text:
Wilmington, De. (AP) - The state Republican Party's fierce attacks on tea party-backed Christine O'Donnell offer Democrats plenty of ammunition in the U.S. Senate race after her shocking upset of a nine-term congressman and former governor.
Democrats watched for weeks as U.S. Rep. Mike Castle and O'Donnell pummeled each other in an ugly contest that didn't let up even in the final hours Tuesday when her own party launched automated phone calls attacking her.
A woman who said she was Kristin Murray, O'Donnell's campaign manager in her 2008 unsuccessful Senate campaign, accusing the candidate of "living on campaign donations -- using them for rent and personal expenses, while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt." That followed earlier GOP claims that O'Donnell has lied about her education and has left a trail of unpaid bills that included tax liens and a default on her mortgage.
Democrats and their candidate Chris Coons can simply reach into the GOP's quiver for arrows to fire at O'Donnell as they try to hold onto the seat held for more than three decades by Joe Biden before he gave it up in early 2009 after being elected vice president. His successor, Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman, pledged not to run for a full term.
The results had barely been counted before the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began cataloging the nasty comments fellow Republicans have said about O'Donnell.
"Even the Delaware Republican Party chairman has said O'Donnell is 'not a viable candidate for any office in the state of
The GOP criticism and a huge Democratic advantage in state voter registration numbers make O'Donnell's prospects of defeating county executive Coons in November even more daunting.
"Every leading Delaware Republican knows that Christine O'Donnell is way out of the mainstream," said Coons, who was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
Before Tuesday, Castle, a former two-term governor who is the longest serving U.S. House member in state history, had never lost an election. O'Donnell's side went on the attack, portraying him as a Republican in name only who was too liberal and often voted with Democrats in Congress.
O'Donnell came in as a two-time loser, in 2008 to Biden for Senate, and earlier in a three-way GOP primary for that seat.
And though her boost by Tea Party Express spending on television and radio ads won her the primary, Republican support statewide and nationally is doubtful.
Castle did not mention her name in his concession speech and said earlier that supporting O'Donnell if she won would be difficult.
"One of the basic arguments here is that she is just not going to win the general election," Castle said. "I totally believe that ... I see no way she could win this general election, or maybe any general election."
Making matters worse, national Republican Party officials said as the votes were being counted that the party would not come to her aid if she won, citing a string of disclosures about her personal finances and other matters, including her attacks on Castle.
Still, O'Donnell was riding a winning high during her acceptance speech.
"Some people have already said we can't win the general election," O'Donnell said in a speech to supporters, who responded with chants of, "Yes, we can!" that turned to, "Yes, we will!"
"If those people who fought so hard against me work just as hard for me, then we can win," O'Donnell added in an apparent reference to Republicans who opposed her.
O'Donnell also faces a numbers battle. She garnered less than 30,000 votes in a contest in which only Republicans could cast ballots. About 293,000 Democrats are registered in
Her supporters remained undaunted.
"If she can beat Castle, she can beat Coons," said Judy Mangini, 50, a real estate agent from Lewes who worked on O'Donnell's campaign.
GOP support for O'Donnell is doubtful not only because of questions about her appeal to the general electorate and her finances, but because of the harsh words leveled at Castle during the primary.
Besides casting him as a liberal, O'Donnell, 41, and her supporters suggested that the 71-year-old Castle is so frail that he might die before finishing his Senate term, that he might switch parties and become a Democrat, and that he was cheating on his wife with a man.
"This has not been at all pleasant, this particular campaign," Castle said.


text:
This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Most of the current techniques for
Tremendous efforts have been made over the last thirty years to detect biogenic amines, especially dopamine, for
Dopamine (DA) can be easily oxidized electrochemically at conventional electrodes, which have been used to detect the neurotransmitter in both
A variety of surface modification approaches has been exploited to resolve these problems. One type of surface modification exploited the opposite polarities of DA and AA [
New materials, such as carbon nanotubes [
FSCV has been the most successful approach for
However, at high scan rates the majority of the current detected at the carbon-fiber working electrode is a nonfaradic current that arises from charging of the double layer. Even though techniques to subtract this large background current have been developed [
While oxidative dopamine sensors are the most widely used platforms for the electrochemical detection of dopamine and are among the most successful in elucidating fundamental information concerning physiological and neurological transmission of dopamine, approaches that could alleviate all the afore-mentioned problems are attractive. One of the approaches is an electrochemical detection method that does not rely on the direct oxidation or reduction of dopamine itself (refers to
The first non-oxidative dopamine sensor was reported by Beni
Recently, we draw on the findings that single-stranded DNA (ss-DNA) can disperse bundled carbon nanotubes in aqueous solution, resulting in helical wrapping of single-walled carbon nanotubes by ss-DNA (ss-DNA/SWNTs) [
Conducting polymers are attractive for sensor applications because their electronic and electrochemical properties are highly sensitive to molecular interactions, which provide excellent signal transduction for molecular detection [
We found in this work that the stability of a self-doped polyaniline, poly(anilineboronic acid), is greatly improved when it is polymerized
A gold (Au) electrode was first modified with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of 2-amino-ethanethiol so that the ss-DNA/SWNTs could adsorb onto the electrode. Poly(anilineboronic acid) (PABA) was then deposited onto the modified Au substrate by sweeping the electrochemical potential from -0.16 to 0.94 V (versus Ag/AgCl) in 0.05 M 3-aminophenylboronic acid monomer, 0.04 M KF, 0.5 M H2SO4. It was reported that the presence of F- in the monomer solution could decrease the potential required for the polymerization of 3-aminophenylboronic acid [
In subsequent cycles, two pairs of peaks appeared (
We also used UV-Vis-Near IR spectroscopy to monitor
A prerequisite for continuous electrochemical deposition of polymer film is that the produced film must be conductive in each cycle of deposition; otherwise, the deposition would self-terminate. The redox current of the polyaniline backbone increased much faster on the electrode with ss-DNA/SWNTs than at the electrodes with ds-DNA and with the 2-aminoethanethiol monolayer only, respectively (
The better conductivity of the nanocomposite film is also due to the improved conductivity of the PABA component [
Toward the goal of biosensor applications, which require operation under physiological conditions, the deep green PABA film obtained at the ss-DNA/SWNTs electrode was first stabilized in 0.5 M H2SO4 and then in 0.01 M phosphate buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4) by sweeping the potential between 0.04 and 0.79 V until the cyclic voltammetry (CV) curves were stabilized. Interestingly we found that the stability of the resulting films was also increased by the presence of ss-DNA/SWNTs, as is indicated by the fact that the CV curves were easily stabilized in both H2SO4 (
The great stability of the nanocomposite film and its electrochemical activity in pH 7.4 PBS allow us to use the self-doped polyaniline for sensitive detection of biomolecules in solutions approximating physiological conditions. After the composite film was stabilized in 0.01 M PBS (pH 7.4) solutions, various concentrations of dopamine were added into the electrochemical cell and the electrochemical current of the polyaniline backbone was measured. After each addition, the potential was swept between 0.04 and 0.79 V until the cyclic voltammograms (CV) were stable.
It is well known that native polyaniline is not conductive or electrochemically active in neutral pH solutions [
The high binding affinity between dopamine and boronic acid can affect the electrochemistry of the polyaniline backbone in different and seemingly divergent modes, and thus require clarification. On one hand, the conversion of the boronic acid to the boronate ester complex along the polyaniline backbone interrupts the intra- or inter-chain tetrahedral boron–nitrogen interactions, which
On the other hand, formation of the boronate complex eliminates the electron withdrawing nature of the boron's vacant
These multifaceted effects on electrochemical activity were observed recently in a boronic acid-substituted bipyridine Fe(II) complex [
It was reported that formation of the anionic ester could reduce the Ka of the protonated quinone diimine groups in the polyaniline backbone, and reduction of the Ka caused a positive shift in the potential of the electrochemical conversion of emeraldine to penigraniline. Shoji
The faradic current of the anodic peak (IPBS) at E=0.45 V was recorded from the last cycle of CV curves at which the composite is stabilized in PBS solution, and the faradic current in the last CV cycles of each dopamine addition (IDA).
The sensitivity towards dopamine increased by 104 compared to the previous report in which neat PABA was used to modify the electrodes in a detection platform of micro-electrochemical transistors [
We should mention that even higher detection sensitivity can be reached by optimizing the detection techniques. For example, a micro-electrochemical transistor as a detection platform normally has higher sensitivity because the conductivity of polyaniline can be changed by many orders of magnitude when its redox states are switched [
As described earlier, ascorbic acid is the most severe interferent in the determination of dopamine due to the nature of the oxidative reaction of dopamine and ascorbic acid on the electrode. In the non-oxidative detection scheme described herein, dopamine was not directly oxidized on the electrode. Therefore, the interference by AA should be inherently avoided [
Surprisingly, we found that AA still severely interferes in the detection of dopamine, but with a different interference mechanism.
