The genetics of anxiety: the shortened serotonin transporter gene

FuturePundit: Gene Version Prevents Cingulate From Suppressing Amygdala Fear Response

In most people the cingulate downregulates the amygdala. In persons with short copies of the serotonin transporter gene this downregulation fails. The active amygdala produces the sensation of anxiety.

SSRIs act by altering the production of the serotonin transporter protein, thus their delayed therapeutic benefit.

This appears to be a significant breakthrough.

Strange mercies - the bomber lives, the child dies

Michael Yon : Online Magazine: Rounding Up Bombers

An odd follow-up to the story of the child Farah, dying in the arms of a US soldier.

"Deuce Four" capture five men they believe (with good reason) to be terrorists planting IEDs (they're terrorists since they attack Iraqis -- if they were attacking just our guys they'd be insurgents). One is badly wounded in the fighting:

LTC Kurilla ordered the medic to try to save him. So they took him to same hospital where Sgt Davis died last week; the same one that little Farah never made it to, and there he is, still alive, his bombing days are over.

It would be a bitter irony if this man had built the bomb that killed Farah and the other children.

The $10 toy that's a densely entrained neural network

Boing Boing: Cool Tools on 20Q, a twenty-questions gadget

This is how Skynet gets going.

Burned into its 8-bit chip is a neural net that has been learning for 17 years. Inventor Robin Burgener programmed a simple neural net on a DOS machine 1988. He taught it 20 questions about a cat. He than passed the program around to friends on a floppy and had them challenge the neural net with their yes/no answers to the object they had in mind. The neural net learns only when it plays a game; no data is added except for the yes/no answers of visitors. So the more people who test it, the more they teach it. In 1995 Burgener put the now robust neural net onto the new web where anyone could play it (that is, train it) 24 hours a day. And they did. Burgener's genius was to turn the hard tedious work of training a neural net into a fun game for humans.

Forget the first sentient AI arising from a global defense grid. It will be a sentient child's toy in 2025 that takes over.

Cyborg nation

Boing Boing: Monkeys treat robot arm as bonus appendage

Monkeys integrate a robot arm as an extra appendage, not a replacement. Of course they also have working tails ...

Dr. Octopus would be proud.

86% of Alabamians want a verbal opening school prayer

and I don't think they mean a prayer to Krishna...

Auburn University News

SURVEY FINDS ALMOST ALL ALABAMIANS ARE RELIGIOUS AND WANT PRAYER BACK IN SCHOOL

AUBURN – Nearly all (96 percent) of Alabamians surveyed profess to be religious, no surprise in a state which is in the heart of the “Bible Belt.” Similarly, there is overwhelming support for a return to prayer in state schools.

These are among the findings of a recent Ask Alabama public opinion survey, conducted by the Center for Governmental Services at Auburn University. Ask Alabama releases periodic results of polls on topics of interest to Alabamians.

The vast majority (92 percent) favors silent prayer or meditation at the opening of the school day, with only slightly less support for open verbal prayer in class. A similar number favors prayer at the beginning of school sports events.

“This indicates that Alabama’s residents perceive the benefits of formal school prayer in the public schools far outweigh any concerns regarding separation of church and state,” says Ask Alabama director Jim Seroka. “Most Alabamians clearly prefer that court-imposed restrictions on public prayer in schools be relaxed.”

Opinion on religion in class instruction is more moderate. When questioned on preferences between the theory of evolution versus creationism or intelligent design, only 8 to 12 percent favored teaching one explanation over another.

“Most agree that religious-based explanations should be given a place in the public school classroom,” notes Seroka. “However, if given a choice, most Alabamians (62 percent) would prefer public school teachers be able to present both religious explanations and evolutionary theory.”

Other findings of the Ask Alabama poll on Alabamians and Religion in the Schools include:

* 47 percent of Alabamians surveyed characterize themselves as very religious.

* 49 percent consider themselves to be somewhat religious.

