ASCAP...

I think it should say "We Create Liability and Misery"

I was recently involved in a discussion about the usefulness of ASCAP.

ASCAP is group owned by composers and musicians that enforces royalty collection.

In times gone by (like the 1950's, 60's and 70's) its primary function was to track the playing of songs on the radio for royalty purposes.  The idea is that when a song is played on the radio the composer, musicians, etc. associated with the song are entitled to payment.

Of course radio stations, wanting to save money would simply play the song without paying.

I had a friend who was a professional musician.  When not on tour or in the studio (he was a band member - not one of the front men) he would occasionally get jobs at ASCAP listening to tapes of radio programs.  The purpose was for him to identify songs that weren't on the playlist so that royalties could be collected.

Since that time ASCAP has expanded exponentially.

The reason, of course, is that music sales are drooping substantially - particularly the old vinyl/CD model of paying $17.99 at the Borders for the latest music.

The modern "Mix, Rip, Burn" model along with iPods, etc. has basically reduced the business model to junk.  Now one person gets the music, converts it to an MP3, emails it to all their friends and what was twenty CD sales is now one iTunes download.

Now I am a musician and I have a CD out - but I do not support ASCAP.

(I believe that ASCAP does not benefit musicians except very indirectly and that its mostly about big business screwing musicians.  If you live off your ASCAP royalties good for you.  But I still don't like how it works...)

There are two reasons for this.

1) The traditional business model of screwing the musician (by paying a 2% royalty after "expenses") is pure BS.  In 97% of the cases only the label ever makes any money.  The musician ends up in debt.  Its a bad investment in terms of your talent and time.

While this model worked when access to radio was the only means of getting your music heard today's world is different - you can easily promote yourself without a label - for a very low cost.  (Basically this is really a label issue -  but ASCAP is really a tool of the label in my opinion.)

2) ASCAP goes after everyone these days for a "license".  From their perspective they need to collect money for any public performance.  According to their site "A public performance is one that occurs either in a public place where people gather (other than a small circle of a family or social acquaintances). A public performance is also one that is transmitted to the public, for example, radio or TV broadcasts, and via the Internet."

The problem here is not what I will call traditional licensing - radio, professional music performances, and so on.  Its the vagueness of this and the fact that according to their idea of licensing virtually any utterance of a song where someone else not in your family hears it is a "public performance" that creates an obligation to pay ASCAP.

Now this is really pretty stupid.

I could go to the ASCAP headquarters and sing a "licensed" song and ASCAP would have to pay the artist.

Why?  Because according to their own web site I had produced a performance requiring a royalty payment.

I could sing on a bus and ASCAP would have to pay.

I could sing in a church or school.

ASCAP goes after places where people play music unprofessionally - like bars - and tries to get them to pay with the threat of legal action if they do not.  (A guy making a living off his $100 solo performance in my mind is not "stealing" from ASCAP or the musician.)

The internet is ripe with stories of ASCAP shutting down (stopping music) at bars, coffee houses, etc.

All because bands or performers are playing "licensed" songs.

But even at a bar without a band or performer if the patrons simply burst into a song because their team scores a touchdown or because of a birthday ASCAP could claim royalty payments.

This to me is wrong.

1) Its wrong because musicians learn by playing cover songs in bars - if you require that the bar pay substantially for allowing this education to happen the process will stop.  ASCAP wants a lot of license from bars for this privilege and most bars cannot afford it.

2) Its wrong because it requires the bar to know the difference between a cover and an original.

3) Its wrong because its arbitrarily and randomly enforced (basically its enforced where ever ASCAP thinks it can make a buck - and you can bet that the "cost" of the enforcement will far exceed any royalty paid to the musician).

The ASCAP perspective makes all of us "criminals" in their eyes - playing covers, singing at a birthday party, and so on.  There is no requirement that the performance be a paid one - only that there be a "public performance" as defined above.

What is interesting is that now the Obama administration is interested in making everyone a snitch in this regard (see this article).  Stealing music (which includes playing a cover song in a non-ASCAP-licensed bar) is an "Intellectual Property Crime" according to the Attorney General Eric Holder “Fortunately, we can all be part of the solution. Anyone who suspects an IP crime can visit cybercrime.gov, fbi.gov, or iprcenter.gov to report suspected offenses,” Holder said. “The public’s proactive attention to these issues can help us to disrupt the sale of illegal goods; to prosecute the individuals, gangs, and international criminal organizations that profit from these activities; and to stop those who would exploit the ingenuity of others for monetary gain.”

So if you go to your neighbors house and hear someone singing a poteintally copywritten song Eric Holder wants you to go home and report them on "cybercrime.gov".  Ditto for bar music.  Ditto for that church music (worship services are not exempted).

Nice!

Thanks Big Brother - this is all really quite troubling...

We are all criminals now...

A False Economy...

When I was a kid I lived in the days of the giant land yachts - huge nine, ten or more passenger station wagons that could hall a family or a good portion of a sports team to an event.  Gas at the time was around a $0.25 USD a gallon and I recall price wars at gas stations taking the prices even lower on occasions.

These baby's had 455 V8's that cranked out 375 or so in horsepower, giant living-room couch-like seats that could easily hold four kids across and a giant, three-kid rear-facing seat in the back.  Even with all the seats loaded you could easily cruise at 75 MPH.

To support the 455 V8 there was a thirty gallon gas tank - a $7.50 expense to fill in 1971 - an a buck at the pump got you plenty of miles even though the MPG was only around 10 or 12.

The 1973 oil embargo changed all this, though, and pushed gas up to $0.75 or more a gallon.

In these bygone days there were some efficiencies with these vehicles, however.

Let's say you wanted to go to the mall.

The vehicle could carry not only the family of five but several of the kids friends as well - maybe a total of eight people.

If the mall was thirty miles away it might take two and a half gallons of gas to get there (at 12 MPG).

So 2.5 gallons of gas moves eight (8) people 30 miles let's say.

What spurred me to write this post was various holiday activities and the number of vehicles involved.

One of the things dad's do is take the "kiddies" off the hands of those doing the "cooking" during the holidays.  You can only do so much cooking with little tykes running around screaming and yelling and sticking their hands into the pie dough.  If the dad's are just sitting there they might as well take the tykes off to run around at a play center of some kind.

In the olden days everyone could pile into a single car for a trip to the mall for a couple of hours.

Using our mall example above that's 8 people x 30 miles or 240 people/miles for a one way trip.

If 240 people/miles requires 2.5 gallon of gas that means a gallon of gas moves things along 96 people/miles.

Today this kind of trip - eight people - cannot be accomplished with a single vehicle. 

You need two.

So with two vehicles you need 24 MPG to accomplish the same trip.

(In addition the kiddies all need special seats up until they're about 7 or 8 years old which makes it impractical to do any sort of seat reorganization for efficiency.)

Today's cars get this better mileage - but you need two.

Twice the number of tires.

Twice the manufacturing capacity in terms of auto plants.

Gallons of petroleum to make all the plastic parts in the cars (and car seats).