Freund and co-workers reported that the oxidation potential of the PANI backbone shifts positively when a diol binds to the boronic acid groups along the backbone of PABA. Therefore the positive shift of the oxidation potential and the decrease of the oxidation current may be understood as a result of the formation of boronate ester complexes between AA and the boronic acid groups in the PABA/SWNT composite. By adding different concentrations of AA into the electrochemical cell, we found that both the oxidation current and the potential increased after the CV curves were stabilized (
When the diol binds to the PBA it disrupts the ARS-PBA complex, thereby decreasing the concentration of the ARS-PBA complex as well as the fluorescence signal of the solution. This protocol requires knowledge of the binding constant between the PBA and the ARS, which can be determined using the Benesi-Hildebrand method [
Solutions of 9 μM ARS, 9 μM ARS and 2 mM PBA, and 9 μM ARS and 2 mM PBA with a range of DA or AA concentrations were prepared in 0.10 M phosphate buffer (pH 7.4). They were allowed to react for 5 minutes at room temperature before performance of the fluorescence experiments. The solutions were excited at 468 nm and the fluorescence intensities were monitored at the emission wavelength of 588-590 nm. Equations use to calculate the binding constants are shown below [
To elucidate the influence of the amine group in dopamine on the fluorescence signal during the binding constant measurement, a control experiment was performed with tyramine. Tyramine is also a neurotransmitter and it has a very similar molecular structure as dopamine, but without a diol group to bind boronic acid: rather, it possesses a single alcohol group and an ethylamine group in the
The aforementioned fluorescence-based binding assay was also employed to calculate the binding affinity of ascorbic acid to PBA, the value of whose binding constant is 21 ± 1.8 M-1 (mean ± SEM), which is approximately 40-fold lower than the DA association constant (890 ± 42 M-1). Considering that the concentration of AA is three or four orders of magnitude higher than the concentration of DA in physiological samples, large amounts of AA can therefore bind to the boronic acid groups along the polyaniline backbone under physiological conditions. Therefore, the interference by AA toward the detection of dopamine is a two-pronged problem in this non-oxidative approach. On one hand, the electrocatalytic reductive ability of AA caused a large increase of the oxidation current of the polyaniline backbone, and on the other hand AA chemically bonded to the boronic acid groups, which induced a decrease of the oxidation current and a positive shift of the oxidation potential. The net effects of these two divergent factors determine the degree of AA interference on the detection of DA. The chemical and electrochemical interactions between PABA and AA are summarized in
Although we still do not understand why the current approach is contradictory to the previous reports about AA interference, we speculate that one of the most important reasons is the extremely high sensitivity provided in the current sensing approach, which "detected" the previously undetectable AA, leading to the observed interference. Finally it is important to mention that a freshly prepared ascorbic acid solution is required to study the interference effect of AA. We noticed that the AA solutions that were used approximately one day after preparation did not demonstrate interference. We understand that this is because AA is not stable in solution [
Several methods have been reported to eliminate the interference of AA towards the determination of dopamine, such as use of the enzyme ascorbate oxidase (AOx). Selective oxidation of AA by AOx has been widely used in the development of selective biosensors, including those for glucose, lactose, and dopamine [
Deposition of a layer of Nafion does not alter the redox activity of the ss-DNA/SWNT/PABA film in neutral pH solutions. The CV curves are very similar to the curves shown in
The correlation coefficient for the reproducible detection of dopamine is 0.9924, and the detection limit (1.5 nM) is slightly higher than that without Nafion (0.6 nM). This is perhaps due to Nafion behaving as a diffusive barrier, i.e. the Nafion film decreased the amount and/or the speed of dopamine diffusing to the ss-DNA/SWNT/PABA film. With 0.15 mM ascorbic acid in the dopamine solutions, the data points in the calibration curve of dopamine reside in the positive error region of the calibration curve for dopamine without ascorbate present. These results demonstrate the near-complete elimination of interference by ascorbic acid. The strong cation exchange of Nafion leads to an uptake of the positively changed dopamine and the anionic ascorbate interferent is electrostatically rejected from the surface because of the negatively charged Nafion. Since the linear correlation is between 1 to 10 nM dopamine, which is an appropriate concentration range for Parkinson's disease patients [
In this review we have summarized our efforts in electrochemical detection of dopamine with high sensitivity and selectivity by modifying the electrode surface with a thin layer of
We acknowledge the donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and National Science Foundation under CHE-0750201 for partial support of this research. S.R.A. acknowledges an Undergraduate Research Fellowship by Rutgers University (2004-2005). Y. B. acknowledges the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for the Supplement for Underrepresented Minority Research (SUMR).
Cyclic voltammograms recorded during the electropolymerization of 3-aminophenylboronic acid on electrodes from the second cycle to 21st cycles at
Typical I-V characteristic curves of the (a) PABA-ss-DNA/SWNTs composite film, (b) PABA alone, and ss-DNA/SWNT alone before and after treatment with NH3. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
(a) UV-vis spectra of the PABA/ss-DNA/SWNT composite (red) and the pure PABA (inset, blue) before (-) and after (⋯) treatment with NaBH4; (b) FTIR spectra of the composite (red) and the pure PABA (blue) and the pure PABA after reduction with NaBH4 (green). The spectra were normalized with the 1570 cm-1 peak. Baselines for the absorption height ratio measurements are shown. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Successive cyclic voltammograms of poly(anilineboronic acid) in H2SO4 solutions on electrodes (a) with ss-DNA/SWNTs and (b) without ss-DNA/SWNTs; potential scan rate: 100 mV s-1 (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
(a) Cyclic voltammograms of the composite in PBS and in the presence of different concentrations of dopamine; (b) a correlation curve of the data presented in 1a (n=5). Potential scan rate: 100 mV·s-1. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
TappingMode AFM surface scans of electrochemically generated: (a) PABA/ss-DNA/SWNT composite film and (b) PABA film on gold electrodes.
Differential pulse voltammograms of the composite in PBS and upon addition of different concentrations of dopamine. Potential scan rate: 100 mV·s-1; pulse amplitude: 50 mV; pulse width: 50 s. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Cyclic voltammetric curves of the ss-DNA/SWNT/PABA modified Au electrodes in pH 7.4 PBS and upon addition of (a) 10 nM dopamine and (b) 10 nM dopamine and 0.15 mM ascorbic acid. Potential scan rate: 100 mV·s-1. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Influence of AA on the PABA/ss-DNA/SWNT composite sensor: a) CVs of the composite in PBS before (—) and after (—) addition of 10 mM ascorbic acid (the first CV upon addition of AA is the tallest one, and each successive cycle yielded a smaller curve); b) titration of the composite with AA ranging from 0.6 mM to 5 mM; c) a graph of the shift in peak potential of the composite's CV upon addition of AA as a function of the concentration of AA. Potential scan rate: 100 mV·s-1. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Fluorescent binding assay results of the affinity between PBA and AA and between PBA and DA: a) Fluorescence emission curves of the PBA-ARS complex upon titration with a range of AA concentrations; b) Linear correlation between [AA]/P and Q; c) Fluorescence emission curves of the PBA-ARS complex upon titration with a range of DA concentrations; d) Linear correlation between [DA]/P and Q. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Correlation curves for the detection of dopamine on the electrode modified with ss-DNA/SWNT/PABA/Nafion composite in the absence (●) and presence (
ss-DNA wrapped single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT). (The schematic is only a graphical presentation and does not represent the precise way ss-DNA binds on SWNTs.) (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Complexation between dopamine and poly(anilineboronic acid) (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Fluorescence protocol for determining the binding constant between boronic acids and diols using the reporter dye ARS. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [
Molecular basis for the interactions between PABA and AA. (Reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society [

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A stupid act, even for such an airhead
Jackie Kelly was the symbol of John Howard's triumphal year of 1996. After she was reconfirmed at a byelection where she increased her majority, she became a prime ministerial talisman and favourite. Now she might become the symbol of his end.
Kelly - who was a minister for several years, chosen mainly because of her status as the icon of Howard's western Sydney "battlers" - has always been a bit of an airhead. But not even her strongest critics could have anticipated yesterday's performance.
Kelly's husband, Gary, was among those distributing the pamphlet from the non-existent "Islamic Australia Federation" that said, "We strongly support the ALP as our preferred party to govern this country and urge all other Muslims to do the same" and "We gratefully acknowledge Labors support to forgive our Muslim brothers who have been unjustly sentenced to death for the Bali bombings."
A Liberal source blew the whistle, tipping off Labor. Kelly went on AM yesterday morning with her take on what must go down as one of the nastiest dirty tricks of recent elections.
"When I first read it I had to laugh . . . pretty much everyone who has read (it) chuckles, in terms of the parody it does make of various things that have happened during the campaign," she said. "My view is that it's a bit of Chaser-style prank." She accused a Labor "goon squad" of going after the Liberal workers who were distributing the pamphlets.
That someone who represented a federal electorate on behalf of the Liberal Party from 1996 until this election could claim that "if you read it you'd be laughing" is amazing. So is the fact that not only Kelly's husband was distributing this pamphlet, but also the husband of the new Liberal candidate for Lindsay, Karen Chijoff.
Both Greg Chijoff and Kelly's husband, Gary Clark, insisted in letters of apology to the NSW Liberal state director Graham Jaeschke yesterday that their wives had no knowledge of the pamphlet. The husbands had a bit of help with the letters, judging by the similar ring in the wording in each. "I confirm that my wife Karen nor you were aware of this offensive pamphlet or were in any way involved in the production and the distribution," Chijoff wrote. "I confirm that neither the candidate for Lindsay nor Jackie, nor you had any advance knowledge of this matter," Clark wrote.
Presumably, we must accept their word for it. But it does seem unusual that the candidate would not know anything about her husband being out and about with such a sensational pamphlet, and that the retiring member's husband would not mention the sort of material he was distributing. What do these people talk about around the kitchen table?
That leaves us with John Howard. The PM is a big fan of his new candidate for Lindsay, whom he recently called "a star".
Of course, unlike Kelly, he did not see the matter as a joke. Apart from anything else, he is standing for re-election. It was wrong, offensive and a lot more besides, he told us when he appeared at the National Press Club, where a lot of his local Liberal barrackers turned up to give him support.
But don't think this reflects on his candidate. Indeed, to suggest it did would, it seems, be anti-feminist.
"You should not automatically visit upon her the errors of her husband," he said. "I thought we had a society now where, you know, the fact that a husband might hold a senior position in government or perhaps a senior position in the judicial structure of the country did not or should not disentitle his wife, or vice versa, from also seeking and obtaining preferment and therefore the public behaviour of husbands and wives is entitled to a certain degree of independence."
