chooky fuzzbang

rockets

2013-05-21T23:46:00.000-04:00

Through a recent set of random meetings I was able to hook up with Richard Davis of New Space Global who invited me up to Mojave to witness a solid rocket test by USC's Rocket Propulsion Lab. As crazy as I am about space stuff I have always had the bad luck of missing launches and tests that I wanted to see.

The test was about 30 minutes outside of Mojave. I met Mr. Davis at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Which is decidedly less shiny and sparkly and 'Jetson-y' than one might hope a space port would be. In fact it is an old structure and largely exists as a airplane graveyard. That isn't to say it isn't cool because it is. Most of the major space players have operations out of the airport (e.g., Masten, The Spaceship Company, Scaled Composites). And there's a surprising amount of interesting avionic/aerospace detritus around the airport.

But that was just the meetup. The test was elsewhere. The drive to the test site was surreal. From the highway, to a side road covered in sand dunes, to a dirt road, and finally to what was essentially a giant beach with no water. The last 10 minutes of driving were not done on any discernible road and I'm pretty sure we took a wrong turn somewhere. We were just driving over land. Luckily I had 4-wheel drive. My friend's front-wheel drive rental did not fare so well and we had a few hairy moments where I thought the car was going to be stuck. Here's where we ended up.

When I got out of the car I was struck be a few things. First, we were in the middle of nowhere. Second, it was BLAZING hot. It's was actually quite a frightening place to be in one sense. If you were out there alone without any water or shelter I imagine just surviving for a day would be tough. There was nothing for miles around except the load roar of invisible military planes from the nearby Edwards AFB.

The site itself was quite rudimentary. A test bunker, 2 launch sites, a housed generator, a sheltered area to do work, and lots of random disused infrastructure lying around from previous tests.

About 15-20 students and a couple of professors were there getting the rocket ready. I chatted with the professors a bit but left the students to finish their work. I'm pretty sure they were technically engineering students. But engineering to me is something else. It's all about taking a laboratory product someone has figured out how to make and now you want to make millions of tons of that stuff. So it's all about process, throughput maximization, risk mitigation, efficiency improvements, etc. There was none of that going on here. It was all about jerry rigging stuff, improvising, and just getting this rocket to burn. I don't say that in a derogatory way. This is how innovation starts. But it was scrappy to be sure. But it also tells you to some extent the state of space technology. There were no off the shelf parts or standardized fuel to buy. It was an entirely handmade rocket. It was a solid-rocket type. Similar to the 2 rockets that flank the Space Shuttle. What were they burning? Effectively rubber, aluminum and ammonium perchlorate.

The other scrappy aspect of it was safety. There was a bunker but I was chuckling at the idea that it would do much. In fact in a previous test a solid rocket blew up with smoldering pieces of rocket fuel entering the bunker. Safety goggles? Nope. Even the loading of the rocket was done by 8 guys just picking it up. Even some rudimentary straps would have lowered the risk of that thing tumbling down. And walking around the back and looking at the nozzle. Sure go ahead. The other weird thing about the setup was the rocket front was pointed towards the launch structure where the countdown occurred. Better than the rocket tail pointed that way. And it's a low likelihood that the rocket becomes unhinged. But still. Why mess with things like that.

I did learn one thing I had never thought about though. Most people think about rocket orbital launches in the context of supplying enough energy to put it into orbit (think height). But one of the professors said that actually most of the energy needs to be put into the speed or kinetic energy of the rocket to keep it in orbit (think of the velocity it needs to spin around the earth.

After an initial problem with a loose wire on the igniter switch, the rocket lit. It was awesome. It sounds cool, it looks cool, and it smells cool. It was worth a long and hot wait in the desert. I'll definitely have to catch more of these types of events. The video is below. You can skip to 2:55 to see the countdown and burn.

A couple thing to point out. One is you'll see some flareups towards the end. This was fiberglass batting in the rocket that can be ripped off during the fire. It's not great but it doesn't impact the thrust much. More difficult to see in the video is a nice trench that the rocket dug out its backend. You'll also notice when the rocket is lit there's a small puff of smoke out the back of the rocket before it actually ignites. You can hear some groans in the gallery. One of the students said they've had problems with the igniters. But it was a false alarm. It burned.

flying paramours

2013-05-18T21:51:00.000-04:00

I'm guessing this is fake. The camera movement suggests the camera has a high quality stabilizer on it. Yet having spent a lot of time in Brazil, I would guess this sort of thing happens weekly. It's so incredibly Brazilian.

death

2013-05-15T00:44:00.000-04:00

I've posted one of these before. But here's another. An account of what it is like to be dead (and obviously brought back to life).

Nothing. I don't even remember being dead, I can't quite describe it because you are not aware of anything that is going on. I'll tell you though, it's a scary feeling to come back to the real world...back to "reality"...whatever it may be. It's frightening really: the realization, especially at the young age it had happened, that the only thing on the other side is darkness. At minimum you can call this darkness peace though, because as I've said you're not aware of anything, you don't know you've been dead until you come back. It is nothing you can imagine because your imagination is ceased, it is dissolved, it is nothing.