Twice the number of everything including the full support infrastructure of gas stations, repair shops, etc.

Sure the modern vehicles are smaller and lighter - but we need more (twice as many) of them to get the same job completed.  (And yes I know that not everyone needs to travel to the mall every day.)

So this has all made me wonder if the EPA mileage requirements are really helping - because having twice as many of everything uses even more fuel that only having one thing using more gas.

According to this there are probably almost twice as many cars today as 1971.

Domestic oil production has decreased significantly since then.

And gasoline consumption has remained relatively (within 20%) constant.

So while cars are more efficient we use far more gas, far more diesel, and import far more oil.

So I am starting to wonder if all this isn't a false economy (no pun intended), i.e., while we all think we are saving the planet we are in fact doing more harm than good because of the energy cost do it.

The problem is that no one thinks about the "big picture" - does a lot of requirements to create thus and such a MPG rate really reduce the effective rate of consumption - or is the consumption increasing and other effects masking the result?

Would people use less gas if MPG had remained low?

Death March to Holiday Joy!

Souls who parked far from Walmart on Black Friday...

I often wonder why the holidays are so stressful and difficult...?  Every year there is too much to do, too far to go, too much to eat, too much company, too little company.

Why don't we learn from past years? 

Is it a case of better planning or is it something else?

One thought on this comes from this site on stress: Holiday stress is the result of "Fantasies, Family, Food and Finances."

We Fantasize about how the holiday should be - often with unrealistic expectations of what should be happening.  Mostly I think this is because we been sold a "bill of goods" through Norman Rockwell paintings.

Sure it would be nice if Uncle Joe wouldn't get drunk, if Aunt Sally wouldn't fly into a rage over some perceived slight, if our nosy neighbor didn't stop by and invite himself in...  But really, we know things are not going to change.

And this is probably the problem.  Though we know how things really are we always wish they were different.

Along with Fantasy is Family - often these go hand-in-hand.  Competition for attention.  Perceived (or real) differences in treatment of siblings, cousins, and so on.  Family, as they say, is what it is.  They are not going to change to make your holiday better.

Uncle Joe is still going to drink too much.

Next on the list is Food.  The issues with food are many.  There's the expectation (the fantasy too) of what it should be - was it as good as last year, did I cheat on the recipe, will mom be disappointed, that sort of thing.

Then there is the doing.  Where is the time?  What does it cost?  What if I can't find that special ingredient - will someone be disappointed.  These days with so many family members working (and with a slow economy) where is the time to do the cooking?

Finally there is Finance.  All this is expensive.  Perhaps there are "Black Friday" shopping trips.  Extra family dinners.  Trips to grandma's house.  How can you really have any fun if you have to borrow money to do it?

I would call all of these issues the "classic issues" for holidays - reasons of issues that have been around for a long time.

But these days I think that what underlies holiday misery is probably more deep seated...

One thing that I see is that many folks today seem to have to "do it all."  Whether its being "super mom" or "super son" or whatever.  So, if we have to do it, then usually what happens is A) we realize there isn't time to do it all so B) we do it all at Mach 10 in order to have gotten it done.

What's missed is that many see the process of the holidays as important.  Its not the fact that we made the apple pie its the fact that we are doing it together that's important.  So if some of the "team members" need to get the entire apple pie creation done in 17:37 minutes so they can get to the next relative's house there is stress for those hoping to enjoy the doing.

Another issue is that children find holiday's particularly stressful.  This is for several reasons.  First, and probably foremost, the adults are all stressed so this creates stress for the children.  Secondly, there is a lot of food, a lot of goodies (full of sugar), and so the kids are stressed out by that.  There is the overall excitement of expectation - particularly on holidays where gifts are given - am I going to get that cellphone I want?

Children need limits on their exposure to this stress.  Too much is simply too much - and since they have no control over what the adults do its not up to them to fix the problem.

When I was a child holiday's were different that today.

There was far less TV promoting "holiday greed" to whip children into a frenzy.  On the holiday you went to someone's house for dinner or lunch and you usually saw the same relatives you always saw because in those days people tended to live closer. 

There were no epic voyages across the planet.

You still had to behave as a child - and if you were good and you ate your "regular food" you got a slice of home baked cake or pie.  You sat at the children's table until you grew up.  Today children are fed sugar and crap as if their very lives depended on it - little wonder that when its time to eat the "regular food" they cannot.

As a child I never recall the adults being particularly stressed about holidays - sure there was cooking and you worried your specialty dish might not come out just right.  Mostly it was just dinner.

There was no "black Friday."

I think that these days we have to take the "death march" out of holiday joy.

I'd rather eat, travel and do less if I could have less stress.

I'd rather do fewer things but up their quality: only one memorable "activity" with but with far less stress.

I'd love to be able to have all of my loved ones participate in the entire holiday rather than collapse exhausted from preparations and stress just as the holiday experience begins.

All and all holiday's should be about being together.

If we can all cook together great!  But if cooking together requires such colossal stress that no one can function for two days afterward then we are doing the wrong thing.

(Of course one man's joy is another man's misery...)

So let's try and take the "death march" out of the holidays.

Sure I might need a new TV but is it worth the risk of death in a stampede?

Killing Me Softly... (Part II)

I found an interesting map with a pattern relating antibiotics and obesity, stroke and diabetes.

The darker the blue the higher the prescription rate.  From the link: "In 2007 the average number of dispensed outpatient antibiotic prescriptions per 1,000 inhabitants at the national level is 858, or 0.86 prescriptions per person...

... six major therapeutic classes: penicillins, cephalosporins, quinolones, macrolides, tetracyclines, trimethoprim-sulfa (TMP-SMZ) and other drugs, including vancomycin, carbapenems and linezolid. ..."

You then start looking maps for things like stroke deaths from the National Stroke Mortality Atlas:

And you see an interesting overlap.

Ditto for diabetes (see Wired for more maps and link info):



and obesity:

Notice a pattern?

A swath through the Appalachians of high disease incidence.

Take a look at CDDEP for the complete details.

What's most remarkable according to the linked Wired commentary is that one of the potential causes for this pattern of disease is the over-prescription of antibiotics killing off crucial gut bacteria.  Without these gut bacteria the bodies systems go haywire and diseases like diabetes (Type II), strokes and other problems appear.

I've talked about this kind of thing before as related to childhood asthma (my post "Antibiotics = Childhood Asthma").

There is quite a "chicken and egg" issue here which must be unraveled too.  Are the antibiotics the cause of the problems or a symptom, for example, of an unhealthy population.

Again there are reasons, according to the Wired article, to believe that antibiotics are part of the problem as opposed to the cause.

(I've used similar maps in other posts I have made regarding health but I can't find them...)

In any case the use of antibiotics in both human and animal populations is, I think, a national health issue that should be addressed.

So if its not the chemical-stuffed turkey killing you it may be the antibiotics.

Have a nice holiday!

Killing Me Softly...