Mmm. It's hard to think this useful separation doctrine would cut much ice if Janette was found out in Bennelong in the dead of night, stuffing letterboxes with anti-Muslim pamphlets. Wouldn't we think the PM had a bit of responsibility?
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text:
(NSU NEWSROOM--Aug. 1, 2014)--Norfolk State University's Golden Key International Honour Society received the Key Chapter Award in North America for 2014. It is one of Golden Key's most prestigious honors. The university is among 23 chapters in North America being honored.
The award will be presented in Boston, Massachusetts, this weekend during the Golden Key International Honour Society Summit.
The Key Chapter Award is presented annually to select Golden Key chapters that have achieved a Gold chapter standard, the highest possible reporting in the Society. In order for a chapter to achieve this status, it must fulfill all activity and service requirements determined by Golden Key headquarters.
Yet, only 25 percent of the Society's chapters achieve gold status, which does not necessarily ensure being named a Key Chapter. Of the 84 chapters that earned a gold status in 2014, only 23 were named a Key Chapter for the 2013-2014 academic year.
In addition, the NSU chapter will also receive recognition on its 20th Anniversary.
Dr. Clarence D. Coleman, NSU vice provost and Golden Key advisor, who remembers the obstacles he faced when working to establish the chapter 20 years ago, is grateful and proud of the recognition.
"The credit for the award is definitely attributed to our chapter leaders Don D. Manigault, Christeane Raflores, Javanese Fuller, Precious Dawkins and other dedicated members," Coleman said. "This will highlight Norfolk State University at the International conference as a leader among the top 15 percent of all Golden Key Chapters internationally.
"It is an honor and a privilege to work with those outstanding students."


text:
ALL 13 victims of the Tarragona province coach crash have been identified, and are said to be female students aged between 19 and 25, mostly from Europe.
Seven are Italian, one French, one Austrian, one Romanian, two Germans, and the only non-European was a woman from Uzbekistan.
They were all 'sandwich year' students on an Erasmus scholarship, which allows university undergraduates to spend an academic year in college elsewhere in Europe to complement their course.
So far, the parents of the Uzbek girl and some of the Italians have arrived in Catalunya, and family members of the Romanian and Austrian women are on their way.
Catalunya's regional president Carles Puigdemont and Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi have met with relatives of the deceased and visited the Verge de la Cinta Hospital in Tortosa (Tarragona), close to the accident site, where six injured parties are still being treated.
One of them is in a critical condition, but another three originally said to be fighting for their lives are now out of danger.
The bus company, Autocares Alejandro, and the regional government of Catalunya have been passing the buck to each other over the cause of the accident, with the latter claiming it was human error – unconfirmed reports hint that the driver may have dozed off at the wheel – and the former insisting the notorious accident blackspot on the AP-7 motorway at kilometre 333, level with Freginals, was a tragedy waiting to happen.
The driver, aged 63 and said to have been in his career for between 35 and 40 years with a completely unblemished record, was admitted to hospital.
He was due to testify at the police station yesterday (Monday), but had to be moved to the intensive care unit due to a lung injury, meaning his statement will now need to wait until he is fit enough.
Surviving students, either on the same bus or one of the four others in convoy, are said to be suffering from shock and grief.
Some reveal they are now overwhelmed by a mixture of 'survivors' guilt' and terror at how narrowly they missed being a statistic.
Two business studies students from the UK, who were on the first coach in the queue returning from a long day out at the Fallas festival in Valencia, said they did not find out about the crash until they had arrived safely back in Barcelona.
Both British 20-somethings say they have been flooded with calls from their nearest and dearest in the UK, but that they are still not sure if they knew the victims personally since they had mixed with numerous other students from abroad during their stay in Valencia and over the last two terms in Barcelona.
They had been planning a trip to Ibiza over Easter, but are now considering cancelling it as neither of them feels in the mood for a holiday.
Another student, a Finnish woman, was said to be inconsolable since one of the Italian girls was her good friend and language studies classmate.
Survivor Hans, from Perú, who escaped with a broken arm and said Tortosa hospital had 'treated them all very well', spoke to Puigdemont during yesterday morning's memorial service at Barcelona University and said it was 'very difficult to get over being surrounded by' the tragedy.


text:
Someone called me businessman recently. And honestly I hated to be called one. I think I am not a businessman and would never want to be one either. If I were, then I would have sold gems (with a certificate saying it is original), I would have sold rudraksha (saying it is directly imported from Nepal), I would have sold yantras (that are available in market for Rs 30 and sold it for few 1000s saying it is charged with prayers), and I surely would have sold remedial measures saying I can solve your problems and change your destiny. I don't do that.
Of course I am mean sometimes. I don't do reading before getting the funds into my account – and I especially do this with my new clients. This meanness has come through a lot of experience with new clients. A couple of weeks back someone named Sonia mailed me from California saying she needs a consultation on Saturday evening. I gave her the time forgetting that I had my music class. I bunked my music class only to know that Sonia got up late, and could not call me at the chosen time.
I hate bringing the money factor into discussion always because I feel uncomfortable doing so. I told her once, and she promised me that she would pay me through paypal. She called me on Sunday evening, and the consultation was done. And she never paid. Now if I mention this particular incident – do I sound like a businessman?
Well the guy who called me a businessman is based in Chennai, works for IT firm, and wanted a free answer to his query through yahoo messenger. And when I asked him to come over and meet me, he complained that the fuel prices have gone up. I wonder who is a businessman – he or me?
Only the intelligent people understand that there is a thin line between business and service. Service is where you charge for your time, and business is where you think only about profit maximization!
A simple example -
A doctor is not a businessman, but then the hospital owners are.


text:
Today, a woman drove through my house. She was texting and eating watermelon at the same time. I didn't know that was even possible, but now my house is condemned. FML
Not specified
BeginnerYou have looked through 5 pages of the website. That's a start.
Consolation prizeYour FML was denied. We had to at least give you a badge to cheer you up a bit.
JudgmentalYou have voted "You deserved it" over 100 times.
I agree, my mouse works.200 "I agree" votes is a good start.
Keen reader – Level: godlike ninjaYou have voted for 100% of the entire collection of FMLs to date.22%
Keen reader – Level: master ninjaYou have voted for 50% of the entire collection of FMLs to date.43%
Keen reader – Level: student ninjaYou have voted for 15% of the entire collection of FMLs to date.144%
The return of the thumbYou have thumbed 5000 comments.0%
The thumb strikes backYou have left your thumbprint on 2500 comments.0%
YDI MasterYou made your 500th "You deserved it" vote.20%
One more and it's business timeYou've received 68 Hugs on your profile. Kinky.4%
By Fitz - / Sunday 12 April 2009 13:53 / United States
Today, my schlong decided to enter Mortal Kombat with my pants zipper. Guess which of the two won a flawless victory? FML
By liu_kang / Tuesday 16 March 2010 18:55 / United States
Today, I spent 2 hours doing my hair, doing my make-up, and picking out an outfit to meet some men. On chatroulette. FML
By leapple - / Sunday 14 March 2010 01:17 / United States
Today, my three year old nephew was pointing at the TV screen and saying "Uncle, Uncle!" He thought it was me on the screen. It was Rosie O'Donnell. FML
By raidered / Monday 8 March 2010 06:16 / United States
Today, I went to Starbucks to use the bathroom. After I knocked on the door, and turned the handle, this little old lady rips the door open and goes "I WAS TAKING A DUMP. YOU WANNA COME IN AND WIPE MY SHIT? DO YOU?!" and then continued to ask me the same question for five minutes. FML
By bathroomblunder - / Sunday 7 March 2010 02:38 / Canada


text:
You might have noticed that the Glow Rider looks a little unusual. That's because it features not one, but two unique tricks. Firstly, it comes coated in glow-in-the-dark paint, to improve its visibility at night. And its downtube (the bit that runs from the fork to the pedals) is made of a cable that doubles as a lock, with the bike folding in half when not in use.
Do these innovations work? Read on to find out, but first here's what the Glow Rider does well: it looks great. The simple brakes and singlespeed gears with carbon steel chain also mean you can be a complete socketphobe and still ride this for ages without problems and it's really easy to fold up to boot.
Concertina cycle
Perhaps too easy, in fact – our test bike's folding clasp undid itself mid-ride. Fortunately, the retaining bolt the clasp holds didn't slip, but those absorbent padded shorts came in handy. Extreme tightening (not ideal if you are a socketphobe) sorted it.
After that, the more minor issues – the bike is slow, heavy and wobbly. The cable lock also won't stop most have-a-go scrotes from having a go – they'll simply either cut the cable, then walk off with a bunch of parts, or more likely leave you with a bill for a new cable.
Dark secret
And that glow-in-the-dark paintjob? It only works in pitch darkness, which means it's useless on a darkened street if there's a car with its lights on. Plus, for the privilege of riding such innovation, you're paying top money.
In all, if style is far more important to you than roadworthiness, and you're only ever going to ride a mile or two anyway, take the Glow Rider for a spin. But we're going to stick to jogging in our Pumas rather than shelling out for its bikes.


text:
Some advice to expecting mothers: Don't get too attached to your birth plan. I learned this lesson the hard way.
After months of internal debate, I decided to forfeit the hospital experience and "go natural" at a birth center. I liked the idea of delivering in a place where everyone knew my name (without having to consult a chart) and where the birthing room beds sported side lamps and patchwork quilts.
Ultimately, it was the jacuzzi in the bathroom that may have tipped the scales.
Once I had my heart set on the birthing center, there was no turning back. I diligently sprinkled flax seeds on my breakfast cereal, did my early-morning pelvic tilts, and practiced breathing on my birthing ball.