You are simply here now and who you are now, and there is no point in spending your entire life trying to please people and be happy at the expense of others. It gives you insight into the fact that the awareness you've got now is the only time that you will have sentience. Death is like the brief moment between beginning to black out and blacking out....you cease everything...you do not recall a thing in that time period. Your mind has left you, your body has left, everything has left you and you do not know about this...or care necessarily because you're not there to exercise control over your thoughts and imagination. Just nothing. No awareness at all.

I entered the dark, the void, the infinite abyss - I crossed to the other side and it gave me no stories to bring back with me to the light. I hope that what I experienced was just a brief period of what could have developed into something where a sentient entity developed, but I highly doubt that. I'm cursed to be ground in reality for the rest of my life, the reality that I'm alive now and I think now, and I am now. I am only here now, I am on the the side of the living, and I must enjoy my thoughts, my world, my time now. Now is the only time to enjoy anything, otherwise you there is nothing...just darkness...just no you.

salt

2013-05-14T19:32:00.006-04:00

The NY Times has a piece up on salt intake. Specifically it is about a report done by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies titled, "Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence.".

I have read the entire report.

The purpose of the report is to determine if health advisories suggesting people consume less than 2,300 mg of salt or even as low as 1,500 mg of salt, especially those over 51 does anything. Currently the average US person consumes 3,400 mg of salt.

The report was pushed forward by the CDC and it recommended the Institute convene an expert committee to run it. The committee looks legit. Health professionals as well as statistical experts. There were no funny food companies behind the research.

It was kind of a meta-analysis of other studies but technically not a meta-analysis.

For outcomes related to CVD, stroke and mortality the studies were ALL observational. Translated? They were worthless.

For outcomes related to heart failure there were some randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Translated? These are all that matter.

So what did they find?

First and most interesting was they basically deemed the entire set of salt research to be crap. Poorly done, poorly designed, and ultimately worthless. I love that. In particular they cited the use of observational studies as useless and the measurement of salt intake to be pathetic (e.g., people reported how much salt they ate.). They caveated the whole report. To such an extent that the conclusions almost read like they had to force them because they couldn't put out a report that said, "We don't know anything." And frankly as a result of that we should stop reading there. But let's see what they say.

Basically they say that yes salt is correlated with CVD risk but that the 2,300 mg per day recommendation has no basis. And in fact the effect of salt on CVD risk (as in how much does the risk go up) was completely unquantifiable. I read that to mean it is minimal at best. They went on to say that there was evidence however from RCTs that low salt intake (defined as 1,840 mg per day) can lead to an INCREASED risk of adverse effects for people who have heart problems. And that this probably extends to people who don't have heart problems.

choice

2013-05-10T13:06:00.001-04:00

Well done visualization of David Foster Wallace's commencement speech.

my name is myrna nudorf

2013-04-13T17:58:00.001-04:00

You know those times? When you see some quiet, shy person. A little homely. Reserved. You wonder, "what's inside there?" And then something happens. A catalyst. In this case an opportunity to sing. Their beauty comes radiating outward. They transform before your eyes and blossom. Just watch the girl on the right. This is her moment. Her shining moment.

my name is john daker

2013-04-13T01:11:00.000-04:00

Most people who know me know I have an extremely soft spot in my heart for well done church singing. And this guy nails it.

"Whep!?"

perspective

2013-03-03T20:23:00.003-05:00

Pretty heart warming story here about someone who overcame a lot of adversity to live a life better than most.

umm...

2013-02-11T16:19:00.002-05:00

Just umm.

bias

2013-02-09T16:57:00.001-05:00

Study: Downloadable PDF

In the largest false memory study to date, 5,269 participants were asked about their memories for three true and one of five fabricated political events. Each fabricated event was accompanied by a photographic image purportedly depicting that event. Approximately half the participants falsely remembered that the false event happened, with 27% remembering that they saw the events happen on the news. Political orientation appeared to influence the formation of false memories, with conservatives more likely to falsely remember seeing Barack Obama shaking hands with the president of Iran, and liberals more likely to remember George W. Bush vacationing with a baseball celebrity during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. A follow-up study supported the explanation that events are more easily implanted in memory when they are congruent with a person's preexisting attitudes and evaluations, in part because attitude-congruent false events promote feelings of recognition and familiarity, which in turn interfere with source attributions.

iss

2013-01-16T19:25:00.002-05:00

Find 25 minutes and launch this tour of the International Space Station to full screen at 720p. Enjoy.

opacity

2013-01-03T11:23:00.001-05:00

Interesting article on how banks are really black boxes.

When I was in a hedge fund during the 2008 start of the financial crisis I was asked to look at Bear Stearns and Lehman as short ideas. I mainly covered technology stocks. These two were the weakest banks and the banks were getting hit hard.

The usual process for shorting a company involves going through the 10K and 10Q filings. These lay out most of the 'facts' and give you some sense of how a company operates. how it makes money, and how fiscally solvent it is.

After I did this I had no answers to any of those questions. I told my boss I cannot model these companies. He said just do it. I said I can't. He said go talk to the 'long' guys (the analysts who cover financials stocks and place long bets on them).

