Torture: Kratman was right, if horrific

Kudos to Tom Kratman for being right about the (horrific) effectiveness of torture, and to the CIA for being smarter than people give them credit for. Torture done properly is effective; otherwise there wouldn't be a moral dilemma. (This is true whether or not waterboarding constitutes torture--any negative conditioning that can be performed with waterboarding would work as well or better with more horrific punishments.)

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/01/the_case_for_torture_ex_cia_officials_explain_enhanced_interrogations.html

'Hayden acknowledged that prisoners might say anything to stop their suffering. (Like the other panelists, he insisted EITs weren't torture.) That's why "we never asked anybody anything we didn't know the answer to, while they were undergoing the enhanced interrogation techniques. The techniques were not designed to elicit truth in the moment." Instead, EITs were used in a controlled setting, in which interrogators knew the answers and could be sure they were inflicting misery only when the prisoner said something false. The point was to create an illusion of godlike omniscience and omnipotence so that the prisoner would infer, falsely, that his captors always knew when he was lying or withholding information.'

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

"Where babies come from"

Whenever I eventually have to give my kids the "where babies come from" talk, I plan on giving them the full scientific treatment. The discussion will include words such as "chromosome," "ovipositor," "meiosis", "fission," and "spermacyte." There will be a brief discussion on alternatives to mammalian fertilization techniques, including ovuliparity (external fertilization, as in fish), oviparity (internal fertilization but egg-laying, as in birds), and viviparity (internal fertilization, as in mammals).

Then I will simply say, off-handedly, "humans are a hemotrophic viviparous species like most other mammals," and refer them to textbooks for further details.

My kids will know so much about sex that they'll view it as boring stuff for old people only.

'My dad said a penis is kind of like a mammalian ovipositor for males, except instead of a rotting tree, the host is a female of the same species, and fecundation occurs after implantation instead of before. Yech. Oh yeah, and there's some kind of pleasure stimulus involved.'

--
Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.
Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.
Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.
Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Doubt is essential to faith?

Lesley Hazleton has a talk in which she thoughtfully asserts the importance of doubt.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazleton_the_doubt_essential_to_faith.html

I see her point, but I think she misstates things when she says that the absence of doubt leaves behind nothing but fanaticism. I think a willingness to entertain doubt to far more important than doubt.

It doesn't particularly matter at any given moment whether I doubt a proposition, say, the reality of my own mind as an actual mind (as distinct from "the brain": a stimulus-response system constructed from neurons and governed entirely by physical laws) as long as I am willing to entertain doubt if and when it becomes appropriate. (Say, someone manages to build a device which can control my mind.)

I understand the Pythagorean theorem well enough that I have zero doubt of its truth (in the Euclidean domain). Hazleton's formulation would make that lack of doubt a statement of arrogance, fanaticism, and self-righteous zeal, but in fact it's nothing of the kind. It is simply knowledge. I am willing to allow challenges to that knowledge, but I know full well that those challenges will be met. I have comprehended it and it is true.

Faith is what you do while you are waiting for either falsification or comprehension.

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Excessive Force

Snippets from a fascinating article on modern law enforcement.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/

Sal Culosi is dead because he bet on a football game — but it wasn't a bookie or a loan shark who killed him. His local government killed him, ostensibly to protect him from his gambling habit.

Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. "To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends," a friend of Culosi's told me shortly after his death. "None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation." Baucum apparently did. After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting. Eventually Culosi and Baucum bet more than $2,000 in a single day. Under Virginia law, that was enough for police to charge Culosi with running a gambling operation. And that's when they brought in the SWAT team.

On the night of January 24, 2006, Baucum called Culosi and arranged a time to drop by to collect his winnings. When Culosi, barefoot and clad in a T-shirt and jeans, stepped out of his house to meet the man he thought was a friend, the SWAT team began to move in. Seconds later, Det. Deval Bullock, who had been on duty since 4:00 AM and hadn't slept in seventeen hours, fired a bullet that pierced Culosi's heart.

