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After action report: Tucson, AZ.

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

My regular readers (and my irregular readers, too; come to think of it, “Whipped Cream Irregulars” would be a good name for a band) may have figured out by now that I’ve spent much of the past week on the road. Specifically, I was in Tucson for the annual convention of the Smith and Wesson Collectors Association. (You might have been able to guess that I also made a brief trip to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area so I could visit Taliesin West.)

I’m not going to talk much about what went on at that convention here, since it is a closed private convention, and I’m not comfortable discussing the organization’s affairs on a public blog. (Jay G. and the rest of the Vicious Circle gang might be amused to know that there was an actual S&W police bike, manufactured in Springfield, MA and complete with lights and siren, on display at the convention. I didn’t get a chance to take a photo.) I will say I had a great time at the convention, and in Tucson in general. Sadly, I didn’t have time to hit any used bookstores or gun stores in the area, but maybe next time.

This is the first extended road trip I’ve taken since last year’s DEFCON, so I thought it might be interesting to do some notes about what worked and didn’t work on this trip.

(more…)

Posted in Apple, asus_eee, Endorsements, Food, Geek, Guns, linux, Museums, netbook, Photography, Planes, project_e, Travel | 2 Comments »

Some thoughts on drugs and the management of risk.

Monday, July 19th, 2010

There’s an interesting article in today’s LAT about one possible solution to the problem of antibiotic resistance; doctors are pulling older antibiotics out of the drug closet.

The nice thing about this is that many bacteria, such as the one that causes MRSA, haven’t had a chance to develop a resistance to these older drugs. The trade-off, though, is that there’s a reason many of these drugs went out of common use. For example, chloramphenicol, the centerpiece drug in the article, went out of favor because it carried a risk of triggering aplastic anaemia. The Wikipedia article on chloramphenicol gives the risk at 1 out of every 24,000 to 40,000 people (for oral dosage). (Please do not get your medical advice from Wikipedia. This has been a public service announcement.) That’s pretty high by modern standards, but a lot better than dying of MRSA; at least, that’s the point of view of the doctors quoted by the LAT.

This is just the most current example of a topic that fascinates and frustrates me; the trade-off between safe and effective in drug design. You say the word “thalidomide” to people and they’re horrified; rightfully so. But it turns out that thalidomide is effective for treating multiple myeloma and complications of leprosy. Are the benefits of thalidomide worth the risks of birth defects? Who gets to decide?

We saw much the same thing with Vioxx; there were (and are) people who were willing to trade a relatively small risk of cardiac complications for effective pain relief, especially since many of these people were unable to tolerate aspirin or other pain relievers.

Now we’re seeing this with Avandia, too; an effective drug for managing blood sugar and reducing the chances of diabetes complications. But, once again, it appears to carry a relatively small risk of cardiac complications, and that’s leading to calls for it to be pulled from the market.

We’re letting the FDA make the decisions for us on how much risk we’re willing to tolerate in order to get results. Is that the best way to do it? Would we be better off if the FDA was only responsible for making sure doctors had all the information? Once they do have all the relevant information, shouldn’t the risk/reward trade-off be an informed decision by the doctor and patient?

Posted in Clippings, Geek | 3 Comments »

NYT watch.

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Two from the NYT that I think are worth noting.

I can’t decide if this is the most stupid or most awesome article they’ve published recently, so I report, you decide: Is Jousting the Next Extreme Sport?

“I want to see another guy get paralyzed,” a boy in front of me squealed, waving a toy sword.

Both Lawrence and I had the same reaction to this quote, which was a flashback to an early Tank McNamara strip during a particularly bloody period in auto racing. The strip featured a child asking his father, “Are we going to see someone get killed?” and the father responding “Only if we’re lucky, son.” (Edited to add: Lawrence says he thinks the strip was referring to hockey. I’m pretty sure it was auto racing, but I’ve edited this post to indicate that our memories differ. If anyone has the strip, or a copy of Another day, another $11,247.63, they could settle this.)

Interestingly, there seems to be a split between American jousting, which originated more within the Renaissance fair culture, and European jousting, which has a high regard for historical accuracy.

The other article that intrigued me is this piece by Kerry Howley (who’s written some good stuff for Reason) about cryonic suspension and the husband-wife conflicts it causes.

Cryonet, a mailing list on “cryonics-related issues,” takes as one of its issues the opposition of wives. (The ratio of men to women among living cyronicists is roughly three to one.)

I was particularly amused by this article because the centerpiece, Robin Hanson, is also featured prominently (and amusingly) in Tyler Cowen‘s book, Discover Your Inner Economist, which I’ve been reading for the past few days. Hanson (and, for that matter, Cowen, too) sounds like one of those people I’d really like to meet and have a few drinks with. (With Cowen, probably dinner as well.)

