Check out this video! (hat tip to Onegoodmove) You might think about rare happenstances a little differently after getting a good shot of statistics in your brain.
Think about all the ways that in fact common and likely events are used by people to convince you that some X factor was responsible for it. X could be a supplement pill, a supernatural claim, or a skin care product. It takes a carefully designed test to really know if X causes Y. Otherwise, it could just be coincidence.
Yep today’s productivity virus is the inauguration of President Barack Obama! Well, it won’t stop me from getting some work done - I’ve got a gel running downstairs!
I’m counting down the minutes until Bush is officially powerless.
10:40 Central Time I believe they gave his middle initial when announcing his name.
10:50: Is that Rick Warren, then? Ugh. Hey he said we’re not united by religion! Points for him for sticking it to the revisionists.
I guess I’m liveblogging it!
10:59: Joe Biden has been sworn in!
11:00: They’ve got an all-star classical music team, right down to composer John Williams.
11:06 President Obama!
11:08: Speech! Speech!
11:15: Restoring science to it’s RIGHTFUL PLACE! He also gave a clear plug for biofuels, mentioning soil, it was clearly plant-based. Well, duh.
11:17 “We reject as false the choice between our safety and ideals.”
11:20: We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and Nonbelievers.
11:28: All done with Obama’s speech. Um, can the “news” guys shut up and let the poet read her poem?
(This is interesting, watching the afterwards footage, Dick Cheney is in a wheelchair. Didn’t know his health was that bad. Hard to feel sorry for him, though. I sincerely hope he lives long enough to see how he will be written in the history books.)
Correction: Cheney reportedly pulled his back while moving his stuff.
I don’t know about you, but the stuff in my honey jar is a mixture of fructose, glucose, and sucrose with a scant bit of protein, some minerals, pollen grains, and oh yeah, volatile compounds from plants that give it its unique flavor.
So I just came across this article in the Seattle P.I. called Don’t let claims on honey labels dupe you. It’s good, and it points out how some of the things that are on honey labels do not correspond with any sort of significant difference from label-less honey. They mention “Grade A”, Country Of Origin Labels, and Organic.
Now Grade A, according to The Hive and the Honey Bee, refers to honey that is clear of any debris, crystals, etc, so if you filter it well enough you’re good. I think of it as somewhat meaningless, not a big deal one way or another. (Grade A vs Grade B for Maple Syrup, however - there’s a difference. Grade B is thicker and yummier!) But there is a defined standard.
Country of Origin Labels (COOL) are a good idea. I would like to know that my food is coming from somewhere nearby, in general, rather than far away. But something that the COOL labeling folks need to realize, before it loses its value, is that you have to have some way to determine where it actually came from. In the case of honey, your guess is as good as mine, and few labs in the world can even take a stab at tracing the source of a sample of liquid gold.
Finally, there’s Organic honey. Let me clear my throat for a second, because this is important. Read More…
As part of the annual Edge Question, Richard Dawkins suggests that Human-Chimp Hybrids will change everything. It’s an interesting article, check it out. It certainly builds upon what I said before about human-chimp combinations.
I’d like to point out that a Human-Chimp ancestor derived from sequence data would not be a human-chimp hybrid in the same sense as a mere mixture of chromosomes, or cells in one organism. But one of the most fascinating points that Dawkins illustrates is that if all human ancestors existed in an afterlife, there would be a chain of possible interbreeding stretching from us to them. Ewww. Read More…
Not six, or twelve, or eighteen hours later due to the non-leap year years. Midnight, the New Year is upon us. Sure, we had a leap second added right before midnight, but all is well with celebrating the new year at the proper Sidereal timepoint. Y’all knew that part, didn’t you?
Resolutions for me? Write more, record again. Pretty simple. But resolutions are hackneyed. Instead, I would like to express a few New Year’s Wishes:
This year, I will pin down, clone, and confirm the identitiy of my gene, Sugary Enhancer.
This year, I will fully complete my video project and plan my next ambitious enterprise.
But there are a few things that I wish from the Universe - things I hope to find in the world this year:
A Jonathan Kozol of FOOD. I’ve been knee-deep in the writings of foodies, pop nutritionists, food revolutionists, and not one of them really comes from the perspective of poor people who cannot afford to shop like the culinary bourgeoise. Jonathan Kozol, who I met once in Davis, is a prime example of a true progressive, the likes of whom I have never found writing about food. He’ll actually get into the ghetto to figure out the problems. You cannot fix the American diet within the aisles of Whole Foods.
Some real political change. Barack Obama - you’ve got quite a task ahead of you and have made people believe in the political process again. Keep it rolling!
Welcome, 2009!
