I very recently reviewed Carl Hiaasen’s novels. Among his fiction are two books that are written explicitly for kids. Looking just at Hiaasen’s titles it may be hard to pick them out from the pack, so I’m making a special reference to them here. They are called “Hoot” and “Flush.” Details follow:
Continue reading Hiaasen For Kids
Monthly Archives: June 2009
New Photoblogger at Scienceblogs.com
Following the excellent round of rocket photography by Steve Jurvetson, we now come down to earth with minerals photographed by B. Jefferson Bolender.
Racist bomber in the dock at Old Bailey
A racist arrested by chance at a railway station was “on the cusp” of waging a terror campaign using tennis balls and weedkiller, a jury has heard.
Neil Lewington, 43, had a bomb factory at his parents’ home in Reading, Berks, and wanted to target those he thought “non-British”, prosecutors alleged.
The Old Bailey heard he was carrying bomb parts when arrested at Lowestoft, Suffolk, for abusing a train conductor.
Flu Update: Millionth American Case, Scams, Prospects
The novel swine flu has affected its one millionth American. The first death in England has been recorded (a 9 year old girl). Yesterday, the first Brazilian death was recorded. When we look at the map of the disease, note that many regions of Africa are totally devoid of cases. Just so you know … this is not some special African immunity. This is simply because the global health network has failed Africa and we have no clue what is going on there, and never have had a clue.
A new wrinkle in the process for North Americans, possibly with parallels elsewhere, is the summer camp phenomenon. This is where we take children from multiple communities, only some of which have some dreaded disease, or perhaps just an annoying meme, and we ship them all to one location either every day for the whole day, or for weeks at a time overnight. In this way, the diseases or annoying memes can spread among them and all the children can bring them home!
There have been some summer camp closings.
Despite rumors to the contrary, the novel swine flu is roughly as deadly as the regular flu. I’m still seeing people, even experts, indicate that it is relatively mild. It is not. It is typical.
The novel swine flu seems to be affecting younger individuals in part because of an immunity found in older individuals, presumably from exposure to a similar flu in the past. This is interesting news if confirmed. This touches on another area of confusion. The 1918 pandemic flu was famous for being extra deadly for healthy individuals. This was for a very specific medical reason. The current flu seems to be affecting ‘healthy’ individuals more as well. This is for a totally different and utterly unrelated reason, probably.
This is subject to revision, but here’s the story:
The 1918 pandemic flu killed healthy people more because healthy = stronger immune system. These people were killed by the way their immune system reacted to the flu. A person with a strong immune system would be more strongly affected by the flu, possibly fatally.
The novel swine flu appears to be affecting healthy people more because healthy = younger than a certain age. That age cut off separates individuals (older) who have an immunity from prior exposure to a similar virus from younger individuals who don’t.
Again, this is subject to revision. This is subject to revision in two ways:
1) The assertion I make above about the 1918 flu is very likely true and well demonstrated, but the assertion I make about the novel swine flu is speculative at this time; and 2) the phenomenon seen in the 1918 pandemic flu, while apparently not happening with the current novel swine flu, could develop later on during the pandemic.
Why do I say that? Because that is what happened in 1918. The flu went around the world ‘off season’ (as the current flu is doing) and was typical in virtually every way but its timing. Then it went around the world again with this extra glitch of killing people with their own immune system.
The fact that the 1918 flu did this has flu experts worried, and they should be. However, I have yet to see a biological argument for why this flu should follow the same pattern in regards to this specific feature.
What is going to happen next? In late (?) September (+/-) there will be a flu vaccine available for the regular flu. Get one.
Later, maybe in October (?) there may be a vaccine available for the novel swine flu. This may be a two dose vaccine. Get it, get them both if there are two. There will be instructions as to who should get it and when. But since those instructions will be filtered through the usual sources, be careful what you pay attention to. The little people sitting at the colorful desk on the news show will not be giving you useful information. They never get this stuff right. You should rely on the blogosphere this time around, I think.
(People who have gotten the novel swine flu already seem to be immune but unless you know you had it from a clear test, I would not assume that.)
And speaking of people getting it all wrong … have you heard about any of the flu woo scams going around regarding the flu? There is a treatment in which photons are passed into your cells to kill the virus. There is an anti-flu vaccine. There is a ‘do it yourself’ flu vaccine kit, which involves you sending in your credit card number but then never hearing back from them.
Obviously, don’t fall for that.
