Rants, Raves and Rambling…

Last night Kobe Bryant passed Jerry West (aka, “the Logo”) as the Lakers all-time scoring leader.  So naturally, that raises the question.  Does this mean Kobe Bryant actually needs to replace Jerry West as the logo?

 

(Sorry, this is what you get when someone with no experience or skill spends 20 minutes with the gimp, modifying a photo….)

Historically, people have been concerned about the electromagnetic radiation generated by cellular telephones and their associated base station equipment.  There have been warnings about brain cancer, neurological damage or changes to the blood/brain barrier. Studies have varied in their results and recommendations, and it has been very confusing what to believe.

For it’s part, the World Health Organization explains the risks as:

• Cancer: Current scientific evidence indicates that exposure to RF fields, such as those emitted by mobile phones and their base stations, is unlikely to induce or promote cancers. Several studies of animals exposed to RF fields similar to those emitted by mobile phones found no evidence that RF causes or promotes brain cancer. While one 1997 study found that RF fields increased the rate at which genetically engineered mice developed lymphoma, the health implications of this result is unclear. Several studies are underway to confirm this finding and determine any relevance of these results to cancer in human beings. Three recent epidemiological studies found no convincing evidence of increase in risk of cancer or any other disease with use of mobile phones.
• Other health risks: Scientists have reported other effects of using mobile phones including changes in brain activity, reaction times, and sleep patterns. These effects are small and have no apparent health significance. More studies are in progress to try to confirm these findings.
• Driving: Research has clearly shown an increased risk of traffic accidents when mobile phones (either handheld or with a “hands-free” kit) are used while driving.
• Electromagnetic interference: When mobile phones are used close to some medical devices (including pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, and certain hearing aids) there is the possibility of causing interference. There is also the potential of interference between mobile phones and aircraft electronics.

Well, adding fuel to the fire was a recent study of mobile phone radiation and the impact upon mice bred to be susceptible to Alzheimer’s Disease. In short, the study found that if these mice were exposed to two, one-hour sessions of radiation similar to that of a modile phone call each day for seven to nine months, the development of Alzheimer’s symptoms was prevented. In mice already demonstrating symptoms of Alzheimer’s, exposure to the radiation eliminated these symptoms and subsequent memory tests matched those of control animals. After the stufy autopsies were performed on all the mice involved and no abnormalities to the brains or peripheral organs were found.

The study is described by the BBC and published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.  If these results extend to humans there could be hope for an effective treatment of Alzheimer’s after diagnosis, not just a way to slow the degenerative effects!

Given our family history with this disease, I may have to call my mom and let her know of these results… on her cell phone, of course.

Dan Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and author, has a wonderful talk on happiness and how the human mind seeks it out. It’s 21 minutes, but please don’t let that scare you off. In it, he discusses research into the “phychological immune system” and how it leads us to seek and find happiness in areas where an outside observer may not expect.

Fascinating stuff….  I especially like the idea that the mind adapts to be happy with a decision after there is nothing else we can do about it.

(Full link: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html)

Last time I was in San Diego, I went out to dinner at a Mimi’s Cafe. It isn’t the first time we’ve been there, and when my wife and I lived in Scripps Ranch, we would eat there once or twice a month. I enjoy their food (particularly their breakfasts) and it is typically a pretty decent value.  Their servings are very generous, and that probably contributes significantly to the later information.

I was held up leaving work, so my friends had 10 minutes or so to look over the menu while they waited for me. Turns out, Mimi’s has added nutritional information to their menu! Kudos to them, for making the information available, especially in the menu itself (although in a separate section in the back).

Having had a chance to go through this list, I now understand why more places don’t do this. Given the choice of price, taste or health, I know which one would be sacrificed in most every restaurant.

Check out a few of the worst offenders:

• Breakfast: Pancake Breakfast; 1252 calories, 46g protein, 140g carbs, 57g fat
• Lunch: West Coast Reuben; 1733 calories, 53g protein, 62g carbs, 136g fat
• Appetizer: Tuscan Artichoke Dip; 2333 calories, 82g protein, 147g carbs, 154g fat
• Dinner: Spice Rubbed Baby Back Ribs; 2101 calories, 85g protein, 131g carbs, 138g fat
• Dinner Salad: Blackened Chicken Caesar Salad; 1524 calories, 61g protein, 47g carbs, 119g fat
• Dessert: Triple Chocolate Brownie; 1950 calories, 25g protein, 280g carbs, 87g fat

(Nutritional Information for Mimi’s, and many other restaurants, can be found at calorielab.com.)