Lack of Cholesterol = Brain Fog

As usual this time of year we have articles like this at the WSJ.  To quote "One of the biggest tasks for the body after eating is to deal with fats in the blood. Cholesterol, particularly LDL, or "bad" cholesterol, infiltrates the walls of the arteries and forms plaques, which can block blood flow or eventually rupture, leading to heart attack and stroke. The condition is known as atherosclerosis."

Complete and utter BS.

What is interesting is that the cycle of cholesterol in the blood stream goes in two directions;  though you'd never know it reading this type of article.  You'd also never know that cholesterol is a necessity for life and that your brain is documented to do very poorly with the lower levels doctors try to force on you.

Those selling "cholesterol lowing drugs" you would make you believe that any cholesterol in your blood is bad.

This thinking leaves out key facts:

First, your liver and brain make cholesterol and your body requires cholesterol to function correctly.   It is required for steroid hormone manufacturing by ovaries and testes.  Without these steroid hormones you would have problems with weight, sex, digestion, bone health and mental status (see this).

Cholesterol is required for bile manufacturing by the liver.

Cholesterol is required for building strong healthy bodies (see this - an excellent overally article) - especially for women.

Second, so called "bad" LDL cholesterol is actually cholesterol being transported by the blood from the liver to your cells.  HDL is cholesterol being transported from your cells to your liver.  Both are lipoproteins - basically assemblies of protiens and lipids (fats) that allow the transport of cholesterol in the blood.  Both are part of a complex system that supports your bodies health.

When you eat fatty acids are transported to your cells either directly from the intestines or indirectly through via liver.

The level of cholesterol in your blood is a complex matter involving multiple body systems, your current digestive state, and so on.  So one number is unlikely to provide an accurate picture for your health.

Third, and most importantly, most foods we eat today (chips, snacks, etc.) contain fatty acids that are not "natural" - various vegetable oils like soy, various hydrogenated oils and so on.  When we eat these "fake" fats our bodies do not process them as if they are natural fats.   For example our brain tells us we can continue to eat rather than becoming full because the fake fats do not trigger the natural biological processes that create the sensations of being "full".  In addition these fats don't work the same way in our bodies as natural fats - confusing the operation of our cells and the lipid transport system.  (See my previous post "Lower Cholesterol = Memory Loss" regarding this issue).

What does this mean?

For one thing the transport of cholesterol in your body is part of a very intricate and complex system that involves your brain, your liver, and virtually every cell in your body.  Artificially suppressing one part of it (as with taking cholesterol-lowering drugs) just takes the rest of it out of balance.  Kind of like driving with that small, crappy spare tire you get these days.  Certainly not good for the long haul.

Lack of cholesterol can literally make you stupid and ruin your mind.

For women, cholesterol suppression inhibits the generation of many necessary hormones - the lack of which can cause disease like cancer.

If you eat a lot of processed foods containing trans fats, hydrogenated fats, and so on they are literally killing you - in part by screwing up your cholesterol levels and fooling your bodies system for processing natural fats.  Cells have built in mechanisms to take in and export cholesterol.  There is some thinking that unnatural fats disrupt these mechanisms; a primary symptom of this is the new obesity we see every day.

If you take drugs to suppress cholesterol levels you are doing yourself even more harm.

Today's medical propaganda machine has made cholesterol a bad word - and their effort is killing us.

People (including doctors) are not interested in understanding the truth about cholesterol and how it works and instead simply ignorantly climb on the "cholesterol" bandwagon created by the drug industries.

Your real enemy is inflammation.  Inflammation in your blood vessels triggers heart attacks.  Inflammation in your body creates problems and bad food creates inflammation.

I believe that you should be eating

- Cold-processed fruits and oils of olives, avocados, canola, peanuts, almonds and apricots.

- Fish such as salmon, sardines, anchovies, and herring.  Plant sources such as flaxseed, walnuts, and pecans.  (Again at low temperatures because high temperatures can destroy the value of these foods.)


- Red meat, poultry, cheese, eggs, cream and butter, and tropical fruits, like palm and coconut oils.

You should not be eating

- Any boxed or canned food purchased from a store.

- Anything in a box from the freezer section.

- Anything with high fructose corn syrup.

- Anything with trans fats, hydrogenated oil, or other unnatural oil (soy, canola, vegetable).

- Meats containing antibiotics, steroids or other chemicals.

As for that turkey in the WSJ article?

Go right ahead so long as its natural and you're not using bad oils.

Eating bad food is bad.

Epic Debt Fail (II) with Felonious Monk

So our wonderful government has not apparently been able to reach a "Debt Deal" (WSJ article here).

Rappers, along with just about everyone else, apparently understand that this is unacceptable (parental advisory - explicit content below).

There is an interesting interview with this guy located here.

I guess its nice that at least someone is complaining about the current US governments unrestricted use of debt.





So if even this "Felonious Monk" guy gets it why don't our leaders?

(Apparently this is not his web site: http://feloniousmunk.com/ so don't waste your time there if you don't agree with his video or my post...)

I wrote about the governments debt follies back in April in my post "Epic Debt Fail".

As Felonious says "its time to put away your check book" US Government.  Actually he singles out Obama for this but that's unfair.  Its a systemic problem in the government - not just Obama.  The entire government must vote to borrow money - Obama cannot do it on his own.

And as I wrote in "Debtor's Banquet" its a true sign of an addiction when, faced with insurmountable debt and foreclosure, you continue to spend.  I had a relative that one time called up and needed help with a tax payment.

I said "send me the return and the other stuff and I will write the check to the IRS and mail it."

The materials never arrived and the relative lost their house do to gambling debts.

Now we have legal "triggers" telling the government that the bank is shutting off the credit cards... yet still we spend, spend, spend...

There is no word for our government representatives save for "losers."

If you love helping others and think the government should do it - great.  Should the government be acting like an irresponsible crack whore in the process?  No.

If you think the government should just be responsible there will be no joy in Mudville tonight, either.

As a responsible man I have to say that this kind of failure is not something you see everyday.  Fifteen trillion dollars in debt and we keep on spending.

Who do we owe this fifteen trillion too?

Japan.

China.

Countries in the middle east.

What about our children?  Why is borrowing money from these countries more important than their future?

What do we owe them?

I Hate Algebra...

A Feynman Diagram

I have been watching a series of interviews with Richard Feynman on youtube.  Fenyman, who I wrote about previously in "Your Child's Mind...", is a Nobel Prize winning Physicist.  Feynman, along with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger won the prize for in 1965 for "fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles."

Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) involves a lot of complex ideas.  Quantum mechanics, for example, has the notion that specific particles, like a photon, may be in more than one place at once.  To represent this a mathematical idea of a "wave function" is used to describe the probability of where the particle might be found - think of a line with two bumps or peaks at different points representing a higher probability that the photon might be at one of those two locations.

Fenyman and his colleagues took the notion of quantum mechanics further by introducing the notion of what happens to the particles over time at relativistic (light) speed.  This was a breakthrough in regard to making quantum mechanics and special relativity, developed by Einstein, come to full agreement with regard to matter, light and experimental results.