Sal Culosi's last words were to Baucum, the cop he thought was a friend: "Dude, what are you doing?"

[snip]

Indeed, that's exactly what happened to seventy-two-year-old Aaron Awtry in 2010. Awtry was hosting a poker tournament in his Greenville, South Carolina, home when police began breaking down the door with a battering ram. Awtry had begun carrying a gun after being robbed. Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door, wounding Deputy Matthew May in both arms. The other officers opened fire into the building. Miraculously, only Awtry was hit. As he fell back into a hallway, other players reporting him asking, "Why didn't you tell me it was the cops?" The raid team claimed they knocked and announced several times before putting ram to door, but other players said they heard no knock or announcement. When Awtry recovered, he was charged with attempted murder. As part of an agreement, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. Police had broken up Awtry's games in the past. But on those occasions, they had knocked and waited, he had let them in peacefully, and he'd been given a $100 fine.

[snip]

In 2010 a massive Maricopa County SWAT team, including a tank and several armored vehicles, raided the home of Jesus Llovera. The tank in fact drove straight into Llovera's living room. Driving the tank? Action movie star Steven Seagal, whom Sheriff Joe Arpaio had recently deputized. Seagal had also been putting on the camouflage to help Arpaio with his controversial immigration raids. All of this, by the way, was getting caught on film. Seagal's adventures in Maricopa County would make up the next season of the A&E TV series Steven Seagal, Lawman.
Llovera's suspected crime? Cockfighting. Critics said that Arpaio and Seagal brought an army to arrest a man suspected of fighting chickens to play for the cameras. Seagal's explanation for the show of force: "Animal cruelty is one of my pet peeves." All of Llovera's chickens were euthanized. During the raid, the police also killed his dog.

[snip]

But Stamper says that like many aspects of modern policing, dog shootings may have had a legitimate origin, but the practice has since become a symptom of the mind-set behind a militarized police culture. "Among other things, it really shows a lack of imagination. These guys think that the only solution to a dog that's yapping or charging is shooting and killing it. That's all they know. It goes with this notion that police officers have to control every situation, to control all the variables. That's an awesome responsibility, and if you take it on, you're caving to delusion. You no longer exercise discrimination or discretion. You have to control, and the way you control is with authority, power, and force. With a dog, the easiest way to take control is to simply kill it. I mean, especially if there are no consequences for doing so."

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Religious analogy

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/07/02/stranger-in-a-mormon-land

My visit to the Mormon ward was far removed from all of those experiences.

The closest analogy might be something along these lines: Imagine that you are an observant Jew attending a Christian church for the first time. There are many things that you will recognize, including concepts and even scriptures, but they will be recast in a way that is weird, in fact, utterly foreign to you.

Sure, members of this relatively new faith will use the same Hebrew Bible, but they will call it something different, the "Old Testament," which hints at a divide. They also use other authoritative books, and their method of interpretation has little to nothing to do with your own tradition. They have transformed the Passover meal into something barely recognizable to you. They profess faith in a messiah, but their idea of him is different from your own hopeful notion of the savior of the Jewish people and the world. They affirm the truth of your religion to a point, but insist on a newer, fuller revelation from God that has superseded yours, and invite you to join them in this final dispensation.

My visit to the Mormon ward was a bit like that...

--
Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.
Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.
Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.
Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Bunny inspectors redux

[Cc B. and K.]

D.,

This may amuse you if you're in the right humor. USDA regulations now say magicians' rabbits need full-scale disaster plan. Death by paperwork.

-M.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/1/agriculture-department-tells-magician-write-disast/

"My USDA rabbit license requirement has taken another ridiculous twist," he continued. "I just received an 8 page letter from the USDA, telling me that by July 29 I need to have in place a written disaster plan, detailing all the steps I would take to help get my rabbit through a disaster, such as a tornado, fire, flood, etc. They not only want to know how I will protect my rabbit during a disaster, but also what I will do after the disaster, to make sure my rabbit gets cared for properly. I am not kidding–before the end of July I need to have this written rabbit disaster plan in place, or I am breaking the law."