Skepchickcon is this weekend!
Skepchickcon is a Track at Convergence 2009. Convergence 2009 is one of those science fiction conventions where everyone dresses up as Klingons and such. I’ve never been to one but I’ve sure seen plenty of them on TV and in the movies.
Skepchickcon is a “Track,” which means it is a series of panels and stuff integrated with systematic planned partying parallel to other “Tracks” at the convention.
Personally, I’m on three of the panels: Blogging Skeptically; Science Online, and Evolution 101. Plus I’ll try to attend some of the parties.
Here is my schedule:
I’m less sure about the July 3rd stuff, but I’ll do what I can.
There is much more information available about Convergence and 2009, as well as the Skepchickcon Skeptics track here at Skepchick.
There is also a facebook page here.
Anyone else going? Who/what are you dressing up as?
Pawlenty Vague on Signing Franken Into Senate
Time Pawlenty has become famous for his ability to be extraordinarily vague. Now we are seeing this in relation to the expected Minnesota State Supreme Court decision on the Franken-Coleman Senate election contest.
For the most part, Pawlenty has signaled that he will only sign the election certificate if he is instructed to do so by the court. He has implied, therefore that he will not sign it if he is not instructed even if the court has made a decision.
He has not explicitly stated which court he is referring to, but it seems that he is expecting that the state court may instruct him to sign before a federal court (to which we assume loser Norm Coleman will bring the contest) decides on the matter.
Here’s the problem: The state court will produce its ruling any day now. They are rather late in doing so and we await not only a ruling but an explanation of what has taken them so long. Once they do this, Pawlenty COULD sign the certificate, but may not.
Independently of the court’s decision, the court may or may not provide an instruction t the governor to sign the order. What Pawlenty is saying is that he will sign if so ordered, otherwise …. the implication is that he will not.
If he does not, he would wait for the court to provide such an order. That would likely only come if the issue is brought before the court, they hear arguments, then sit in their chambers for who knows how long.
Details here. The story is based on an interview with Pawlenty on CNN on Sunday.
What really happened on the moon
I have no comment on this.
Gotta go … helicopter coming.
Son of Mike Invades Tokyo
Bing, son of blogger and politico Mike Haubrich, has just arrived in Japan where he will spend several months assisting in a linguistic research project in the Greater Tokyo Metro area. And hopefully getting around the country a bit to see some cool stuff.
He’s got a web site tracking his trip here.
Please note that there is a little donation button on that site. I think he’s short of cash.
Lost Moon Tapes Found in Perth Australia
UPDATE: grrrrrrrrrr…..
The original story, now retracted, is below the fold.
Somebody is dicking around on the internet. It is possible that the Daily Express article is a “hoax” or a “fiction” … at least, this is what some are claiming. See the updates here on Bad Astronomy.
I’m not sure if I would use the word “hoax” if this is simply inaccurate reporting. A hoax is different (sort of like the difference between a mugging and a hate crime?).
I also don’t like the phrase “it is a fiction.” What does that mean exactly? This story has several elements to it, including the description of the processes the data went through, including NASA losing the tapes, including looking for the tapes, including failing to look for the tapes, including finding some kind of tapes, including thinking that the tapes that were found had the missing data on them, and including trying to get the data off the tapes.
Does the phrase “it is a fiction” mean that all of that is made up? Some of it?
The original story implies that NASA was mad because the story was being released early. Is that a fiction as well?
At this point it is entirely up to NASA to make a clear statement about what is true and not true and to give us the details. Of course, they can take their time to do this right. And if they feel that the Express overstepped their bounds, they should make that clear as well.
Happy Birthday FreeDOS
DOS stands for Disk Operating System.
In the old days it was how you ran your PC. You booted up the computer and you had a prompt much like today’s Linux command line in appearance. If you typed “wp” at the command line, a text-based non-GUI version of WordPerfect would run. If you typed “dir” you’d get a list of files in the current subdirectory. If you typed “nc” you’d get norton commaner. Maybe. Can’t remember exactly. And if you typed something like “term” …. well, you were on the internet, checking your mail in pine and maybe mining data with gopher.
Then, one day, it became true that if you typed “win” that Windows 3.0 would run. Windows 3.0 would take over the screen and produce a very clunky GUI that would slow down your computer and limit access to its functionality.
And ever since then your computer has been screwed.
