Total hours on bus 52Our first glimpse of Patagonia was from the small beach town of Puerto Madryn which has a very different pace of life to BA unsuprisingly. There is not a lot to do here but it is a good base camp for the two parks nearby and boasts some pretty stunning views. The past couple of days have been very much about seeing as much wildlife as we can before we move south where it be
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Day 8
I awoke to monsoonal weather today and it looked as if the day was going to be a complete write off from the start. I was feeling pretty down due to a combination of a lack of sleep and nervousness about moving on from Rio. I'd had to change rooms for one night due to a mix up in room bookings and I wasn't altogether happy about it. To compound things the guy sleeping above me snored horribly a
First month of flying Month of November 2007
Well I do have to apologize to all as I was away for awhile..been busy with flying and yeah now I have sometime off to write it down again Let start with story about 2 years ago I will start with my first flight and layover ever I have done in my flying carreer TXL Berlin We were accually really got excitting about the first month roster we have got and that what I have got on the first f
Feb24march 2
Feb 24Day 40Today we got up and had a slowish morning we were hoping the weather would hold up for us to go do our big air experience. Around 10 or so we caught a taxi to the bridge where we had to walk through a small customs point to get on the bridge itself.After we signed our life away we were off. First up was the flying fox zip cord thing. It was nothing exilerating but a beautiful view. T
uruguaysian persuasion
Hi everyonewell its definitely been ages since we last wrote anything on here. Mainly because we are lazy haha. Well when we left off last time we were leaving BA. BA was fab but we just had to get out of there mainly because we wanted to make it to a little place called Gualeguaychu pronounced wahlehwaychu where they have a massive carnival every saturday of februray.So we woke up very
Andaman Bond
A few thoughts on Thailand so far Yes you can fit 14 hot and sweaty tourists into the back of a flat bed truck posing as a bus without them complaining as they think it is all part of the adventure. Yes you can fit 4 people onto a small mopedmotorbike. Yes you can breast feed your baby whilst being a passenger on a mopedmotorbike. Yes you can take home the swordfish you just caught on the
Mida Creek eco camp
Mida CreekWe had read about a great sounding Eco Camp a couple of kilometers away called Mida Creek Eco Camp. After many frustrating hours trying to figure out the area codes for the phones the whole region had changed leaving all the information in our book absolutely useless we managed to get in touch with Billie the manager who booked us in to come and visit for a couple of days. Mida Creek i
Rucksackentfhrung Welcome to Iran my Frieeend
DienstagNun ich bin im Iran. Alles ist hier furchtbar normal. Die Einreise ist entspannendunspanned. Nur eins fehlt Mein Rucksack. All meine Befrchtungen werden war. Er ist in Kuwait oder Dubai oder inshallah in Lampukistan. Wrde man in Europa jetzt wohl einen hbschen Bericht ausfllen fllt es hier schon schwer jemanden zu finden der Englisch kann und sich einem annimmt.Mit Hilfe ei
Theatre Festival at Casco Viejo Panama
http://www.ArcoProperties.comFAO Theatre Festival is probably the only consistent theatre festival in Panama. Organized by Enrique Kike King it will take place starting March 17th to 24th. The National Theatre Anita Villalaz Theatre at Las Bovedas and La Casona will have several performances from troups from Argentina Colombia Chile USA Mexico and Panama.Tickets around 20 here is the contact
Another day in Kowloon
Ok. so we can not wait to leave this hostel haha. very nice people but our rtoom has no window and is so muggy we found out hoe to put the wall fan on about 20 mins ago so we left as soon as we got up We headed for Lantau Island to go and see the Giant Buddha which was amazing. . and inorder to get there we had to go via cable car across steep steep hills looking over the island and getting t
Zeo Personal Sleep Coach
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast. -William Shakespeare, Macbeth
The company that makes the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach kindly sent me one of their devices to try out. It’s a nifty little gadget, and if you are a techno geek, you would probably love it. It’s a fascinating toy; but for insomnia, there’s no evidence that it provides any benefit over standard treatment with sleep logs and sleep hygiene advice.
Polysomnography is done overnight in a sleep lab and costs around $1000. It records multiple parameters: EEG, EKG, EMG, breathing, O2, CO2, and limb movements. It is most commonly used to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a serious condition that is linked to hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, stroke, and increased mortality. OSA can be effectively treated with CPAP and other measures. About 50% of snorers have sleep apnea. We typically think of it as a disease of obese, loudly snoring older men, but even young children can have it: snoring is probably never normal in children and should be investigated.