Mr. Hahne also detailed the guidelines the USDA reportedly gave him:

• The new regulation became effective Jan. 30, 2012.

• The written plan must be completed by July 29, 2013.

• Mr. Hahne and his wife, Brenda, must be trained to implement the plan as written.

• The written plan must be available for review by USDA inspectors by Sept. 28, 2013.

--

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Intelligence and agency

[Note: I could be wrong about everything. I frequently am. I do however find my own insights convincing or I wouldn't bother to share them. ]

Dear Sister G.,

"Intelligence." "Agent." These words are used in the scriptures. I think they are well-chosen. Obviously the gospel concept predates the word choice--the gospel was true before English was invented--but I think Joseph Smith did an even better job than he probably knew, translating them into English.

The scriptures say that men are "agents unto themselves," and the JST of Moses 7:13 says, "in the garden of Eden, man had agency." The word "agent" comes from Latin "agere" (ago/agere/egi/actus). Textbooks often give the meaning as "to do, to act, to make, etc." but what it really is is a generic verb which gets its specific meaning from the associated noun, just like the English word "do." (Consider the difference between "I did my taxes", "I did the dishes", "I did my duty", and "I did him in".) Basically it means "to whatchamacallit." In English, "agent" can refer to something which catalyzes or acts (as in chemistry, or expressions like "agent of change"), or to someone who acts ON ANOTHER'S BEHALF. When the scriptures say then that men are "agents unto themselves," I feel like the Lord intends for us to see 1.) we have the power to act, to do, to make, etc., 2.) when we do so, we represent ourselves--but we also have the choice to become HIS agents, to act at his direction and on his behalf. It's a good, subtle choice of word and I love it.

The scriptures also talk about "intelligence," especially in D&C 93 (which refers to "intelligence" as a singular undifferentiated "mass noun" like "information", without discrete subsets) and in Abraham 3 (which refers to "intelligences" as a synonym for premortal spirits). The word "intelligence" comes from Latin "intellegere" (intellego/intellegere/intellegi/intellectus), which textbooks say means "to understand." It comes from "legere" (lego/legere/legi/lectus) which means "to read". "Inter" (between) + "legere" (to read) = "to read between [the lines]", "to understand". But here's the neat thing: I learned a few years back that the original meaning of "legere" was actually "to choose." Because reading consisted of picking the right meaning out of a set of letters, "legere" also came to mean "to read" as well as "to choose". So "intellegere" not only means "to read between", it must also mean "to choose between". That makes "intelligence" an extremely appropriate word for the scriptural concept of that which not only sees and understands, but also chooses a course of action.

We are intelligence, endowed with agency.

Love,

Max

P.S. Moses 7:13 originally said, "the Lord said unto Enoch, behold, these thy brethren, they are the workmanship of mine own hands, & I gave unto them their knowledge in the day that I created them & in the Garden of Eden gave I unto man his agency;". During revisions by the Prophet, the word "knowledge" was crossed out and replaced by "intelligence", the phrase "in the day that I created them" was crossed out, "gave I unto" was crossed out, and "his" was partially crossed out and rewritten as "has". "I gave unto them their knowledge & in the Garden of Eden man had agency;"

I mention this both because it's interesting doctrinally and because it says something interesting about the process by which revelation comes: line upon line, precept upon precept.

-- 

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Textbook awesome

Dear B.,

Today I read a truly awesome sentence in a genetics textbook.