After I came back I said I still can't model them and they can't either. The difference is that I know I can't and they don't.

We ended up shorting Lehman purely on the fact that I couldn't believe the banks were still in existence. One thing that is clear about banks is that they are always incredibly close to having negative equity and any liquidity problems immediately put their solvency into potential question. The long guys merrily doubled down on their banks because their ROEs were so low. Sure enough that bet almost ruined the investment firm and I had a nice short under my belt. But really both bets were fool's folly. We had no idea what was going on.

Moral of the story is never invest in financial companies. You have no idea what they are doing.

skyfall

2013-01-01T00:23:00.001-05:00

Nice photos from Greg Williams from the Skyfall set.

my mother

2012-10-21T09:41:00.000-04:00

On September 21, 2011 I found out my mom probably had liver cancer. On September 22, 2011 it was confirmed. On October 21, 2012 at around 6:00am she died.

I've been lucky to avoid the experience of death on a personal level for my whole life. My grandparents are dead but I was young, they were in Wales, and I hadn't seen them in years. My grief was more centered on seeing my mother cry for the first time. Watching her try to remain composed in the kitchen after she hung up the phone. She told me my grandmother, Elsie, had died. She continued to serve me lunch. Silently. And every now and again she became overwhelmed with grief. Put her hand to her face as I stared at her. Not quite knowing what to do. I acted like nothing unusual had happened. But I could see her trying to continue with the mundanities of life while dealing with the difficulty of mentally absorbing the reality of the death of her mother. Today was my turn.

My Mother
My mother specifically asked for no wake, funeral or ceremony or any kind involving anyone other than the immediate family. No obituary posting. Nothing. Just a cremation. I'm going to break slightly with that request.

Part of what helped me come to terms with my mom's death is that she had a good life. Because it started out remarkably badly. Both my parents were poor on a level I find hard to comprehend now. They had nothing. My mom's parents were kind and easy going but eccentric and completely irresponsible. They never had enough money at the end of the week. And to be poor in mid-20th century Wales was a feat in itself. While a driver for the industrial revolution (coal), its services were no longer needed at that point. My mother was often hungry. To compound the situation, WWII was on. Food was rationed. Whirlybird bombs would fly over and sometimes blow up nearby. Child refugees were sent from bombed out London to live at my mom's house. Putting a further strain on the expenses. My mother at the age of 10 actually took over the family finances. She would take the dole and ration it out to her parents so there was something left over at the end. Worse Wales was a trap. There was no way out of Wales. People were born, worked in some capacity for the coal industry, and died. Usually young. My father's dad died when my father was 12. Life expectancy wasn't good.

And yet to hear all of this from my mom you'd never view it as bad. She loved her crazy parents. She didn't mind taking care of the finances and laughed about it. She loved having kids from London stay with her. She kept in touch with many of them until the day she died. She bought used clothing for the rest of her life. She laughs about the whirlybirds and how she hoped they would blow up the school. In her own words, "we had a grand time."

And everything after that was uphill. She married a man who loved her dearly for more 54 years. She eventually had more money than she would ever need. She moved out of Wales and got to live in London, Paris and America. She raised a nice family and had two decent kids who got along with her and didn't give her too much grief (except the flooding incident. Sorry Mom.). She travelled all over the world. Saw all the things she wanted to see in life.

And she was able to have a year of knowledge that she was dying to prepare herself. Lots of support from her family and friends. Relatively little pain that was easily manageable with painkillers. And a rapid 1 month descent from being fully healthy and mobile to dead. And a quiet peaceful death in which she was mentally fully accepting and ready to die.

Cancer gets a bad rap. It's not a bad way to go. Especially when I think of the alternatives. A sudden death would have been far harder for our family to deal with. A death can also have extreme misery and suffering. Many diseases end badly. By suffocating as your lungs fill with fluid. Or as your mind begins to fail and you are staring at someone who is no longer your mother. My mother didn't have to deal with any of those things. I think if you had given her the option to have that kind of life back when she was 10 she would have jumped at it. It probably would have seemed an impossibility. But that's how it turned out.

My mother was defined by the fact that she never complained. Not because she kept things to herself. But because she never felt that way. I can't think of a time when I saw my mother mad. When someone asked her, she herself said that she never really hated anyone. Everything just rolled off my mom's back. Her one key talent was that whenever someone in the family was mad it would just make her laugh. It was a remarkable talent really. No one could ever stay mad in our family because she would be laughing. Not just a small laugh but the kind of laugh that would inevitably cause my mom to pee in her pants as she ran to the bathroom. It defused any situation and in some sense made her the most important member of the household.

My mother also had no rules for me. Ever. She just didn't care for them. If I wanted to get drunk before I was 21 or stay out late on a school night she was fine with that. And oddly as a result I never did. I guess it took all the reason to do stupid things away. In other words she was the perfect mom for me. I could focus on accomplishing things instead of being rebellious. When I was very young I sucked in school. She never cared. C's were fine with her. I eventually got my shit together but I'm not sure that would have happened if she had forced me to.

