Apparently, if UT loses this Saturday, they won't likely get to be in a bowl at all. And if they win, they are going to the Rose bowl, for a chance to win it all...that's messed up, if you ask me.

Steward Mandel has more on how this odd sort of thing works. Apparently LSU will also be in a bowl if they win, I hope they do. And a USC vs UT line up is possible, if they both win this weekend. That would be a fun game, since my father's alma mater is USC. On the other hand, it's hard to take any team seriously when their mascot is a condom manufacturer.

This is a pretty cool article which is relevant to both men and women, although it deals mostly with female athletes.

Like many female athletes, she strictly limited her food -- dipping as low as 800 calories a day -- to improve her performance by losing weight.

But her results were just the opposite.

"I used to wake up really tired," she said. "I used to take a lot of time off training because I was so exhausted."

Last summer, Mariash tried nutritional counseling. After about a month of sessions with dietitian Nancy Pudwill, the athlete said her energy levels soared and her performance improved. Weight loss was no longer her primary goal.

I've found this to be true to some extent for me; fatness is not as important as being in shape. Although pounds are very important in cycling; the more you weigh, the more mass you have to push for very long bike rides. However, if you are too thin, you have no energy storage whatsoever. In cycling, energy is key; you have to eat a moderate breakfast beforehand, and keep eating throughout the day. This is because basically you don't have enough energy to get through 60, 80, 100 miles, and your muscles primarily need simple sugars; it's very hard to burn fat while cycling. Hence you don't really lose that much weight when doing endurance cycling. I found that I lost the most weight when doing one long ride a week, coupled with stationary cycling at the gym 3x/week. When I did the MS150 three years ago, I weighted 155. Two years ago, when I did the ride, I weighed 165. Right now, I weigh 181, and hope to decrease this before the next MS150. But with the dissertation, i've had no time/energy to get to the gym, let alone ride a bike. I really look forward to that come January.

A small land tank. Selling now on Amazon. The reviews are very...interesting.

Adam Sternbergh argues that TV's golden era as a dictatorship is over. Instead he envisions a future such as:

Let’s say that Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly, wanted to bring the series back to air. (Though “back to air” is a TV phrase now as anachronistically quaint as “switching the dial.”) Let’s say he found a million Firefly fans online—and, trust me, they’re not hiding—who were willing to pay, say, $39.99 each for a sixteen-episode season of Firefly. (Not an unreasonable price, given how many people pay about that amount for full seasons on DVD.) Suddenly, Joss Whedon’s got roughly $40 million to play with—and he doesn’t need a network. Or a time slot. Or advertisers. He can beam the damn shows right to your computer if he wants to. There’s even a mini-precedent for this: The online phenomenon of “ransom games,” in which a board-game developer sets a price (usually something minuscule, like $1,000), then, once he’s received that amount in pledges from strangers, creates the game and releases it for free.

Good news for Buffy fans. Sorry, I meant Browncoats. He somewhat hits on the age old problem of capitalism, 1) it takes money to make money, and 2) products without a revenue stream will not survive. I think TV as it is currently is approaching obsolencence, nobody really watches it live anymore, we record it on Tivo and skip through the commercials. That's a problem, since TV is free for consumers, but is subsidized by ad revenue. New possibilities are that people will now pay for tv shows; this has happened with the new Ipod video, in the first three weeks, 1 million people downloaded tv shows like desparate housewives, for $2 per episode. FOr me, if they want to charge me $40 per season just to watch the show, i probably won't bite. I'd rather get it on a recordable media (DVD); I feel like I don't get anythign for my money if i just download something and pay for it, and never see it again; I'm not actually paying for a product, I'm paying for intellectual property. However, almost no one else is paying for this; witness the massive downloads of movies and music. Yet, we still buy music on CDs and movies on DVDs. I hope the powers that be don't decide to just push everything towards the pay as you go model. We'd end up paying alot more for alot less product. For example. if you want to see ghostbusters again, you can download it and pay $5 or whatever. Want to see it again later? No problem, that's another $5. If we buy a product, we expect to be able to use the product more than once

Joe Libberman has this glowing report of how things are going in Iraq. If you recall Joe was the VP nominee in 2000.

here are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing. And Sunni candidates are actively campaigning for seats in the National Assembly. People are working their way toward a functioning society and economy in the midst of a very brutal, inhumane, sustained terrorist war against the civilian population and the Iraqi and American military there to protect it.