I don't know how much you remember about cellular meiosis, but to refresh your memory: in cellular mitosis, a cell splits into two cells, each with its same chromosome count. In meiosis, a cell splits into four cells, each of which has the normal chromosome count, so that it can be combined with another cell during fertilization to produce a new organism. The reason this works is that before mitosis or meiosis, each chromosome builds up an extra chromotid--a copy of itself, still attached to the original chromosome through a centromere--which splits during meiosis to produce two chromosomes.

The splitting takes place in two phases. In the first part, the two versions of each chromosome (e.g. the X chromosome you got from your mom and the one you got from your dad) pair up into what are called "bivalents": like two little X's attached to each other. Then one chromotid of each swaps parts of itself with a chromotid from the other, so you wind up with four chromatids (one identical to the mother's, one identical to the father's, and two that are part of each). Then the cell splits, and one chromosome goes to each new cell. In the second phase, the chromosome itself splits the chromatids apart, and the cell splits again, with each cell getting one chromatid. (This second part is just like mitosis, only the cell already only has half the right number of chromosomes.)

Okay, so the awesome sentence went something like this: "During zygotene [a subphase of meiosis], each chromosome somehow seeks out its homologous pairing in order to recombine." Key word there: "somehow." The textbook went on to acknowledge that the mechanism is not well-understood. It's kind of mind-boggling when you think about it: if a chromosome is just a string of genes, how does your chromosome #11 from your mom know that it's chromosome #11 and is supposed to pair up with your other chromosome #11 from your dad? Rather, the chromosome itself MUST have some extra information that says, "Hey, I'm a #11" The reason I think this is awesome is that here is a fascinating scientific question that most textbooks would probably just gloss over because the answer isn't known, but THIS textbook specifically calls out the fact that the answer isn't known--and questions are the essence of science. Knowing how to ask questions, and what to do to find real answers, and tell them from false answers.

I wish this kind of thing were more common. I wish the average 10th-grade high school student finished the school year knowing more than just a bunch of facts and accepted theories about biology--I want them to know what we don't know as well. Do we know where new phenotypes originate? (If a giraffe evolves a longer neck, where did the gene for longer necks come from in the first place?) That evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium that you just taught us--do we know if it's true based on paleontological evidence, or is it just a theory still looking for evidence? Do we really understand how neurons pass information to each other? How do homologous chromosomes find each other? (Maybe there are answers to some of these questions. It's hard for me to tell the difference between 'the details are so complicated that I just won't mention them here' and 'nobody knows how it works but I don't want to admit that in a textbook.' It seems like you need a lot of expertise in a subject to be able to confidently assess which questions are unsolved--you can't easily learn this on your own even with the Internet, which is another reason it should be in textbooks.)

"Somehow." This is my new favorite science word.

Love,

Max

-- 

Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency; and array thyself with glory and beauty.

Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath: and behold every one that is proud, and abase him.

Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.

Hide them in the dust together; and bind their faces in secret.

Then will I also confess unto thee that thine own right hand can save thee.

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Hydrogen generation

Replacement for platinum in electrophoresis?

http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Schaak6-2013

--

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

'If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you.'

Conquest of Elysium Damage Calculator

Conquest of Elysium Damage Calculator

Base Damage:

Bonus

Enemy armor total:

Answer

*** Formula:
Open-ended average of 1-N = N/(N-1)+N/2
[derived by summing infinite series of open-ended rolls plus the average damage of the final non-open-ended roll].
Including armor A where A < N, this produces a weighted average damage = ((1+(N/2)+(N-A-1))*(1/N) + (N-A)*(N-A-1)/(2*N)

Global warming: poll

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientists-skeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/

According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of respondents fit the "Comply with Kyoto" model. The scientists in this group "express the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause."

The authors of the survey report, however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models, each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims.

The survey finds that 24 percent of the scientist respondents fit the "Nature Is Overwhelming" model. "In their diagnostic framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the Earth." Moreover, "they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal lives."