The Dying
It wasn't supposed to happen this way of course. My mother has been a health nut her whole life. She's been doctor and medication free for all of it. One September 20, 2011 she was as spritely and alive as any 79 year old lady could be. Like my father. But my father was supposed to die first. Because that would have spared him the reality of going on without my mother. Even though my father was a serious hard working man, she was the real manager and arbiter for the family. A power wielded with a feather sword. But that wasn't how it turned out. She was going die first.

When the news came in it was of course a shock. Liver cancer is like pancreatic cancer. At a certain stage and a certain age you are lucky to get 6 months. Regardless, I went through, and I'm sure everyone in my family went through, the process of figuring out how to get more information and how to cure her. I had visions in my head of writing a blog post on how I did it. I read lots of research reports. I wrote to doctors in Asia and the Middle East. And on some level I thought maybe I had found a way out for my mom. A chance. But my mom is not a 'hardcore' person. And my remedy required hardcore.

She went through the medical system. A local hospital and then eventually the Mayo Clinic. They ran tests. They administered chemo. And then an experimental chemo. My mom I think instinctively knew that really she didn't want to do that. She had a death sentence. Why make herself miserable? And thankfully she backed off the first chemo and the experimental chemo very quickly. Because they weren't going to do a damned thing. We all knew that. Luckily it didn't degrade her to the point of being chemo-sick. I think for anyone with cancer the decision to undergo chemo is one that should be done with serious thought. Looking back my mom should never have taken dose one. It was never going to change anything. Luckily she stopped early enough that she didn't spend her last year recuperating in a hospital.

After that, things were easier. She just went about her life with no real side effects other than some tiredness and a need for afternoon naps. But she was fine. And able to see her friends and enjoy herself. At that point we were all waiting for something to change to let us know death was coming. Because while she was fine we all held fingers crossed that something good would happen. My rational brain knew that wasn't the case. But my emotions clung to that hope.

And that call came from my sister when she had begun to change. She was becoming more tired. A little pain but aspirin managed it. But mentally she was a little more spaced out. As the liver dies it can't process toxins out of the blood as well. A key toxin is ammonia which is created from the breakdown of proteins in digestion. Ammonia buildup has the ability to reduce short term memory and to cause hallucinations. Both of which occurred in my mom. She weaved in and out of lucidity during this time.

I was able to chat one last time with my mother when she was fully lucid. The last real coherent call I had with my mother was perhaps the perfect call. We were both talking about health as we always have and she was driving me crazy because she just couldn't comprehend what I was talking about. This was a common conversation between my mother and me. My mom isn't super smart. Nor does she care to be. She just doesn't care about things like that with the intensity that grips me. So her lack of understanding the nuances of the science I was discussing with her drove me batshit insane. This often happened. And of course this just made her laugh. Laugh like I hadn't heard her laugh in ages. It was just hilarious to her. And then of course I started laughing to as she ran off to the bathroom to pee. It was a nice conversation. The one I'll think of many years from now as I look back at her in memory. How she was in that call was how she was to me. A funny slightly eccentric woman who I enjoyed talking to.

In the end I was happy that she died. She was not living anymore. And life was just one series of indignities after another. There was no point in holding onto that. It would have been selfish. It was time.

The Emotions.
The impact of learning your mother is going do die is obviously a powerful one. Think right now how you would feel if that call came in. It's a call we all know is coming. And yet there is no preparation for it. No class in school. No discussion with experts. And not a topic one generally reads about. This is a new experience when it happens. And emotionally you'll never quite be prepared for it. It will hit hard like a sock to the gut. And it will hang over your for the remaining months like a heavy weight on your shoulders.

You forget about it from time to time. And then it rears its head at unexpected moments. The emotional strain is tiresome and tiring. There were times I just wanted to get away from the reality of it. To not have to hold back emotions around people.

At some point if you are lucky you come to peace with it. As I did probably about a month before my mom died. It was going to happen. Nothing could change it. I'd miss her. But she had a good life. There are worse things that could have happened to her and our family. I should be thankful on one level. It's a mantra of sorts I had repeated during the whole ordeal. But at some point I came to peace with it. And my mom did too. She was ready to die at the end. She was awake for very little of the last few weeks. Some pain. The bathroom was an ordeal. Eating and swallowing had become more difficult. There was nothing for her to look forward to. She knew we loved her and that we would miss her for the rest of our lives. What point is there to go on at that point? It wasn't living.

And yet oddly when I finally accepted it I was at my most emotional. Sudden moments of grief would bring me to my knees. There wasn't the despair from before. Just an overwhelming sense of grief for my mom.

I remember during these moments that I tried to figure out if there is something you can say to someone who has a loved one dying. What would make me feel better? It turns out there is nothing. Nothing makes you feel better. And nothing makes you feel worse. Someone could insult my mom and it wouldn't register. I wouldn't care. That thought would be meaningless. Similarly nothing helps. It just is.

