Category: Interesting Reads

Father of the year contender

For those that didn’t hear about this last week, here’s the tale of a father who recognized he was too drunk to drive home.  Wisely, he gave up his keys.  Wisely, he chose someone he knew and trusted to drive his truck.  Unfortunately, the designated driver was a bit drunk, too.  Oh, and a bit under-age.

A police officer checking on a truck that got stuck in the mud at a city park was startled to find a 13-year-old boy behind the wheel. The boy’s father, who was sitting in the passenger seat, told police he had had too much to drink and let his son drive. The boy had been drinking, too, police said.

Well, I guess the man can’t be a perfect model for wise decision-making.

[tags]Drunk, Stupid, Father of the year[/tags]

Do drunken elephants see pink elephants?

On occasion, I find a headline that I hate to pass up.  Most days now, I’ll just post it to RandomLi, my other blog.  However, some are good enough to gather posting line there as well as get a full post here.  I present to you “Elephants electrocuted in drunken rampage.”

GAUHATI, India – Six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted as they went berserk after drinking rice beer in India’s remote northeast, a wildlife official said Tuesday.

How do elephants get drunk?  Well:

Some found beer, which farmers ferment and keep in plastic and tin drums in their huts, said Sunil Kumar, a state wildlife official.

So I stand by my post title and wonder – do drunken elephants see pink elephants?  Or is that limited to humans that have seen Fantasia?

[tags]Fantasia, Drunken Elephants, Pink elephants, Rampage[/tags]

Tips for clearing clutter

My wife and I are hoarders. We get stuff and have trouble doing away with it. This leads to a shamefully messy house, and excessive need for storage. We’ve tried all manner of overcoming the problem, but without a consistent effort, we pretty much fall back into over-collecting soon after clean-ups. I’m going to give it another shot, after having found Zen Habits’ 15 tips to declutter.

13. Internalize that your value is not in your “stuff”. It is just “stuff”. And realize that your value grows when you share your “stuff”. Hoarding is a selfish act.

I think this one really applies to me. I tend to buy when I’m stressed or down. Some people eat – I spend. Bad Randy.

1. Declutter for 15 minutes every day. It’s amazing how much you can get through if you just do it in small increments like this.

One of the reasons why I like this list so much is almost everything on there is as simple as this opening step. I can much more easily stick to it if it is easy and I can start with a low commitment. Much like I’ve been most successful sticking to day-after-day of frozen dinners with known calorie counts, I think I can be more successful decluttering and cleaning if I do small increments of clean-up daily with a room-by-room cleaning plan.

[tags]Declutter, Zen Habits, Cleaning[/tags]

Maker of Lipitor cites dubious study to keep patients from generic

We all know that medical care and especially drug costs are crazy high in the US. We’ve probably all heard the many commercials that recommend jumping from name-brand drugs to generic drugs. However, not all drug manufacturers find that to be a good idea. In an attempt to protect the big-money drug LipitorTM, representatives from Pfizer are citing a widely questioned study that indicates patients on generic cholesterol-blocker simvastatin die more often and have more heart attacks.

While simvastatin is not a generic equivalent for LipitorTM, it is a generic version of competing cholesterol-blocker ZocorTM. Studies other than the one Pfizer is referring to show that at the most commonly prescribed doses of LipitorTM, simvastatin is equally effective for most patients. Naturally, Pfizer representatives disagree.

The company has mounted a campaign that includes advertisements, lobbying efforts and a paid speaking tour by a former secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Pfizer is also promoting a study – whose findings many experts are questioning – that concluded that British patients who switched to simvastatin had more heart attacks and deaths than those who remained on Lipitor.

Naturally, the mighty dollar plays in here. And I do believe Pfizer has not only a right, but a duty to shareholders to try protecting such a big funding source. However, I think reliable science needs to be behind any claims used to try swaying opinions, and apparently the study in question may not be reliable science. We’ll just have to see how it turns out, I suppose.

I also take issue with the following claim from a Pfizer senior vice president:

Continue reading “Maker of Lipitor cites dubious study to keep patients from generic”

How long does your luck hold against dozens of rattlesnakes?