Then there's this op/ed from Joe Biden; another Dem senator; he's been at the forefront of the Dem's campaign against Iraqi involvement, spelling out how horrible things are there, and how the administration needs to get it's act together.

Second, we must build Iraq's governing capacity and overhaul the reconstruction program. Iraq's ministries are barely functional. Sewage in the streets, unsafe drinking water and a lack of electricity are all too common. With 40 percent unemployment in Iraq, insurgents do not lack for fresh recruits.

Both of these can't be right. Many democrats have said recently that recent polls of Iraqis want the 'occupiers' gone, and are pessimistic about their future. Yet Sen. Libberman says this:

Here is an ironic finding I brought back from Iraq. While U.S. public opinion polls show serious declines in support for the war and increasing pessimism about how it will end, polls conducted by Iraqis for Iraqi universities show increasing optimism. Two-thirds say they are better off than they were under Saddam, and a resounding 82% are confident their lives in Iraq will be better a year from now than they are today. What a colossal mistake it would be for America's bipartisan political leadership to choose this moment in history to lose its will and, in the famous phrase, to seize defeat from the jaws of the coming victory.

Further, the title of the Libberman article was "Our Troops Must Stay". And the Biden article? "Down to the details on a U.S. pullout from Iraq". The two are not directly contradictory, but largely so. Libberman focuses on what is working in Iraq, and how effective the new strategy is. Biden, by and large, focuses on how we screwed up, and how there never was enough 'boots on the ground'. Newsflash, Biden, we don't have that much troops; we would be foolish to commit our entire military for a one year effort. It really takes the Iraqi military to clear Iraq of terrorists, and once towns are cleared, make sure they don't come back.

Libberman effectively communicated. Biden was all about finger pointing. I know who'd I vote for in the next election, and its not Biden. I think Joe Libberman was an impressive VP candidate, perhaps moreso that Gore. Biden? It's time for the Dems to do something constructive instead of play blame games.

What's terribly dissappointing to me is that the Dems don't have a good plan for Iraq, but finally after 3? years they start parroting the Bush admin's line on how to succeed in Iraq; gradual withdrawl in 06 and 07, and the 'clear, hold, and build' mantra of increasing security through training of Iraqi troops, coupled simulanteously with massive reconstruction efforts.

Well it was pretty successful for me, but I only made one failed trip to CompUSA; they were sold out of all the good stuff in 30 minutes. Then I went home and found that many stores, including CompUSA had their black friday stuff online and still available. Anyway, ended up spending way more than expected, but now my xmas shopping is mostly done. Hopefully all those rebates will come through without much of a problem.

Some think that Monday will be the black friday equivalent for online shopping; maybe that is true, but so many have broadband that it's not a big deal to do the online shopping over the weekend. Anyway, i think its a good thing when the retailers do their black friday stuff online; its much more enticing to people like me...i didn't really plan on buying much of anything, but there were such great deals I couldn't resist. Best sale of the year, for sure.

I think alot of people were after those 300-400 dollar notebooks. Hope they are worth it, and all the rebates go through. As usual occassionally things got out of hand.

n nearby Grandville, Michigan, two shoppers were hurt when they slipped on a wet floor as they entered a Wal-Mart, fire Lt. Lynnae White said. One of the injured was after a bargain notebook computer, he said. Neither was hurt seriously.

The same computer discount was the catalyst for trouble at a Wal-Mart in Orlando, Florida, where a man allegedly cut in line to buy one.

I don't really need a notebook so I didn't try to get one; a friend of mine waited in line 7 hours to get one.

Anyway I think this BF was better than in years past, I remember going out a few years ago and hardly anything was on sale. Now, even the biggie items are slightly on sale; notebooks and MP3 players. Whether that signals a good holiday season or not I don't know. I would be surprised if the holidays are better than last year, with all the natural disasters.