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Stupid | Comments Closed

A little slow, a little late.

Friday, July 9th, 2010

I saw this post over at Borepatch’s earlier in the week, but I didn’t get curious until I saw this one over at Crider’s place about the Christie’s auction of the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans art collection.

One Google search later, and I found out that the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Musuem is closed.

Seriously, that’s a shame. Roy, Trigger, and Dale were really more of my father’s time than my own, but I have a certain amount of respect for Roy and his legacy. I’m kind of sad the museum couldn’t stay open; according to Roadside America, they got an estimated 200,000 visitors a year, but that wasn’t enough to keep the lights on.

Of course, you know I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t ask: are they going to sell Trigger? I actually expected that Trigger would stay in the family, since Roy Jr. is still performing in Branson. Then I found this AP article, and after much searching of the auction lots…here’s Trigger. Here’s the link for Buttermilk. If you have an estimated $200-$300 to spare, you can buy horseshit from Christie’s. Here’s Bullet. And here’s Trigger, Jr.

Posted in Art, Geek, Guns, Horses, Museums | 1 Comment »

Some thoughts on the ethics of open culture.

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Mike the Musicologist asked me over the weekend if I read Daring Fireball. The answer is “Yes, spottily.” More specifically, I pick up Gruber on the Alltop “Egos” tab, when I remember to check that. Sometimes I go a week or more without checking.

So I missed this Emily Brill piece when Gruber first linked to it. That’s a shame, because I think it merits some discussion.

Here’s the basic summary: Harvard Law has something called the “Berkman Center for Internet & Society”, founded by a guy named Jonathan Zittrain. Zittrain and the Center are generally pro what might be called “open culture”. (I’m using “open culture” to refer to a general mindset that includes open source software, Creative Commons licensing, and a generally skeptical position towards intellectual property rights.) For example, Zittrain has been highly critical of Apple and the iPhone’s closed ecology.

Apparently, though, what Zittrain and the Center aren’t telling students is where their money for the Center comes from. That money comes from large players in the pro-open culture field and Apple competitors, such as Google (the largest single corporate contributor, according to Brill). (Microsoft is also a significant contributor, but I hate to lump them into the open culture field.)

Apple, on the other hand, hasn’t given any money to the Center. AT&T apparently gave a small amount of money to fund one project in the past, but may or may not be a current contributor; the situation seems murky. (See Brill’s article for details.)

No one has alleged that anyone at Harvard Law School has formulated opinions because he or she was paid to. But Berkman and Zittrain, due in no small part to the force of Harvard’s branding, have become increasingly important players in Internet policy and media circles. The appearance of conflicts matter; even if such conflicts are not the stuff of life and death, as they might be in medical research, they do impact legislation, stock prices, and consumer choices.

I generally think of myself as being pro-open culture, more so than MtM,  and not a blind Apple fanboy. (My professional life is mostly Windows on servers; my personal life is Macs and an iPod; my current portable machine is the Project e machine, an Asus eeePC 1005HA running Ubuntu 10.04.) I will say that I don’t get as worked up about Apple products as some people I could name.

But it seems to me that no matter what side you take on the open culture debate, it’s difficult to argue that there’s not a moral and ethical obligation to reveal your sources of funding, especially if you are an academic. As Brill points out, Lawrence Lessig, another leading open culture advocate, has a detailed disclosure policy posted on his website. (At the time of this writing, though, Lessig’s website appears to be down.)

Do I practice what I preach? I think so. Any conflicts I may have are noted in my “About” page, or within posts when relevant. (Speaking of conflicts: Mike Godwin, who is mentioned in passing in Brill’s article, is someone I was well acquainted with at one point in my life. But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead.)

Thoughtful responses in the comments are welcome.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, linux, project_e | Comments Closed

Push my buttons some more, please.

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

The French Culinary Institute has a blog, “Cooking Issues“, which they describe as a “Tech’N Stuff Blog”.

Boy howdy, they’re right. This seems to be the blog for Ferran Adrià fans.

For example, check out this post, in which the author describes the use of rotary evaporators in the kitchen.

Because rotovaps distill gently at low temperature under vacuum, they happen to also be good at preserving flavors — much better than traditional distillation.

Note that these machines were originally designed to be used in labs, for evaporating off solvents.

Fed up, I bought an early 80’s EL131 Buchi rotary evaporator on eBay the next year (they’re cheap at auction – check it out).