In a special show of stupid, a man nicknamed “The Texas Snake Man” has set a new (stupid) world record by sitting in a bathtub with 87 rattlesnakes. Real, live, fanged, venomous rattlesnakes.

Another day, another bizarre world record for Jackie Bibby, “The Texas Snake Man.” Bibby spent about 45 minutes in a see-through bathtub with 87 rattlesnakes Monday, shattering his own record by 12 snakes just in time for Guinness World Records Day, which is Thursday. The record was certified by a Guinness official.

. . .

The record was Bibby’s latest grab at glory. Last year he set a Guinness-certified record by holding 10 rattlesnakes by their tails in his mouth at once. He said he plans to break that record Tuesday by squeezing in an 11th.

I don’t mean this as an insensitive comment, but he might do well to ask Steve Irwin (nee The Crocodile Hunter) a bit about how long you can go around dangerous animals before your luck fails.

The article discusses other official and unofficial records held by Bibby, so head over to get the full scoop if you want to see how far someone can press their luck.

[tags]The Texas Snake Man, Rattlesnakes, Snakes – why did it have to be snakes?, World record[/tags]

Saudi marriage counseling

This is one of the oddest things I’ve seen recently. Marriage experts in Saudi Arabia are supposedly teaching men the “right way” to beat their wives.

“Admonish them – once, twice, three times, four times, ten times,” he advised. “If this doesn’t help, refuse to share their beds.”

And if that doesn’t work?

“Beat them,” one of his three young advisees responded.

There is more helpful information in the full article, if that isn’t enough to guide you.

[tags]Saudi, Marriage counseling, Beat your wife[/tags]

iPhone outselling Motorola RAZR?

Before the iPhone launched, I said I didn’t see it doing as well as Steve Jobs expected. I thought it might sell well initially, but once the early adopters had their hands on it the market would slow. Well, I believe the difference between Steve Jobs opinion and mine shows why only one of us is disgustingly rich and in charge of a tech-company growing ever more revered.

Motorola said it shipped 900,000 RAZR2s during the quarter, falling well short of Apple’s 1.12 million iPhone shipments during the same period. This, despite Apple being limited to only U.S. customers and having one carrier. Now, Motorola’s no lightweight when it comes to the mobile phone industry. Overall, the company still shipped 37.2 million phones during the quarter and managed to a snatch a worldwide marketshare of 13 percent, behind only Nokia and Samsung.

So one of the more popular phones on the market is getting outsold by the iPhone, and I’m clearly a moron in at least this aspect of reality (possibly others, but I’ll hold off on those for a while). I still don’t get the appeal of the iPhone nor understand why it is performing so well, but as I’ve said before – I want my gadgets to do one task very well rather than several tasks less well, so I’m clearly not the best to judge this trend.

[tags]iPhone, RAZR, iPhone outsells RAZR, Apple, Motorola, Apparently I’m a moron[/tags]

Glenn Beck declares conservatives hate America?!?

Since the first time I watched his show, I’ve liked Glenn Beck. Sometimes I disagree with him, but often I think a lot of what he says makes sense. So I find it exceptionally odd that Glenn would chose to say that conservatives hate America on his program.

“I think there is a handful of people who hate America,” Beck said. “Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.”

Now of course, many folks would hear that, think “Ahhh – California is a bunch of liberal nuts” and guess Beck is talking about Democrats losing their homes. The reality is that the places hit hardest by the fires currently are California’s 49th and 50th districts, which are more in the 3/5 to 2/3 conservative range. So generally speaking, if you hear some unknown person lost their home to the fires, the safe bet is to guess the unknown person is conservative.

Furthermore, if you listen to what Beck actually says (roughly the last 30 seconds of the clip), he ends his comment saying “There are a few people that hate America, but I don’t think the Democrats are those.” So in an area that is over 60% conservative, people who are not Democrats hate America and are losing their homes.

No matter who Beck is talking about, the comment is unnecessary and idiotic. A person’s political views should never lead someone to imply they deserve bad circumstances. Sadly, rather than own up to making a stupid comment, Beck tries to explain it away as if it were some joke and that liberals are just hating on conservatives. If you can go listen to the clip linked above and explain the joke to me, I’d love to hear it. I just don’t find the funny in there.