The Zeo is the first sleep monitor available for consumers to use at home. It doesn’t pretend to do what polysomnography does. It can’t diagnose sleep apnea. It is billed as an educational and motivational tool, not intended for the diagnosis or treatment of sleep disorders. A unit that looks sort of like an alarm clock sits on your bedside table and communicates wirelessly with a comfortable soft elastic headband that positions embedded sensors over your forehead to pick up your brain waves.
It provides a graph of the entire night showing when you were awake, in light sleep, deep sleep and REM sleep. It gives a readout of how many minutes you were in each stage and how that compares to your average readings. Most importantly, it gives a ZQ score: a single number that adds the “good sleep” numbers and subtracts the awakenings to provide a single score that you can use to compare your sleep quality from night to night and to compare your sleep to that of the average person of your age.
The information can be uploaded to the Internet and viewed on the company’s website. It is then used to provide individualized coaching. 6 months of coaching is included in the purchase price of $399, and it can be extended for another 6 months for $99.
Normal sleep architecture:
- We should not fall asleep the moment our head hits the pillow: that indicates a sleep deficit. It normally takes 20 minutes or so to get to sleep.
- REM (Rapid Eye Movement): 20-25% of total sleep time. Normally absent during the first 90 minutes of sleep and then occurs about every 90 minutes. Was thought to be the stage where dreams occur, but now we know dreams occur in every stage of sleep.
- NREM (Non-Rapid Eye Movement): 75-80% of total sleep time. Includes light sleep and deep sleep.
- Awakenings during the night are normal and more common as we age. We don’t remember awakenings that last less than a minute. The Zeo registers awakenings that last at least 2 minutes.
According to the manufacturer, two scientifically controlled studies have compared the Zeo’s sleep stage readings to polysomnography readings and found them valid. But how useful is it to know this information? We don’t know what the optimal time in each stage is, and we don’t yet know how to increase REM sleep even if we wanted to. One uncontrolled pre-marketing study found that home users reported significant improvements in the quality of their sleep and better functioning in the daytime, but with no control group these results are uninterpretable.
The ZQ score is an arbitrarily constructed score that has not been validated. If your score goes up 10 points are you really sleeping better? Is it a useful measurement? It is handy in one sense: my husband used to ask me if I slept well, and I would answer “yes” or “no” or “fairly well I guess.” Now I can tell him “68” or “93.” I can see a downside: it would be easy to become psychologically dependent on these numbers and obsess if your score went down. I lent my machine to a friend to try, and immediately found myself missing it. I had come to look forward to seeing my ZQ report every morning.
I chose not to try the online sleep coaching because I thought I could do my own coaching. It’s not hard to read about sleep hygiene measures and apply them, to notice whether the ZQ score goes down if you drink coffee in the evening, etc.
Zeo offers another intriguing service. You can set the alarm and ask it to wake you up to half an hour earlier, picking a time that you are in the stage of sleep that is easiest to awaken from, so you are not violently jolted awake from a deep sleep. I don’t use an alarm (I’m retired and have the luxury of sleeping until I wake naturally) so I didn’t get to try this function out. I don’t know if the benefits of gentle awakening would outweigh the harm of being awakened up to half an hour early and having total sleep time reduced.
Insomnia is a common problem and sleeping pills are not the answer. Insomnia can be treated effectively by cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): it works to some extent in almost all patients, and has long-term success. It involves counseling in sleep hygiene, cognitive therapy and stimulus control therapy, and when necessary, sleep restriction therapy. It corrects misunderstandings about normal sleep, establishes realistic expectations, and uses simple relaxation techniques and measures like establishing regular sleep hours and a quiet 30-to-60 minute pre-bedtime routine, avoiding caffeine and alcohol, getting out of bed when you can’t sleep, using the bed only for sleep and sex, exercising during the day but not close to bedtime, keeping the bedroom quiet and at a comfortable temperature, banishing pets from the bedroom, addressing stress issues. Patients are instructed to keep a sleep diary, recording how long they slept, how often they woke up during the night, how refreshed they felt in the morning, whether any factors disturbed their sleep, when they exercised, when they drank coffee or alcohol, etc. It’s hard to see how the Zeo could add anything important to this approach except as a crutch to help motivate patients who are not initially cooperative. What I would like to see is a controlled study comparing optimum sleep hygiene and cognitive behavioral therapy to the use of a Zeo and online sleep coaching. One problem would be picking a reliable measure of sleep improvement to assess outcomes.