Now, some of those menu items approach or exceed the US Department of Agriculture’s Recommended Daily Allowance of calories for the average person.  But the biggest surprise, to me at least, was their:

• 8oz Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream; 968 calories, 8g protein, 193g carbs, 17g fat

Now, 12 ounces is what they consider a “small” for most of you that drink coffee; so to put it in perspective, this is 2/3rds of a “tall” beverage. In that 8 ounces, however, they manage to pack in 968 calories, 17 grams of fat, and 193 grams of carbs. Wow.

Now I want to go order one, just to find out if it is worth it.

Michael Barry, a professional cyclist and author, has some interesting ideas on bringing parity back to the professional cycling peloton — get rid of the race radios every rider wears!  The full article is here(courtesy of VeloNews).

On June 27th, 2009, I puchased “The New York Times Crosswords Daily 2009″ application, by Magmic Inc. for my iPhone.  At the time, it had a rating higher than 4 stars, and promised access to daily and archived New York Times crossword puzzles for a one-time cost of $5.99.  That seemed reasonable to me, and so I purchased the application and have enjoyed it.

Yesterday, they released an updated version of the application, v1.1.  Suddenly, rather than offering access to the puzzles, it requires a $1.99/month subscription to access puzzle data.  Previous customers, such as myself, are granted access through the end of 2009, but after that will need to buy a subscription for 1 month ($1.99), 6 months ($9.99) or 12 months ($16.99).  At the time of purchase, there was no indication that the application was only providing puzzle access through December 31st.

I consider this unacceptable, and have immediately removed the application from my device.  I am also trying to determine how to move forward.  I feel that a refund is due, because they have fundamentally changed the application that I purchased, in a way that feels like a blatant grab for more money.

My first step has been reporting a problem with the application via the iTunes application interface.  In my note indicating that the application did not function as expected, I provided the following explanation:

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With the release of the “free update” to v1.1 of this application, they have moved from a purchase model where you buy the application and have continued access to puzzles, to a subscription model where you must pay to download the puzzles.  There was no indication at the time of purchase that this would change into an application with an ongoing monthly fee.

 

I purchased this application in good faith, believing that the $5.99 payment would cover me for as long as I chose to use that application.  Instead, I have been granted access to puzzle data through the end of the year.  Starting January 1, 2010, I am expected to start paying a monthly fee for this application to continue to function.

 

Due to the dramatic changes in the cost and pricing of the application, I am requesting that my $5.99 be refunded.  I have already removed the application from my device, although I am happy to provide whatever proof you require showing that it has been deleted.

Thank you,

Dan Abplanalp

 

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Unfortunately, upon submission of this issue, iTunes responds with:

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Please contact the application developer.

We have taken note of the problem for our records, however we are not able to provide support for the features and functionality of applications. Please click the support link below to contact the developer for resolution.

The New York Times Crosswords Daily support

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I have also contacted Magmic directly asking for a refund, but Apple is far from blameless in this as well.  Ultimately, Apple must approve all applications for their store.  Additionally, the subscription cost for the updated application is collected by Apple via the iTunes store.  By approving the update and setting up billing for these recurring charges, Apple has given its approval for changing “purchased” applications into “subscription” applications.

 

I’ll update this as I hear back with more information.

Update, 10/2/2009

It appears that I bear some of the blame for this as well, as apparently Magmic claimed that the application “…includes access to daily and archived puzzles until the end of 2009.”  If that was indeed the case (the claim was made in this review), then they are within their technical rights to end the download of new puzzles at that time.  However, that statement was apparently not particularly prominent (I sure missed it) and it was not sufficiently specific to indicate that all of the app will apparently stop functioning at that time.

Update, 10/5/2009

No response from Apple, although I am not particularly surprised at this.  I did receive a response from Magmic:

Hi,

Unfortunately we have not been able to find your Order ID(receipt) with any of your
listed information. Please reply with all of the following information to allow us
to find your Order ID:

What was the email address used?

What was the phone number used to purchase?

What was the full name used to purchase?

Did you use the ‘Bill to Phone’ option or a Credit Card to purchase?

If you purchased from a website other than Bplay.com, what site did you purchase your content from?

Thank you,

—————-

<Name Removed>

Customer Support Specialist

—————-

The fact that I purchased the application via iTunes was in the original support request, and it was sent from the same e-mail address used to purchase the application.  It appears that they are not setup to support iTunes store purchases.  *sigh*

The Congressional Budget Office is reporting that the US Federal Deficit for this year will be $1.587 trillion dollars, and next year is projected to be $1.381 trillion.  Amazingly, that is 11.2% of the GDP for this year, and estimated at 9.6% of the GDP for next year.