Update: I was wrong about Cyber Monday, sales were 500 million this monday, a 26% jump from teh same day last year. Online sales of $20 billion are expected this year. Clearly online shopping is huge. This year, i'll do almost all my shopping online. Why not? It's quicker and cheaper, and often there is no shipping or low shipping cost, and sometimes no tax. I already saved at least $100.

CNN did a little gallery of the effect of the internet on select person's lives. One of them is from Kauai. Hard life!

Jim Manico, Kauai, Hawaii
Surfing the Web since 1994

I am a high tech worker -- through Blue Slate Solutions, I am a business analyst and computer programmer consultant for a Fortune 500 company -- and this would be impossible if it were not for the Internet.

I live on the island of Kauai in Hawaii! I take lunch breaks with my boogie board in the ocean. I drink coconut milk for breakfast from the trees in my back yard. It truly is paradise here. I talk to the team I am on via instant message, we e-mail all day, I check my code in to a source code control system via the Internet, all securely, and the distance is barely noticeable.

I remember back in high school/college a group of us tried to make a computer game; it naturally fell flat, perhaps for the main reason that were were just high school kids, but it was very interesting to see people from all over the world; we had people in the UK, Germany, Australia, and the US. Trying to find a time so we could all chat was very difficult! Anyway, I still think it's pretty amazing that, for example, my father in Hawaii can read X-rays of patients in Arizona, thanks to the internet. My good friend doesn't have a real phone service any more, he uses voice over IP, the call quality is pretty good and the rates are good for them. Perhaps the internet is the last edge of the US over the world, although this is fast fading, I think, due to the 'portability' of the technology. A person in malasia with a internet connection could start up a web business, for example, without much knowledge at all. Whereas in the past, you can't really export car manufacturing readily, nor can you export computer chip manufacturing.

Found on some random person's signature. The similiarity between the first person's name and my aunt is interesting.

The beaver, which has come to represent Canada as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slow-witted, toothy rodent known to bite off it's own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees.
-June Callwood

Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes.
- Tommy Douglas

Other life news...I'm staying home for thanksgiving, sniff. First time I've done that and had no one to celebrate with. I feel grad school sucks your soul out, one piece at a time. When I made the decision that I had to stay here in order to prepare for my defense I felt a little part of my soul escaping and being implanted in lab. Shrug. The things they do to you, how can you cope and remain sane? It's mostly psychological. I hope it ends when I become a postdoc; it also depends on the advisor. My wife has a great advisor. I've had two mediocre ones. Although my MS advisor is now actually nice to me. My theory is that scientists are very nice and friendly, unless they are your advisor. My good friend is a full professor, I really respect and like him, but apparently his grad students complain about him. So, I think it's really the whole advisor/student relationship which is so fucked up. If i were king...Seriously, we should outlaw this slavery. All i can feel, as I am two weeks away from defending, is that I am leaving prison, after doing serious hard time. That's the truth.

Anyway no other news, I'm doing lab work now, which is 'funner', I haven't done much in 6 months and discovered I really miss it.

Rummy is slotting about 92k troops for next year, down from 160,000 in January of next year b/c of the elections. THis is situation dependant though. But this year on average there were 140k troops there. So, we may begin to see a gradual withdrawl. The Iraqis are hopeful, they already have 210k police/military 'trained'; most of them are as good as any country in the region I suspect, and a few of them are probably better, thanks to US arms and instructions. There is alot of good news, and the draw down should go on schedule, unless there is an uptick in violence. But the main thing is that Iraqis are getting sick of the terrorists, and more and more Iraqi troops are trained every day, while the number of insurgents decreases everyday due to blowing themselves up or getting shot or captured. There is an end in sight.

Speaking of end in sight, I just got the official school annoucement of my defense. It's always wierd to see those things of yourself in public. But this is a long (long long long) awaited event. My 'practice' seminar last week friday went well, and i think i'm in good shape. Now for these last few experiments and manuscript writing.

This is interesting. I remember a lecture about obesity back in the day (5 years ago - obsolete), but I also recall the lecturer saying that humans didn't have mutation in the 'ob' gene. I'm not sure if this is the same gene or not, but there may not be any people with problems with this gene, resulting in obesity. Just a word of caution. That being said, artificial manipulation of the hormones would still work in theory. Even if people don't have a broken 'fat' gene, they can still get skinny by correct dosing of the 'skinny' hormone.