In watching this video I was struck for how Feynman, clearly an able mathematician, disparages lowly algebra:



He describes how, as a child, he watches his older brother being tutored in algebra.  The tutor is reviewing how to solve for x in 2x + 7 = 15.

For Feynman the answer, 4, leaps immediately to mind.

But as he observes the brother laboring over the algebra process of subtracting seven from both sides and dividing both sides by two he realizes how stupid the notion of teaching children to reason about mathematical notions in this way is.

Now obviously Feynman needs mathematics to develop QED.

So what is he saying in this video about algebra?

I think basically he is objecting to the notion that you are teaching children how to do something through an algorithmic process that they really don't understand in the first place.  While I can teach monkey the process of steps in changing a tire the monkey, not understanding what it means to drive, really cannot see the point.

One thing that I have seen over the last few decades is that high school algebra seems to be a deciding point in the educational process for most kids.  Either you figure out the model of algebra enough to get by and move on to other mathematical and scientific courses or you don't - in which case those types of course are basically forever out of your reach.

But I have also come to believe that many of the problems that kids have with things like mathematics or music have to do with their perceptions of their ability as much as anything else.  Particularly in the context where things are presented without meaning.

As a child I never liked my "music education."  I always liked music but not how it was taught.  I wondered as a child why it seems so complicated: you had to learn to read notes, staffs, sharps, flats, etc. - all to play a simple song.  It was very discouraging.  Being dyslexic (or maybe lysdixec) just made toiling through the notation a misery.

In algebra I found the rules and algorithms more understandable but I was prone to making foolish errors and mistakes which discouraged me.  My friend and I somehow got a hold of a teachers addition of the algebra book and we were able to use it to work out the steps that were required and check our work (the teachers guide, interestingly enough, would spell out each and every step).

Sadly at the time I did not realize that the teachers did not all know these steps (if they did there would be no need of detailed explanation in the teachers addition).

Since the objective was learning how to apply the steps we did not view it as cheating - but instead as a way to check what we had done.  The tests were not in the book yet we learned to ace them.

Without this experience I would have never passed beyond algebra in high school.

Today, for example, the world of software development runs on this model.  Download some sample code - work out what's missing - publish a program.  Companies from all sizes (Apple down to Lexigraph) all publish "sample code."  Sure we could all start from scratch each time but why bother?

In later years I found the same issues with calculus as with algebra and music.

As an adult I came to realize that musical notation, like algebra, and like Feynman says, is for those that do not have grasp of the basic meaning.

When I see 2x + 7 = 15 I innately realize that x is 4.  Now there are certainly more complex problems where the rules of algebra help to simplify things - but only if you know that you need to simplify things and why.

And that's Feynman's point in the video.

With music I could always hear the notes and pick them out.  As a child I was stymied by believing that somehow reading music was required to play music.  I did not realize that the ability to hear and find the notes is musical talent.  Notation is secondary.

Later as I began to take music seriously I was shocked to discover this.  I spent a great deal of time learning to play what I was hearing - or to harmonize with what I was hearing.  Something I could apparently do all along.

The teaching model for music, like algebra, however, shut off my interest as a child.

Now most everyone will probably not need algebra for much in their lives - unless they are involved in some sort of science or technological endeavor.

But its a shame that the standard teaching model is so discouraging of all forms of talent.

Faster Than Light Again...

A second experiment confirms the first result.

I've been reading "The Trouble With Physics" by Lee Smolin (see Wikipedia here).

Physics today is also about "group thinking" and follows along with "shared research" as I wrote about before "Sharing's Downfall: Dogma".

Personally I believe that things like quantum mechanics need a different model in order to make "sense."

I have some ideas along this line and have written about them here.

Hopefully I'll have more time to post about them.

Consciousness - What is It?

One of the most interesting things about science and mathematics is that they are useless without a human (or perhaps in some cases animal) brain to make use of them.  Without a conscious mind there is no need for these things.

But what is "conscious?"

I recall reading "Engine Summer" in my youth.  It created interesting questions in my mind as to "what is consciousness."

This turns out to be a question for which science and mathematics do not have any real answers.

Many believe that your "consciousness" is somehow like a computer program in some way.  Basically "your brain" = "computer."

I personally believe this to be utter nonsense.

For one thing a computer is "deterministic" - which means that given the same inputs it always creates the same outputs.  But out minds "invent" things - arts, mathematics, science, literature, and so on.  If we are "deterministic" then all of human activity is some how already encoded in out DNA.

But even that is probably nonsense - identical twins don't do everything the same - they don't even have identical finger prints and they certainly don't all think in the same way.

Rodger Penrose, an English physicist, offers what I think is the most interesting thoughts in this regard.



His idea that things from the world of quantum mechanics (which is in and of itself very weird) comes into play in out brains and that somehow this allows us to escape determinism (quantum things not being determistic).

And studying our own consciousness has an interesting history (see this).

Though you have to ask yourself if its possible for a human mind to fully understand a human mind.  (A computer can simulate itself - but not as efficiently as the actual computer.)

The human brain (perhaps save for a whale brain which is significantly larger) is the most complex object we humans know of.  (The Russian's believe that a single brain has more interconnections than all the internet gear on earth today - link.)

There are billions of humans.

And all of this begs the question of whether or not one could "construct" a brain - a consciousness - artificially.  (And do humans acting together create something more complex than a brain?)

Personally I do not think that our brains are like computers.  I have spent most of my life working with computers and software and I see little resemblance.  Certainly there is "AI" but I do not see any evidence of anyone creating a real "AI."  There are programs that can reason about certain things - but only the things which humans create for them to reason about (as well as creating the way for them to reason).

Our brains work regardless of the environment.

There is also the issue of perception.

We do not perceive the physical world directly - all of our senses enter our bodies via various organs.  The results of these organs interpreting our senses is what our brains actually perceive.  (For example, the lenses in our eyes project an upside down image on our retina's - yet we see things right-side up.)

So our senses "edit" our perceptions and we cannot directly perceive what's there beyond them - unless we use our brains to develop a machine, say like an X-ray machine, to see what or where we cannot directly perceive.

I think this is one area, like music, that differentiates us from animals.  The ability to create means to augment our own senses and see what's beyond something that blocks them.  (Though animals have a significant amount of ability in the area of consciousness which perhaps we don't see...)

So how do we see into our own minds then?

How do we build a tool to do this?  Certainly there are some tools, like CAT scans that do this to some degree, but not at a level useful for detailed understanding.  (These tools can tell us, for example, which areas of the brain are active when we do such-and-such or see such-and-such, etc.)

Yet at the same time we can imagine what others might have done, or thought, and so on.

But its only a guess.

To me studying consciousness trumps all other fields of study.

For example, mathematics is a human creation.  No evidence of it exists in the animal world or in the physical world.  Our minds created it.  It is useful for simulating in our heads what our sense perceive.

How is this possible?

How can it work?

How can we know its right?

Unless we have a firm grip on consciousness...