These numbers are a bit on the large side, and so lets try to put them into perspective.

If a stack of 1000 $1000 bills is 4 inches tall (making you a millionaire), this year’s deficit would …

• … be 100.2 miles tall, if measured in $1000 bills.
• … stretch from San Diego, CA to Salem, OR if measured in $100 bills and the stack laid on its side.
• … reach halfway to the moon, if measured in $1 bills.
• … wrap around the earth four times, if measured in $1 bills and the stack laid on its side.

Laid out end-to-end that line of bills…

• …would warp around the earth 6176 times, if we used singles.  This means it would be a band stacked two feet thick at the equator.
• …would reach the sun and halfway back, again assuming $1 bills.
• …would exceed the distance driven by the average car over its lifetime, if measured in $1000 bills.  (Imagine never passing the same $1000 bill twice for the life of your car!)

There were 304,059,724 people in the United States as of June, 2008 according to Google’s interpretation of the data from the US Census Bureau. 

• Just in 2009, the governement ran a deficit of $5219 per person.
• There are about 138 million taxpayers in the US.  That works out to each taxpayer providing an additional $11,500 to sustain this level of spending.

Looking at it over time, over the course of 2009 the US Government ran a deficit of …

• $4.348 billion per day.
• $181.2 million per hour.
• $3.019 million per minute.  (That’s burning a stack of $1000 bills one foot tall every minute)
• $50,320 per second.

And, of course, we will eventually need to pay this all back.  On  July 1st, 1009 (the mid point of the year), the government was issuing 20-year debt at 4.37%. 

If you had a $1.587 trillion dollar mortgage, at a fixed rate of 4.37% over 20 years…

• …you would be paying $9.929 billion dollars a month, or about $119.1 billion per year.
• …you would pay $796.0 billion dollars in interest over the life of the loan.
• … that averages $39.80 billion dollars a year in interest (although, if it were setup like a mortgage, that would be weighted heavily towards the beginning).
• … that averages $109.0 million dollars a day in interest, or a stack of $1000 bills 36.3 feet high.

To put the $119.0 billion dollars we would pay each year for 20 years just to pay down the deficit for this year, the total federal Education budget for 2009 was $63.5 billion.  Even assuming no interest costs, we would have to cut all federal education spending for 25 years just to pay off the deficit from this year.

I grew up in Indiana, and so parts of me are always going to identify with redneck culture.  Be it car racing, squirrel sausage or Levi Garrett baseball caps, many things were introduced to me before I was old enough to question them.  So, I have a soft spot in my heart for anything midwesten, but every now and again I see something that I just can’t wrap my head around.  Thanks to my friend Joe, I have now been exposed to the wonders that is Assquatch.

Apparently, this is the sort of things taxidermists do when they lack a creative outlet.  An assquatch (or deer butt alien, if you prefer an alternate term) is the hindquarters of a deer, mounted upside down, and given some artistic modifications.  Since most people tend to stare at deer rumps in the upright direction, inverting them is enough to fool most people at first glance.  It also allows the tail to become some form of prehensile beard for the a-bum-idable snowman.  I suppose those of you that regularly view animal tails from an inverted perspective will recognize the source animal immediately.

Instructions for making your own Assquatch can be found here.

One of the things I love about professional cycling is the accessibility.  Seriously, can you name any other sport that allows anyone to get so up close and personal to the big stars as they compete?  Not only is it free to the spectators, there are large parades preceding the cyclist throwing out free swag.  And then, to top it all off, you often don’t even need to go far to see a race — the racers will come to you (depending where you are, of course).

Unfortunately, you sometimes see crap like this.  I mean seriously, what are you thinking when you shoot into the peloton with a pellet gun?  I hope they find the responsible party and justice is served.

˙˙˙˙ǝsoʃɔ ʎʇʇǝɹd sı ʇı ʇnq ‘(ǝɔuɐʇsuı ɹoɟ „s„) sʞɹoʍ ɹǝʇɔɐɹɐɥɔ ʎɹǝʌǝ ʇoᴎ ˙ʇxǝʇ uʍop ǝpısdn sǝʇɐɯıxoɹddɐ ʇɐɥʇ ǝpoɔıun oʇ ʇı ʇɹǝʌuoɔ puɐ ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ ǝʞɐʇ ʃʃıʍ ʇI ˙ʞɔıɹʇ ʇɐǝu ʎʇʇǝɹd ɐ sı sıɥ⊥