"Not so fast," my baby said during my 36th week, and defiantly flipped upside down. But I wasn't about to change course now, so I gritted my teeth and threw myself into Operation Turn Baby, which entailed tireless visits to doctors, chiropractors, and acupuncturists, as well as daily yoga exercises, nightly baths, and various other techniques involving music and frozen peas. All to no avail.
Still, I stubbornly stuck to my plans. Unless my water broke first, I was told I could wait until labor to see if my naughty baby might have a change of heart. Since the water only breaks before labor in 15 percent of births and only 3 percent of babies are still breech at term, I figured the law of probability was on my side.
I went to sleep each night dreaming of jacuzzi bubbles, birthing balls, and somersaulting babies.
It was during week 38, at 11 p.m. on a Thursday, that my water broke. My first reaction was indignation. How dare it?! I hadn't yet started my official maternity leave, our baby gear was piled into a formidable mountain in the corner of our bedroom, and worst of all, my baby's foot was still firmly planted in my pelvic region.
Three-thirty in the morning found me on a hospital gurney being wheeled into an operating room for a c-section. It was a blindingly white, lampless room with a quiltless bed surrounded by an army of machines. Instead of my midwife, I was greeted by team of anonymous medical personnel in surgical masks.
Once on the bed, my arms splayed on either side of me like a cross, I started shaking violently—probably due to a combination of the room's subzero temperature, my own rattled nerves, and the cocktail of drugs being pumped into my arms and back. I had to fight an overwhelming impulse to rip myself from the cords and needles and flee to the nearest jacuzzi.
It was all over in a matter of minutes. As my newborn's cries pierced the air, I tried not to think about the cavernous hole in my midsection. I tried not to think about the birthing ball, rice-filled tube socks, iPod playlist, and bottles of Gatorade that were waiting optimistically in the car. I tried not to think about the plastic gloved hands now handling my baby before I'd even gotten so much as a look.
Absolutely nothing had gone as planned. And you know what? A half-hour later, when I was stitched up, sitting up, and cradling my healthy daughter skin-to-skin, I realized it didn't matter at all.
Did you have a birth plan? Were you able to follow it?
Photo by salimfadhley (cc).


text:
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Why the tails come apart
[I'm unsure how much this rehashes things 'everyone knows already' - if old hat, feel free to downvote into oblivion. My other motivation for the cross-post is the hope it might catch the interest of someone with a stronger mathematical background who could make this line of argument more robust]
[Edit 2014/11/14: mainly adjustments and rewording in light of the many helpful comments below (thanks!). I've also added a geometric explanation.]
Many outcomes of interest have pretty good predictors. It seems that height correlates to performance in basketball (the average height in the NBA is around 6'7"). Faster serves in tennis improve one's likelihood of winning. IQ scores are known to predict a slew of factors, from income, to chance of being imprisoned, to lifespan.
What's interesting is what happens to these relationships 'out on the tail': extreme outliers of a given predictor are seldom similarly extreme outliers on the outcome it predicts, and vice versa. Although 6'7" is very tall, it lies within a couple of standard deviations of the median US adult male height - there are many thousands of US men taller than the average NBA player, yet are not in the NBA. Although elite tennis players have very fast serves, if you look at the players serving the fastest serves ever recorded, they aren't the very best players of their time. It is harder to look at the IQ case due to test ceilings, but again there seems to be some divergence near the top: the very highest earners tend to be very smart, but their intelligence is not in step with their income (their cognitive ability is around +3 to +4 SD above the mean, yet their wealth is much higher than this) (1).
The trend seems to be that even when two factors are correlated, their tails diverge: the fastest servers are good tennis players, but not the very best (and the very best players serve fast, but not the very fastest); the very richest tend to be smart, but not the very smartest (and vice versa). Why?
Too much of a good thing?
One candidate explanation would be that more isn't always better, and the correlations one gets looking at the whole population doesn't capture a reversal at the right tail. Maybe being taller at basketball is good up to a point, but being really tall leads to greater costs in terms of things like agility. Maybe although having a faster serve is better all things being equal, but focusing too heavily on one's serve counterproductively neglects other areas of one's game. Maybe a high IQ is good for earning money, but a stratospherically high IQ has an increased risk of productivity-reducing mental illness. Or something along those lines.
I would guess that these sorts of 'hidden trade-offs' are common. But, the 'divergence of tails' seems pretty ubiquitous (the tallest aren't the heaviest, the smartest parents don't have the smartest children, the fastest runners aren't the best footballers, etc. etc.), and it would be weird if there was always a 'too much of a good thing' story to be told for all of these associations. I think there is a more general explanation.
The simple graphical explanation
[Inspired by this essay from Grady Towers]
Suppose you make a scatter plot of two correlated variables. Here's one I grabbed off google, comparing the speed of a ball out of a baseball pitchers hand compared to its speed crossing crossing the plate:
It is unsurprising to see these are correlated (I'd guess the R-square is > 0.8). But if one looks at the extreme end of the graph, the very fastest balls out of the hand aren't the very fastest balls crossing the plate, and vice versa. This feature is general. Look at this data (again convenience sampled from googling 'scatter plot') of this:
Or this:
Or this:
Given a correlation, the envelope of the distribution should form some sort of ellipse, narrower as the correlation goes stronger, and more circular as it gets weaker: (2)
The thing is, as one approaches the far corners of this ellipse, we see 'divergence of the tails': as the ellipse doesn't sharpen to a point, there are bulges where the maximum x and y values lie with sub-maximal y and x values respectively:
So this offers an explanation why divergence at the tails is ubiquitous. Providing the sample size is largeish, and the correlation not too tight (the tighter the correlation, the larger the sample size required), one will observe the ellipses with the bulging sides of the distribution. (3)
Hence the very best basketball players aren't the very tallest (and vice versa), the very wealthiest not the very smartest, and so on and so forth for any correlated X and Y. If X and Y are "Estimated effect size" and "Actual effect size", or "Performance at T", and "Performance at T+n", then you have a graphical display of winner's curse and regression to the mean.
An intuitive explanation of the graphical explanation
It would be nice to have an intuitive handle on why this happens, even if we can be convinced that it happens. Here's my offer towards an explanation:
The fact that a correlation is less than 1 implies that other things matter to an outcome of interest. Although being tall matters for being good at basketball, strength, agility, hand-eye-coordination matter as well (to name but a few). The same applies to other outcomes where multiple factors play a role: being smart helps in getting rich, but so does being hard working, being lucky, and so on.
For a toy model, pretend that wealth is wholly explained by two factors: intelligence and conscientiousness. Let's also say these are equally important to the outcome, independent of one another and are normally distributed. (4) So, ceteris paribus, being more intelligent will make one richer, and the toy model stipulates there aren't 'hidden trade-offs': there's no negative correlation between intelligence and conscientiousness, even at the extremes. Yet the graphical explanation suggests we should still see divergence of the tails: the very smartest shouldn't be the very richest.
The intuitive explanation would go like this: start at the extreme tail - +4SD above the mean for intelligence, say. Although this gives them a massive boost to their wealth, we'd expect them to be average with respect to conscientiousness (we've stipulated they're independent). Further, as this ultra-smart population is small, we'd expect them to fall close to the average in this other independent factor: with 10 people at +4SD, you wouldn't expect any of them to be +2SD in conscientiousness.
Move down the tail to less extremely smart people - +3SD say. These people don't get such a boost to their wealth from their intelligence, but there should be a lot more of them (if 10 at +4SD, around 500 at +3SD), this means one should expect more variation in conscientiousness - it is much less surprising to find someone +3SD in intelligence and also +2SD in conscientiousness, and in the world where these things were equally important, they would 'beat' someone +4SD in intelligence but average in conscientiousness. Although a +4SD intelligence person will likely be better than a given +3SD intelligence person (the mean conscientiousness in both populations is 0SD, and so the average wealth of the +4SD intelligence population is 1SD higher than the 3SD intelligence people), the wealthiest of the +4SDs will not be as good as the best of the much larger number of +3SDs. The same sort of story emerges when we look at larger numbers of factors, and in cases where the factors contribute unequally to the outcome of interest.
When looking at a factor known to be predictive of an outcome, the largest outcome values will occur with sub-maximal factor values, as the larger population increases the chances of 'getting lucky' with the other factors:
So that's why the tails diverge.
A parallel geometric explanation
There's also a geometric explanation. The R-square measure of correlation between two sets of data is the same as the cosine of the angle between them when presented as vectors in N-dimensional space (explanations, derivations, and elaborations here, here, and here). (5) So here's another intuitive handle for tail divergence:
Grant a factor correlated with an outcome, which we represent with two vectors at an angle theta, the inverse cosine equal the R-squared. 'Reading off the expected outcome given a factor score is just moving along the factor vector and multiplying by cosine theta to get the distance along the outcome vector. As cos theta is never greater than 1, we see regression to the mean. The geometrical analogue to the tails coming apart is the absolute difference in length along factor versus length along outcome|factor scales with the length along the factor; the gap between extreme values of a factor and the less extreme values of the outcome grows linearly as the factor value gets more extreme. For concreteness (and granting normality), an R-square of 0.5 (corresponding to an angle of sixty degrees) means that +4SD (~1/15000) on a factor will be expected to be 'merely' +2SD (~1/40) in the outcome - and an R-square of 0.5 is remarkably strong in the social sciences, implying it accounts for half the variance.(6) The reverse - extreme outliers on outcome are not expected to be so extreme an outlier on a given contributing factor - follows by symmetry.
Endnote: EA relevance
I think this is interesting in and of itself, but it has relevance to Effective Altruism, given it generally focuses on the right tail of various things (What are the most effective charities? What is the best career? etc.) It generally vindicates worries about regression to the mean or winner's curse, and suggests that these will be pretty insoluble in all cases where the populations are large: even if you have really good means of assessing the best charities or the best careers so that your assessments correlate really strongly with what ones actually are the best, the very best ones you identify are unlikely to be actually the very best, as the tails will diverge.