Ender's Game

Some twenty five years ago I read a book that, to this day, still sticks in my mind.

The story (spoiler alert) is called Ender's Game involves a small child in a future world named Ender.  Ender is selected by the "government" as a gifted child capable of helping the "earth" defend itself from the "buggers."

The future earth is not a nice place and the buggers (insectoid life forms) are coming to ruin it further.

Ender is recruited into the service where he is trained in various forms of 3D strategy (space battles being fought in 3D).

Much of Ender's trainings involve what basically amounts to a very realistic video game.

As the story progresses it is revealed that the "video game" is actually a real time, faster-than-light transmitter called the ansible which allows the player to view and control remote spaceships in actual battles with the buggers.

The story was written by Orson Scott Card in the mid 1980's.

Since that time a number of sequels and other related things have appeared.

From a geek perspective this is a fascinating stroke of vision on the part of Card.

Remember that this predates internet, remote controlled drones, the martian lander, and so on.

Today this book is used by the military for strategy.  Ender was a clever child and figured many strategies out to escape the "buggers."

I have often wondered about the concept of placing a problem, say some sort of mathematical problem, into a game where "winning" the game means solving the problem.  Of course the solution would not be in the game - instead there would be a prover that would run to decide if the problem was solved.

Players would "contribute" to the solution via game play - for example developing strategies that the game would remember.  The game could, over time, integrate these strategies into the gameplay allowing later users to build on what earlier players learned.

These ideas are not wild speculation.

Recently a protein folding problem was resolved in this way: see this.

Regina Spektor

Regina Spektor from Wikipedia

Regina Spektor is an musician who I find both extremely interesting as well as entertaining.

I found her a while back on iTunes while I was busy looking for something else - I forget what now.  Her performances are all her own originals.

Spektor is a Russian Jew who emigrated to the US in about 1990 early in her life (around age 10, see this in Wikipedia).  Her story is interesting to me because I lived and worked in NYC in the late 1970s.  I worked at a company called "Plastic Optics" - it had a number of other affiliated companies and was run by a man called "Arnie."

"Arnie" was basically a crazy man...  There was a story about how he had a heart attack in about 1977 and the hospital emergency room workers found $10,000 USD in cash in his pockets as they stripped him for surgery.

Arnie was also Jewish and at the time I worked there was working with various Jewish relief agencies that brought Russian Jews to the US on some sort of special USSR program.  Plastic Optics made eye glass lenses and the newly minted refugees from Russia (all Jews) came to his company for jobs.  Some of them worked for me.

I was born and raised in the midwest.  There were nothing but USA born and bred midwesterners for miles around. 

Needless to say we did not grow up understanding what it was to be Jewish.  Even in college (which I attended for a few years before moving to NYC) there weren't a lot of Jewish kids.

Not so in NYC.  It seemed everyone at Plastic Optics was Jewish - except me.  The office was filled with Jewish women.  The shop floor Jewish men and a variety of other interesting locals.

So I've been around a lot of Russian Jews.  Spektor is so interesting because her songs embody the kind of humor I recall from those days - funny but burning with irony.

I doubt many today even recall the Soviet Union (USSR) or how horrible it was.  The stories of misery these people told were by today's standards unimaginable - especially for a midwestern boy.

In those days many of the Russian Jews who emigrated to the US lived in Coney Island.  A far away (hour and a half subway ride) place I never visited in the remote wilds of Brooklyn.

At any rate Regina brings a phenomenal perspective to things.

Many of her lyrics (with obnoxious ads) can be found here or by Googling.

She is also on youtube.





Finally, I leave you with "Laughing With..."

Laughing With

"No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one laughs at God
When the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
When it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from the party yet

No one laughs at God
When their airplane start to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love, hand in hand with someone else
And they hope that they’re mistaken

No one laughs at God
When the cops knock on their door
And they say we got some bad news, sir
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine or fire or flood

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha
Ha ha

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’ve lost all they’ve got
And they don’t know what for

No one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughing at God in hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor

No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
We’re all laughing with God"

Your Child's Mind...

Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman has always been an interest of mine.  He as a very clear way of thinking which I appreciate.

The attached video portrays his thoughts on how people think and how differently people who seem to think similarly may in fact not.

To summarize the video Feynman describes how, as an undergraduate at Princeton, he tried to figure out how accurately he could keep time by counting in his head.  (You know, the old "one thousand one, one thousand two, ..." routine.)  He chose a minute as his target and basically got to one thousand forty eight as a reliable estimate of a minute.

Feynman was exploring what he else he could do while performing this counting.  He realized he could read fairly well but he could not count things, for example he could not count out his socks for the laundry but he could lay them out in a pattern to count them.



Basically the counting of something besides the time confused "the voice in his head."
After figuring this out Feynman approached a mathematician at breakfast and described how the mathematician could not count something besides counting out the time.

The mathematician said it was nonsense and proceeded to demonstrate to Feynman how he in fact could count something besides the time.  However the mathematician could not read something else as Feynman had.

The result of all this is that Feynman realized that the mathematician was counting time by visualizing a counter in his head while he, Feynman, was using his "inner voice" to enunciate the each "one thousand one."

To me, as a father and grandfather, this was something of an epiphany.

I have often wondered why one child could easily learn something while another child could not.

It never dawned on me that one child might visually see something while another might hear it instead.

More importantly why had no educator, ever, that I had crossed paths with over the last thirty years ever mentioned or thought of this.

How obvious.

One child sees the word visibly as in image in their mind, another hears the word being spoken.

And no doubt there are other ways this could be done as well, say color (see "Born on a Blue Day" by Daniel Tammet").

Now just sorting out people who think with images or sound or something else might make everyone's life (parents, teachers, etc.) easier.  Tammet in particular knew himself how different his model of thinking was from everyone else...

As a parent and grandparent I have watched children inexplicably struggle to understand things that seem quite obvious.  I've always wondered why they struggled.  This offers a glimmer of hope in understanding why...

And still, no educator has ever even suggested that any two children learned differently (see "Teaching Your Child" I wrote about five years ago).

In fact they think just the opposite...

That all children are the same in this regard.

It really makes you wonder what they learn in school about education and the principles of teaching.

Everyone Needs a Plumber...

Plumbers typically earn (according to this in the WSJ) between $35 and $50 USD per hour - master plumber's up to $100 USD per hour.

I'd have to say that that's not a bad wage.

Know anyone who hasn't needed a plumber?  I don't.

What's more interesting, according to the same article, parents discourage little Suzy and Johnny from this sort of career.

Its viewed as low-brow grunt work.  Much less fun or fulfilling than IT or healthcare.

But is it?

I think not.  I've known plumbers, electricians, HVAC guys, builders, and as well as guys in virtually all other "blue collar" professions over my lifetime. 

Quite honestly I would say they think the job is on you.

With a reasonable effort you can work you way into one of these careers... often starting as a "helper" or "grunt."   If you have any brains at all you can do more, much more...  Have an artistic bent?  Then you can do jobs where people will wonder at your work.  Like to make money, then be like the one master plumber I used a years ago - showed up in his 20 year old beater car, no helper, etc. and drove his beater happily home with several hundred bucks for a few hours work.