In 1999 Japanese scientists discovered the "ghrelin" hormone. And in 2000 American researches discovered that this hormone drives appetite.

Ghrelin is still the only hormone known to directly affect appetite this way. With the developed world getting fatter every year, scientists rushed to learn everything they could about the hormone.

They were able to track the hormone back to a gene, and then they produced a mouse without the ghrelin gene. They expected to have a skinny, emaciated mouse. But the mouse appeared normal.

This remained a mystery until yesterday's announcement by a group of scientists at Stanford. These scientists have discovered another hormone, obestatin, that sends out a signal to eat less or stop eating. It is the anti-ghrelin. But, amazingly, it is coded by the same gene as ghrelin.

So when they knocked out the gene for the hunger hormone ghrelin, they were also knocking out the fullness hormone obestatin. The net effect was an apparently normal mouse.

Oh, I'm doing more lab work and less paper/dissertation writing (some of the former, none of the latter), so I am finding more time on my hands, to be filled by blogging and filling out postdoc apps.

I recall predicting consumer lawsuits, but now the Attorney General in TX is filing suit against Sony.

AUSTIN — Attorney General Greg Abbott sued Sony BMG Music Entertainment today over anti-piracy technology on music compact discs that he said leaves huge security holes in consumers' computers.

I'm not sure this is true, abuot the security holes, but I think the patch does leave security holes. Anyway it's a dirty rotten trick, but I am not sure this lawsuit in particular will fly. How about 'they put stuff on the PC that they don't tell consumers about, and hides the fact that such countermeasures exist, making removal difficult/impossible'.

New study in the Lancet says that one-third of ca deaths annually are preventable. Here is the list of risk factors:

Those nine risk factors are:

—Smoking

—Being overweight or obese

—Physical inactivity

—Low intake of fruits and vegetables

—Alcohol use

—“Unsafe” sex

—Indoor smoke from household use of solid fuels

—Contaminated injections in health care settings

—Air pollution

Of these, being fat, smoking, inactive, drinking ethanol, and not eating veggies are actually on the list of things I can do to avoid ca. Being male, I don't get cervical cancer (the sexually transmittable one). I think lung ca is a big problem of course, but many people are not smoking and still getting it, which suggests environmental or genetic factors; things you really can't do much about. Anyway I am not sure these stats are right (from the usual blogger 'it doesn't seem right' mentality), i would expect that proper diet and exercise would prevent much more than 1/3 of ca. I think people will hear about this study and go back to sitting on their asses, drinking and smoking and watching football, if 2 of 3 will die due to things beyond their control.

Well i finished my talk w/ frog club. I think it went satisfactory, but i need to clean it up more. I shuold have worked on it more. But I was busy writing the dissertation. I finished it on Wed and printed it, got it bound overnight, submitted it to 6 committee members on Thur (and tracked them all down, finally, for signatures). Today I got the last signature and submitted the petition for defense to the grad school, attended our lab meeting, then ran over and did this presentation, basically a sum of my work.

In other news, Nature genetics now has a blog. May be useful to get inside the mind of an editor of one of the best journals.

Just about finished with the dissertation revisions. Also the manuscript has been revised for the 40th time or so. The manuscript has been a real problem, with lots of back and forth between myself and my advisor. It's proving to be quite the wedge between us; she can't decide what she wants, and I need to get something submitted before defense to graduate. Anyway I think it will happen. There isn't much I can do except keep making revisions and resubmitting it, just nod and smile basically. Almost there.

This is a good start. Sony has recalled the disks that ship with anti-piracy software (which installed spyware and makes Windows PC vulnerable).

A Sony BMG statement Tuesday said the company would pull unsold CDs with the software from store shelves and let consumers exchange already purchased ones. On Friday the company had said it would halt production of CDs with the technology and "re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative."

Also they released an uninstall program. The catch is that the uninstall program apparently leaves the PC wide open for explotation.

