it lasted... wait, no it wasn't.

 

Helmety Winter Sports

Being a pure California boy, I have hardly ever participated in any winter sport. About the extent of my winter sport knowledge come from watching the Winter Olympics. As a rollerblader, I can get into the speedskating, but that's about it. I have some ideas about how to make winter sports more interesting and easier to watch, but none of them are as funny as the Blood Gulch crew's suggestions. Remember, adding polar bears to any sport makes it more exciting.

 

"Tell Michelle Kwan I always loved her!"

 

Jupiter Sees (More) Red

Whoa! One of Jupiter's white spots turned red!

 

 

The red comes from the storm picking up sulfur from a lower atmospheric zone and the chemical reaction turns the entire storm red. Not quite sure how envirobats will spin this freak storm as a product of global warming.

Hypocritical UN Agency Statement

I know, the UN being hypocritical is not earth-shattering news, but in this global warming scare tactic story about Africa, Nick Nuttall from the U.N.'s Environment Program says that

Industrial nations also need to step up support to help poor nations adapt to global warming with drought and heat resistant crops and alternative energy sources so people do not cut down trees for fuel.

This is a laugh, since the UN and the EU have been vigourously fighting genetically modified foods from the United States from entering drought-plagued African nations. If we don't modify the crops, where are these heat resistant crops going to come from? Because of the UN's and the EU's ignorance and spite of American agricultural technology, millions in Africa have already starved when they refused "frankenfoods" at the europeans' insistence.

If it weren't for American frankenfood technology, the French wouldn't even have a wine industry for Americans to boycott. UC Davis and the California wine industry saved France's economy after a blight in the 1980's killed off most of the vine crop. By cloning and grafting blight-resistant genes into the French stock, France's wine industry was able to recover.

The rest of the article devolves into pap about carbon trading, which is still a scam for rich nations to give money to developing nations and justify all the pollution a growing economy will produce. Nevermind the local effects of pollution, not the carbon dioxide but the harmful particulates, that will sicken the forests they are trying to recover.

The Anti-Google!

I love a comic strip that makes my inner geek become an outer geek, especially when that outer geek can laugh out loud.

 

 

Caffeinated or... Caffeinated?

Two question have always struck me about decaffeinated coffee: 1)Why? and 2) They can't get all the caffeine out, so how much is there really? A new study from the University of Florida published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology at least tries to answer my second question. The common wisdom, what I've always heard around the coffeemaker in the office, is that the decaffeinating process takes out only 95% of the caffeine in coffee. The new study actually quantifies that by basing their numbers on 16 ounces of regular coffee: a regular cup for me, but equal to 2 big cups of coffee. Coffeemakers call a coffee cup at 6 ounces. I'm sure I'll be curious enough to find out why at some other time, but there it is. 16 ounces of regular coffee usually has an average of 170 milligrams of caffeine. Since the AP article makes the presentation of the data a little hard to compare, I made the following table, along with my Buzz Factor, to quickly show how much caffeine is in decaf, and where on my scale of caffeine daily intake that particular coffee drink lies.

 

Caffeine Content in milligrams and percentages of 170 mg

Brand or Coffeehouse	Caffeine (mg)	Caffeine (percent)	Buzz Factor
Folgers Crystals (Instant)	0	0%	Drooling
Other Instant	8.6 - 13.9	5.1% - 8.2%	One eye open
Starbucks Espresso	3 - 15.8	1.8% - 9.3%	One eye open
Starbucks Brewed	12 - 13.4	7.1% - 7.9%	One eye open
Can of Coca-Cola	31	18.2%	Incoherent thought

 

 

As you can see, what some call decaf, others may beg to differ, especially those who need to be careful of how stimulants affect their metabolism. Now, how is it that only Folgers Instant produces decaf as advertised? I think it's because it's not real coffee, but that's just my opinion. Me, I call them all weaksauce. Which reminds me, I'm on only my second cup of coffee, which puts me at "Mumbling slowly" on the Buzz Factor, so I better pour some more coffee down my gullet.

"It's okay, I used spell-check."

A Michigan county learned a $40,000 lesson not to rely on spell-check when writing proposed city ordinances. Won lives two mulch four uh cum pewter too due.

Inhale... Exhale...

I always appreciate when someone "gets" an endurance athlete. When I'm riding my bike, or even when I used to run 5 miles a day, I had my own internal soundtrack, and the world passing me by played along with the rhythm. Of course, there are safety reasons for why a cyclist should only have his coach yelling in ear, but almost entirely, the only music I prefer when I'm cruising, and my heartrate is uptempo at 175 bpm, is inhale and exhale.