This guy had no education loans - that's for sure...

Starting out with an ivy league degree and you can expect (according to USA Today) that the "lowest median starting salary for an elite eight ranges from $49,400 for Brown to $59,600 for the University of Pennsylvania."  By mid career you could be making anywhere from "$99,700 from Columbia to a high of $123,000 from Princeton and Dartmouth."

Sounds good, right?

But take my master plumber buddy - easily this guy is pulling in $100,000 USD a year.  He's probably less stressed than you average Columbia grad at the same age - and he probably doesn't have the corresponding $200,000 USD debt you'd have from an ivy league school.

That $200K loan is going to cost you $2,100 USD a month if you want it paid off in 10 years, $1,300 a month in 20 years (at 5%).

So for your average low-end graduate that's taking up about 1/2 your income... so your $50K salary is really about $24K for the duration of loan.  The same as making about $15/hour.

If you're a decent plumber's helper you'd probably be making more, at least in Alaska.

With no debt and fewer worries (if you worry about your debts).

And of course if you're ambitious you can start your own plumbing company and make even more...

So why are parents steering folks away from this kind of profession?

I think its because college's have created a mystique about "education" that they frankly can't really fulfill for the most part.

Sure it sounds great that little Johnny has a college degree.

But quite honestly most people couldn't care less - at least in the "real world."

In the "academic" world its a different story though.  I've worked with all kinds of people over the years and quite honestly what matters is the persons character and their skill for what I hire them for.  I don't care where they got it from.  I just care that they have it.

In fact, I'd rather hire a poor guy than a highly educated guy with an education loan.

The reason is that the poor guy isn't going to think he's entitled to a "high valuation" as far as payment is concerned.

The most desperate people in my view are those that have too much leverage.

Not those that are poorer - they tend to have better character and feel less needful of "entitlements" - like an entitlement to my money for less work.

College today plays the game of the old Dr. Seuss classic "The Sneetches."

Little do parent realize that the college plays the roll of "McBean" who, throughout the story, continually profits from envy of those who don't have.

As long as you think you are paying for something, like a college education, that's the "ticket" to riches you won't ask too many questions about the details - like if you'll really end up with riches, like if you'll have to work less hard than others, etc.

Certainly many professions require a college education - like doctors.

But don't enter the field unless you're really interested.

In 1985 I recall interviewing IT graduates from CMU.  Most couldn't care less about IT - they were in it for the money and said so in the interview.

Gee, should I hire them?

Sure, if I wanted my customers to think I was ripping them off...

I Guess the Sky is Not Blue and White Today...

(The title today is taken from the punch line to the joke "Is God a Penn State Fan?")

I really haven't been following the Penn State story in too much detail over the last few days - there's really no need.  The story is one that's repeats routinely and often everywhere from politics to academia to business. 

And its an old story too.

I am writing today about Penn State because the events there have had a small and direct effect on me.  And this effect has given me pause for thought.

But first there must be full disclosure.

I am not a Penn State "fan" by any stretch of the imagination.  Though this blog is powered daily by coffee from a Penn State mug  (as seen at the top of the post) things are not what they might otherwise seem.  A child of mine attend Penn State and graduated from "main" (as its called) some years ago.

I funded this endeavor to avoid cursing my child with some $80K USD in debt upon graduation.  Good thing too.  As such I merely feel entitled to my share of related official bling from various annual pilgrimages: tee shirts, coffee mugs, etc.

Save for our home it was the largest amount of money I ever spent on one thing.

I have traveled up for game day in the past - but I am too old to sit in freezing bleachers, my feet surrounded by pools of undergraduate vomit.  It certainly is a spectacle to see.  There are RV's full of ancient (and no doubt retired) PSU fans parked around the stadium - license plates from all over the country.  There are road-side stands selling PSU "hoagies" miles from State College on all roads leading to to "Rome" (or perhaps the "Coliseum").

So, having disclosed all this, on to the meat of the issue.

My friend does an open mic every Thursday night.  I play in the "house band."  I was getting ready as usual - shower and then get dressed.  Gig wear is usually a tee shirt.

Last night I reached for one of my PSU shirts and my arm froze...

Hmmm...

The other night I was at an open mic and PSU jokes are part of the show.  Maybe I ought not to wear this tonight...  (Now I have all kinds of funky tee shirts for gigs, ones from Hawaii, old bands, etc. but never, I repeat never, have I had to worry about a shirt associated with a scandal like this...)

I didn't wear the PSU shirt.  And, sure enough, at the gig the topic came up...  Jokes and heads shaking.

I believe that the tragedy here is far, far larger than portrayed by the media.  Certainly there will be more heads rolling at PSU related to it. 

But that's not the point of this blog post...

More history...

I have had a variety of associations with "academics" over the years.  My parents had "professors" who were friends when I was a child.  I myself when to the big state university where I encountered all sorts of academics (this was mid 1970's).

At the time there was (and still is nearly forty (count'm '4' '0') years later) a standing joke that though being a teaching assistant (TA - or whatever your big 'U' calls them) or young professor paid "shit" the real benefit was the coeds, i.e., young girls.

Young girls (TA's all knew about the "age of consent" both in my home state as well as in other states I lived in over the years) who were in need of a "better grade" on a test or for the semester.

These were not isolated incidents...  and I am not a college graduate.  This is just personal, anecdotal observation with the briefest of encounters with "academia."

In later years I worked for a number of "academics" that had moved into the "real world."

The attitude toward "coeds" was the same...

I recall working on some project involving gambling machines.  We went to visit the stat prof's house where the machine was installed.  Sure enough there was his latest buxom "coed" - upstairs waiting for the meeting and technical analysis to complete.

There was another situation where a "coed" of interest was known to be "under age" - this caused quite a bit of concern in subsequent years by the TAs I knew as they counted the years involved in the "statute of limitations."

I personally saw enough to convince me that part of the "academic lifestyle" involved ready access to will "coeds."

Back to PSU...

This particular case is different in that it involved some other elements - but then again this is modern times.

The real issue, though, is that the model of those "in power" over those "not in power" using their position for personal sexual conquest is heavily engrained the academic world.

The age of consent across the country is basically 18 years of age.

Many coeds arrive at college before their 18th birthday.

An then there is the issue of those "in power" lording it over those not - why is this somehow "okay" in an academic environment when those "not in power" are "of age"?  Is it not the job of the coed to be gaining an education?

And that's my real point in all of this.

In business its not okay for someone in charge of, say, hiring, to make advances with someone looking for a job.

Why is it okay for academics to require sexual favors in order to advance grades?

Why is this not given more scrutiny by the government, the press, anyone?

While the "lid" at PSU may have been blown off I doubt this event has enough strength to blow the lid off the real problem - the fact that this behavior is firmly entrenched at virtually all big colleges and universities.

You can see this on TV today - accusers suggesting that a job was to be traded for sexual favors.

