Tinypliny's Journal
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07/27/2012 10:46 #56643
This was exactly how it wasCategory: science
04/08/2012 21:02 #56334
I don't have angry birds.Category: i-tech
04/06/2012 02:40 #56324
Personalized genetic preventive medicine?Category: science
Although I am actively involved in the ongoing pursuit of the genetic determinants of cancer risk along with my colleagues, I daily feel that my time and effort to improve public health would be better spent in an elementary school classroom with a clear and simple message on tobacco use, sun protection, physical activity, and energy balance. In my opinion, we should be cautious in communicating our expectations of genetics to explain disease risk and its ultimate public health impact. We should be globally diligent in engaging national leaders to continue to direct resource and policy change to community leaders, planners, and educators to deliver broadly acting societal support for healthy lifestyles and choices; a strategy derived from the tobacco control policies with proven value (13, 14).
Wrote Patricia Thompson in 2007 in her honest and candid article on why hunting down bits and pieces of our genetics is not really going to do much to cure cancer.
But did anyone listen? I don't know.
Its easier to believe that eventually someone will come up with a magic test to pre-detect cancer 10 years before it occurs. It will probably be sold along with a magic pill which will silence all our (still to be found) cancer-causing defective genes. Oh right, and let's not forget about the super-crazy-awesomeness of aspirin and Vitamin D. You can forestall all the cancers in the world or maybe even prevent them completely. Who cares about the eminent aspirin induced holes in your stomach and intestines and the insoluble Vitamin D deposits in your kidneys.
Doesn't that sound awesome?
Optimism is well and good but there is now enough body of evidence that it might be misplaced. Sometimes, we just need to wake up and look at ourselves, the crappy eating habits, lack of personal involvement in food preparation, the impossibility of calorie-control and portion-sizing while eating out, smoking and drinking, physical inactivity, incessant harmful energy imbalance along with a heavier reliance on animal-based protein, reliance on pre-processed everything and the deep underlying lack of motivation and sometimes, resistance against any kind of behaviour change.
We want hard, incontrovertible, randomized-control-trial-level replicable proof that our absolutely awful habits are causing damage. We will keep pointing at that one old woman who chain-smoked for 90+ years and didn't end up with lung cancer to defend our habits. We will keep hoping that we will be that one old woman and not the zillion others who did end up getting sick. Heck, after a million papers have linked the tiniest amount of alcohol to all disease imaginable and pointed out its role as a powerful carcinogen, we still get on the high road about moderation and grasp at the red-wine-is-good-for-cardiovascular-health farce while wilfully discarding the cold fact that fresh fruit sources bring as many benefits, if not more. We also cite helplessness, bring out our social crutches, blame our environments and even blame the government and the scientific establishment for the odious habits we choose to hang on to and the food that we choose to eat everyday. In other words, we are in denial.
And that's the message that the establishment of cancer research wants to publish in clear unambiguous, simple terms. A pity it doesn't quite get round to it because someone just found yet another string of small gene variants that could possibly have a 0.000000000000000000000001% effect on cancer risk in a group of 10 people belonging to some esoteric ethnic group that lives deep in the suburbs of Detroit in a subgroup analyses of a study on 10, 000 people.
I take it you're quitting cancer research and taking up advocacy? Or just gonna keep it all confined to your blog?
----> This takes me to post #4
Yes this is kinda science Fiction but just something to think about and ponder....
Say they test everyone and see ok you might get cancer so they give you medicine and it prevents you from getting it by Genetics alone... Now obamacare (what I dumb name) has been law of the land and the health care you have covers this payment and is a government plan....
1. If you do things that cause cancer or could be said to cause cancer then who would pay for this...... They made it so you wouldn't get one kind
2. Or is it there fault for not giving you enough of a push to do things that are healthy...
3. Would this prove that there are different causes of cancer
3A. From there would an additional plan be put into place?
- 3 A pill wouldn't cure Cancer... As example HPV is often carried by men and they don't get sick but it can cause or so they say Cervical Cancer in women and it can in men to but doesn't... So there is all this controversy cause if you give it to kids it is like saying ok sex is safe now go have sex at age 12.... What it really says is if you have sex this is one less thing to worry about....
- 3b.
Comment #2....
All that healthy stuff is the way to promote not getting cancer.... But at as much as that is way that sounds good... Don't know as it would work.... Lets face it getting cancer is horrid but it is a long way away and work sucked "Let me bum a smoke" then back over to bar.... Yes I'm going out tonight so I know what I mean.... One could get hit by a bus or crash the car over the weekend so things like that are often not a thought.... The point is that trying to use health could push people away... Even though it is the right thing to do....
Great article I mean post.... Can't say about other countries but this one is so based on fix the results not the cause... And Since we told England to go fuck them selves and then beat them again in 1812... That attitude is part of America we won't convert to Metric cause fuck the rest of the world... We run the un... Then when they say you can't go into Iraq... We say fuck you try and stop us... I'll have my Steak Bloody and my beer warm as a blow smoke in your face... Run ha....
Now Am I being over the top yeah a bit but that attitude is real... In this country you (unless you are health care company giving money back for doing healthy things one of the 12 blue cross plans) can't talk about behaviors cause that is like saying people don't have a choice.....
04/04/2012 14:24 #56320
A page by any other name...Category: i-tech
But I am convinced M$hitWord must view it like this:
I am seriously so annoyed right now that I need to suffer through Word (in addition to wrestling with LaTeX) just because people haven't even heard of LaTeX. Why do I have to even make a crap Word document when I have already compiled a good enough PDF from tex? Why??
