How to Clean Gutters - from eHow.com

How to Clean Gutters - eHow.com

A good reference! I'll use a bag next time. The Google ads are interesting too ...

Why the GOP doesn't worry about mundane reality -- Trent Lott and the end-times

A story twice removed from the source, so taken with some skepticism:

The Grinch Who Stole Fitzmas | Cosmic Variance

... Yesterday a friend of mine told me a story that she was told by a friend of hers, well-known explorer Sylvia Earle. Apparently Earle found herself at a fancy White House dinner, seated next to Trent Lott of all people. Innocent that she is, Earle thought this would be a great opportunity to explain to him the various ways in which our activities are wreaking havoc with the environment, in the oceans as well as in the atmosphere. After listening patiently to her over the course of dinner, at the end Lott nodded his head and said, But you have to understand that the long-term fate of the Earth doesn’t really matter to us, since everything will be re-arranged when the Lord returns on Judgment Day.

Maybe Lott was tweaking her, or maybe he was misinterpreted, but what he says makes sense to me. If you are a logical end-times fundamentalist, this interpretation springs directly from your core beliefs. The world is disposable and transitory, we need not plan for the future for there will be no human future.

A lot of the new GOP is made up of end-times fundamentalists. The actions of the GOP make sense in that context. (Budget deficits? Let not fights over budgets detract from the Lord's work; the end-times will preempt such mundane matters.)

So how many Republicans are really comfortable with all of this?

The Snows of Kilimanjaro are no more

The glacier is gone. It will return one day, but perhaps not when humans will look upon it.

A tiny event in the history of the world, but it deserves a moment's silence.

Do we really have an election in Minnesota on November8th?

MyBallot.net, a Minnesota ballot information site, is still awaiting the 2004 elections. Happily the contact person tells me he's going to rework it soon.

These no-state-wide off-year elections scare me. This is the election cycle where we get fundamentalists on the school boards. Our newspapers aren't helping very much, but they're all in a severe state of depression these days as their revenues spiral downwards.

The election, if it is really going to be held, will be on November 8th, 2005. Good luck finding out who or what's on the ballot! (The only bright spot is that Randy Kelly, the man who sold his soul to Bush, will likely move from the mayoral office to a well paying job in the Republican party.)

Update: oops! I had Nov 2nd in the title.

Joel Spolsky explains why splogs (spam blogs) are proliferating

Splogs are proliferating because they get their revenue stream from Google's custoemrs:

Joel on Software

When you connect the dots, what seems to be happening is that scammers are doing four things.

1. First, they create a lot of fake blogs. There are slimy companies that make easy to use software to do this for you. They scrape bits and pieces of legitimate blogs and repost them, as if they were just another link blog. It is very hard to tell the difference between a fake blog and a real blog until you read it for a while and realize there's no human brain behind it, like one of those Jack Format radio stations that fired all their DJs, or maybe FEMA.
2. Then, they sign up for AdSense.
3. Then you buy or rent a network of zombie PCs (that is, home computers that are attached to the Internet permanently which have been infected by a virus allowing them to be controlled remotely).
4. Finally, use those zombie PCs to simulate clicks on the links on your blog. Because the zombie PCs are all over the Internet, they appear to be legit links coming from all over the Internet.

Again, evolution in action. How do the ID folk understand our world? Without natural selection, all of this ingenuity seems miraculous. (Ok, so there's some intelligence involved, even if it is nasty in nature.)

My stuff appears in splogs. Verrry annoying. Eventually most folks will welcome the safe and sterile world of Microsoft's Palladium.

Odd moments in tech history -- the analog laserdisc

Emily and I were reminescing today, as pre-elders tend to do, about payphones, record players, and other all-but-lost things. (Our daughter tells us that her pre-school has a "big-CD player", which we believe is a record player.) All of a sudden, perhaps for the first time in 20 years, I remembered the Laserdisc.

Talk about oddities in tech history. This was an analog media read by a laser beam; basically a record player in which the stylus was light itself. It was primarily used to distribute movies in the late 70s and early 80s. Wikipedia claims there are still a few million players in use, but even the hardcore fans admit the era has passed.