In 1994, Microsoft announced that DOS would be discontinued shortly. They lied. They discontinued it much later than they said they would. But no matter, a guy named James Hall who was using DOS very productively decided to make a new operating system called, originally, “PD-DOS” and later “FreeDOS”
I’m privileged to actually know James. He is an occasional commenter on this blog and he often sends me interesting things to post regarding Linux. He also helps me with the Klingon translations that I need done now and then.
Well, today is the fifteenth anniversary of James Hall’s efforts to preserve DOS by creating FreeDOS!!!
Today, James runs his version of freeDOS inside an emulator on his Linux machine. Personally, I think it would be fun to play around with it. I wonder if I can run an old copy of WordPerfect on it. WordPerfect 4.2 was …. perfect. Version 5.1 did add some important functionality but they ruined it with pulldown menus. If any of you could see the keyboard I’m typing on now, you’d know what I’m talking about.
Oh what the heck, you can see it. I’ve just gotta point my web cam the right direction and ….
There, so you can see the keys on the left side. These were used by WordPerfect to format text and stuff. I use them today to do HTML.
Anyway, Kudos to James Hall for making FreeDOS happen. Visit the FreeDOS web site here.
Sadly, James is now stepping aside as Benevolent Dictator of freeDOS.
Long Live freeDOS!
Questions about Missionaries
As you know, there has been quite a bit of discussion about missionaries in the Congo on this blog. This is the central post pointing to everything else, and at Minnesota Atheists you’ll find a link to today’s radio show on the topic.
It turns out that a number of calls and emails did come in to the station today but we were unable to get to them. Among the emails, there is this two parter from from Jason Thibeault:
I have a two part question for Greg Laden. In conversations on your blog related to the topic prior to this show, you mentioned that there are secular missions to many of these areas, the purposes for which are to provide the services that the religious missions provide, only omitting the proselytizing. You said at the time that you didn’t know much about them — have you managed to find out more about any existing missions since then?
When I look up “secular mission” on Google, I find stuff about missions where the word “secular” is used for some reason or another, and I find myself. This is not good.
Perhaps the secular “mission” right now is the UN, and in some cases USAID (but if you want that to work, you’ve got to contact your representatives in congress and push for critical evaluation and positive reform) and various NGO’s that are not religious. I think we need to do more research on this, and also, to make things happen.
Also, the thought of setting up such a mission without the backing of a church or religious institution seems particularly daunting. How do you figure one might go about putting together such a mission, if not supported by a religion or university; for instance what would it involve with regard to raising funds and establishing contacts in the countries in question? I’m not suggesting I’m going to do it personally, but hypothetically, if someone like me wanted to, is it possible?
I think the thing to do is to work directly with existing semi-autonomous developing communities. These things exist. I can’t advise specifically regarding the Congo at this time, but in South Africa, I’ve worked with communities that have an internal structure, are fitted to the existing governmental system, and work with secular NGO’s. An outside entity could hook up with some existing partnership such as that and provide grant money for specific, defined projects (this school or that goat farming operation or this water supply program or whatever).
Thanks for the questions, Jason.
Also, as long as water has come up, browse through this blog site for ideas as to how to get involved in that specific issue.
Poor and disadvantaged suffer greatly from poverty-caused neglected diseases
The best of last June
Continue reading Poor and disadvantaged suffer greatly from poverty-caused neglected diseases
How Birds Fly (book review)
previously reviewed
Birds: Nature’s Magnificent Flying Machines
This is a well done and highly recommended book.
The good book
Whenever I sat at Joseph and Mary’s dinner table, Mary showed a great deal of interest in my work. In between her frequent forays away from the dining room table to get this or that food item, or to issue instructions to a servant, or whatever, she would sit at the table across from me and ask questions.
“So, have you found anything interesting?” which is a standard question to which the answer was always “no” … we do not want to give people the idea that they should head out into the bush with a shovel. “So, what to the Pygmies think of your research.” And so on.
I remember that during our second dinner, the fourth or fifth question was this:
“So, since Radiocarbon dating has been proved to not work, how do we really know that the earth is billions of years old?”
Continue reading The good book
We are the World: New Philippines Prisoner M. Jackson Tribute
Prisoners, nuns, do the wave for Jacko:
I concur with BGF’s opinion on this.
Except I’ve got to add: When the nuns came out I kind of freaked. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, I totally missed the “we ae the world we are the Coke Commercial” event because I was in the jungle with the … starving and dying children that year. Everybody was humming this song when I got back but no one could remember why.