The Zeo program might turn out to be the best initial approach to insomnia, since it is less expensive than multiple office visits with a provider for CBT. But I wonder if a web-based program providing the same information about sleep hygiene and giving feedback and encouragement might be just as effective without the device. Pending controlled studies, I will have to assume that it is just a gimmick to enlist patients in doing what they should be doing anyway.
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Note: My source for the information about normal sleep, sleep apnea, and treatment of insomnia was a CME course on sleep disorders that I attended in Seattle on Feb. 20, 2010, sponsored by the AAFP in conjunction with the American College of Chest Physicians and presented by a panel of experts in sleep disorders.
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The Thompson Twins run for Senate; One conservative, and one libertarian
by Eric Dondero
No, we're not talking of the 1980s British New Wave band of the same name. And in actuality they're not technically Twins. But they are brothers, only two years apart.
There are increasing indications that former two-term Governor Tommy Thompson is preparing to launch a bid for the US Senate, challening ultra-progressive Democrat incumbent Russ Feingold.
A recent poll by Rasmussen showed Thompson ahead in a hypothetical match-up with Feingold, by five points. That's actually a slight increase in his margin, from a similar poll conducted a month ago.
Now CBS News quotes a top Thompson aide saying the chance that he'd run is now about 70% Yes.
From CBS:
Thompson has been the marquee Republican in the state for decades and was elected as governor four times. He also served as secretary of health and human services in the Bush administration and ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.
He has been rumored to be interested in a political comeback, and today's news [beginning of fundraising effort] is the clearest indication yet that he could be doing just that.
If Thompson runs [that would put] another Democratic Senate seat in play for a takeover and increasing the possibility that Republicans could win control of the Senate in the midterm elections.
Interestingly, Tommy's younger brother Ed, has already announced for the State Senate.
Ed Thompson is the Mayor of Tomah, population 8,000 in southern Wisconsin. He's also quite the local celebrity; a former professional boxer, owner/operator of the downtown Tomah tavern/keno parlor The TeePee.
And he's a Libertarian, with a capitol 'L'; longtime member of the Libertarian Party. He is now seeking the Republican nomination to run against a Democrat incumbent for the local Senate seat.
If Thompson the elder does indeed jump in, there would be an instant novelty factor no doubt benefiting both candidates, of a brother running for the US Senate, and another brother for the State Senate. Precisely the stuff, the major network morning shows and cable news networks love to carry.
Not too mention the boost in votes for both campaigns such a novelty would bring. A voter in southern Wisconsin might be more inclined to pull the lever for the "ole' Thompson Boys" just to shake things up in Madison and Washington.
Full Disclosure: I was once a patron of Ed's Tavern in Tomah. While traveling through Wisconsin I stopped by for a visit. I was fortunate enough to have met him while there. He had his signature apron on, and was tending bar. He served me up a lager, or two.
Maryland Politics: Republican Dr. Eric Wargotz gaining libertarian support for challenge to Barbara Mikulski
From Eric Dondero:
A recent poll showed entrenched Democrat incumbent Senator Barbara Mikulski with an increasing vulnerbility. By Rasmussen, against a generic Republican she only polls 54% support to 36% who would vote GOP. Mikulski has never before had favorables below the 60% mark.
She also faces a number of health concerns. The 74-year old fell last year and broke her ankle. Additionally, she's had an ongoing struggle with obesity. (There are recurring rumors that she's actually planning to step aside and not run for reelection.)
Three Republicans and one Independent have recently announced against her. One of them is being supported by libertarians in the State.
From the Baltimore Sun, "This Md Republican thinks Mikulski is vulnerable" Feb. 28:
Although Michael S. Steele, the Republican national party chairman and a former Maryland lieutenant governor, was beaten by veteran congressman Benjamin L. Cardin in the 2006 Maryland Senate election, Republicans say that was a Democratic year. Now voter sentiment has shifted, they believe, and the recent string of Republican victories in other states seem to prove it.
The leading candidate so far appears to be a Medical Doctor.
Dr. Eric S. Wargotz explained why he thinks 2010 will be so kind to Republicans that he's got a chance to replace four- term U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, arguably Maryland's most popular Democrat.
"I'm running because I believe I can do it," said Wargotz, 53, a first-term Queen Anne's County commissioner. "I see an opening here. Look at Scott Brown," he said... Wargotz said he went to Massachusetts to help in the Brown campaign's final days.