[tags]Glenn Beck, Beck says conservatives hate America?, California fires, San Diego[/tags]

Did you know drug handedness can affect potency?

I have no idea this was something that mattered, but recently drug companies have been releasing updated versions of drugs that are spatially altered to improve effectiveness and/or minimize side-effects. This means more better you-ness, with less worser unwanted-nessitude.

This is a bit heavy: Stereoisomers are molecules that have the same chemical formula and bonds, but a different arrangement of atoms. Enantiomers are a type of stereoisomer that are mirror images of each other — just like a right hand is the mirror image of a left hand. R-stereoisomers can be thought of as “right handed” and L-stereoisomers can be thought of as “left handed”.

This is clearly an instance where the DuPont slogan rip-off “Better living through chemistry” applies. And while you are there reading about this cool drug twist (no pun intended), be sure to vote for Shelley as your favorite science blog writer.

[tags]Drugs, Handedness, Better living through chemistry[/tags]

Dealing with monkeys

There is a problem with monkeys in Delhi.

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

Now we at the Blahg don’t normally make light of the suffering of others (yes, yes we often do), but that’s got to be one hella tough story to tell when arriving in the after-life.

Experts in the area are searching for a response that will curb the monkey problem. I have an idea what NOT to do, but the so-called experts are going to try something I’d recommend not trying:

One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.

Jeff Goldblum would disapprove in a Jurassic Park universe, I think. And as brilliance expert Bill (of DQ fame) pointed out – That has Kim Possible written all over it.

[tags]Monkeys, Bad dates, Death by monkey, I know an old lady who swallowed a fly[/tags]

Build your own Sputnik

It’s been 50 years since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, shaming the American government into taking the space race seriously. In part of a look back BBC News has a retrospective on the Sputnik launch and a guide in brief on building your own satellite.

“Technology now is way ahead of what was available in 1957, and making your own fully functional Sputnik would now be very simple indeed,” says Jan Buiting, editor of Elektor Electronics, a hobbyist magazine.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you could build one in a container smaller than a matchbox, weighing about as much as a wristwatch. The components, including a transmitter, battery and the sensors you’d need would probably cost less than £50,” he says.

Of course, launching it into space, getting it to the right altitude to orbit, and keeping track of it might all require a bit more. However, the basics of building the device are clearly easily achieved in modern times.

[tags]Sputnik, Space race, DIY, Build your own Sputnik[/tags]

Happy belated 2nd anniversary Modern Mechanix blog

I missed this a few days ago while my own site was suffering some internal errors, so couldn’t post this until I got everything back up and running. As of October 18th, 2007, the Modern Mechanix blog was two years old. Catch up with the site, see the first article posted there, and learn some of the statistics and operations that keep this amazing resource of yesterday’s tomorrow running so well.

I want to give a huge thanks to my roommate Simone for all of her help on this site. Without her there really would not be a Modern Mechanix blog. When I met Simone my magazine collection consisted of a few old Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines from the 1950’s. I had bought them simply because I loved reading them. Originally my idea for the blog was only to post early articles about things that had become everyday. Basically, the whole blog was meant to be what is now the Origins category. I was thinking of naming the blog “Prior Art” or “You heard it here first”, both pretty lame. Simone and I had talked about my idea for the site and for my birthday she got me a pile of Modern Mechanix mags from ebay and Modern Mechanix the blog was born. Later she came up with a name I liked a lot better, “Retrospectacle” but we had already developed a small following and I didn’t really want to change the name midstream. I noticed recently that someone else came up with that name as well. I actually still own the domain.

I sit here in envy of what MM has achieved in two years of existance. With nearly the same run time for the Blahg, my best day ever for the Blahg saw just over 600 visitors, and recent downtime and a slow posting period have cut my readership at least 75% from that high. Hopefully MM will not let up and will keep posting some of the great insights of what we should be living with today according to the experts from 30 to 100 years ago.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, Happy anniversary, Yesterday’s tomorrow today[/tags]