 

 

Refreshing! A Balanced Weather Story

I just want to point out a good story on a new mild winter prediction from the National Weather Service. Not one mention of global warming as the cause, only the weak El Niño that developed last month. I'm not quite sure how the Farmer's Almanac will account for the El Niño, since they base their predictions on the Earth's position around the Sun and sunspot activity, and they already predicted a colder winter. Either way, this winter will be cooler than last year's winter, so the almanac isn't wrong, yet.

A Little Bling to Show Your 'Heat'

As one of the few primate species that do not show our menstrual schedules through red-butted displays, I've often wondered if any instinctive behaviors have been carried on through our evolution. Sure, there was loads of anecdotal evidence that women tend to display their, uh, receptiveness to masculine inquiries during ovulation, but now a study out of UCLA offers some proof that this behavior exists.

What caught my eye in the story, was that a communications and pyschology expert headed the research project. The reproductive cycle is certainly governed by processes which we are not self-consciously aware. Women can't inwardly consider their bodies and "know" they are ovulating. But an interesting question, posed by this study, is if women sub-consciously "knew" they were fertile. Now, communication is not a one-way street, so if a message is being put out there, someone has to be receiving it. According to the study, 60 percent of the time, other people were able to "receive" a message. That's well out of the range of random behavior, both from the women doing the extra accessorizing and the judges of the pictures who picked up on the non-verbal cues. As a male of the species, I thank the researchers for letting me know how to intepret the "Now Serving" signs.

Oh Yeah, 'Viral' Videos!

After exchanging several microscopic pictures of venereal diseases last week with my friends, today's Foxtrot gave me a few more chuckles than usual:

 

 

How Many Reasons Do You Need...

...To watch how much you eat and to exercise more? There was one more, but I forgot what it was. No, really, a study published in Neurology has established a correlation between obesity in middle-aged people and diminuition of memory skills. Fat people couldn't play the memory game as well as healthier people. Before I continue on, I will address this politically correct obese group movement which is trying to spin that one can be healthy and fat. The answer is no, you are not healthy. Eat less and exercise more, before heart disease, diabetes, vascular disease, and stroke find you sooner than later. Now, this study found only a correlation between obesity and the poor results from tests on memory, attention, and learning. The causation has not been established, but the researchers suggest several avenues for continued research. There might be a cardiovascular link: perhaps bloodflow to the brain is restricted enough that brain cells slowly sicken. There also might be some new way that the hormone leptin, produced by fat cells, affects the brain. Whatever the case, the study showed, that if you are fat, there will be a noticeable drop-off in your mental skills within 5 years. Maybe we can remember this fact as one more bit of motivation to do twenty minutes of sweating at least three times a week.

Global Warming Scaremongering in Mexico

At the environmental summit in Monterrey, Mexico, the disaster scenarios were trotted out with abandon. Freak weather patterns? In the headline, and the lede. A bigger push for carbon trading schemes? You bet. Scary language of floods, hurricanes, coastal erosion, and heatwaves? Check, check, check, and check. Lies about rising sea temperatures? It's in there. "Time is running out" rhetoric? Oh yeah! Actual targets for carbon emissions? Huh? What, you want to base saving the world on science? We can't have that! Just pay all these poor little developing countries with this carbon trading scheme and slow down your filthy polluting economies, you big rich bullies! What? How dare you accuse the Kyoto Protocol of spreading communism and socialism? Now, excuse me, I have to board my private jet and burn all sorts of carbon emitting jet fuel, after spending a nice vacation, er, time here in lovely resort town Monterrey.

The IgNobel Prizes

If it's Nobel Prize season, that means it's also IgNobel Prize season! Some of the awards that caught my eye:

• ORNITHOLOGY - Ivan Schwab of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles, for explaining why woodpeckers do not get headaches.
• NUTRITION - Wasmia Al-Houty of Kuwait University and Faten Al-Mussalam of the Kuwait Environment Public Authority, for showing that dung beetles are finicky eaters.
• PEACE - Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing a teen-ager repellent -- a device that makes a high-pitched noise that is annoying to teen-agers but inaudible to most adults; and for later using the technology to make cellphone ringtones that teenagers can hear but not their teachers.

I remember when that story on the cellphone ringtone came out and the local newstations went to a mall to test it out. It was amazing how annoyed the teenagers were when the sound was played and their parents couldn't hear anything. The study in Wales was to play the sound in front of corner markets, so the little toughs wouldn't hang around and drive business away. Heh. Treating teenagers like dogs with sound repellent zones. Awesome.

It Was Only A Matter of Time...