The Husband
As worried as I was about my mom in some ways I was more worried about my father. He has been a devoted husband for 54 years. Every day he has woken up beside my mother. They do everything together. But for all the seriousness and toughness of my father, he is the weak one. My mother was the perfect wife for him because she took all the social aspects of life off his back. He has no real care for or ease with most social activities.

Tomorrow he will have to get up and there will be no one in the bed next to him. He will get up and make a cup of tea like he has for decades. But only one this time. And he will sit and read the paper. And at moments he will realize he is alone.

Spouses have a way of dying shortly after they become widows. And I think my dad is at risk of that. Most of the year has been spent engaging him. Making sure friends come by and making him understand he has a family outside of his wife. He has grandkids. He has friends.

I'm sure the transition will be difficult. But I have some hope that he can do it. He's not a man without hobbies or friends. But it is something my sister and I will need to remain diligent on.

The Aftermath
I'm not sure how the next few months will be. I have family and work and lots of distractions to keep me preoccupied. I will fly out now and see my family. And perhaps later this year we will take a trip to Wales with the grandkids as well and scatter the ashes somewhere meaningful. But I'm not sure how it will play out.

But as of now, my mom is just a memory. But a good one. I had a wonderful mom. As a friend said, "I always liked your mom. Everyone did." I'll miss her dearly.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

bacon math

2012-10-16T19:45:00.000-04:00

Bacon > Anything + Bacon > Anything

This is basically my response to any recipes that jazz something up with bacon. Yes it is true that everything is better with bacon. But if I have bacon, I'd just rather make bacon and eat it. Plain bacon trumps all. Mixing with something else just dilutes its bacon-ness.

This is most exemplified at breakfast buffets at hotels. Everyone is thinking I just want to load this plate up with bacon and skip everything else. But I better put some of these shitty scrambled eggs on my plate so I don't look like savage. Well Paleo has given you carte blanche to pile the bacon high. I've been doing it for years with only the occasional glare.

cheap genes

2012-10-12T15:52:00.001-04:00

Suppose I tell you something costs. $100 million dollars. Could be anything. Let's assume it's some technological item. Something that improves over time and it gets easier and less costly to build. A massive supercomputer. A satellite. Something like that.

It's now 10 years later. How much does it cost? Suppose the technology improves drastically. A 50% reduction in cost per year. Compounded. At the end of the decade it would cost $100,000.

This still underestimates the decrease in genome sequencing costs. Check out this chart.

What cost $100m in 2001 costs around $9,000 in 2011. Incredible. Anyone who has read Kurzweill knows that all of his predictions are predicated on a Moore's Law drop in technology cost per performance. But even this accelerated more quickly than expected. What I don't know is what happened in 2007 to accelerate this drop. I've literally never seen a chart like this before. Most technology improvements like CPUs, hard drives, solar cells, etc. are all fairly linear with a few small bumps along the road. I'd love to know what innovation occurred at that time and how it led to a continued drop in cost. Also interesting would be the chart of how long it takes to sequence an entire human genome. I'm sure that's dramatic as well.

shart week

2012-10-10T14:49:00.001-04:00

My recent trip to NY bagged me a new pair of Chelsea boots and a GI tract infection that blew me out (literally) for the better part of 9 days. I tried the usual over the counter medicine to no avail.

A huge dose of kefir and GI flora in pill form seems to have righted the ship. I'm not sure why I picked kefir rather than yogurt. Perhaps because I had never had it. But it seems to have worked even if that is only anecdotal.

Doing a little research on kefir however I found some interesting information. Kefir is made by fermenting milk with kefir grains. What confused me for a long time was trying to figure out what kefir grains were. Turns out they aren't grains as we know them at all. They are a symbotic combination of bacteria and yeast in a matrix of proteins, lipids, and sugars. It's this combination that processes the sugar in milk into kefir.

Here's a photo of the 'grains'.

This is similar to the 'mother' used to make vinegar which is just bacteria in a matrix. A slightly more off-putting photo of the vinegar mother.

Interestingly we can't make kefir grains. They are a continuation of the first kefir grain that formed initially in Russia. You take some of the existing grains and make a new kefir batch and you've effectively grown more kefir grains but of the exact same lineage.

add alzheimers to the list

2012-09-26T09:55:00.000-04:00

A high carb diet causes Alzheimers? I and others have hypothesized before that carbs are the cause of Alzheimers. If this connection is true then considering 1/3 of Americans have diabetes or a pre-diabetic condition then many of us are going to have to deal with the increased onset of Alzheimer's which will show up as these people age.

What modern death cause isn't caused by carbs? Pretty much car crashes are all that is left.

gnorts!, mr. alien

2012-09-13T19:07:00.002-04:00

I don't get too upset when famous people die. But I was sad about Neil Armstrong dying. A lot was said of him. Things I agree with. But I liked him because at heart he was an engineer. One of the few that got any recognition for the work he did. Engineers generally don't fit the mold of other famous people. Many commented on how he was a recluse and shunned publicity. He wasn't a recluse. He gave many talks after the moon landing. And he didn't shun publicity. He just didn't see any value in it. He wasn't in this for the fame and fortune and recognition. True of many engineers. He just wanted to do the best job he could and to do it properly. He didn't go apeshit after he landed because he was focused on doing his job. The fact that so many people interpret that behavior as being anti-social is concerning. I'm sure he also realized it took thousands of people to get him there and to act like he was the sole source of that accomplishment would be denigrating to them. So he did his job.

