News and Views

In 2004 Amanda Berry’s mother asked Sylvia Browne for news about Amanda. Sylvia said “She’s not alive honey.” Her mother died a year later from heart failure, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the shock and disappointment hastened that end.

Similarly, in 2004 Browne told the parents of missing child Shawn Hornbeck that their child was dead, but he too was found alive four years later. The website “Stop Sylvia Browne” has many, many articles describing her errors and her arrogance when confronted with them. And here’s an article documenting 115 of her predictions without a single one verified correct. FBI state that no case has ever been resolved as a direct result of information provided from a psychic.

I guess “Psychic” falls under freedom of religion or freedom of speech, but it’s a shame that hucksters like Sylvia Browne and John Edwards can manipulate desperate people’s emotions and fool them out of their money the way they do. Hopefully, widespread publication of failures like this will help immunize people against their tactics.

Derek graduated with a BS in Mathematics in December, but even before he graduated he had set his sights on becoming an actuary. This past Monday he began working as an intern at an actuarial consulting firm in Scottsdale (Optumas). It’s a 6-month internship with a probable full-time job offer at some time during that period if both parties like what they see.

Interestingly, last month the Wall Street Journal published a list of “Best and Worst Careers“, and actuary came out number 1, at the top of the list. They based the rankings on “High pay, low stress, a robust hiring outlook, a healthy work environment and minimal physical exertion”.

Here’s another article from CNN about how actuary is “the best job you have never heard of”. The article gives a brief description of what actuaries do.

Actuaries have to pass a series of difficult tests to rise in the field. Most applicants take a test every 6 months to a year, and pass rates are generally less than 50%. In the four months since graduating, Derek has passed the first two tests and will be taking the third next week. However, he warns that now that he is working he won’t have as much time to study and his progress will probably slow significantly. Still, it’s a good start.

National Geographic has a project called The Genographic Project. They are collecting DNA from people all over the world to “help answer fundamental questions about where humans originated and how we came to populate the Earth.” So far over a half million people have contributed DNA.

Gisele and I are also participating in this project. We sent them a DNA sample (collected from inside our cheeks). In return, they will analyze it and determine where our ancestors came from and what path they most likely followed out of Africa. They also measure the breakdown of our heritage, including the percent of Neanderthal ancestry.

Besides looking at general DNA composition, they focus on the Y-chromosome (for men) and mitochondrial chromosomes (for everyone). Since the Y chromosome gets passed down essentially unchanged from father to son, it is very useful for plotting paternal ancestry. Mitochondria, on the other hand, are contained in the mother’s egg cell and get passed down to all her children essentially unchanged, so those chromosomes can be used to plot maternal ancestry. In both cases “essentially unchanged” means that in each generation there are a few mutations that occur and get passed on and help further refine lineages.

Since my siblings all have the same Y-chromosome as I have (except Donna), and we all have the same mitochondrial DNA, my results will apply equally to them.

Here’s a video describing the project.

We just sent it in today and it takes several weeks to complete the analysis. Once we hear back I will post some results here.

Note: They do not test for any genetic diseases, etc.

I went up on the roof today and hosed off my solar panels. They haven’t been cleaned since the last rain a few weeks ago. There was an immediate 5% increase in power generated.

So those of you with solar panels (Richard, Dale, …?) keep ’em clean!

I got a Blu-ray player a couple of years ago for Christmas. The picture quality of Blu-ray is clearly better than DVD, especially on my big 65″ TV, but unless I think about it I don’t really notice it. But Blu-ray has one characteristic that makes it much inferior to DVD.

When I insert a Blu-ray disk, it takes a little longer to start up. That’s OK, it’s just a few seconds. But then almost every Blu-ray disk starts playing previews, one after another, and most of the controls are locked out. You can’t cut directly to the menu, you can’t skip to the next preview, and in some cases you can’t even fast-forward through the preview. You have to just let them play, one after another, for several minutes.

I find this extremely frustrating. Previews of a movie tend to spoil that movie for me when I watch it later. I want to go in knowing as little of the plot as possible. When I go see movies in a theater I usually wait outside the theater until the previews have finished playing. I know, it’s a little bit anal, but I like it that way.

I’ll do that in a theater. But in my home with my own equipment and a disk that I have paid money to buy or rent, I feel that I should be able to watch the movie when I want. Leave the previews there on the menu as an option for those who want to watch them, but let me skip them and cut directly to the movie.

So I cancelled my Netflix Blu-ray option and am going back to plain DVD for all my movies. With a DVD I can always skip the previews, or some people even copy it and strip out the previews, FBI warning, etc.( though of course I would never do anything of such questionable legality). I’ll stick with DVDs or streaming until I can get a Blu-ray player that will let me control the disc instead of vice-versa. Maybe I’ll find one in Taiwan…

Most of us occasionally take NSAIDs (Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) such as Ibuprofen and Naproxen. A recent study points out that some of these are safer to use than others.

(Right click on the image and select “View Image” to be able to read it)

Of course acetaminophen (Tylenol) has even larger risks (it is reportedly the leading cause of liver transplants)

Over use of NSAIDs can increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. From the table above, naproxen (Aleve) seems to be the safest (possibly even reducing risk), while ibuprofen (Advil) and celecoxib (Celebrex) are not bad. One of the worst one seems to be rofecoxib (Vioxx), which has been removed from the market, and even worse is diclofenac, reportedly the most commonly prescribed NSAID in the world, sold under about 100 trade names, though it’s not common in the US. From the table above it shows up to 100% increased risk of cardiovascular events.

Read here for a more detailed analysis and links to the original papers.

Here’s a summary of my first year with solar panels on my roof.

Bottom line, I generated a little more than half (57%) of the power I used. I saved more than 57% because of the tiered price structure at SRP — the price gets higher the more you use (in the summer).

My only regret is that I didn’t install more capacity.

Wow! Cox just increased our speeds:

It doesn’t feel that much faster. I think speeds are now more limited by website servers and network congestion.

I’ve noticed for a long time when walking Apollo that he seems unusually aware of where the leash is in relation to him and me. He never walks on the opposite side of a tree, pole or bush, unless the item is shorter than he is.

Occasionally I see him glance back at me, as if to determine where I am in relation to him, before he decides on which side of a tree to walk.

My hypothesis is that huskies were bred and selected for their ability to pull a sled without tangling the lines, and that some intuitive understanding of how a leash works would be an important part of that ability.

Or do all dogs do that, and am I just noticing something that isn’t special?