I remember a talk given by a very bright researcher at the National Library of Medicine. They were engaged in a large imaging project, and were storing the images on Laserdisc. I wish I could recall the numbers, but at the time there was a huge advantage over any available digital store. A comparable library, the Bristol Biomedical Library Archive, held 20,000 hi-resolution images. I think each image had an information density comparable to a 35mm slide. In my limited experience capturing the full information content of a 35mm slide can generate a 40MB TIFF. So the Videodisc held the analog equivalent of 800 GB of digital data, or almost a Terabyte of digital data. Even today a TB is a lot of data; that's almost as much as all my home drives combined. Analog storage has its advantages.

An original observation about alternative medicine: there's no internal conflict

I've been enjoying Photon's series on quackery, but most of it is familiar, albeit entertaining. This chapter, however, was new to me:

A Photon in the Darkness: How to Succeed at Quackery (Without Even Trying): Part 3

Professional Courtesy:

No matter how much you loathe your fellow quacks or think that they have the intellect of a peach pit (after the laetril has been extracted), never, never criticize or question their quackery. This is the classic situation of people living in glass houses. Throwing stones will do nobody any good.

If you want an example of how to behave, go to one of the many quack conventions. There you will see speakers get up and say things that are absolutely incompatible with what the previous speaker has said - but they won't make any mention of it. And if the two are in a panel discussion, they will say only nice things about the other's quackery.

This is in distinct contrast to real medical conferences, where voices are raised, snide comments made and embarassing questions are asked. This sort of unseemly and impolite behavior can only be tolerated when there is real data to support what people are saying. In the world of quackery, that sort of frank discussion and argument would tear apart the delicate fabric of our fortunes. Under no circumstances are you to ever, ever even vaguely suggest that the Emperor has no clothes.

This deserves attention. Disputation based on data and logic is a hallmark of science. Intelligent Design evangelicals, however, dare not fight with (if there are any) secular Intelligent Designers. Massage therapists cannot criticize chiropractors. All must agree to live in peace, for if one fights, all are shown to be empty.

NYT has a good overview of concierge medicine

The NYT has a good review of boutique or concierge medicine. I was surprised by how relatively low the concierge fees are -- $1000 to $2000/year (For a reasonably wealthy person this is not much money.) One the other hand, if one also gets insurance payments for the visits and services a 600 person panel this can make for a pretty decent income.

I don't see patients any longer, but personally I preferred taking care of the non-wealthy. Still, one could mix a 'concierge practice' with 1-2 days a week of charity care (forget the insurance companies for the non-wealthy, too much hastle).

Gwynne Dyer's erratic web site has a set of new articles

Dyer, historian, essayist, and big thinker has added another four or five articles to his web site.

I wish, I wish he'd learn what a feed is.

Implications of the dyslexia gene

The long anticipated is upon us.

Be the Best You can Be: A gene for dyslexia

At last. If this holds up the implications are vast. We will be able to clearly identify one subtype of a common learning disorder. We'll be able to identify variations in the associated phenotype, and match therapies to the gene. We will gain vast insights into the bizarre miracle of reading (note to intelligent design folks -- the evolution of reading is much more interesting than the evolution of the retina).

This gene modulates the "migration of neurons", it is presumably one of a class of genes that determines the very structure of the human brain. Alter these genes, alter that which makes a human.

Wonderful news.

Less wonderful if it becomes part of a prenatal profile that may lead to abortions. This is a future we knew was coming.

The next big thing in telemedicine: doctor visits in virtual worlds

The New York Times has an article in the travel section on vactions to virtual worlds (mirrorshades allowed):

A Virtual Holiday in the Virtual Sun - New York Times

...On FairChang Island, for instance, one of the 1,000-plus 'regions' of Second Life (each covering 16 virtual acres), a simple mouse-click allows members to purchase virtual sailboats that can be sailed around the waters of the virtual world. Prices start at less than a penny, and the money goes to the 'resident' who created the item. Payments are made using a virtual currency called 'Linden dollars' that can be bought and sold freely with real money on eBay and other sites.