His libertarian Republican supporters include Don Murphy an outspoken leader of "Republicans for Marijuana Reform," and a twice attendee to National Conventions of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
Howard County's Republican County Councilman Greg Fox did the initial introductions at Wargotz's fundraiser last weekend at the home of Rob and Carroll Cohen, and former Howard Del. Don Murphy also attended...
"God bless Eric for putting himself out," Murphy said, noting that Wargotz is giving up his local office to run for the senate. "Eric is an incumbent elected official. He understands what it is to govern," and as a medical doctor, he has expertise on health care... Cohen, 53, who said his politics are close to libertarian, runs Alliance Benefits and Compensation, an employee-benefits firm. He said... he liked the pathologist's medical background and views.
Libertarian Financial Forecaster Andy Beal: State Gov. lay-offs coming, unemployment to skyrocket
Noted financial expert and celebrity high stakes poker player Andy Beal sees a very bleak future ahead for the US economy, this year and next.
In a recent article in Forbes, writer Nathan Vardi described him as:
a self-described libertarian kind of guy... very critical of the government’s intervention in the economy.
Beal predicts: a downturn in the market with a "drop" in stock values; and says, "Commercial real estate is headed for trouble"; finally, "failed banks," and a "credit bubble due to the Fed and easy money."
But it's in the area of employment where Beal sees the dreariest news.
From Forbes:
Unemployment will remain at current levels for several years. This, Beal reasons, is partly because the states have not even started laying people off. “I see all the governments having to tighten their belts, which is going to feed this snowball effect. I don’t think we have felt the impact yet of governmental staff reductions,” says Beal.
Florida’s free marketeer Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp neutral in Crist v. Rubio Senate primary
As a state legislator Jeff Kottkamp had warm relations with Florida's free market community, including the libertarian-oriented James Madison Institute, and various tax fighting groups on the Space Coast. The Palm Beach Post even labeled Kottkamp a "libertarian free marketeer." In 2004 he was tapped to be Charlie Crist's running mate on the Republican ticket.
Now, a rather surprising move on his part.
From NewsMax:
He wouldn’t indicate who he supports in the Republican primary for Senate between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.
“They’re two very dynamic people. It will be a very fun race to watch,” Kottkamp said. “They both have strengths and weaknesses.”
Kottkamp is currently seeking the Attorney General's office.
In the same interview he reiterated his support for Constitionalist principles:
"[Obama] continues to look for government solutions when we all know … that private sector free mark solutions are what’s going to work."
As for healthcare, Kottkamp agrees with current Attorney General Bill McCollum’s plan to sue if the Democrats’ reform plan passes.
"It’s clearly a violation of the 10th amendment," Kottkamp said. "If the federal government can force you to buy healthcare, they can force you to do anything."
Case of the Ft. Jackson Five suspected Muslim agents, gets even weirder
LR FOLLOW-UP
From Eric Dondero:
Three weeks ago CBN broke the story of 5 Muslim US Army troops suspected of an attempt to poison the food supply at Ft. Jackson base in South Carolina. The 5 were translators in a special division of the Army for strictly Middle Eastern recruits.
Now an update from CBN.com:
Republican Rep. Joe Wilson, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said the soldiers' laptops had been seized and were being analyzed. Congressional officials with knowledge of the case said cell phones and Arabic writings had been confiscated as well.
Wilson said the soldiers were discharged because of unrelated incidents of minor theft.
Four of the five have been discharged from the Army with "administrative separation," (military lingo for less-than-honorable).
Erick Stakelbeck, CBN News Terrorism Analyst advances the story, noting that the five now ex-soldiers are all from the metro-Washington DC area. His source indicates that there's reason to believe that they were allegedly in touch with another group of Washington, D.C. area Muslims "that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas."
I put it down once to wipe off the sweat | Cosmic Variance
It’s generally easy to write a damning book review. It’s much harder to write a positive and enthusiastic one. So how about a review that includes this paragraph?:
I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.
That’s Dwight Garner reviewing the book for the New York Times. What’s more, this is a nonfiction book revolving around science! Henrietta Lacks died at age 31 of cervical cancer. She was relatively poor, and completely unknown. No tombstone marks her grave. Without any sort of consent or awareness, some of her cells were “stolen” during her treatment. It turned out that the cells could be cultured, and they rapidly became a key tool in biomedicine. Salk used her cells to develop a vaccine for polio. The cells are ubiquitous, living on and thriving half a century after Henrietta Lacks’ death. Although this was all news to me, apparently any self-respecting biologist has heard of HeLa. Her full story has plenty of moral and philosophical implications, as well as basic science. Henrietta Lacks has had a profound, and completely unwitting, impact on our lives. Wired magazine has a chart:
Garner ends his review with:
This is the place in a review where critics tend to wedge in the sentence that says, in so many words, “This isn’t a perfect book.” And “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” surely isn’t. But there isn’t much about it I’d want to change. It has brains and pacing and nerve and heart, and it is uncommonly endearing. You might put it down only to wipe off the sweat.