You can see this attitude in the speech that was supposed to be given if Armstrong and Aldrin died up there.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send one of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their deaths, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But they were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. - William Safire's speech written for President Nixon in case Apollo 11 couldn't make it back from the moon.

I just don't think a sentiment like this resonated with Armstrong. And it strikes me as hokey too. If you want to get a real sense of the grandeur of the moment then I recommend reading How Apollo Flew to the Moon. For all practical purposes an engineer's guide to overcoming the issues of getting people to the moon and back. It's my favorite book on Apollo and the space race and I've read most.

As far as the title goes, it is his name spelled backwards. :)

LA

2012-09-13T18:06:00.001-04:00

I now live in LA. Not NY. Might as well get that out of the way.

Reasons for moving? There are many. Both my wife and I have moved a lot and enjoy it. I had been in NY for 8 years. About 4 years more than I had planned. I'm more West Coast than East Coast. I like the outdoors a lot. Family is closer. Etc. Kids were starting to hate NY. Lots of stuff.

Having been here a while I thought I might lay out what I miss and like about living in both places.

Top Reasons to live in NY.

Subway. This one is easy. It's my top reason. The density of NY combined with an extensive subway system, no matter how stinky and dirty it is, trumps the best car by a long shot. I used to like cars like any male would before NY. But when you get rid of your car, and effectively allow someone else to chauffeur you around, you realize what a burden a car really is. Besides the cost of the thing there are so many time consuming activities around a car. Just driving it is a singularly focused activity whereas I can doing anything I want on a subway. And cars facilitate the spread out development of a region rather than concentrating it, exacerbating the problem of getting to where you want to go. I miss the subway daily.
Restaurants. Again easy. NY has such scale (meaning so many people densely packed) that every kind of cuisine can exist here from fine dining to scrappy hole in the walls. LA has a nice restaurant scene but it doesn't have the singular focus on particular food items that NY has. For example there were approximately ten high end butchers I used at one time or another. In LA there seem to be two.
Broadway. Plays. Lots of them. Usually starring famous actors.
Hyperspecialization. This plays out in restaurants and stores. Japanese toys your thing? There's a store for that. Craving for porchetta? There's a restaurant that only serves that. Want to buy some fossils? Got it covered. Any unique offering is generally available in NY.
Pizza. Nothing beats NY pizza. It was a revelation moving there.
Energy. This is towards the bottom of my list but it's still valid. NY buzzes. Constantly. It's infectious and causes you to completely ignore that for almost a decade I did not get nearly enough sleep.
Hipsters. I know everyone hates them but when they are gone you're left with mediocrity and conformity. Hipsters have some misses (fixies?). But their hits are good. Real butcher stores, old fashioned men's barbershops, well crafted goods, old things, etc.
Street Art. Wonderful subversive art is pasted all over NY. It's part of the fun walking around the city noticing little hidden treasures.

Top Reasons to not live in NY:

Cost of Living. This one isn't what you think it is. NY is an expensive place to live. But you can manage that easily. The real problem is that it's also expensive for businesses. And that means NY and Manhattan in particular push out fringe elements to the outer boundaries. By fringe I mean the edgier restaurants, stores, etc. as well as NY institutions. 2nd Avenue Deli, one of the best places to get corned beef, is no longer on 2nd Avenue. Rent went up and it could no longer afford it. Places like SoHo are now effectively strip malls and high end boutique stores. Most of the cool stuff was pushed to Brooklyn. Which was fine. That's where I lived. But even that is getting priced at similar rents to Manhattan. Eventually everything will be 'high end'.
Grouchiness. NYers love to tell you that they are friendly. They aren't. They have no concept of manners or being nice. I've never heard a single please or thank you from, well, anyone. Some of this is in the name of efficiency but most of it is because NYers are just rude and unhappy.
Lack of 'Outdoors'. Sure you can jaunt down to the Caribbean easily. But every island is effectively the same. But mountains, desert, pinewood forests, canyons, beaches (good ones) etc.? Nope. Just deciduous forest after deciduous forest. Some crappy shoreline. Even Central Park is a highly manufactured park. That's about it. Oh and bugs. Lots of them. Half a camper's investment is in bug suppression technology.
Dirty and Noisy. Probably my daughter's biggest complaint. I sort of got used to it but it is really dirty in NY. When you step off a plane anywhere else you notice how clean it is. And don't get me started on cockroaches and rats. They are pretty much everywhere. I've never had so many intestinal tract issues as when I was in NY.
Groceries. I think the main problem here is that the restaurants suck up the good stuff before the it is sent to retail. Fish? 1 good purveyor. Greens? None really. Even the farmers markets seem to be the same quality as grocery store at twice the price. I will give NY a hat tip for their meat though. The butchers and quality of meat are some of the best. But alas no grilling allowed.

So what about LA?