This probably has limited practical relevance. Although you might expect that one of the 'not estimated as the very best' charities is in fact better than your estimated-to-be-best charity, you don't know which one, and your best bet remains your estimate (in the same way - at least in the toy model above - you should bet a 6'11" person is better at basketball than someone who is 6'4".)
There may be spread betting or portfolio scenarios where this factor comes into play - perhaps instead of funding AMF to diminishing returns when its marginal effectiveness dips below charity #2, we should be willing to spread funds sooner.(6) Mainly, though, it should lead us to be less self-confident.
1. Given income isn't normally distributed, using SDs might be misleading. But non-parametric ranking to get a similar picture: if Bill Gates is ~+4SD in intelligence, despite being the richest man in america, he is 'merely' in the smartest tens of thousands. Looking the other way, one might look at the generally modest achievements of people in high-IQ societies, but there are worries about adverse selection.
2. As nshepperd notes below, this depends on something like multivariate CLT. I'm pretty sure this can be weakened: all that is needed, by the lights of my graphical intuition, is that the envelope be concave. It is also worth clarifying the 'envelope' is only meant to illustrate the shape of the distribution, rather than some boundary that contains the entire probability density: as suggested by homunq: it is an 'pdf isobar' where probability density is higher inside the line than outside it.
3. One needs a large enough sample to 'fill in' the elliptical population density envelope, and the tighter the correlation, the larger the sample needed to fill in the sub-maximal bulges. The old faithful case is an example where actually you do get a 'point', although it is likely an outlier.
4. It's clear that this model is fairly easy to extend to >2 factor cases, but it is worth noting that in cases where the factors are positively correlated, one would need to take whatever component of the factors which are independent of one another.
5. My intuition is that in cartesian coordinates the R-square between correlated X and Y is actually also the cosine of the angle between the regression lines of X on Y and Y on X. But I can't see an obvious derivation, and I'm too lazy to demonstrate it myself. Sorry!
6. Another intuitive dividend is that this makes it clear why you can by R-squared to move between z-scores of correlated normal variables, which wasn't straightforwardly obvious to me.
7. I'd intuit, but again I can't demonstrate, the case for this becomes stronger with highly skewed interventions where almost all the impact is focused in relatively low probability channels, like averting a very specified existential risk.
Separating university education from grading
One of many problems with the contemporary university system is that the same institutions that educate students also give them their degrees and grades. This obviously creates massive incentives for grade inflation and lowering of standards. Giving a thorough education requires hard work not only from students but also from the professors. In the absence of an independent body that tests that the students actually have learnt what they are supposed to have learnt, many professors spend as little time as possible at teaching, giving the students light workloads (something most of them of course happily accept). The faculty/student non-aggression pact is an apt term for this.
To see how absurd this system is, imagine that we would have the same system for drivers' licenses: that the driving schools that train prospective drivers also tested them and issued their drivers' licenses. In such a system, people would most probably chose the most lenient schools, leading to a lowering of standards. For fear of such a lowering of standards, prospective drivers are in many countries (I would guess universally but do not know that for sure) tested by government bodies.
Presumably, the main reason for this is that governments really care about the lowering of drivers' standards. Ensuring that all drivers are appropriately educated (i.e. is seen as very important. By contrast, the governments don't care that much about the lowering of academic standards. If they would, they would long ago have replaced a present grading/certification system with one where students are tested by independent bodies, rather than by the universities themselves.
This is all the more absurd given how much politicians in most countries talk about the importance of education. More often than not they talk about education, especially higher education, as a panacea to cure for all ills. However, if we look at the politicians' actions, rather than at their words, it doesn't seem like they actually do think it's quite as important as they say to ensure that the population is well-educated.
Changing the system for certifying students is important not the least in order to facilitate inventions in higher education. The present system discriminates in favour of traditional campus courses, which are both expensive and fail to teach the students as much as they should. I'm not saying that online courses, and other non-standard courses, are necessarily better or more cost-effective, but they should get the chance to prove that they are.
The system is of course hard to change, since there are lots of vested interests that don't want it to change. This is nicely illustrated by the reactions to a small baby-step towards the system that I'm envisioning that OECD is presently trying to take. Financial Times (which has a paywall, unfortunately) reports that OECD are attempting to introduce Pisa-style tests to compare students from higher education institutions around the world. Third year students would be tested on critical thinking, analytical reasoning, problem solving and written communcation. There would also be discipline-specific trials for economics and engineering.
These attempts have, however, not progressed because of resistance from some universities and member countries. OECD says that the resistance often comes from "the most prestigious institutions, because they have very little to win...and a lot to lose". In contrast, "the greatest supporters are the ones that add the greatest value...many of the second-tier institutes are actually a lot better and they're very keen to get on a level playing field."
I figure that if OECD get enough universities on board, they could start implementing the system without the obstructing top universities. They could also allow students from those universities to take the tests independently. If employers started taking these tests seriously, students would have every reason to take them even if their universities haven't joined. Slowly, these presumably more objective tests, or others like them, would become more important at the cost of the universities' inflated grades. People often try to change institutions or systems directly, but sometimes it is more efficient to build alternative systems, show that their useful to the relevant actors, and start out-competing the dominant system (as discussed in these comments).
AALWA: Ask any LessWronger anything
If you want people to ask you stuff reply to this post with a comment to that effect.
More accurately, ask any participating LessWronger anything that is in the category of questions they indicate they would answer.
If you want to talk about this post you can reply to my comment below that says "Discussion of this post goes here.", or not.
[LINK] Sean Carrol's reflections on his debate with WL Craig on "God and Cosmology"
I previously mentioned this debate a month ago and predicted that Sean Carroll is unlikely to do very well. The debate happened last Friday and Sean posted his post-debate reflections on his popular blog (the full video will be posted soon). Some excerpts:
I think it went well, although I can easily think of several ways I could have done better. On the substance, my major points were that the demand for "causes" and "explanations" is completely inappropriate for modern fundamental physics/cosmology, and that theism is not taken seriously in professional cosmological circles because it is hopelessly ill-defined (no matter what happens in the universe, you can argue that God would have wanted it that way). He defended two of his favorite arguments, the "cosmological argument" and the fine-tuning argument; no real surprises there. In terms of style, from my perspective things got a bit frustrating, because the following pattern repeated multiple times: Craig would make an argument, I would reply, and Craig would just repeat the original argument.
The cosmological argument has two premises: (1) If the universe had a beginning, it has a transcendent cause; and (2) The universe had a beginning. [...] My attitude toward the above two premises is that (2) is completely uncertain, while the "obvious" one (1) is flat-out false. Or not even false, as I put it, because the notion of a "cause" isn't part of an appropriate vocabulary to use for discussing fundamental physics. [Emphasis mine]
The Aristotelian analysis of causes is outdated when it comes to modern fundamental physics; what matters is whether you can find a formal mathematical model that accounts for the data.
Sean goes over a couple of mistakes he thinks he made in the debate, basically being blindsided by WLC bringing up obscure papers and misinterpreting them to suit his argument.
Sean's reflections are very detailed and worth reading, though I found them hard to summarize. It looks like WLC did his homework better than SC, but it's hard to tell whether it mattered until the video is made public and various interested parties gave their feedback. Another couple of quotes, with my emphasis:
For my closing statement, I couldn't think of many responses to Craig's closing statement that wouldn't have simply be me reiterating points from my first two speeches. So I took the opportunity to pull back a little and look at the bigger picture. Namely: we're talking about "God and Cosmology," but nobody really becomes a believer in God because it provides the best cosmology. They become theists for other reasons, and the cosmology comes later. That's because religion is enormously more than theism. Most people become religious for other (non-epistemic) reasons: it provides meaning and purpose, or a sense of community, or a way to be in contact with something transcendent, or simply because it's an important part of their culture. The problem is that theism, while not identical to religion, forms its basis, at least in most Western religions. So — maybe, I suggested, tentatively — that could change. I give theists a hard time for not accepting the implications of modern science, but I am also happy to give naturalists a hard time when they don't appreciate the enormous task we face in answering all of the questions that we used to think were answered by God. [...]
To me, Craig's best moment of the weekend came at the very end, as part of the summary panel discussion. Earlier in the day, Tim Maudlin (who gave an great pro-naturalism talk, explaining that God's existence wouldn't have any moral consequences even if it were true) had grumped a little bit about the format. His point was that formal point-counterpoint debates aren't really the way philosophy is done, which would be closer to a Socratic discussion where issues can be clarified and extended more efficiently. And I agree with that, as far as it goes. But Craig had a robust response, which I also agree with: yes, a debate like this isn't how philosophy is done, but there are things worth doing other than philosophy, or even teaching philosophy. He said, candidly, that the advantage of the debate format is that it brings out audiences, who find a bit of give-and-take more exciting than a lecture or series of lectures. It's hard to teach subtle and tricky concepts in such a format, but that's always a hard thing to do; the point is that if you get the audience there in the first place, a good debater can at least plant a few new ideas in their heads, and hopefully inspire them to take the initiative and learn more on their own.
Sean concurs: "If we think we have good ideas, we should do everything we can to bring them to as many people as possible."
I hope Luke or someone else will find time to watch the video once posted and give their impressions.
Deregulating Distraction, Moving Towards the Goal, and Level Hopping
This is the third post in a series discussing my recent bout of productivity. Within, I discuss two techniques I use to avoid akrasia and one technique I use to be especially productive.
Deregulating Distraction
I like to pretend that I have higher-than-normal willpower, because my ability to Get Things Done seems to be somewhat above average. In fact, this is not the case. I'm not good at fighting akrasia. I merely have a knack for avoiding it.