But no one ever sees this on TV from the local U.

Will this event have enough "legs" to call out the real problem?

I think the date November 10th, 2011 (the date of Paterno's firing) should be considered "National Out Abusive Academic's Day."

Starling Murmuration

If you believe in aliens or other strange other-worldly phenomena you might want to watch these videos.

You will see how unbelievable reality really is...


Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

The Science of Lying... (Part II)

Dr. Mark Hyman

Just so you don't think that I am a crackpot making up random thoughts on science I'd like to use this post to link to a few others articles in support of my thesis.

The first is a study described in the WSJ related to surgery and the elderly.

Here a study in the British journal Lancet found that 32% of elderly Americans undergo surgery in the year before they die.  The point being made (the trick) is that somehow a variety of unnecessary surgeries were being performed on the elderly and they died "anyway" or "in spite of the surgery."  Thus resources that could have been spent presumably on patients with more of a chance for success (say those who are younger).

I wonder if that's even ethical?

However, the truth is somewhat different.  If you only study records of the dead, as this study did, then you are unlikely to find the successful results of surgery.

Duh!

Another example is recent studies on vitamins and how taking them "is bad for you."

This time we will turn to Dr. Mark Hyman.

In this article he describes why these new vitamins are bad studies are bogus.  A while back I wrote "Contrary Thoughts on Health..." in regard to the same topic and related to this study: "Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women: The Iowa Women's Health Study."

(Dr. Hyman writes about a lot of interesting stuff.  If you are interested you could start with this on "wellness."  He is also linked on the personal blog.)

As I indicated in my posts these types of studies do not express cause and effect and instead should be used to demonstrate reasons to do further research.  But the results are not often presented that way.

See this, for an example.  In this write up, targeted at medical professionals dealing with the elderly they conclude the write with: "We cannot recommend the use of vitamin and mineral supplements as a preventive measure, at least not in a well-nourished population," they add. "Those supplements do not replace or add to the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables and may cause unwanted health consequences."

What does this mean?

Well, for one thing, it means that if you were already getting all your necessary nutrients you wouldn't need more...

Duh!

People take vitamins because they do not believe they food supply is adequately providing the nourishment they need.

Hyman's article goes on to do a detailed analysis of why the vitamin study is flawed and points out that the modern obesity epidemic is caused by poor nutrition.

The next thing you have to ask yourself is what's the point of these studies...

Are these scientists who set them up and run them that stupid?

I suppose its possible.

More likely is that their interest is in demonstrating that people taking responsibility for their own health is a bad idea and that someone else, i.e., doctors know what's best.  Secondly there is an underlying issue of the "cost" of the healthcare and how its wasted on folks like the elderly.  Taken together the message is "doctors know best and know when you shouldn't get treatment."

From what I am able to read and understand this is the true focus: "we're from the government and we're here to help," i.e., we know what's best for you.

From my perspective I started writing this series of blogs about eighteen months ago.

During that time I have learned far more about how the government and "big pharma" are together kill a large fraction of populous - from "medical errors" to "bad nutrition" to "bad medicine."

My health and particularly my perceived "quality of health" has changed dramatically over this time.

I have written before about my sinus problems as an example.

Today I am free of problems.  Do I have to take care of myself by taking an iodine supplement and flushing my sinuses as needed - yes I do - and its a responsibility that I take seriously because being responsible reduces my "sick days" to something like one or two a year (only for stomach flu).  I have no more sinus problems and my family has a history of them.

(I guess if "sick days" were a job "benefit" then this wouldn't be so good... but that's separate problem.)

The modern world seems to believe that you're too busy to be bothered with your own health and that someone else will do a better job for you.  Right.

Loan your expensive restored car to a kid for a "night out."  Will they take care of it as good as you do?

To me this is the true problem - people today somehow believe that there is no need for "responsibility for self" any more...

More Impossible Objects

About six months ago I wrote a post about "Impossible Objects."  This was and is one of my most popular posts ever.

Today I thought I'd server up a few more that I've found since then.

One of the most interesting is this chalk drawing.

The idea here being that the light and shadow of the crater have been created by the chalk artist to make the hole in the ground look real.

The Escher stair case appears in many situations.  Here's an overhead shot of an actual Escher-style staircase.

There are some interesting effects one can accomplish to create effects (like invisibility).  While not "impossible objects" per se these effects are just as interesting.  For example, with the right body paint one can virtually disappear in a public, open space.

And then...

These are images of Liu Bolin - a Chinese artist.  Googling will turn up may more images like this.


Its not hard to imagine that others in the past have figured this out as well giving rise to various legends about people "disappearing" into the night and appearing out of nowhere.  (As an aside about six years ago we had a very heavy rain - 5 or  6 inches in a few hours.  A steep hill near our home was riddled with ground hog holes.  The rain softened the earth to the point where the top three or so feet of earth in a forty by one hundred fifty (40' x 150') section slide down maybe six feet leaving a gap in the earth above the tear.  It makes me think that stories of the earth opening up and "swallowing" someone are quite possible.)

When we hear about things, ghosts, spooks, demons, strange goings on in the night deliberate use of techniques like these is never really considered.  Yet look how effect they really are.

These techniques do also appear in the real world without an artist to create them.

Take this photo for example.

A quick look will show that it appears that the woman's feet are mismatched with her torso - her left foot attached to her right leg, and vice versa.  However, this is an actual, unretouched photograph.

What actually happening can be seen here:

You can see at the left (where her hand is photoshoped out) that everything is as it should be.

There is a physical touch equivalent to this visual illusion.

If you cross your fingers (see below where the middle finger crosses over the index finger) and take an object like the erase of a pencil and touch it to where the finger cross over you will "feel" two separate erasers.

Because your brain does not "realize" that your fingers are crossed it perceives that each separate finger is touching a separate object.

Finally, I leave you with this little gem...

The Science of Lying... (Part I)

I have written here how I do not like "believe" in science.

(This is the second time I am writing this because the new Google blog interface is not very reliable and somehow all my work disappeared.)

Another thing I do not believe in is how, using the name of "science" faux (fake) scenarios are created to whip up enthusiasm for what would otherwise be foolish or stupid causes.  Most important in this is the notion of risk and correlation.  About a year ago I wrote "Cholesterol, Heart Disease and Magical Thinking" where I discuss how the notion of epidemiological risk is used to create false correlations between cholesterol and heart disease in order to sell drugs.

I thought I would illustrate this a bit more clearly with a kind of story...

This is probably the most common type of "science" story you will see in the daily newspaper or internet news feed.  I have purposefully crafted this story to prove a few points:

"As many may or may not know in the Wolf household we routinely consume about 460 ml of coffee each day and have for many years.  Over the last few weeks the household coffee consumption increased to 700 ml of coffee per day.  We noticed that in conjunction with this coffee increase an increase is problems with the tractor ultimately resulting in a complete failure that required us to take the tractor for service.


"Coffee is a dangerous substance (it contains caffeine which is a stimulant) so it seems likely that the increase in coffee could be negatively affecting how the humans in the Wolf household use and operate the tractor.


