Month: October 2006

More autism

TIME.com: Why We Need to be Careful in the Search for Autism’s Cause — Page 1

The week also brought a more definitive, though less splashy finding on the causes of autism, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. A team led by Levitt found that a fairly common gene variation-one that’s present in 47% of the population-is associated with an increased risk of autism.

I just posted about the research that this article is responding to. This Time article sounds a little like blogosphere hate – because many bloggers read the article I did and talked about it, the article must be based on wild conjecture and made up data.

I think it’s great that scientists take the research of others with a grain of salt – if it looks contrary to what you’ve seen, you should certainly investigate. And I understand the feeling of many experts in various fields that the internet has allowed everyone to think they are experts, and spread their opinions all over. But isn’t it at least worth investigating? They’ve found some strong statistics suggesting that increased TV watching corresponds with a rise in autism. Isn’t that at least a good starting point? Why can’t the geneticists and medical researchers talk to the economists about their findings? Maybe that would be helpful.

The fact that something is blogged does not make it right or wrong. Many smart people blog many smart things. And many not so smart people blog misleading or untrue things. Actually, I’m sure smart bloggers post false information, too. Anyway.

Time had this to say about the previous research:

Could there be something to this strange piece of statistical derring- do? It’s not impossible, but it would take a lot more research to tease out its true significance. Meanwhile, it’s hard to say just what these correlations measure.

A lot more research? Well, lucky us, we have 300 million people in the country. Surely some of them could do research. Maybe they could look for reasons why or why not TV watching affects autism. Maybe a kid has to be genetically predisposed to autism to get it, but that watching a lot of TV at a young age makes it more likely. Meanwhile, it’s hard to say what ANY correlations measure. We don’t live in a vaccuum with only one or two outside influences acting on our bodies and lives at a time. If we did, cause and effect would be easy to determine. “Look, that guy who likes to swim in a pool of mercury is looking a little unwell.”

Edit: Time has now changed the title of the story from “Why We Need to be Careful in the Search for Autism’s Cause” to “A Bizarre Study Suggests — Irresponsibly — That Watching TV Causes Autism“.  I don’t know how much they changed the article since this morning – I think the opening paragraph is more skeptical of the report, but the rest of the article looks the same.  I’ll leave it to you to decide what that all means.

Creative Commons – not just for hippies

MediaShift . Digging Deeper::Creative Commons + Flickr = 22 Million Sharable Photos | PBS Link via John Batelle

“I think Creative Commons is a huge thing and I attribute a lot of my success to it,” Krug said. “Since the beginning I’ve given all my photos away on the Internet and they’ve been used by other bloggers and people all along the way and it’s gotten my name out there.

Article is about a photographer who has shared his high quality photos under a Creative Commons license, and how it’s gotten his name out there.  Are you listening, music industry?

I have about 1500 photos shared on Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license.  That means anyone can use the photo for whatever they want as long as theygive me credit, don’t make money from it, and keep the license the same.  I’ve never had anyone I don’t know use a photo (To my knowledge), but I know at least one friend has used a few as desktop backgrounds, which is cool.  And I’m not a professional photographer or anything, but I have an expensive DSLR and I more or less know how to use it.

Anyway, good to hear Creative Commons success stories.

The age of stingrays is upon us

Stingray leaps into boat, stabs man in chest – CNN.com

This is somewhat worrisome.  The number of stingray attacks that I’m aware of has risen from zero in the first twenty-eight years of my life to two in the last two months.  The percentage increase in stingray attacks is so large we can’t express it in numbers!  It has to be expressed in abject terror.

Did you see the Simpsons episode where Lisa frees the dolphin, who then brings the other dolphins back to enslave the world?  This is what’s happening now with the stingrays.  You’ll see.  All this talk about the 2008 elections will be moot when Stingy the Stingray is our tyrannical leader, and we’re all slaves in his palace.

HOTSOUP.com is open for business

HOTSOUP.com – Home

HOTSOUP.com was created by four Democratic strategists, three Internet entrepreneurs, two Republican strategists and one journalist. But it’s not about us …. It’s about you….

HOTSOUP finally launched today.  So, my first impressions . . .   First of all, they don’t have RSS feeds for anything that I saw right away.  I suppose the point of the site is community involvement rather than just content, so in some sense letting people use an RSS feed instead of having to come to the site is counterproductive.  But it’s probably not a good idea to travel down the “AOL Walled Garden” approach and force people to interact with you in your little playhouse.

I have to say that I’m likely to forget about a site if there’s no RSS feed.  If it has a regularly updated feed, I’ll put it in my Google Reader and follow along.  If not, I’ll probably forget to check back.

Another thing, and I suppose this is just my perception, is that I get this feeling of underhandedness.  As if they’ve got some agenda they’re going to spring on us as soon as they reel us in.  And I can’t quite explain where that comes from.  Perhaps paranoia.  But it seems a little artificial.  As if they’re trying to make a MySpace for politics, and they’ve drafted some big names to get the first accounts and attract the people.

But this so far is all negative, and I don’t think the site is bad.  And I’m sure, if they really are serious about it being community-driven, that they’ll tweak it if things don’t work.  So I’ll keep an eye on it, and see how things go.

Enviga sucks. Pass it on.

Shocker: Enviga Doesn’t Actually Burn Calories – Consumerist

Heck, we’re only marketing it as ‘The Calorie Burner.’ It’s not like we’re saying it burns calories or something!

I wrote about this before, and now it seems that the calorie burning soda-tea or whatever it is doesn’t really burn calories. Still no information on calorie content.