I think he liked the book. Other reviews have been similarly enthusiastic (see Skloot’s blog for links). “Immortal Life” is definitely heading to my bedside table. But apparently one of my co-bloggers has recently published a book, and I should probably read that one first. If only I could find time.
The Porn Detection Stick Is Like the Hot Tub Time Machine for Smut [Peripherals]
We have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the Porn Detection Stick, a simple USB dongle, will legitimately, automatically scan your hard drive for pornography. The good news is, well, times have changed.
The Porn Detection Stick, by Paraben, is a $100 thumb drive stuffed with Windows-compatible image detection software. Give it an hour and a half, and the device can scan 70,000 images—even deleted ones—with algorithms that analyze "facial features, flesh tone colors, image back grounds, body part shapes, and more."
The system promises less than 1% false positives.
Of course, what the software can't analyze are any videos that may be saved to your hard drive or pretty much anything in the web. In fact, the Porn Detection Stick seems designed for a whole other era of pornographic distribution, one when the discerning man might have scanned the latest Playboy to his 386 for posterity before pulling down his Zubaz pants to masturbate to it. Then again, maybe that's a good thing. [Porn Detection Stick via 69gagdet via ChipChick]
Female Dung Beetles Evolved Elaborate Horns to Fight for the Choicest Poop | 80beats
Male animals often use their horns to fight over females, but at least one species’ females use their horns to fight over excrement.
The species, no surprise, is the dung beetle. Unlike many of the animals we usually associate with elaborate horns, antlers, or other head weaponry—in which the male has the most impressive set—dung beetle females have horns that put the male version to shame. The reason, says a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is that females must battle one another for that precious manure. Nicola Watson and Leigh Simmons of the University of Western Australia, Perth, pitted female dung beetles (Onthophagus sagittarius) against each other in a race for dung – a valuable resource that provides nutrients for their eggs. Matched for body size, females with bigger horns managed to collect more dung and so provide better for their offspring [New Scientist].
Dung beetles aren’t the only species whose females grow horns: Small antelopes called duikers, for instance, have them for self-defense or territorial struggles. But the beetle horns are special, Stankowich says. Female duiker horns generally look like the males’, but female dung beetles grow another type of horn altogether [Science News]. Thus, the researchers argue, the female beetle horns (on the right in the image) aren’t some kind of crossover from the kind of horns that the males grow (left), but rather an independently evolved feature. And, they say, finding out that a feature like this evolved for female reproductive competition rather than defense against predators is exceedingly rare.
You might think there’d be enough poop to go around, and that fighting over it wouldn’t be necessary. However, there’s a distinct advantage toward getting the very best dung to make the balls in which the beetles lay their eggs. “Dung loses its usability quickly, so they have to seize it fast,” says Watson. Female beetles have been found to steal dung, raid other brood balls, and replace existing eggs with their own [New Scientist].
Related Content:
Discoblog: A Literally Crappy House Protects Beetle Larvae from Predators
Discoblog: Enough of This S#%t! Dung Beetles Morph into Millipede-Eaters
The Loom: An Inordinate Fondness For Beetle Horns
Image: Sean Stankowski
The iPad Could Make Emergency Calls…So Will It? [Unconfirmed]
Hunting around in the iPhone/iPad SDK, one developer spotted this option to make an emergency call.
The above was easily achieved by enabled a passcode lock, and then entering it incorrectly about 5 times. You can then slide for a emergency call.
So does this mean the iPad will make emergency calls?
Possibly. There are two schools of thought here, and they both hold some validity.
The skeptic's response is simple, "that's leftover from the iPhone SDK, on which the iPad SDK is based!" It could be.
But, what I might call the more reasoned response, is that the iPads with 3G chips, speakers and mics could (technically) make such calls just fine. Plus, as 9To5Mac points out, FCC regulations mandate that all cellphones must be able to place emergency calls, even when not under subscription.
By offering iPad owners the option to make emergency calls, Apple could be sidestepping any FCC issues while also being generally cool about their device assisting those in emergencies.
Besides, I always knew the iPad was just a big iPhone! [Gumball Tech via 9To5Mac]