  1. I did check it out. The cheapest one I found was $1,500, and I’m not sure that was a complete unit. I’ll admit the 20-liter one is probably overkill for kitchen use. (Edited to add: Lawrence pointed out some cheaper ones that came up using different search terms, but many of those looked incomplete or non-functional.)
  2. I wonder if these would be legal in Texas without a permit. My reading of the DPS site suggests that these would fall under “distilling apparatus”.

Or you could make “stretchy chewy ice cream“. That actually sounds like a fun summer project for those of you who have kids.

I got a kick out of this quote:

We’ve been using our centrifuge to make cured olive oil.

Because, you know, everyone has a centrifuge in their kitchen. (But they seem to be much cheaper on eBay than rotovaps.)

TJIC actually tipped me off to this when he noted their post on using liquid nitrogen in the kitchen. Short version: be careful, this stuff will kill you dead.

Posted in Food, Geek | Comments Closed

Miscellaneous crap.

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

The City of Austin has flushed the low-flow toilet rebate program. However, you can still get a free low-flow toilet: you just have to fill out an application and, if you’re approved, pick up your toilet from an approved toilet vendor.

The 2010 Bulwer-Lytton contest results are out.

Edited to add 1: Oh, what the heck. By way of Ace of Spades, a WP review of the greatest concert ever. Where “greatest concert ever” is defined as “complete disaster”.

Edited to add 2: Derek Lowe has a new post up in the “How Not To Do It” series. It appears that a lab at the University of Missouri underwent explosive renovations after some hydrogen and oxygen got together for a hot date. Photos of the aftermath at the link.

Edited to add 3: The HouChron has interrupted their “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” watch to let us know that Dr. Demento is ending his radio show. Why, yes, this is the same story that Slashdot and Lawrence brought you almost a month ago.

Edited to add 4: As I’ve noted in the past, my newspaper reading during the weekends can be spotty. So I missed this Ben Wear article in the Statesman about the MetroRail ridership figures. (Hattip: Blue Dot Blues, by way of Battleswarm.)

Edited to add 5: Headline from the HouChron: “Dear Abby says what to do when grandma spoils the kids”. Somehow, I suspect Dear Abby’s answer does not involve a Taser.

Speaking of Popehat, I think this is a great post by Patrick, but I’m a very bad person; whenever I read the phrase “Res Ipsa Loquitur”, all I can think of is “Ipsa this, you p—y little b—h!“

Posted in Clippings, Explosives, Geek, Guns, Law, Music, Politics, Radio, TV, Writing | Comments Closed

Dynamo hum.

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

I wasn’t originally going to post about this, since the story was linked from Slashdot and other places. However, it came up at dinner last night; Andrew was asking me about it this afternoon, and I promised him a link.

So: here’s a link to The Register‘s article on authenticating recordings using AC power line frequency fluctuations.

At the Metropolitan Police’s digital forensics lab in Penge, south London, scientists have created a database that has recorded these deviations once every one and a half seconds for the last five years. Over a short period they form a unique signature of the electrical frequency at that time, which research has shown is the same in London as it is in Glasgow.

On receipt of recordings made by the police or public, the scientists are able to detect the variations in mains electricity occuring at the time the recording was made. This signature is extracted and automatically matched against their ENF database, which indicates when it was made.

I’d want to see a lot more scientific validation of this before I’d consider it acceptable as evidence. One of the points I made during the dinner discussion is that much of modern forensics is based on sloppy or incomplete science. For example:

Balko is all over this, too; you should be reading him regularly if you care about this stuff.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Law | Comments Closed

We are amused.

Friday, June 25th, 2010

We watch very little television these days, to the point where we haven’t even hooked up our converter boxes to our analog television yet.

What TV we do watch (Cops, America’s Most Wanted, the occasional episode of Nova or the American Experience during the three months out of the year our local PBS affiliate isn’t begging for money: and we have recently found that The Good Guys kicks over our giggle-box), we watch on the MacBook using an Elgato EyeTV Hybrid and Elgato’s EyeTV software. The EyeTV software gives us very TIVO-like features, as well as the ability to export and even burn recordings to DVD (as well as skipping commercials). Indeed, we are considering an upgrade to a new television (now that prices have come down considerably) and hanging a Mac Mini off the new TV as a fake TIVO.

The point of this tale is that we were highly entertained by an email from Elgato this morning: the company has released a version of EyeTV with a “Vuvuzela Filter”. Not that this matters much to us; we consider soccer to be even worse than baseball, but the idea brought a rare early morning smile to our face.

Posted in Apple, Geek, TV | Comments Closed

Red Adair, call your office, please.