When I was young, my parents were very good at convincing me to manage my money. They gave me an allowance, perhaps a dollar a week. When we would go to the store, I'd get excited about some trite toy and ask my parents whether I could buy it.
Their answers were similar. My mother would crouch down, put a hand on my shoulder, and say "Of course you can. But before you do, think carefully about how much you will enjoy this after you've bought it, and what other things you would be able to buy if instead you saved up."
My father was a bit more direct. He'd just shrug and say "It's your money", with the barest hint of derision.
I rarely spent my allowance.
I now use a similar technique when dealing with distractions.
(It's worth noting that it's always been very easy to put me into far mode, perhaps in part because I decided at a very young age that I wasn't going to die.)
As Kaj Sotala and a few others noted, assigning guilt to non-productive tasks is not especially healthy. Nor is it, in my experience, sustainable. In a few different cases, I experienced scenarios where I wanted to do something but couldn't will myself to do it. I suffered ego depletion and hit a vicious cycle of unproductivity and depression. I never fell completely into the self-hate death spiral, but I flirted around at the edges. It became clear that I needed a new strategy.
To break the cycle, I decided to stop fighting myself.
I Will Pay $500 To Anyone Who Can Convince Me To Cancel My Cryonics Subscription
On the most recent LessWrong readership survey, I assigned a probability of 0.30 on the cryonics question. I had previously been persuaded to sign up for cryonics by reading the sequences, but this thread and particularly this comment lowered my estimate of the chances of cryonics working considerably. Also relevant from the same thread was ciphergoth's comment:
By and large cryonics critics don't make clear exactly what part of the cryonics argument they mean to target, so it's hard to say exactly whether it covers an area of their expertise, but it's at least plausible to read them as asserting that cryopreserved people are information-theoretically dead, which is not guesswork about future technology and would fall under their area of expertise.
Based on this, I think there's a substantial chance that there's information out there that would convince me that the folks who dismiss cryonics as pseudoscience are essentially correct, that the right answer to the survey question was epsilon. I've seen what seem like convincing objections to cryonics, and it seems possible that an expanded version of those arguments, with full references and replies to pro-cryonics arguments, would convince me. Or someone could just go to the trouble of showing that a large majority of cryobiologists really do think cryopreserved people are information-theoretically dead.
However, it's not clear to me how well worth my time it is to seek out such information. It seems coming up with decisive information would be hard, especially since e.g. ciphergoth has put a lot of energy into trying to figure out what the experts think about cryonics and come away without a clear answer. And part of the reason I signed up for cryonics in the first place is because it doesn't cost me much: the largest component is the life insurance for funding, only $50 / month.
So I've decided to put a bounty on being persuaded to cancel my cryonics subscription. If no one succeeds in convincing me, it costs me nothing, and if someone does succeed in convincing me the cost is less than the cost of being signed up for cryonics for a year. And yes, I'm aware that providing one-sided financial incentives like this requires me to take the fact that I've done this into account when evaluating anti-cryonics arguments, and apply extra scrutiny to them.
Note that there are several issues that ultimately go in to whether you should sign up for cryonics (the neuroscience / evaluation of current technology, estimate of the probability of a "good" future, various philosophical issues), I anticipate the greatest chance of being persuaded from scientific arguments. In particular, I find questions about personal identity and consciousness of uploads made from preserved brains confusing, but think there are very few people in the world, if any, who are likely to have much chance of getting me un-confused about those issues. The offer is blind to the exact nature of the arguments given, but I mostly foresee being persuaded by the neuroscience arguments.
And of course, I'm happy to listen to people tell me why the anti-cryonics arguments are wrong and I should stay signed up for cryonics. There's just no prize for doing so.
Critiquing Gary Taubes, Final: The Truth About Diets and Weight Loss
Previously: Mainstream Nutrition Science on Obesity, Atkins Redux, Did the US Government Give Us Absurd Advice About Sugar?, What Causes Obesity?
If you've been wondering what these posts are doing on LessWrong and you haven't read this comment yet, I urge you to do so. Thanks to commenter FiftyTwo for suggesting I say something like this.
To recap: so taking in more calories than you burn will cause you to gain weight, though calorie intake and expenditure are in turn controlled by a number of mechanisms. This suggests a couple of options for losing weight. You can try to intervene directly in the mechanisms controlling food intake, one of the most well-known examples of this being gastric bypass surgery, admittedly a bit of a drastic option. But intervening at the point of calorie intake is also an option.
Now it turns out that it's relatively easy to lose weight by dieting. That catch is that it's much harder to keep the weight off. A commonly cited rule (for example here) is that most people who lose weight through dieting will regain it all in five years. However, it's important to emphasize that some people do lose weight through dieting and keep it off long-term. An organization called the National Weight Control Registry has made an effort to track those people, and have published quite a few studies based on their work (many of which can be easily found through Google Scholar).
Unfortunately, the NWCR is working with a self-selected sample and asking them what they did after the fact. They're not randomly assigning people to treatments. So for example, a high percentage of the NWCR group reports successful long-term weight loss following low-fat and/or calorie-restricted diets and exercising a lot. And the percentage following low-carb diets was originally small, but it's risen over time. But both of these observations may just reflect the relative popularity of those approaches in the general population.
We may not be able to conclude anything more from the NWCR data than that a significant minority of dieters do succeed at long-term weight loss, some through calorie-restricted diets, some through low-fat diets, and some through low-carb diets. Remember, though, that as discussed in previous posts there's little reason to think low-fat or low-carb diets could cause weight loss except by indirectly affecting energy balance.
And now, one last time, I'm going to talk about what Taubes has to say about this issue. I'm going to quote from Why We Get Fat (pp. 36-38), though Good Calories, Bad Calories contains similar comments, including about the Handbook of Obesity and Joslin's. Taubes begins by citing a review article covering calorie-restricted diets that found that "Typically, nine or ten pounds are lost in the first six months. After a year, much of what was lost has been regained." He also cites a large study that tested a calorie-restricted diet and reached a similar conclusion: participants "lost on average, only nine pounds. And once again... most of the nine pounds came off in the first six months, and most of the participants were gaining weight back after a year."
Based on this, he concludes that "Eating less—that is, undereating—simply doesn't work for more than a few months, if that." Then it's time to really lay in to mainstream nutrition science:
This reality, however, hasn't stopped the authorities from recommending the approach, which makes reading such recommendations an exercise in what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance," the tension that results from trying to hold two incompatible beliefs simultaneously.
Take, for instance, the Handbook of Obesity, a 1998 textbook edited by three of the most prominent authorities in the field—George Bray, Claude Bouchard, and W. P. T. James. "Dietary therapy remains the cornerstone of treatment and the reduction of energy intake continues to be the basis of successful weight reduction programs," the book says. But then it states, a few paragraphs later, that the results of such energy-reduced diets "are known to be poor and not long-lasting." So why is such an ineffective therapy the cornerstone of treatment? The Handbook of Obesity neglects to say.
The latest edition (2005) of Joslin's Diabetes Mellitus, a highly respected textbook for physicians and researchers, is a more recent example of this cognitive dissonance. The chapter on obesity was written by Jeffrey Flier, an obesity researcher who is now dean of Harvard Medical School, and his wife and research colleague, Terry Maratos-Flier. The Fliers also describe "reduction of caloric intake" as "the cornerstone of any therapy for obesity." But then they enumerate all the ways in which this cornerstone fails. After examining approaches from the most subtle reductions in calories (eating, say, one hundred calories less each day with the hope of losing a pound every five weeks) to low-calorie diets of eight hundred to one thousand calories a day to very low-calorie diets (two hundred to six hundred calories) and even total starvation, they conclude that "none of these approaches has any proven merit."
But look at the actual sources and it turns out that, surprise surprise, mainstream experts aren't idiots after all. The second quote from the Handbook of Obesity comes from a paragraph explaining that given how hard obesity is to treat, doctors face a "Shakespearean" dilemma of whether to attempt to treat it at all. The Joslin's article is even clearer (p. 541, emphasis added):
Successful treatment of obesity, defined as treatment that results in sustained attainment of normal body weight and composition without producing unacceptable treatment induced morbidity, is rarely achievable in clinical practice. Many therapeutic approaches can bring about short-term weight loss, but long-term success is infrequent regardless of the approach.
Suppose for a moment that this is true, that long-term weight loss is rare regardless of the approach. If it is, no "cognitive dissonance" is required to recommend treatments that sometimes work. Furthermore, Taubes commits a serious misrepresentation here. Taubes final quote from the Joslin's article, in context, says that, "There are also many programs that recommend specific food combinations or unusual sequences for eating, but none of these approaches has any proven merit." It's pretty obvious in context that the bit Taubes quotes refers only to the programs that recommend specific food combinations or unusual sequences for eating."
It's also worth mentioning that neither of these sources ignore the debate over low-carb diets. The Handbook of Obesity criticizes Atkins-style low carb diets at some length, but also says that, "Moderate restriction of carbohydrates may have real calorie-reducing properties." And the Joslin's article ends up being fairly positive towards low-carb diets in general (p. 542):
Dietary composition may play a role in long-term success in weight loss and weight maintenance. For example, a study comparing a moderate-fat diet consisting of 35% energy from fat and a low-fat diet in which 20% of energy was derived from fat demonstrated enhanced weight loss assessed by total weight loss, BMI change, and decrease in waist circumference in the group on the moderate-fat diet. Retention in the diet study was greater among those actively participating in the weight loss program in this group compared with 20% in the low-fat diet group.