I'm not sure what the progress of tort reform has been in Germany, but if one lawyer is soliciting for compensation suits regarding alien abduction, I think the market is drying up. Jens Lorek, a lawyer in Dresden who specializes in labor and social issues, hopes to base this untapped market on a German law which allows kidnap victims seek compensation from the state. There's just that little matter of proving the abduction, but Lorek seems unconcerned about that, "noting that extra-terrestrial watchdogs report scores of alien assaults every year." Now, what might be these "assaults" entail? So far, Lorek hasn't had any clients yet. Perhaps government intimidation by the men in black suits? Or maybe even these abducted Germans have just a slight streak of pragmatism: "The trouble is, people are afraid of making fools of themselves in court." Yes, it's one thing to be called crazy in the middle of the street by people reading The Weekly World News, but it's quite another thing for it to be proven in court.

My Dad's Ability to Interpret Nonverbal Cues...

...Is perfectly summarized by the critters at Over the Hedge today:

 

Helmety Message for NASA

I don't write much on the explorer missions that NASA does, because not very much meaningful science is done on those missions. Oh, don't get me wrong, our adventurous spirit is, I believe, genetically hardwired into us, and we need to wander and roam. We are a curious species. We need to explore beyond our planet. However, our most successful explorers, those little Mars rovers have become a little annoying for some of our neighbors. Who knew those rovers were such horndogs that they would even hit on a self-aware tank?

 

"That's right. Fear the claw, bitch!"

 

Cosmic Background Explorer Gets Its Due

The lead physicists for the COBE project received the Nobel prize in physics today. Ever since the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, which was major evidence for the Big Bang theory, astrophysicists were puzzled by the uniformity of the CBR, and how to explain galaxy formation and the basic anisotropy of the universe. Because the CBR is in the microwave range, and there only a few frequencies of microwaves that can penetrate our atmosphere, only a satellite in orbit would be able to measure the CBR with the resolution required. COBE results proved that we are an expanding universe, and that there were small "ripples" in the almost uniform background radiation. From these little pockets of density, galaxy clusters were able to form, stars were able to go supernova, planets coalesced out of the debris, and life was able to discover this part of its history. Congratulations to Smoot and Mather. From his picture, looks like Smoot has aged pretty well since the last time I saw him around the physics department.

Update: In a followup to yesterday's story, Professor Smoot was interviewed today (Oct. 4th) for his reaction to the Nobel Prize selection. He had an interesting view on the origins of the universe, one which many astrophysicists who believe in God share: "Every tribe has its story of creation. Here we are trying to make a story of creation based on scientific evidence. Sometimes science is input into religion and religion is input into science. I haven't seen a conflict up to this point." Me neither.

No Smoking? Qu'elle Horror!

The French are considering a smoking ban in public places. In a country where young people hold mass demonstrations against laws allowing businesses to fire them for incompetency, I shudder to think at the demonstrations that will occur after this law is signed.

Religion of Peace Protests Pope's Visit by Hijacking Plane

You cannot make this stuff up. I don't usually talk about the terrorism war or the culture clash between the Western World and the backwards cultures influenced by Islam. There's not much to say from my perspective, since a culture that never went through their own Renaissance or Reformation movements cannot contribute much to science or technology. All they can do is steal the West's technology so they can kill more people more efficiently. The logic in this latest act has been parsed my many others more skillful than I, but the main point is that the muslim protesters' actions do not disprove the 14th century text quoted by the Pope. The anger comes from being called out, or insulted from their view, by anyone. Those apologists for Islam should first convince their own brothers that they are believers in peace, before making objectively false statements to their Western brothers.

Update: The hijacker turned out to be a Christian seeking political asylum because he did not want to serve his requisite time in the Turkish army. The quote from the pilot, “I have two undesirable people who want to go to Italy to see the pope and give him a message,” turns out to have been misinterpreted given the man's religious leaning.

I'd Wake Up Too!

Ha! Brilliant study! I have a feeling many adults would wake up quicker with the sound of their mothers' voices screaming at 100 decibels too. I'm concerned about the kid who didn't wake up to his mother's voice or the alarm tone, they should have him checked out.

New Doping Method Gets Pissed Away

Just what the cycling world needs, more news of how to cheat. The Swiss anti-doping lab in Lausanne published a new study in which a common enzyme used in washing detergents is used to destroy doping byproducts in urine. Labs have been finding a total lack of EPO in some samples, which raises flags because the body produces EPO naturally. But by using protease, an enzyme used to break down proteins, such as a grass stain, cyclists can erase the protein markers of artificial EPO. In the AP version of the report, officials describe how cyclists could fool the testers:

Cheaters could slip the powder into a urine sample by putting a hand in their pocket where some protease is stashed, then urinating on their fingers. Very little powder is needed to break down proteins — including EPO — in urine in the space of a few minutes.

Disgusting. This new doping discovery is some of the fallout from the Operation Puerto scandal. At least the information is being disseminated quickly. Yes, I had to go there.

"From Moon Bats?!"

Can one Sunday comic strip summarize my thoughts on suburbanites "subscribing" to the Green Movement? Yes, yes it can.