* Only 3 percent consider themselves as not religious.

* 86 percent support an opening school prayer; 11 percent discourage it.

Houston, we have a problem.

Forget all this stuff discounting the importance of theology and religion in US politics. These numbers blow that away.

I think we can assume all the prayers are to be Christian; I doubt they're thinking of rotating a few prayers to Allah, Krishna and Buddha and maybe a Wiccan chant or two.

The news report doesn't break the numbers out very well, but I assume from the above that only about 10% of Alabamians would favor teaching standard biology in science education.

Looking for a silver lining in these numbers, I suppose Alabamian secularists (there might be five of 'em) might be able to ask that Creationism be explicitly labeled as a religious explanation and natural selection be explicitly labeled as a scientific explanation. I'm more comfortable with that than with the fakery of the "intelligent design" agenda.

Better to completely sacrifice any vestige of Protestant-State separation than to corrupt the meaning of words.

I wonder if "America the Protestant" will end up being a big issue in the upcoming Senate races?

The law as a weapon: suing for unpleasant reviews - Maui X-Stream and CherryOS

DrunkenBlog: Deconstructing Maui X-Stream

A Mac OS Blog has a very long post about Maui X-Stream, CherryOS, and the abuse of the law to suppress communication. Bottom line, the somewhat anonymous author of this OS X hobbyist site had to retain legal counsel. Once he'd retained counsel, he went to town on Maui X-Stream.

Allegedly Maui X-Stream is a fraudulent enterprise that illegally used open source code to create a semi-fake product that supposedly allowed PC users to run OS X software on their machines. Many bloggers exposed their maneuvers and the company then withdrew the product. Subsequently it's hired lawyers, perhaps working on contingency, to threaten reviewers with a "slander" suit. One possibility is the lawyers are looking primarily for 'out-of-court' "settlements" (aka shakedowns) and they'll split the earnings with Maui X-Stream. Of course that's only one possibility, perhaps Maui X-Stream feels they were badly done by and they're paying the lawyers good money up front.

In a totalitarian state the government suppresses speech. It is the genius of capitalism that in our nation lawyers-gone-bad can now serve a similar function. The market will find a way!

The primary defense is daylight, lots of daylight. United, we can still win this one. If we don't speak now, it will only get worse.

On Al Qaeda in 2004 and Eckankar in 1979: the believers and the cynics

VOA News - US Forces Arrest Key Insurgents in Iraq

A US Colonel reports that captured insurgents are often quite cooperative:

Colonel Chase reports that the mid- and higher-level insurgent leaders are more likely to provide information than lower-level insurgents, who, he says, are often more ideologically committed than their leaders. 'These are not ten-feet-tall dedicated, die-hard terrorists for the most part, particularly the higher in the level,' he said. 'Certainly, the low level (insurgents) appear to be people that are dedicated to a cause, but the mid- and high-level (insurgents) are very quick to turn on each other.'

Ordinarily I'd write this off as good basic propaganda practice. Except, it reminds of me of something from a past life.

As a college student who looked remarkably naive and even younger than his young years, I was often approached by a variety of cult recruiters, from Eckankar to the Moonies to the Scientologists. For some reason I enjoyed attending cult meetings (I had no money, so my hobbies had to be inexpensive) and I'd routinely accept if I had the time -- excepting remote compounds where one might have a long hard walk home.

What I discovered was that the initiates and lower level staffers were genuine true believers. Unsurprisingly they were often wounded and troubled. Above them, however, were a revolting set of cynics who, I suspect, enjoyed the perks of power. To most adults these rotters were quite unconvincing, but they knew how to manipulate the vulnerable. They were also good at spotting ringers like me, and making sure we weren't invited to the "next level".

I can believe that a terrorist/insurgent organization might have quite a bit in common with those cults. Troubled, lost souls to blow themselves up -- true believers all. Above them, the most vile of cowards.