"The consequences of the flaw are severe," Felten and Halderman wrote in a blog posting Tuesday after being tipped by a Finnish researcher, Matti Nikki. "It allows any Web page you visit to download, install, and run any code it likes on your computer. Any Web page can seize control of your computer; then it can do anything it likes. That's about as serious as a security flaw can get."

Well, that didn't take long.

A computer security firm said on Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG's controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc.

When the CD is played on a Windows personal computer, the software first installs itself and then limits the usage rights of a consumer. It only allows playback with Sony software.

The software sparked a class-action lawsuit against Sony BMG in California last week, claiming that Sony BMG had not informed consumers that it installs software directly into the "root" of their computer systems with rootkit software, which cloaks all associated files and is dangerous to remove.

So, Sony created something which is impossible to detect, prevents playback on Windows based PCs (unless Sony software is used), and now is a great vector for introducing viruses which are hard to detect and eradicate. Remind me to never buy a Sony CD, ever (although I think I already did, BMG is owned by Sony I believe, and that's the silly music club that i subscribed to years ago and occassionally will get hits such as 'best of the bee gees volume 29'.). ANyway, way to go Sony. If this were a Law and Order episode, they'd be charged with criminally negligent destruction or something.

Hmm, just found this from CNN

Two Oregon couples to split largest-ever Powerball jackpot

(CNN) -- Two Oregon couples Tuesday claimed the largest Powerball jackpot in history -- an announced $340 million -- which the woman who bought the ticket called "just a tremendous blessing."

The four, who chipped in to buy $40 worth of tickets at Ray's Food Place in the small town of Jacksonville, in southwest Oregon, will take their winnings in one lump sum, or $164,410,058, before taxes, said Frances Chaney, 68. Powerball spokeswoman Marlene Meissner said that would come to about $110 million, after taxes. (Posted 6:07 p.m.)

So, if the lottery winnings are reported to be 340 million, but you only get 110 million, is that a good deal? I am too tired to run the stats, but the lottery people are not losing money here; otherwise lottery programs wouldn't exist. This is legalized gambling; and the odds of winning are so incredibly low as to be nonexistant.

Anyway i am in the middle of more paper and dissertation writing. Planning to submit the dissertation early next week. The end is neigh.

So I've been focusing on graduating since...forever. The major requirment is approval of the committee, submission of a dissertation, and defense thereof. There is a new catch from my program; a journal article must be submitted as proof of the student's academic prowless (or whatever). So I've been working on that (officially) since July, trying to get it ready for submission (which is whenever my advisor thinks it's ready). No luck. In fact, just today/yesterday she wanted me to completely rewrite the paper, and add more experiments. For submission within a month of defense. Anyway the dissertation is done, and about to go to the committee; my advisor has refused to look at it, saying that the paper should be the first focus. ANyway so today I wrote the program director and she reiterated that a manuscript submission was required, and she'll talk to my advisor. Hopefully I won't get too much fallout from this. My stance is that I have to graduate no matter what, and if I need to be dropped from the program then that's fine. The paper is out of my control. THe dissertation is in my control, and I feel more or less comfortable submitting it to the committee. I have no idea what my advisor will say. But if she refuses to sign off on it, while the entire committee will, plus the dean of teh school plus the assistant dean, then I can graduate anyway. It's a safety valve for difficult advisors.

Seems pretty good. Blogging is a 'big' trend. Although the story does not unfortunately go into trend issues; if the numbers increase or what not. They probably have to some degree. The fact that 1 of 4 adults read blogs is astounding
Among adults, Pew says about 7 percent of Internet users have created their own blogs, or online diaries. And while 26 percent of adults say they read blogs, 38 percent of young people with online access said they do so.

Seems like a good thing. In the 80s and 70s, hacking was more a fun way to learn about computer security. The fact that computers were hacked were not percieved as a major problem, and hackers didn't go out of their way to cause trouble; it was more to see if you can do it or not. Now hacking has significant impact on the internet, and people launch attacks that compromise thousands or tens of thousands of computers. That's not right, and a distortion of the earlier 'ethics'...So i think the feds should crack down as hard as possible on these people. They have disrupted commerce and sometimes endanger lives (by crashing system critical computers). Now you can't run a unprotected PC on the internet for more than 5 minutes, or it will be attacked. Perhaps we need to move to a more secure and accountable network system.

