If the climate was a bank they would already have saved it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT2sQ7KIQ-E

Just think of how profoundly different our history would have been with those in the sky. My first thought was that the old mariners' problem of determining longitude would never have existed - just look at the rings, night or day. It would be pretty obvious that the Earth was round (though that was figured out several centuries B.C.). I wonder how they would have been incorporated into religious mythologies.

R Brush for SyntaxHighlighter

Hopefully I'll actually create an actual "code" section to my web site. I have so much code sitting on my computers that I really should put a lot of it online.

Embarrassingly enough, I don't know how to even display an example of this new whizzy software on my blog! Sad. Head over to the other page to see an example.

Any comments or examples of use of the R brush are welcome!

I loved the idea of the FBI delivering lottery winnings. I imagine a door literally bursting open as two FBI agents wearing dark glasses leap inside:

"ATTENTION SIR WE ARE HERE TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU HAVE WON A LOTTERY PLEASE DON'T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS, KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM AND CONGRATULATIONS!!"

"Thanks. Please get your wingtips off my throat."

If you're curious, I won $800K. This was discovered by the "Intelligence Monitoring Network System", a system presumably built to monitor lottery winnings. Further, the name of the "Agent in-charge" is FRED MBA. I'm guessing he was really proud of his degree. Maybe I should change my name to DEMITRI PHD. Finally, the FBI was kind enough to leave me a contact phone number, with a country code in Nigeria. That must be where the FBI Lottery Division field office is.

My last post was motivated by a pet peeve of mine, that is, memes that are spread far and wide and are factually incorrect. For some things, people just don't know better or else they've heard something repeated many times. ("Give your kids sugar and it will make them hyperactive!" Wrong.) It also makes for tedious conversation. I challenge you to go through Thanksgiving dinner this year and not hear this exchange: "Man, I'm sleepy!" "Oh, it's all that tryptophan in the turkey!" It's not. At all. But as a scientist, I don't want to be like those people that just repeat any claim they hear ("you lose most of your body heat through your head!") without actually providing a reference. But that takes work, and that takes time, and... nothing gets written. So I'm going to go on this principle from here on out - if I make a claim on something, know that I did my due diligence, and if someone can prove to me otherwise, I'll happily correct it. So maybe more will get written now.

Finally, just one random comment. The Democrats just passed their health bill in the House, but in the process gave anti-choicers a huge victory. Seriously, if the Dems can't get a majority and keep their values, then what's the point? I think this was a huge mistake on their part and they should have found some stick to keep the "conservative" Dems (whatever that means) in line rather than allow those few to do the opposite. It's an incredible disappointment. And I don't want to hear "oh, it's for the greater good, the bill got passed." You don't trade away an individual's rights "for the greater good". It's a slippery slope.

I'm going to post examples of such things as I come across them. I welcome any corrections, but will happily ignore corrections that do not cite credible sources. (Hey, what do you want, I'm a scientist.)

Here are a few things that are wrong:

• You will gain weight if you eat food at night before going to sleep.
• If you exercise, your body's metabolism will increase so that when you are resting you will burn more calories than you would have otherwise (also known as "afterburn").

“To their surprise, the researchers found that none of the groups, including the athletes, experienced “afterburn.” They did not use additional body fat on the day when they exercised. In fact, most of the subjects burned slightly less fat over the 24-hour study period when they exercised than when they did not.”

The message here of course is not to skip exercise. Which brings me to the most important part of the weight loss equation:

“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out.”

If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. If you burn more than you eat, you lose weight. Period.

More medical myths on their way. I'll spread them out a bit, but most are from the same few sources. Then I'll move on to other things to show that everything you know is wrong.

And Another Thing...

This is just so wrong...

But it does make me think - although we were mocking them, apparently Rob and Laura Petrie had it right all along. Who knew? (I can only assume that Ward and June had the same configuration... maybe that's how Ward was able to handle Beav.)

First, I started an improvisational comedy group in 2006 in Sheffield. I act as the artistic director. It's been extremely successful, and over the past year (during term time, the group is primarily comprised of students) we've put on shows on pretty much a weekly basis.

Second, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a the largest arts festival in the world. It's particularly known for it's comedy - this is the place for new comedy.

What do these two facts have in common? Well, the Shrimps (Sheffield Imps!) are performing at the Fringe this year for two weeks, and it's quite an experience!

We've been running non-stop since we got here Sunday, with planning the show, rehearsing, flyering (more on that in an upcoming post), and of course seeing other shows! That last part is really crucial.

Every other day we'll also be running improv workshops to teach people the basics of what we do. In fact, I'm off to run the first one now, so I'll have to write more later!

Pretty much the most indispensable application I can think of. I just learned that Jared will be coming to the iPhone. Of course he will be coming to the iPhone. It's why the iPhone was invented - to allow Jared to go on the road.

Naturally, I've shared Jared with my friends. Here are a few extremely grateful comments I've received:

Why would you do that to me? What did I ever do to you?? -- Kate

I had systematically killed the brain cells that remembered Jared. You are now responsible for killing two parts of my brain. I hope you can sleep at night. -- Louis

Hey, no problem guys!

The first stand-up comedy album I ever owned was Carlin's 1981 A Place For My Stuff (it was a cassette, actually!). I listened to it countless times to the point where I'd had it memorised. I started dipping my toes into the world of drama back in high school. Back then, I was only interested in stage as a means to do comedy (as if that's changed). I participated in a monologue competition in my senior year, and I chose George Carlin's material to perform. I joined together Icebox Man and Fussy Eater, both off that album.

A few weeks later, I was asked to participate in an end-of-year school assembly and perform my monologue. It was amazing rush - there I was, alone on stage with hundreds of people in front of me, and they were laughing. This was a whole new side of comedy for me, and I owe all that to George.

--- Tony the Tiger, reflecting on his career