Recently, increased interest has focused on the possibility that diet content may affect appetite. For example, diets with a low glycemic index may be useful in preventing the development of obesity; subjects given test meals with different glycemic indexes and then allowed free access to food ate less after eating meals with a low glycemic index. Some data suggest that diets with a high glycemic index predispose to increased postprandial hunger, whereas diets focused on glycemic index and information regarding portion control lead to higher rates of success in weight loss, at least among adolescent populations. Low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins diet appear to be associated with significant weight loss. However, this diet has not been systematically studied, nor has long-term maintenance of weight loss.
I assume the author of the Joslin's article would say, however, that low-carb diets haven't been shown to completely solve the problem of long-term weight loss being really hard. But would they be right about that?
To the best of my knowledge, there have been only two randomized, controlled trials of low-carb diets that have covered a period of two years (and none covering a longer period than that). Taubes has cited both in support of his claims. The first, an Israeli study published in 2008, also also included a group assigned to a Mediterranean diet. Here are the results in terms of weight loss:
So on the one hand, subjects on the low-carb diet did initially lose more weight, about 6.5 kg (14 lbs.) compared to about 4.5 kg (10 lbs.) for the low-calorie diet. On the other hand, both groups started regaining the weight after six months. If, as Taubes claims, data like this shows that low-calorie diets "simply doesn't work for more than a few months," does this data justify saying the same thing about low-carb diets?
Furthermore, if you believe the rule about weight lost to dieting coming back in five years, it seems likely that would happen to both groups. Intriguingly, though, while participants on the Mediterranean diet didn't initially lose as much weight as those on the low-carb diet, the weight regain didn't seem to happen as much on the Mediterranean diet. That makes me wonder what a five-year study of the Mediterranean diet would find.
Note that the Israeli study also found that that participants in all three groups significantly reduced their caloric intake, supporting the hypothesis that even diets that don't explicitly restrict calorie intake work by reducing calorie intake indirectly.
What about the other study, published in 2010, which Taubes has hailed as "the biggest study so far on low-carb diets"? Here are its results (note that the low-fat diet was also a calorie-restricted diet):
That's right, this study found no statistically significant difference between low-fat and low-carb diets in terms of weight loss, and again show the typical pattern of people losing weight in the first six months and then slowly gaining it back. Together, these two studies support the picture painted by Joslin's: low-carb diets may work somewhat better for weight loss, but they don't appear to solve the problem of long-term weight loss being really hard.
One other relevant detail: the second study found that "A significantly greater percentage of participants who consumed the low-carbohydrate than the low-fat diet reported bad breath, hair loss, constipation, and dry mouth." As Taubes' fellow science writer John Horgan has noted, this reveals an apparent inconsistency in how Taubes judges different diets. He goes to great lengths to play up the unpleasantness of calorie-restricted diets, but tells his readers that if they just stick to their low-carb diet theunpleasant side-effects will go away eventually.
So given all this, what should you do if you want to lose weight? I think depends a lot on who you are. I have ethical qualms about consuming animal products, including and in fact especially eggs, which is one strike against low-carb diets for me. Also, while there's some evidence low-carb diets may be better for hunger, my personal experience is that what foods I find filling is kind of random (lentils, black beans, and baguettes all rate highly on the filling-ness measure for me). So maybe just experiment and try to figure out which foods let you personally eat in moderation and not feel hungry. Keep Eliezer's advice in Beware of Other Optimizing in mind, and if one thing doesn't work for you, try something else.
A final point: the truth about weight loss sucks. If your case isn't bad enough to justify something drastic like gastric bypass surgery, your main option is diets which sometimes work but usually don't. Regardless of the approach. Unfortunately, this is not an exciting message to put in a popular book on nutrition. This creates an excellent opportunity for someone like Taubes: imply that if the experts admit they don't have a great solution to the problem, then clearly they don't know what they're talking about, and therefore your solution is sure to work!
Long-time readers of LessWrong, however, will realize that the universe is allowed to throw us problems with no good solution. That's something that may be especially worth keeping in mind when evaluating claims in the vicinity of medicine and nutrition. In a way, Taubes' readers are lucky: following his advice won't kill you, and won't lead to you missing out on any wildly more effective solution. It might have some unpleasant side-effects you could've avoided with another approach, but also might have some advantages. However, I've read enough of the literature on medical quackery to know Taubes' rhetorical tactics can be used for much more dangerous ends.
Just imagine: "It's doctors and pharmaceutical companies that caused your cancer in the first place. That chemotherapy and radiation therapy stuff they're pushing on you is obviously harmful. Don't you now there are all-natural ways you can cure your cancer?" If someone says that to you, then knowing that the universe is unfair, and that sometimes the best solution it gives you to a problem will have serious downsides, well knowing that just might save your life. Or not. Because the universe isn't fair.
Early on in the process of writing this series, I said when it was over with I'd do a post-mortem to look at how I could have broken it up better. However, Vaniver has given me what seems like good advice on that issue, which I plan to follow in the future. (Unless someone else comes along and persuades me otherwise. You're welcome to try that).
But there are other issues here, the big meta-issue being that downvotes don't help me distinguish between people thinking the posts were completely off-topic for Lesswrong vs. not liking how finely they were broken up vs. me not realizing what a hot-button issue obesity is for some people vs. other things. So suggestions on how I could best solicit anonymous feedback would be especially appreciated.
Soft Paternalism in Parenting
Reading the recently featured Beware of Trivial Inconveniences I realized that this is the method that makes Say Yes really work and thus this is Practical Advice Backed By Deep Theories.
The trick of saying "yes" instead of "no" is *not* to say less often "no" at the cost at allowing things when you say "yes". That just trades the stress of saying "no" (staying consequent despite a clash of wills) against the effort to fulfill, monitor, pay or clean up after the "yes".
Soft paternalism applied to parenting means saying "Yes, but" or "Yes, later" or "Yes, if". This signals to the child that you understand his/her wish but also supplies some context the child may not be aware of. It reduces your cost of saying "yes" at the expense of a cost to cash in the "yes" for the child.
Handshakes, Hi, and What's New: What's Going On With Small Talk?
This is an attempt to explicitly model what's going on in some small talk conversations. My hope is that at least one of these things will happen:
- There is a substantial flaw or missing element to my model that someone will point out.
- Many readers, who are bad at small talk because they don't see the point, will get better at it as a result of acquiring understanding.
I had some recent conversational failures online, that went roughly like this:
"How are you?"
The end.
At first I got upset at the implicit rudeness of my conversation partner walking away and ignoring the question. But then I decided to get curious instead and posted a sample exchange (names omitted) on Facebook with a request for feedback. Unsurprisingly I learned more this way.
Some kind friends helped me troubleshoot the exchange, and in the process of figuring out how online conversation differs from in-person conversation, I realized what these things do in live conversation. They act as a kind of implicit communication protocol by which two parties negotiate how much interaction they're willing to have.
Consider this live conversation:
The end.
No mystery here. Two people acknowledged one another's physical presence, and then the interaction ended. This is bare-bones maintenance of your status as persons who can relate to one another socially. There is no intimacy, but at least there is acknowledgement of someone else's existence. A day with "Hi" alone is less lonely than a day without it.
"Hi, how's it going?"
"Can't complain. And you?"
This exchange establishes the parties as mutually sympathetic – the kind of people who would ask about each other's emotional state – but still doesn't get to real intimacy. It is basically just a drawn-out version of the example with just "Hi". The exact character of the third and fourth line don't matter much, as there is no real content. For this reason, it isn't particularly rude to leave the question totally unanswered if you're already rounding a corner – but if you're in each other's company for a longer period of time, you're supposed to give at least a pro forma answer.
This kind of thing drives crazy the kind of people who actually want to know how someone is, because people often assume that the question is meant insincerely. I'm one of the people driven crazy. But this kind of mutual "bidding up" is important because sometimes people don't want to have a conversation, and if you just launch into your complaint or story or whatever it is you may end up inadvertently cornering someone who doesn't feel like listening to it.
You could ask them explicitly, but people sometimes feel uncomfortable turning down that kind of request. So the way to open a substantive topic of conversation is to leave a hint and let the other person decide whether to pick it up. So here are some examples of leaving a hint:
"Anything interesting this weekend?"
"Oh, did a few errands, caught up on some reading. See you later."
This is a way to indicate interest in more than just a "Fine, how are you?" response. What happened here is that one party asked about the weekend, hoping to elicit specific information to generate a conversation. The other politely technically answered the question without any real information, declining the opportunity to talk about their life.
"Anything interesting happen over the weekend?"
"Oh, did a few errands, caught up on some reading."
"Ugh, I was going to go to a game, but my basement flooded and I had to take care of that instead."
"That's tough."
"See you around."
Here, the person who first asked about the weekend didn't get an engaged response, but got enough of a pro forma response to provide cover for an otherwise out of context complaint and bid for sympathy. The other person offered perfunctory sympathy, and ended the conversation.
Here's a way for the recipient of a "How are you?" to make a bid for more conversation:
"How are you?"
"Oh, my basement flooded over the weekend."
"That's tough."
"See you around."
So the person with the flooded basement provided a socially-appropriate snippet of information – enough to be a recognizable bid for sympathy, but little enough not to force the other person to choose between listening to a long complaint or rudely cutting off the conversation.
Here's what it looks like if the other person accepts the bid:
"How are you?"
"Oh, my basement flooded over the weekend."
"Wow, that's tough. Is the upstairs okay?"
"Yeah, but it's a finished basement so I'm going to have to get a bunch of it redone because of water damage."
"Ooh, that's tough. Hey, if you need a contractor, I had a good experience with mine when I had my kitchen done."
"Thanks, that would be a big help, can you email me their contact info?"
By asking a specific follow-up question the other person indicated that they wanted to hear more about the problem – which gave the person with the flooded basement permission not just to answer the question directly, but to volunteer additional information / complaints.
You can do the same thing with happy events, of course:
"How are you?"
"I'm getting excited for my big California vacation."
"Oh really, where are you going?"