Eat more fish

TIME.com Daily Rx: Choose Your Fish Wisely

While Americans are eating more fish on average today than at the turn of the century, we’re not eating the healthiest kinds of seafood. The most popular form of seafood, shrimp, is high in cholesterol and contains low levels of omega-3 fatty acids. And that cafeteria staple, fish sticks, contain very low levels of methylmercury but are equally poor sources of omega-3 oils

You, undoubtedly, should eat more fish.  What I recommend you do is go to the store and purchase some fresh tilapia, a lemon, some broccoli, a few tomatos, garlic, vegetable broth, olive oil, black pepper, and oregano.  Come home and put the fish in some tin foil, drench it in lemon juice, sprinkle with oregano and black pepper, and then seal the tin foil.  Preheat the oven to 400 and bake for 10-15 minutes, maybe more, depending on the thickness of the fish.  If you don’t know how to tell if fish is done, consult someone who does.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic in the olive oil.  If you don’t already have olive oil, you really should.  I know, it’s expensive.  But a bottle lasts a long time, and it’s good for you.  Anyway, saute the garlic, then add the tomatos.  Make sure you throw the juice and squishy stuff from the tomatos in to the pan, too.  There should be a layer of liquid covering the pan.  If not, add a bit of vegetable broth.  Once the tomatos are simmering, toss the broccoli, turn down the heat, and cover.  Do NOT stir in the broccoli – it should be sitting on top of the tomatos.  You’re basically steaming the broccoli with the tomato juice. If you’ve timed it correctly, your fish will be done right as the brocolli gets nice and tender.  If you have, let me know, because I’ve never managed to do it.  When it’s all done, throw the fish on a plate, add some of the broccoli/tomato mixture (I think it should go on top of the fish, but that’s just me), and enjoy.

I think the problem with fish (It was my problem, at least) is that people are scared to cook it.  It’s really easy to cook.  Yes, you should be careful and make sure you’ve cooked it all the way through.  But other than that, it’s very easy to cook, and I find it delicious.  And it’s good for you.

Turn the TV off

TV might cause autism. By Gregg Easterbrook – Slate Magazine link via Futurismic

Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3.

So, really, when they say that TV rots your brain, maybe they were actually right. The article makes it clear that they have not proven that watching TV too much when you’re under 3 causes autism.  But they have shown that the percentage of children with autism were rising faster in areas with cable TV than those without, and this is based on data old enough so that there still were areas without cable.

Research has shown that autistic children exhibit abnormal activity in the visual-processing areas of their brains, and these areas are actively developing in the first three years of life. Whether excessive viewing of brightly colored two-dimensional screen images can cause visual-processing abnormalities is unknown.

There are other factors that may come into play here.  The negative effects of the TV watching could be due to increased time indoors rather than the actual TV.  But it’s interesting that autism may be more strongly linked to the first couple years of life rather than genetics.

Regardless, get your kids outside.  Playing in the backyard with the neighbor’s kids definitely doesn’t cause autism, or ADHD, or obesity.

Angry Letters

Complaining in action

I’m still unhappy with the result of my inquiry to the DMV about Seven Corners. Today, as usual, someone wanted to be in my lane. And it’s dark when I go through the intersection at this time of year, and raining this morning. It just makes it worse.

So I’ve decided to do something about it. I just wrote a letter to Congressman Jim Moran, 8th District of Virginia. I’ve decided that I should write more letters to my representatives. I may write to Tim Kaine and complain about his treatment of my wife when she volunteered for him (He never sent even a mass-email thank you). I’ll write to my Senator about this same issue at Seven Corners.

I invite all of you to write your representatives, as well. If you send me a copy of the letter, I’ll post it here. Then you’ll be famous with ten to twenty people a day just like I am.

Edit: I sent the letter to Senators Warner and Allen as well. You can see that letter, and the future letters I plan to write, once I write them, by clicking the “Angry Letters” link at the top of the page.

OH NO! Family values are dead!

For first time, unmarried households reign in US – Yahoo! News

Unmarried couples gravitated toward big cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, while the farm states in the Great Plains and rural communities of the Midwest and West remained bastions of traditionalism, according to the survey.

Interesting survey, maybe, except Yahoo doesn’t really provide any numbers.  Their main point is that in 2005, for the first time more than 50% of households were not a heterosexual married couple.  The gist of the story is, “OH NO!  The family is going out the window!  Soon the evil gays will run the world!”  You have to read between the lines a little bit, but that’s all there.

I don’t think this points to any sort of decline in family values.  In fact, maybe it points to a growing financial intelligence among young people.  Nothing in the article supports that, but it’s not my fault that Yahoo’s reporting is not very thorough.

What I’m talking about, though, is that they don’t take into account people cohabitating because it makes financial sense.  For example, about three years ago, I was living with two roomates.  We were renting a house because none of us could really afford a place on our own.  The two of them, encouraged by our landlord/realtor, decided to buy a house.  They were both tired of throwing money away in rent, but we live in Northern Virginia.  It’s really expensive to live here, and most single people in their mid-twenties have a little trouble buying.

So, they bought a house.  They signed some contract so they used both of their incomes as co-buyers.  I rented from them because I wasn’t ready for that kind of financial commitment.

Now, a few years later, I’ve moved out, bought my own place, and gotten married.  One of the roommates is currently renting with his fiancee, and the other just got married a few weeks ago, and he and his new wife are moving somewhere together.

My point here is that we were a household that didn’t involve a heterosexual married couple, but it wasn’t because we’re bad people or we hate family values or anything like that.  It was because we were unmarried and didn’t want to spend three quarters of our income on housing.

I have no idea if there’s anything in the survey to support an increase in situations like that.  But this shows the danger in showing partial statistics.  If you can pick and choose which numbers and which relationships to show, you can support just about any hypothesis you want.