Friday, June 18th, 2010

In order to save other folks the difficulty I had finding the actual paper (as opposed to references to it in the NYT and elsewhere), here’s a link to Milo Nordyke’s paper, “The Soviet Program for Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Explosions“, which includes discussion of the Soviet use of nuclear weapons to extinguish gas well fires (pages 34-36).

Posted in Explosives, Geek | Comments Closed

.mobi dick

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Was your retirement fund heavily invested in speculating on “.mobi” domain names?

How’s that working for you?

…Internet tycoons who paid tens of thousands or more scooping up domain names that end in “.mobi” — which were set aside for websites designed to be easily viewed on mobile screens — have found the names are now all but worthless.

The problem, of course, is that the iPhone and other mobile devices have rendered .mobi useless.

If only someone had told Schwartz that before he shelled out $200,000 for “flowers.mobi” in 2006.

In unrelated news, here’s the latest update I’ve been able to find on progress in building nanoscale violins.

Posted in Clippings, Geek | Comments Closed

Is it just me…

Friday, May 28th, 2010

…or do other people read about the Sestak affair, and see “Sestak” as “Sleestack“?

Then again, Congress would be vastly improved with a larger population of Sleestaks.

Then again again, there are those who would say that Congress already has an excessively high population of lizard people.

Edited to add: Lawrence’s response: “Did you just miss the last six months of Sleestak jokes on Fark?”

My response: “I don’t read the Politics tab. It makes me stabby.”

Posted in Clippings, Geek | 5 Comments »

Well, we fired our Canon til the barrel melted down…

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

The NYT, of all places, has taken notice of one of my favorite projects: the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK).

CHDK is basically alternative firmware for the Canon PowerShot cameras that allows you to expand the camera’s capabilities. For example, you can store images in RAW format rather than JPEG, set the camera up to do time lapse photos, or do motion detection…or even write your own software in the CHDK development language.

Even better, CHDK isn’t a permanent modification; if you want to put the camera back the way it was, all you have to do is take the CHDK firmware off the SD card, or swap in a different SD card.

The CHDK Wiki is here. I’m hoping to spend some more time working with CHDK now that school’s out. I’d be interested in hearing from folks who are already working with CHDK.

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Photography | Comments Closed

Academic update: Spring 2010, part 2.

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

The final grade is in for my “Implementing Information Systems in Organizations” (aka implementing and managing SQL Server 2005 databases).

I’m sorry, did you say something?

What was that?

You’re going to have to speak up.

Yes, that was an “A”. Yes, the streak is alive.

What’s next? Something called “Systems Analysis”, and a course called (no kidding), “Modern Revolutions” (which fills three out of the six hours of “Global Perspectives” I need to take before graduation).

This course is a comparative analysis of the problem causes, stages, and accomplishments of some of the most significant revolutions in modern times– such as the French Revolution of 1789, the Russian revolutions of 1917 and 1991, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Eastern European and the South African revolutions of the later half of the 20th century.

Oddly enough, both of these are online courses, so I don’t have to go to either campus this semester. So much for that parking permit.

How far out am I? I sat down with my academic advisor earlier in the semester to figure that out. It looks like I need six hours of “Global Perspectives”, three hours of a literature or humanities course, three hours of an elective (I’m thinking about something related to law or the forensic sciences; if St. Ed’s offered a computer forensics course for credit, I’d be on that like Lindsay Lohan on a bottle of vodak), plus I believe one more in-major computer class after this one, and then the final Capstone course. At this point, I’m thinking four more semesters: Fall 2010, Spring and Fall of 2011, and then Spring 2012 for Capstone and graduation.

Posted in Geek, School | 2 Comments »

So how was your day?

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

My primary care doctor has been on my case to see a cardiologist. She sent me to one practice, who we’ll call “Austin Heart”. I fired them after my first visit. This time she sent me over to a practice we’ll call The Grace L. Ferguson Heart (And Storm Door Co.) (Grace for short), conveniently located in the same complex as her office (and right next door to a place we’ll call The Hospital).

I go in last week. They interview me, do an EKG. Some minor abnormalities on the EKG, but “nothing that really causes us concern”. Still, given my age and other factors, they want to do some tests “just to establish a baseline”. “Fine,” I say, “let’s get those scheduled and get them all knocked out in one day so I can minimize the amount of time I have to take off work.”

So they schedule a nuclear stress test, an echocardiogram, and a PADNET test (for peripheral artery disease) for this morning. Except for some reason they can’t schedule the PADNET test; I have to call The Hospital and schedule it myself. I figure this is going to be just a half-day thing, right? So I schedule only a half-day off work, and spend Monday night and all day Tuesday off coffee, soda, chocolate (not that I eat a lot of that anyway), tea, and anything else with caffeine in it.