"We're flying out to Los Angeles, and then we're going to spend a few days there but then drive up to San Francisco, spend a day or two in town, then go hiking in the area."
"Cool. I used to live in LA, let me know if you need any recommendations."
"Thanks, I'll come by after lunch?"
So what went wrong online? Here's the conversation again so you don't have to scroll back up:
"How are you?"
The end.
Online, there are no external circumstances that demand a "Hi," such as passing someone (especially someone you know) in the hallway or getting into an elevator.
If you import in-person conversational norms, the "Hi" is redundant – but instead online it can function as a query as to whether the other person is actually "present" and available for conversation. (You don't want to start launching into a conversation just because someone's status reads "available" only to find out they're in the middle of something else and don't have time to read what you wrote.)
Let's say you've mutually said "Hi." If you were conversing in person, the next thing to do would be to query for a basic status update, asking something like, "How are you?". But "Hi" already did the work of "How are you?". Somehow the norm of "How are you?" being a mostly insincere query doesn't get erased, even though "Hi" does its work – so some people think you're being bizarrely redundant. Others might actually tell you how they are.
To be safe, it's best to open with a short question apropos to what you want to talk about – or, since it's costless online and serves the same function as "Hi", just start with "How are you?" as your opener.
What's New?
I recently had occasion to explain to someone how to respond when someone asks "what's new?", and in the process, ended up explaining some stuff I hadn't realized until the moment I tried to explain it. So I figured this might be a high-value thing to explain to others here on the blog.
Of course, sometimes "what's new?" is just part of a passing handshake with no content – I covered that in the first section. But if you're already in a context where you know you're going to be having a conversation, you're supposed to answer the question, otherwise you get conversations like this:
"What's new?"
"Not much. How about you?"
"Can't complain."
Awkward silence.
So I'm talking about cases where you actually have to answer the question.
The problem is that some people, when asked "What's New?", will try to think about when they last met the person asking, and all the events in their life since then, sorted from most to least momentous. This is understandably an overwhelming task.
The trick to responding correctly is to think of your conversational partner's likely motives for asking. They are very unlikely to want a complete list. Nor do they necessarily want to know the thing in your life that happened that's objectively most notable. Think about it – when's the last time you wanted to know those things?
Instead, what's most likely the case is that they want to have a conversation about a topic you are comfortable with, are interested in, and have something to say about. "What's New?" is an offer they are making, to let you pick the life event you most feel like discussing at that time. So for example, if the dog is sick but you'd rather talk about a new book you're reading, you get to talk about the book and you can completely fail to mention the dog. You're not lying, you're answering the question as intended.
Cross-posted on my personal blog.
Personal examples of semantic stopsigns
I think most of us are familiar with the common semantic stopsigns like "God", "just because", and "it's a tradition." However, I've recently been noticing more interesting ones that I haven't really seen discussed on LW. (Or it's also likely that I missed those discussion.)
The first one is "humans are stupid." I notice this one very often, in particular in LW and other rationalist communities. The obvious problem here is that humans are not that stupid. Often what might seem like sheer stupidity was caused by a rather reasonable chain of actions and events. And even if a person or a group of people is being stupid, it's very interesting to chase down the cause. That's how you end up discovering biases from scratch or finding a great opportunity.
The second semantic stopsign is "should." Hat tip to Michael Vassar for bringing this one up. If you and I have a discussing about how I eat too much chocolate, and I say, "You are right, I should eat less chocolate," the conversation will basically end there. But 99 times out of a 100 nothing will actually come out of it. I try to taboo the word "should" from my vocabulary, so instead I will say something like, "You are right, I will not purchase any chocolate this month." This is a concrete actionable statement.
What other semantic stopsigns have you noticed in yourself and others?
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text: Where is Par-T-Ville 2011? Our Mission Statement: To provide a complete children's party and event service, delivering superior quality, creating lasting memories. In 2008 and 2009 we had a competition across North America for all our Par-T-Perfect staff called "Where is Par-T-Ville?" Staff from our various locations sent in pictures, memories, stories and testimonials each month from events held in their area. These submissions were voted on by their peers to determine "Par-T-Ville!" for the month. A scoring system was developed based on; number of submission, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. rankings accumulated throughout the year. The highest points won the … Continue reading


text:
NEW YORK (May. 7)
Benjamin Freedman, founder of the League for Peace with Justice in Palestine, revealed today that several days after the U.N. General Assembly adopted its Palestine partition decision, he addressed a private dinner of 52 Congressmen at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on the subject of Palestine during which he outlined his group's anti-Zionist views.All expenses for the dinner were paid by him, Freedman said.
Appearing as a principal witness in a libel suit hearing brought against the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League by an attorney for the League for Peace with Justice in Palestine, Freedman said he contacted Rep. Ed Gossett, of Texas, early in December after the latter said on the floor of the House that that day when the U.N. partition decision was announced was "the blackest day in American history."
During today's cross–examination Freedman indulged in anti-Zionist utterances. The court asked him several times to refrain from using the term, 'Jew state,' in reference to Palestine, a term which he described as conceived by Dr. Theodore Herzl in his pamphlet, "Judenstaat."


text:
SHERLOC Mobile
Princess Academy [electronic resource] / Shannon Hale. - SHERLOC
Princess Academy [electronic resource] / Shannon Hale.
Click here to access Full text
Syracuse : Full Cast Audio, 2007.
9781933322780 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)
1933322780 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)
Call number:
Princesses -- Juvenile fiction.
Self-confidence -- Juvenile fiction.
Telepathy -- Juvenile fiction.
Mountains -- Juvenile fiction.
Schools -- Juvenile fiction.
Electronic audiobooks.
Fantasy fiction.
Summer Reading Program Bonus Books & Materials 2011
Downloadable audio file.
Title from: Title details screen.
Duration: 7:30:00.
Newbery Honor Book, 2006
Read by Laura Credidio and the Full Cast Family.
Requires OverDrive Media Console (file size: 107829 KB)
Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Summary note:
Life on Mount Eskel is hard, but for fourteen-year-old Miri the mountain is home, and she loves it. Then a messenger from the king arrives with a stunning announcement: the royal priests have divined that the prince's bride-to-be must come from Mount Eskel. Soon Miri and the other girls must leave their homes for special training in how to be a princess -- though, of course, only one of them will be chosen. At the newly formed Princess Academy, a tutor named Olana struggles to mold the girls from peasants into possible princesses. Their training is harsh, sometimes fierce. But just as the workers of Mount Eskel labor to quarry valuable linder from the mountain, Miri learns to dig deep within herself, where she discovers amazing resources she never dreamed of -- resources she will need, if she is to save the academy from sudden disaster!
Item availability
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Electronic Resource


text:
Julian Escobar sent us a number of photos to consider for our story "Physician, breed thyself." We loved the pictures so much that we redid the cover with a picture of Paloma and Valentino. Here are more of the pictures Julian sent.
PHOTOS: The Escobar family
Queer Music News: Singer Rufus Wainwright is now a daddy; James Franco is no Cher
• I had no idea singer Rufus Wainwright was in want of a family. And now he has one — in that modern family kinda way. This was posted on his website this past Saturday. And this doesn't makes us feel icky like another celeb and his new baby.
Feb 18, 2011
For Immediate Release:
Darling daughter Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen was born on February 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California to proud parents Lorca Cohen, Rufus Wainwright and Deputy Dad Jorn Weisbrodt. The little angel is evidently healthy, presumably happy and certainly very very beautiful.
Daddy #1 would like to offer everyone a digital cigar and welcome the little lady in with a French phrase from his favorite folk song, A La Claire Fontaine : "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, jamais je ne t'oublierai."
CORRECTION: In many of the articles announcing the birth of Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, Lorca Cohen is characterized as "the surrogate." Of course, she is no such thing. She did not carry the child for someone else. Lorca Cohen is the mother of the baby and Rufus Wainwright is the father.
• Towleroad posted this track of James Franco's version of Cher's "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" from Burlesque, which was to be an apparent gag drag performance for this weekend's Oscars. Now, it isn't — and that's a good thing.
MEXICO CITY: Woman Becomes Surrogate Birth Mother To Gay Son's Baby
After an in vitro fertilization procedure, a 50 year-old woman in Mexico City has become the surrogate mother to her 31 year-old gay son's baby using a donated egg and her son's sperm.
The baby, called Dario, was born by caesarean section on November 1 and the mother and child were sent home after a 48-hour period of observation. Doctors said there were no complications. 'I don't feel like a mother nor like a grandmother,' the woman told Reforma, a Mexico City newspaper. 'When they say "mother" to me I feel strange, and when they say "grandmother" also,' she said. 'I mean, he was my first grandson, and I don't feel that way because at the same time he is my fourth son.' The family has fully documented the circumstances of the birth so that the child will one day be able to learn of his origins.
The birth has already gotten widespread coverage on anti-gay and Christianist blogs, where it is being ridiculed as yet another example of "bizarre gay parenting." NOM tweeted the story this morning and the Freepers are having a field day.
Neil Patrick Harris + David Burtka Reveal Their Celebrity Surrogate
OH SNAP — Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka celebrate the further invasion of their privacy with a Saturday trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.
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Tagged: Celebs, David Burtka, Disney, Neil Patrick Harris, Oh Snap, Photos


text:
The MH1300 is a heavy duty ballhead capable of supporting 20 pounds.
Movement is smooth and the friction knob is infinitely adjustible making control of even a heavy lens and camera easy. The base rotates for panoramic shots. We send the ballhead with a Giottos MH-57 Quick release plate that has a built in bubble level, and matching lens plate.
The Giottos MH1300 head is capable of supporting a professional level body and a 300 f2.8 lens. For larger lenses, and for those who wish to use a Wimberley Sidekick, we recommend the Markins Q20 ballhead.