Because of the decades of misthinking and mistakes M$hit has heaped upon the world, that's why.
No matter what I was writing or writing for... If I use a computer I have to use the software the place I'm submitting it to uses..... Can't think of another word like program there used to be something I used .... Now if they state what software they use then part of writing a paper is to use what they use.... yeah it would suck if they used some program that was only on macs and didn't work in word but if I knew that going in then that is what I would have to use....
Peter, the logic seems to be, if this is what everyone is used to, this is what you should do. I could not disagree more.
First, what everyone uses is for the most part influenced by the inability to learn and adapt to new things that make life substantially easier. Second, what the clueless population uses for 3 page documents without references is not ideal for a 300 page document with several intricacies. Third, given the common final expectation of a precisely typeset PDF (with barbaric margin requirements and whatnots defined by my Uni), expecting me to use Word to reach that goal is frankly the most atrocious directive. Fourth, not everyone uses Word for dissertations and LaTeX is WIDELY used in almost ALL academic circles, just not the somewhat rusty folks in my current situation. LaTeX has been around since 1980 - half a decade before Windows was grafted upon the world! :::link::: What more can I say.
And most importantly, why do you think word integrates well with everything? I have a mile long list of things it does not integrate with - including consistent format, bibliographies, mathematical notations - some of the most important attributes of a really long document.
And quite honestly - they don't even need to know what software I use to produce my documents. If the Uni wants PDFs in the end, then isn't it time people learn to review PDFs and not keep on expecting the .doc$hit? All this non-consistent, repetitive and VERY PAINFUL formatting seems like an infinite waste of time to me. I could achieve awesome professional results using LaTeX with a fraction of this effort I am pouring into definining styles in Word.
I don't know all the details.... But from what I understand if you are a company and get a Windows based computer or even a school then it comes with word and that is what everyone knows... All the different software things like say powerpoint and things for slide shows and all that stuff is all integrated....
Now I know that PDFs are common and that at least Adobe makes things so you can read them or download a book or many things in that form...No idea what other companies there are..... But is word works fine to integrate with everything else why even mess with PDF.... Now if one does again I wouldn't know about on Mac's but with Widows based computers at some point they got adobe so if they did do PDFs that is what they would know not this other program.....
Now you might be asking what is my point.... Well if the problem is that this software no one else knows how to use it or integrate it....Even though you love it....Then any project or work should be used on or done on what they use.....
What does it take for people to catch up? These are people who almost write for a living and they have been doing it on Word for like what - 15 years? I think the problem is they all have their PAs and admins do all the dirty formatting for them and have forgotten everything about how wretched m$shitword can make your life if you are dealing with anything other than a 2 page doc with multiple content types and bibliographies. And let's not even talk about the lack of knowledge about BibTeX and reliance (and sometimes insistence) on absolutely bottom of the barrel reference software services like endnote and refworks. ugh
Personally, I wouldn't even do a 2 page doc on M$ if left to my devices.
Ya it seems ridiculous. You should make it a pre-requisite of all future endeavours that the people are fluent in the technology of the last decade at least.
04/03/2012 15:01 #56314
e:strip. Now! Even MORE green!Category: e:strip
With Chromebot
Hee Hee
The title gave me an idea... and I missed the orange. And we had something similar like this before...
Et voilà !!! Tree-hugger (e:strip)!!
Get it here:
img.mini_userpic { border-style: none; } #stripe { display: none; } div.section.flip { display: none; } div.padding { display: none; } ol li a { display: none; } div.section h1 { font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 10px; } #col_left { display: none; } div.link_list { background-color: #8fad15; height: 0; } html body { background: url(http://cdn.tomorrow.do/Woodtable-merge.jpg) ; margin-left: 250px; } .buttons a { background-image: none; border: #eee; } #signup p { background-color: =; } #latest_entries ul li { font-size: 16px; line-height: 2.1em; letter-spacing: 1.6px; } #latest { background-color: #8eb320; padding-left: 30px; width: 350px; padding-right: 30px; moz-border-radius: 15px; -webkit-border-radius: 15px; border-radius: 15px; border-style: dotted; border-color: #6d8217; border-width: 1px; } div.mini_comment { letter-spacing: 1px; padding-bottom: 0; border-style: dotted; border-color: #6d8217; border-width: 1px; background-color: #8eb320; width: 350px; height: 120px; } div.mTopBottom { -moz-border-radius: 15px; -webkit-border-radius: 15px; border-radius: 15px; width: 400px; overflow: hidden; } div.link_list.buttons { margin-left: 729px; border-style: none ; } div.link_list.buttons a { border-style: none; color: #ffffff; } #comments { width: 400px; margin-left: 250px; margin-top: 20px; } div.section label { font-size: 15px; color: #ffffff; } #banner { width: 400px; height: 100px; margin-left: 250px; margin-top: -500px; } div.frontleft { margin-top: -30px; } div.body { color: #ffffff; } .module a { color: #8eb700 ; } #comments p { #comments p { margin-left: -250px; width: 300px; }
Its cute.
hey, how was I to know!? That could have been just a couple of Harvard people hating on their programs! Anyway, I can tell you that my dissertation process totally validated their paper - down to the description of the committee member roles. I am fairly certain one of them just read first 10 pages. ;-)
Its like you read it and entirely ignored it in order to stress out on every sentence produced, lol.