Which is to say, maybe Colonel Chase is telling the truth after all.

Grokker - Visualizing search results

Grok Faughnan

Grok was coined by Robert Heinlein, in 'A Stranger in a Strange Land'. It had a meaning of deep & mystical understanding. Good name for a visualization tool.

This was a commercial product, but now it runs in Java for free (ad supported). They're using Yahoo for results. I've tested in Firefox PC, I'll try Mac in an update.

The above search is on my last name; a handy testing tool for me! :-).

Grokker is certainly interesting. I'll play with it.

Krugman nails the Bush "plan" for social security: future cuts to prevent ... future cuts?!

The Final Insult - New York Times

But Mr. Bush isn't calling for small sacrifices now. Instead, he's calling for zero sacrifice now, but big benefit cuts decades from now - which is exactly what he says will happen if we do nothing. Let me repeat that: to avert the danger of future cuts in benefits, Mr. Bush wants us to commit now to, um, future cuts in benefits.

At last, someone noticed this. The alleged "Bush plan" now (supposedly) calls for means testing benefits and cutting them for the "wealthy". All very fine and progressive, but it's a benefit cut. It also emphatically demonstrates that government can't be trusted to fill the "deal" for past benefits; though I assume this could be "grandfathered" (in which case it might not help very much).

Even if I had an ounce of faith and trust in President Bush, I'd still look askance at this "plan". Since I have zero faith or trust in Bush or the Republican Party, it's a non-starter. The odd disadvantage of one-party government is that there's no true negotiation, hence no basis for trust -- especially given Bush's track record. The professor continues with devastating hits:

Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won't cut your Social Security benefits.

Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal.

Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!

Worldometers: what's happening now

worldometers.info

Births, deaths, books, military expenditures. Updated in simulated "real time". Clever.

More Dyer articles posted

Dyer 2005 Articles

Another batch of Dyer articles have been posted. I'd love to have a free way to create an RSS feed off this cryptic web site.

Among the new ones:

India and China
Things We Know Now: Hmm. The Fermi Paradox is beginning to worry people.
Habemus Papam: Radical ideas of human worth.
Nationalism in Asia
Hitler Anniversary: It will be harder to remember now.
Don't Mention the War

Firefox users should disable automatic software installation

Mozilla Arbitrary Code Executation Security Flaw - MozillaZine Talkback

There's a big, nastly, ugly bug in Firefox/Mozilla. At least as bad as the many IE bugs Microsoft routinely patches. Until a fix is out disable automatic software installation:

The Secunia advisory suggests disabling JavaScript as a workaround; however, simply disabling software installation (Web Features panel of the Options/Preferences window in Firefox 1.0.3 or the Content panel in the latest trunk builds) eliminates the problem.

When bulimia was routine? JAD Salts, 1920.

LILEKS (James) Old Newspaper Ads: JAD Salts, 1920s

Lilek's scan of a 1920s ad promotes JAD Salts as a weight loss method. (I love the commentary)

How did they work? I was able to find a recipe, but I'm unsure as to whether they'd induce diarrhea or vomiting or (most likely) both:

Jad Salts. Contains sodium phosphate, sodium and potassium bicarbonates, citric and tartaric acids with a small amount of hexamethylene tetramine. (Wiley's 1001 Tests).

I'd like to know more about the weight loss methods of the 1920s. Was purging socially acceptable?

From Dave Barry to James Lileks - an eclectic local web site

LILEKS (James) Welcome!

I came here via Dave Barry. To my surprise Lileks is James Lileks, a local strib hack stuck with a mildly annoying "neighborly" column. His personal web site is much more interesting than his regular column; he's a man of many interests. His archive of old Ads and comics are fascinating (don't miss the Philip Morris comics!).

Vonage -- don't use it quite yet

evhead: Vonage is from hell

Abysmal customer service, poor quality. Voice over IP has a way to go still. Strictly for those with more time than money, and a yen to suffer.