Another group of scientists fit the "Fatalists" model. These scientists, comprising 17 percent of the respondents, "diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused. 'Fatalists' consider climate change to be a smaller public risk with little impact on their personal life. They are skeptical that the scientific debate is settled regarding the IPCC modeling." These scientists are likely to ask, "How can anyone take action if research is biased?"

The next largest group of scientists, comprising 10 percent of respondents, fit the "Economic Responsibility" model. These scientists "diagnose climate change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the 'real' cause of climate change is unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the 'nature is overwhelming' adherents, they disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy."

The final group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the "Regulation Activists" model. These scientists "diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life." Moreover, "They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC modeling is accurate."

--

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

'If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you.'

Prison

Henry Harpending on prison:

[from the comments here: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/castaways/]

I encountered a fellow years ago who had encountered several unwilling castaways and contributed to the failure of their 'attempt'. He was an old guy in NE Botswana, roughly between Nata and Pandamatenga if you have a map handy.

He told me about the best years of his life when the government has housed him, fed him, given him clothes and medical care, and not worked him very hard. I asked him how that happened, and he was a little bit vague. He was hoping it might happen again.

I turned out that when he was a young man their hunting party watched a small airplane with engine failure land on a pan (like a dry lakebed). Two white men came out, looked around, saw the hunting party, and waved at them. The Bushmen did not know what these creatures could be, so in the interest of caution and safety they killed them. Soon after the government took him away to prison.

He did understand that he had been in prison but he had no clear idea why. What had he done wrong?


--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Good article

Biography of Len Hope about his conversion to the gospel in the early 20th century. Real nice flavor to it.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/welcometable/2013/04/len-hope-in-his-own-words/

Brothers and sisters, I wish to state why I become a Latter-day Saint. I once belonged to the Baptist Church. Before I become a Baptist, I thought it was wise to ask some of the old members that have been members of the church for a long time, how do you get religion and what was it.

Some of 'em stated to me that when you get religion, you have to pray for it. You have to see peculiar things, and have peculiar dreams, and see yourself crossing Hell on a spider web. I thought that was very peculiar, but I was willing to try it. So I tried to get religion that year, and I prayed for it, and seek very hard for religion, the way I know — beggin' the Lord for religion, but I couldn't get religion that year.

I couldn't see myself crossing Hell on a spider web, nor neither could I see any peculiar things. Next year, I try religion again. And, as you know it's customary for those in the Baptist or Methodist denomination how they gather, the people down on them benches, called mournin' benches. You set down and pray, and they'll pray for it, and after that period, why they give us a prayer period, a rest period, to go out and pray for our sins. And they let us go out for an hour or two hours, prayin' for our sins. So I went out late at night and went up and lay down in a cotton patches and cornfield, lookin up to Heaven, begging the Lord for religion, dew falling on me heavily. Well after it was impossible for me to see any of these peculiar things, it looked like there was no religion for me. So I went back to the Church and promised to live all the laws of the Baptist Church, keep all the commandments of Jesus Christ as far as I could understand it. I give the preacher my hand, and with covenant. So when the vows was over, they baptize us, and shortly after that the Lord showed me in a dream, that I had to be baptized over again. I wasn't in the right Church; it wasn't happening. [snip]

-Max

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Math is a sixth sense

[quoting http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/math-is-hard/]

Lord Kelvin said "I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be."  Even those who didn't have much math sometimes wished that they did.  Chuck Darwin said "I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics;  for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense."

I remember talking to a field biologist studying three genetic male morphs of some screwy freshwater fish.  In passing, I said " Of course all three forms have to have the same average fitness, over the long term."  He said " Why?", because he was an idiot. Speaking of which – general intelligence and math ability are fairly well correlated.  Maybe a lot of these low-math types just aren't very smart.