In contrast to most virtual worlds, Linden Lab doesn't mind having its currency bought and sold, and even grants Second Life members ownership of the intellectual property rights to whatever they create in the world. But to create anything of permanence, members must 'own' a plot of virtual land (on which they must then pay monthly fees).

A robust economy has sprung up as a result, with one of the most profitable areas being the virtual real estate business. Large tracts of land can be 'purchased' at auction in Second Life, often for more than $100 an acre, then subdivided and sold at a profit.

So how long will it be before someone sets up a virtual doctor's office? A place to go and receive medical advice. How long before someone then sets up a legal office to adjudicate disputes? How long before the first subpoena is delivered to Second Life requesting the physician's realworld identity to initiate a lawsuit? How long before they realize the physician was a high school dropout? Or a very savvy cyberdoc who's identity can't be traced?

This is soo interesting.

Update 10/30: The answer to "how long" is not very. In a comment on this posting James reports:

... I went to a talk last year where John Lester from Mass General talked about the virtual support group he has running in the second life virtual world...

John isn't a physician, but clearly the game is afoot. Thanks James!

How to be a successful quack

I came to this one via skeptico. I loved the insights on waiting rooms and avoiding insurance compensation (dentists, who are clearly not quacks, have been lucky to avoid the insurance quagmire that trapped physicians). The only recommendation I'd add is to avoid therapies that have obvious toxic side-effects. Never use a herbal remedy that actually has noticeable activity. Don't do chiropracty on the neck.

Overall a wonderful guide to success in quackery: A Photon in the Darkness: How to Succeed at Quackery (Without Even Trying). There are lessons aplenty there.

google base - slouching towards life

I couldn't figure out what the "Google Base" appearance was supposed to have been, until I came across a reference to

A 2002 article that detailed Google's direction.

August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web (Ftrain.com) was written in 2002. Fascinating bit of prescience, particularly if you're a knowledge-engineer sort (odd community). I'm adding this author to my bloglines list.

An expert's speculation on what life is like in Bush's place

It's rare to get the perspective of someone with this kind of perspective:

TPMCafe || What It's Like

... The exodus and incapacity were inevitable [from Bush's original team]; replacing Bush's stand-up guys and gals with suck-ups and sycophants was not. After he was re-elected, with the clouds of scandal still all `round, Bill Clinton lured John Podesta back to the White House. Podesta, who is as tough as a bar of iron, became deputy chief of staff, and then chief of staff. He was indispensable in maintaining the focus of both the President and his staff. When Abner Mikva left, Clinton recruited a new White House counsel, Charles Ruff, who was strong and steady, and put together the most impressive team of lawyers ever to grace the West Wing. When Mike McCurry stepped down, he was replaced by bulldog Joe Lockhart. Clinton also promoted Rahm Emanuel and Doug Sosnik, veteran campaigners, and convinced me to leave my beloved Austin to become Counselor to the President. Not because I was possessed of some special wisdom or insight, but because I knew him well and was not afraid to give him bad news.

Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush's personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers' cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.

And so they wait. And they sniff the royal throne. They tell the Beloved Leader he's the victim of a partisan plot (although how the Bush CIA, which referred the Plame case for prosecution, became ground zero of Democratic liberalism escapes me). They assure him all is well. But all is not well. People are looking over their shoulders. The smart ones have stopped taking notes in meetings. The very smart ones have stopped using email for all but the most pedestrian communications. And the smartest ones have already obtained outside counsel...

Bush must have many strengths, but his weaknesses seem to be profound. Maybe it does come from a life of wealth, and the world of the CEO. The CEO is not a democrat; s/he is at best a wise king, at worst a tinpot dictator. FDR, also a child of privilege was the wise king. Bush seems more the tinpot dictator, one who curries the praise of fools, shoots the messenger, and ruthlessly executes the disloyal. Is Rove no different?

PS. I don't believe there will be any indictments from Fitzgerald's grand jury.