"A special new study will be undertaken to determine why this coffee consumption increase had created such a significant tractor problem.

You have seen this paradigm before in newspapers, on TV in the news - too much this, too much that, too little of X in your diet, and so on - and you are killing yourself.  Red meat is bad, high fructose corn syrup is bad, sugar is bad, and so on and each causes a variety of misery in your life.

The first point I would like to make is that the trouble starts with the third sentence "We noticed..."

Seems innocuous enough - "we noticed a problem" - everyone pays attention to that sort of statement - especially if they can relate the to situation - drinking coffee.  The trick here is to rope you on on some common thread and then "notice a problem."  If I said I noticed a problem in South Africa last week related to grain exports most people's eyes would glaze over and they would tune out.

But instead I related a simple, common scenario and then "noticed a problem" with it - since you relate to the scenario you relate now to the problem - you're hooked.

The second paragraph sets the hook.  We all know everything we like and need and use on a day to day basis is somehow bad for us.  So the second paragraph postulates that the coffee situation and the problems with something else might be related.

This is a correlation - and its of the worst kind.

Most readers would not question the correlation - it seems at least somewhat scientific and, because we wrote about how bad something is that is involved in the situation - its likely that the "badness" may in fact have something to do with the problem presented (the tractor malfunctioning).

Notice that I do not say it is affecting things - just that it could be.

You've bought into the coffee is bad scenario and, to get you on "my bandwagon" I need you to make the leap of faith I want you to - that the coffee's affect on humans is involved.

But this is not about causation, i.e., I drank too much coffee before bed time and I could not sleep or I pushed the ball and it rolled down the stairs.

Its about correlation - I saw the girl run into the house, the house caught fire, and the girl was found dead - the fire must have killed the girl.  Here there are no facts or causes - just something that seems to make good sense.

So are there some facts in this article to tell us why the coffee/tractor problem needs to be studied.

Nope.

Its just designed to "sign you up" that coffee is bad and causing yet another problem.

Of course the last paragraph merely confirms this - of course someone in authority will look into this.

In actuality the tractor broke down because its old and Mrs. Wolf began to drink coffee recently.

But if I told you those things I would be reporting facts and asking you to make this leap of faith - which you would not - because you would know the truth.

If I really wanted your attention I would have involved children.

Then everyone would be up in arms about the coffee/tractor problem - because the children would be in danger.

The problem is that in our society today so much of the news is written in this way.  With an agenda - with a specific structure and story line designed to make thinking that anything but what's being suggested is pure nonsense.

Of course caffeine is involved because its bad.

If I changed the article to be about days of daycare treatment without an injury and claimed that instead of the tractor breaking down someone went to the hospital there would be outrage.

Those damn coffee drinkers - they are jeopardizing our children's safety.

If you read the link on "risk" you will see that things are actually far worse in that industrialized science (science for grant money) really is not about cause and effect but about identifying risks - like the risk here that too much coffee is creating dangerous tractor scenarios.

Fun with OC-80's

During the last almost ten years (1999 to 2008) the death rate from prescription pain killers has tripled according to this MediPage article.
I have never been a fan of the various heavy duty prescription pain killers for a number of reasons.  The first and foremost is that there is really no sort of FDA or corporate responsibility for their distribution (they are available without much effort to virtually any one).  Secondly they do not solve the problems and in many cases cause more.  Third they virtually create a "drug culture model" for many who take them.

I have written about this before on the personal blog in 'Rehab? - I said "no, no, no"...'.

What's interesting is that this brings the US opioid overdose death rate in line with US homicide rate (see 'The "Risk" of the Cure...') and no one really seems to care.

Now from personal experience I have had the pain of dealing with a close family member being taken by homicide and the repercussions of a homicide can last decades or a lifetime for the surviving family members.

But then there is opioid overdose.  Now what is not reported in this article is who is affected.  By who I mean that in some cases these deaths are of the elderly and some cases are kids hooked on these drugs.

My guess is that a fair number of elderly people are afflicted with this problem - opioid dependence - and suffer a death as a consequence.  This all being part of the "big pharma" model associated with the modern medical establishment like I describe in "Rehab?"  My guess is that this is associated with situations like inadvertent confusion about prescriptions, multiple prescriptions, etc. that can plague elderly people.  Their faith and trust in doctors leads them to believe that the cures these doctors offer do not need them to carefully supervise the use of these drugs.  Similarly family members taking care of an elderly relative often do not comprehend the seriousness of these drugs.

This is also a problem for the rest of the population and it comes through addiction.

Recently a friend of mine disclosed that he was receiving about 90 OC-80's a month.  We were standing in the parking lot before a gig...

"What for?" I asked - though he had had several heart attacks he was in relatively good shape.

"Oh, they just give them too me..." he replied.

"Why?" I asked.

"Well, I have problems with my legs now and then..."

"They are bad news," I said.

"I know," he replied, "I never take them... I just sell them."

"Oh," I replied.

"Yeah - its a good income, five dollars times ninety ($450 USD) a month."

He was on disability to begin with and this made a huge difference in getting through the month.

"Who buy's them?" I asked.

"Some high school kid."

This took me back about six or seven years.  I was sitting in a stall in a bathroom in a high-end Chi Town suburban hotel.  Some high school students came in as part of a prom or something.  One said to the other:

"Yeah, I think I'll just smoke some heroin later..."

"Wow" I thought to myself. 

Leaving the stall I noticed these looked like average high-end high school kids - well dressed, natty, arrogant.  Probably from rich suburban neighborhoods - they probably had their own cars, computers, and cell phones.

So from my perspective there is little wonder the death rate is accelerating.  Heroin is probably hard and messy to get (or at least relatively hard) and mom and dad night stand (or grandma's cupboard) is probably a handy and plentiful source of OC-80s.

While there is outrage about homicide and we even have a big, complex justice system to manage that no on seems to care much about opioid pain killer deaths.

According to the MediPage article industry produces"710 mg of prescription opioids per person in the U.S" - enough to "medicate every American adult with a typical dose of 5 mg of hydrocodone (Vicodin, Lortab) every four hours for one month".

How troubling is that?

Its really, really, really hard to imagine that the companies producing these drugs are not profiting the addiction and deaths of others.  We really need that much medication like this?

Yet no one cares, no one complains. 

Just like the 65 mph speed limit I wrote about in "The "Risk" of the Cure."

The MediPage sites some comments from a study that says basically "a few irresponsible doctors" are creating this problem.

Right.

They'd need the OC-80's themselves for the writers cramp needed to write that many prescriptions.

There are 330 million people in the USA and 661,000 or so doctors.

Each doctor would have to write five (5) pain killer prescriptions per business day each business day (200 per year) of the year to distribute that many prescriptions for pain meds.

If only 10% of these doctors are "bad" that's 50 prescriptions a day.

No one notices this?

If only 1% are "bad doctors" then that's 500 prescriptions per day.

Gives one pause, doesn't it...