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Thella's obituary

My great-aunt died recently. She spent twenty years as an informant for the FBI.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thespectrum/obituary.aspx?n=thella-brock&pid=164179844&fhid=4515#fbLoggedOut

-Max

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Medicine: 1960s to now

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324789504578380382204116270.html

By current standards, the lack of third-party coverage would be impermissible. But treating patients without insurance meant that I had to give my acute attention to the price of every medical intervention. The costs could have a direct and painful impact on a family's budget. So I had to know the prices for most of the medications I prescribed and of most of the tests I might order. I learned to play for time by waiting, when it was safe to, before ordering an X-ray or a test—and to substitute less-expensive medications for more costly ones wherever possible.

I developed pastimes that were diverting but would permit me to be available to patients 24-7, requiring coverage by a substitute only for a two-week vacation annually. Few physicians nowadays would undertake such an onerous schedule, and yet many of the inconveniences are offset by benefits. If you are caring for your own patients, you know them and their ailments and can manage a great deal over the telephone (or by email these days), with minimal cost to them and minimal intrusion into your own life. By contrast, covering for another physician almost invariably means inefficiency—additional time to learn the patients' relevant history, and often either a direct patient encounter or an outpatient facility visit, all of which greatly add to the cost.

Then, in the mid-1970s, things changed, and we became enlightened. Third parties, typically the insurance companies, were interpolated between the physician and the patient. Some of the consequences were unfortunate.

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honor more.

Parenting and The Prince

"It is better to be feared than to be loved." If I ever have kids I am totally going to brush up on my Machiavelli first.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323646604578400804035071688.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

-M.

--

Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honor more.

Euphemisms

When I was younger, I spent some time looking for alternative expletives which could show emotion without sounding like a faux-swear. E.g. "smeg" shares no phonemes in common with any vulgarism in the English language, and I used it for a while, until one day I caught myself about to use it unconsciously instead of on purpose. And I decided I wanted to be the master of my own words, and dropped it in favor us simply using English. "Smeg!" becomes, "What a mess" or "How vexing."

I still say "Argh!" sometimes though, and "Wow."

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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

Science! 1940s to now

Lindzen asserts that scientific productivity has fallen dramatically since Vannevar's Bush day, starting in the 1960's, and asserts that this is due to a shift in the way scientists perceive their relationship with the public: from eliciting gratitude then to fear-mongering now. I am still digesting his argument, but it's an interesting paper littered with anecdotes and footnotes like this one:

The response of the IPCC officials makes it eminently clear that the IPCC is fundamentally a political body. If further evidence were needed, one simply has to observe the fact that the IPCC Summary for Policymakers will selectively cite results to emphasize negative consequences. Thus the summary for Working Group II observes that global warming will result in Hundreds of millions of people exposed to increased water stress. This, however, is based on work (Arnell, 2004) which actually shows that by the 2080s the net global population at risk declines by up to 2.1 billion people (depending on which scenario one wants to emphasize)! The IPCC further ignores the capacity to use build reservoirs to alleviate those areas they project as subject to drought (I am indebted to Indur Goklany for noting this example.)

http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/lindzen-on-climate-science-2010.pdf

-Max

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Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.

    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,

Loved I not Honour more.

Natural selection (link)

http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/dan-freedmans-babies/ has an interesting story. I won't spoil the punch lines, but here's the intro:

Daniel Freedman was a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.  For his doctoral thesis, he did adoption studies with dogs.  He had noticed that different dog breeds had different personalities, and thought it would be interesting to see if personality was inborn, or if it was somehow caused by the way in which the mother raised her puppies.  Totally inborn.  Little beagles were irrepressibly friendly.  Shetland sheepdogs  were most sensitive to a loud voice or the slightest punishment. Wire-haired terriers were so tough and aggressive that Dan had to wear gloves when playing with puppies that were only three weeks old. Basenjis were aloof and independent.

He decided to try the same thing with human infants of different breeds.  Excuse me, different races. [snip the rest]

I love reading about interesting experiments.

-Max

--
Hahahahaaaa!!! That is ME laughing at YOU, cruel world.
    -Jordan Rixon

I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.