So say critics of Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the board of the corporation for public broadcasting. He was accused of being conservative, and was forced to resign. My questions are 1) Would this happen if he was a liberal? 2) Does it scare liberals so much when conservatives have access to media? 3) What is the bias of public broadcasting? I would think it's liberal, seems like that whenever I listen to NPR. Perhaps there should be a blatent political viewpoint, but make sure it's balanced. In democracies, all voices should be heard, not just the hard left and right.

Well, i feel safe now. J & I heard some commotion last night, involving police and bullhorns. I guess they were looking for this guy; the prison is about 4-5 mi from our house.

Surprisingly, not all French hate Americans. According to Roger Simon. Oh, and the riots in Paris suberbs for the lasts week are somewhat bad.

Starting this year, all Sony music CDs will have a stealth module in it that prohibit copying the music more than three times. It does this by installing root kits, which are invisible files that are nearly impossible to remove. This is deeply concerning since it is not known what effect this root kit will have on systems and software, Sony is mum about it, there are very few ways to circumvent it, and mostly because its yet another huge backdoor for viruses/spyware. It's very troubling and malicious of Sony.

Good. I think it's sad that people died, and that correlated with taking the drug. I don't think Merck did much wrong, nor do the risks outweigh the benefits. It's not justice to punish a drug company who helped save millions of lives, strip all their profits and destroy the company, thus endangering hundreds of millions of people. Thats what the trial lawyers don't seem to get. No one else will make these drugs if Merck goes under (unless they can legally). And if a drug is tainted, such as Vioxx, no way will it be sold again. At some point there has to be a risk/reward analysis in place. The drug passed multiple FDA trials, there was no sign of problems before approval. When there was a sign of problems, it was quickly pulled. I think we can't have it both ways; we can't expect the drug makers to be superheros and villians at the same time. Either the medical profession stops based the entire healthcare based on drugs, or accept it for what it is; imperfect science. There are no miracles in drugs, there are always side effects; generally the more potent the drug, the more the side effects.

I was just talking with my wife about caffeine. As a society we've been using caffeine for hundreds of years. Not only does it act as a stimulant, it helps control asmatha, and its cytotoxic and carcinogenic at high doses (nothing found in caffeine-containing beverages, I assure you). So this one simple drug has a multitude of effects, depending on the dose.

Mudville gazette is all over them

Fully agree with all of these. Mine are more..well basic. My computer has an odd habit of rebooting whenever it's feeling stressed. I think its the power supply, I've got too much hardware for the PSU, even if it's one of the best in the market. And I don't feel like plopping $100 to get a higher capacity one. Someday soon i'll have to wipe everything and strip out one or two of the hard drives. I just hope the thing lives long enough to get to my defense. Thank god Word autosaves every 10 minutes, that has saved me quite a few times.

Imagine being able to find out if your child is really the product of you and your (presumed) loved one. Now you can find out at home. Well, not really, but anyway this is cool; an article on genomic DNA extraction and gel elecrophoresis at home.

At least a good draft of it is. Now it's time to see what the commmitee and advisor think. Hopefully they won't ask for too much. This is of course, key to my graduate in a timely manner.

only outlaws will have vicodin. Anyway, apparently a drug ring in Houston has helped disribute 1.7 million tablets of the highly addictive narcotic (and other narcs). The members of the ring include a pharmacist. The last of them was found guilty of distribution on Monday. Because, you know, the city needs more drugs and violence. Never enough of that.

But some advocates think it will lead to more teen sex. I think the Clinton White House did more to promote teen sex than any drug that will be made in the near future. This would be a great help for women to prevent cervical ca.

Okay, so it's Nov 1, but the day after thanksgiving is right around the corner. ANd i'll be stuck at home. With a checkbook. And a week before my defense. What to do, what to do? Anyway :) Apparently walmart has a (HP) $400 laptop, that's a steal pretty much. J got an equiv model from Dell for $700. Lots of other stuff. Dunno if i want to deal w/ huge crowds though.