Top Reason to live in LA

Weather. Although it has been raging hot lately (and our AC bit the dust) you can't beat the fact that there is simply no need to ever check the weather. It just says 'Nice and sunny'.
Produce. Besides the fact that you can grow things easily, the produce is just plain better here because most of it is grown here. For example 80% of the almonds in the world are grown in California. Tomatoes, avocados, greens, meyer lemons, etc. Everything tastes better. And gaviota strawberries. But really... avocados.
Regional Outdoor Offerings. Pretty much all my favorite outdoor things are within quick range. Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Antelope Canyon, Ape Cave, the Ring of Fire, etc. Not to mention the local beaches, sealife, huge national parks, etc. 3-day weekends are going to filled with visits to these places.
Politeness. Maybe it's just the transition from NY to LA but holy crap are people so happy and perky and polite out here. It was a little disconcerting at first but people are genuinely nice. When we moved in our neighbor came out and my NY defenses were still up. I was sure he was going to complain about something. Every move in NY entailed some neighbor getting their panties in a twist. But no. He just came out to say hello and ask if I minded the noise he was making in his backyard.
Surfing. I can learn to surf here. People do surf in NY but come on. People also kayak in Gowanus Canal but that doesn't make it right.
Mexican & Chinese food. Good places in NY do not exist.
Architecture. People are usually surprised about this but for me LA is the architecture capital. Sure there are strip malls everywhere. Lots of the very best Frank Lloyd Wright, Union Station, Watts Tower, Bradbury Building, Capital Records, LA Police Station, the oldest McDonalds, Gas Company Tower, Googie buildings, Neutra homes, etc. Really it is just endless.

Top Reasons to not live in LA

Cars & Traffic Cars cars cars. People drive down the block to the corner store. At our kids school they described the pickup policy which revolved around cars. When my wife asked what to do since our kids walked to school the response was, "oh. we've never had that question before." Because the weather is so nice the natural conversation in LA is around the traffic. There is no way to answer, 'how long does it take to drive to X' because it depends entirely on the time of data. It could be 15 minutes or it could be 1.5 hours. I'm not a big fan of being in the car but that's a requirement here.
Houses. This one probably applies only to me. And it's a solvable one. But everyone lives in houses. Apartments are less de rigueur. But I like apartments. I've lived in one since I was 18. Houses to me are time sinks. They just require me to waste more time doing things I don't want to do. And I find them lonely. I liked the noises from above in an apartment. I liked the social aspects of running into neighbors daily and seeing the concierge. I don't see anyone in my neighborhood. Ever.
Suburbia. It has also been since I was 18 that I lived in Suburbia. Again this is solvable. But our location is defined by where our kids got into school. And it's a sea of mundanity on some level. There are some reasonable neighborhoods nearby but they have to be driven to. I'm now officially "bridge & tunnel". My butcher is in West Hollywood. My fishmonger is in Santa Monica. The best restaurants I've been to aren't where I am. And that just means more driving.

But so far it's has been a nice change from NY. The sun is nice. The people are nice. The trees are nice. The beaches are nice. And since I still work out of a NY firm I get to have my slice of NY fairly often. Because I don't think I can go without Ippudo for long.

LCD meta review

2012-08-25T12:31:00.007-04:00

Meta review of low carb diets. Most clinical. Link here.

Summary A systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out to study the effects of low-carbohydrate diet (LCD) on weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors (search performed on PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Scopus databases). A total of 23 reports, corresponding to 17 clinical investigations, were identified as meeting the pre-specified criteria.

Meta-analysis carried out on data obtained in 1,141 obese patients, showed the LCD to be associated with significant decreases in body weight (−7.04 kg [95% CI −7.20/−6.88]), body mass index (−2.09 kg m−2[95% CI −2.15/−2.04]), abdominal circumference (−5.74 cm [95% CI −6.07/−5.41]), systolic blood pressure (−4.81 mm Hg [95% CI −5.33/−4.29]), diastolic blood pressure (−3.10 mm Hg [95% CI −3.45/−2.74]), plasma triglycerides (−29.71 mg dL−1[95% CI −31.99/−27.44]), fasting plasma glucose (−1.05 mg dL−1[95% CI −1.67/−0.44]), glycated haemoglobin (−0.21% [95% CI −0.24/−0.18]), plasma insulin (−2.24 micro IU mL−1[95% CI −2.65/−1.82]) and plasma C-reactive protein, as well as an increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (1.73 mg dL−1[95%CI 1.44/2.01]). Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and creatinine did not change significantly, whereas limited data exist concerning plasma uric acid. LCD was shown to have favourable effects on body weight and major cardiovascular risk factors; however the effects on long-term health are unknown.

worchestershiresterchesterishire

2012-08-19T09:50:00.000-04:00

Had an interesting conversation with someone last week that I've had with others before. How the hell do you say these words:

Worcestershire
Worcester
Leicester
Gloucester

As someone who grew up in England these are common words and also easy ones to pronounce. But many people have trouble. And it occurred to me once why that is.

You have to LOOK at the words correctly. Without cutting the words up in the right manner you end up wanting to pronounce the 'c' as a 'ch'.