Show up this morning. Somehow, the camera for the nuclear stress test had gone down over night, and they weren’t sure it was going to come back up. It takes time for “the heads” to come up to operating temperature.

Fine, we can still knock out the echo and the PADNET, and maybe the camera will come back up. So we do the echo, they call over to The Hospital and move my appointment up, I walk over to The Hospital and check in there.

The Hospital is out-of-network (OK, fine) and I haven’t met my $500 deductible for the year, so they want $500 RIGHT NOW for the test. “How much does this test cost?” <clerk calls manager> “Between $400 and $500.” Fine. Pay the $500. This test basically consists of one guy and 30 minutes of his time, mostly putting on and removing blood pressure cuffs from my arms and legs, and working the machine that actually pumps up the cuffs and takes the readings. You can’t tell me this is a $500 per person machine.

(But, as a side note, The Hospital is VERY NICE. If you’re going to go to a hospital, this is the one you want to go to. It even has a cafe I’d actually be willing to eat in, although part of that may have been that I hadn’t had anything to eat except some Pringles in the morning, and no coffee, soda, or tea.)

So I go back upstairs to Grace after they run that test. They tell me Dr. X (not THE Dr. X) will be in to see me in a few minutes. Then they come back and say, “Oh, the camera’s up, we can do the test now.” So the Nuclear Camera Guy rounds me and the four other people who were also scheduled for camera time up and takes us back down to The Hospital’s nuclear lab. Lucky me, I get to go first, since I had the earliest scheduled appointment. It only takes him two tries to get an IV into me (the second try he stuck the back of my left hand, so I now have a nice little puckered place there). Then I get to spend a half-hour in the imaging camera, which is about as roomy as an MRI machine when working (but without the magnetic fields, which is a good thing, since I had a pocket full of metal). Then they take me out and tell me they’ll come get me in a hour and a half (1:30 PM) for round two.

Of course, I’m supposed to be at work at 1, so I had to call my boss, tell him it looks like this is going to be an all-day affair, get the number to call and change my schedule from him, call and change my half-day to a full-day, wait around, spend another half-hour in the camera, go back upstairs to Grace; by now it’s 1:45 PM or so.

(Of course, since all the tests are done, I stop by The Cafe in The Hospital and tell the woman behind the counter I want an extra-large coffee. If I had been thinking about it, I would have told Nuclear Camera Guy to leave the IV line in, and just had the girl behind the counter inject that extra large coffee straight into the vein.)

“Did you need something else?” “Well, I thought Dr. X wanted to see me after the tests.” “Let me check.” <comes back> “You didn’t see him already?” “No, he was going to see me, but then the camera came back up, and we went down to that.” <wait> Very nice nurse comes out and explains politely that it’s going to take some time for him to look over the results (which I expected), he’ll call me, and I can go ahead and leave.

Leave. Five minutes down the road, cell phone rings. “How far away are you? Can you come back? Dr. X wants to see you.” “I can come back. I’ll come back. I WANT TO GET EVERYTHING TAKEN CARE OF TODAY.” (By this time, I have probably used the phrase “I  WANT TO GET EVERYTHING TAKEN CARE OF TODAY.” with the capitalization, at least a half-dozen times to everyone in the office.) “Let me check.” She puts me on hold. Meanwhile, I’m hanging a U turn and heading back. By the time she gets back on the phone, I’m pulling into their driveway. “Can you come back on Friday?” ” I WANT TO GET EVERYTHING TAKEN CARE OF TODAY. If I have to wait, that’s okay.” “Well, Dr. X left for the day (at 2 PM; ah, the exciting life of a cardiologist) and he won’t be back. Can you come in on Friday?” “Okay, fine, if we do it early.”

So now I have to take more time off work so I can go in at 8:30 AM on Friday, which is going to look real good. Plus, it isn’t like I have unlimited time off work.

The thing that really aggravates me is that everyone was so nice and apologetic about the problems with the camera and all the waiting around. Camera Guy kept apologizing to me, and even offered to buy me a Coke if I wanted one (which I didn’t, plus I didn’t think I was supposed to have caffeinated sodas until after the tests were over). I’m very happy with Grace, and with Dr. X, so far, but this was just one of those days.

At least I finished What the Dog Saw.

Edited to add: And, since the whole point of the nuclear stress test was to get imaging of my heart: when I see Dr. X on Friday, I plan to ask him if I can order some color glossy prints, perhaps 8″ x 10″s. If I can, I’ll scan them (copyright permitting) and post them here.

Posted in Books, Geek, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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