Let's take the word worcester. I think the tendency is to cut the word as

wor - ces - ter

Which is where

wor - CHES - ter

originates. But the real way to cut it up is

worce - ster

If you had to pronounce that first fragment you'd have no trouble pronouncing it 'worse'. This is how all 4 words work.

worce - ster - shire (worse - ster- shire)
worce - ster (worse - ster)
leice - ster (less - ster)
glouce - ster (gloss - ster)

hincapie

2012-07-18T08:26:00.000-04:00

If Hincapie says Armstrong doped I'd believe him. Most sincere humble guy ever as evidenced by many of my old posts on the Tour. Never asked for any fame or recognition and worked his ass off to help Armstrong get most of his wins. This will be damning if he says it happened. And sad.

Those who know Hincapie say his role in the case goes against everything ingrained in him as a gregario, which, in cycling terms, is a rider who sacrifices himself in the service of the team leader by doing things like sheltering that rider from the wind or protecting him from attacks.

accurate

2012-07-13T08:34:00.002-04:00

Especially during the female singer's last line. The entire family goes at it.

hat tip: sui generic

more hair pulling

2012-06-27T10:45:00.000-04:00

Fuck. Just fuck. Fucking fuck!

The Study

"Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance"

A controlled clinical (got that!) study designed to test the effect of dietary composition on energy expenditure. YES! That is awesome.

3 diets were tested on 21 overweight and obese young adults between 6/16/2006 and 6/21/2010. After the subjects lost 10-15% of weight consuming a calorie restricted diet, the subjects then went on another calorie restricted diet but with different compositions,

Diet A - 60% carbohydrate, 20% fat, 20% protein
Diet B - 40% carbohydrate, 40% fat, 20% protein
Diet C - 10% carbohydrate, 60% fat, 30% protein

Diet C is very low carb. Yes!

Now HERE'S THE KICKER. They made the food for them and watched them eat it. No cheating allowed. This is huge. HUGE!

The only problems I have with the diet? They ran the diet for 4 weeks per diet per person. I'm not sure 4 weeks is enough to get some kind of stasis on the other measurements they made. Plus it was calorie restricted. It would be great if they just let people eat what they want to eat because that is likely how people will end up using these diets.

Measurement:

Resting energy expenditure (REE)
Total energy expenditure (TEE)
Hormone levels
Metabolic syndrome components.

Results:

Diet A - mean REE: -205 kcal/d / TEE: -423 kcal/d
Diet B - mean REE: -166 kcal/d / TEE: -297 kcal/d
Diet C - mean REE: -138 kcal/d / TEE: -97 kcal/d

In other words your metabolic energy burn rate is HIGHEST on the very low carb diet. In fact it is so much higher than low-fat that you can skip that 45 minute daily run you were contemplating. Of course that's not true because that run won't do anything. But you get the idea. It's a lot of calories. 300 MORE calories per day = 31 lbs gained in 1 year.

There were other measurements that were slightly negative for the low carb diet in the eyes of the researchers. Various cholesterol measurements were considered worse. But we know these measurements are useless and show no correlation with heart disease or metabolic syndrome. Cortisol was higher for low carb. But again in a 4 week study of radically changing diets I'm not sure you'll see a stasis. I'll be the first to admit that going low carb induces radical changes on your body initially. But triglycerides were lower. There was no way this was not going to be the case. This is a very well understood causative effect.

Conclusions:

"Decreases in REE and TEE [bad!] were greatest with the low-fat diet [...] and least with the very low-carbohydrate diet."

This is exactly what would be expected. Your body can only do two things with energy. Burn it or store it. We know carbohydrates increase insulin with cause the body to store fat. Without insulin the body therefore must burn it. Must. Through more activity. Full stop. This is the 18th of 18 clinical studies in which low carb wins. What more do we fucking need? I'll tell you what we need. A press that can report basic fucking facts.

Now for the fucking fuck part:

Response to the Study

Wall Street Journal: Opening paragraph - "A diet based on healthy carbohydrates—rather than a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet—offers the best chance of keeping weight off without bringing unwanted side effects, a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests." Ummmmmm.... Hello? What the FUCK!
David Lustig (the study's own author): "Ludwig says that restricting carbohydrates over the long term may be hard for many people. If you're trying to lose weight, "you can get a jump start with a low-carb diet, but over the long term, a low-glycemic index diet may be better than severely restricting carbohydrates." Why? Why is it better?
George Bray (an obesity researcher): This guy wrote the accompanying editorial in JAMA. Here's what this fuck has to say: "[other studies] show that you can do well on any diet as long as you stick to it. Adherence is the major key for weight loss and maintenance. There is no magic in any diet." Fuck you. Really. Fuck you Mr. Bray. You retard.
Marion Nestle (a nutrition professor at NYU). States that longer studies conducted among people in their own environments, not with such controlled meals, have shown "little difference in weight loss and maintenance between one kind of diet and another." Ummmmm. What? You call yourself a researcher? Really? More controlled is better you fuck.

I've hit my monthly allotment for swearing. But it was necessary.