An alligator in Logan, UT

At lunch today I went for a walk. There is a path near my office which runs along the Logan river, through a pasture. It was cold, raining-on-the-verge of snowing. SO I had my hood pulled down, and I was walking fairly quickly.

The path crosses the river a couple times via little foot bridges, and as I approached the last bridge on my return trip, I caught movement in the water, just at the edge of my peripheral vision. My first thought, given the abundance of tadpoles was "frog", but it was really too large to be a frog, and moved through the water much to smoothly.

Then, whether because I had started at frog and therefore had amphibian (and consequently reptile) on my brain, or because my wife and I have been looking a pictured of Florida the night before, or both, I quite clearly realized that what I was seeing was none other than an alligator! A small one, maybe a a foot or two in length, but most definitely the correct size, shape, texture, color and motion.

Then that smart-astic voice in the back of my head chimed in with that annoyingly smug voice...

"Really..... You are in Logan.... Utah.... in the middle of January, in rain/snow... And your going with alligator?"

At about that moment, the muskrat dove under the water and out of site.

The funny thing was for that brief instant, I really did see an alligator, that is how my mind interpreted the visual stimuli it received. It was only at that very last instant, that rational mind kicked in and saw "Things as they really are".

I got to thinking about that- how often, to what extent, and for how long do our brains get misled in a life time, by misinterpreted or out of context stimuli or information?

And has this phenomena increased in the age of tweets, instagrams... increasingly short and fast info-bits?

Race and Plumbers: A Conspiracy Theory

Bear with me while I invoke a few hypotheticals for consideration...

A couple decades ago, I remember reading a study in a Scholarly journal in which the author presented a correlation between lead exposure and violence. The author further implied that inner city areas, where older buildings, contained greater quantities of lead paint and lead plumbing, could be significant factors in explaining higher crime levels there.

Given that these locations have a higher probability of being home to underprivileged, and the U.S. Black population tends to be concentrated in larger cities, and has a higher ratio of underprivileged, is it possible that much of the significantly higher levels of violence in the Black community could be attributed to lead poisoning?

Stretching deeper into hypothetical territory – African Americans have a substantially higher rate of sickle cell anemia. (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sca/atrisk)

what if there is a correlative genetic component which makes one more sensitive to the effects of lead toxicity?

All hypothetical, yes, and increasingly so at the end, but what if?

What if the disparity in violence between the black population and other populations in the U.S. could be drastically reduced by simply eliminating the lead paint, the lead plumbing, any other sources of lead from the geography?

Is keeping the focus and resources on “Racism” (more specifically White racism) diverting resources and attention from other, potentially more effective approaches to the problem (environment, poverty, culture, ...) ?

Pornography, Addiction, Depression and Science

I've seen quite a few conversations recently around the link between pornography addiction and depression. There have been quite a few articles on the subject in the past few years, and recently there seems to have been an uptick in conversation.

The articles all talk about scientific studies, but rarely give references.That is fairly typical; most people don't want to wade through scientific studies, and often the studies are not available for free, public consumption. Price to access such studies can run into the hundreds of dollars.

I did find this study from 1998. It seems to be reasonably sound, albeit short. The methods are well documented, and they do a good job of summarizing the results without bias.

The articles are often very good, very well thought out, and make very compelling, and logically reasonable arguments (I though this one was particularly compelling).

But they are ultimately opinion pieces, and they are interpreting the data the way they choose. Nearly every article I have read seems to be interpreting in the same way. The directly or indirectly implied assertion of the articles is that Pornography addiction leads to depression.

This concerns me. It concerns me because the general public may take this assertion as proven, scientific truth, when it isn't. It is certainly one way to interpret the data, but it is not the only way.


From the study I referenced, the following quote is critical (emphasis added):

"Based on the findings, it is concluded that evaluation of suspected cases of PIU [pathological internet use] should include assessment for depression. These results, however, do not clearly indicate whether depression preceded the development of such Internet abuse or if it was a consequence."

In other words, while it is POSSIBLE that Pornography addiction causes depression....

It is EQUALLY POSSIBLE that depression causes a predisposition to addiction (not just addiction to pornography but any and all addictive/compulsive behaviors).

Most articles I am seeing only consider the former, and not the latter possibility. This is concerning, as it can lead to blaming the victim. There is a commonly repeated theme - perhaps more frequently in America, that we are solely responsible for our destinies. That thought, infused with pride, tends to lead to a converse thought that others are solely to blame for their misfortunes. "They are the just punishments for their sins", either in this life or the life previous. The oversimplification of the phrase "You reap what you sow" ignores life's, floods, firestorms, hurricanes, droughts... It discounts the impact of genetics, environment, and the effects of social interaction for good or ill.

My own theory, I suspect that depression and addiction work together in a feedback cycle. each increasing the effects of the other. I'd even go so far as to suggest that a long-term addiction could effect a genetic change, increasing the probability of a predisposition in offspring. And thus the key is to work up, rather than down the spiral.

What would change by recognizing both possibilities equally?

Treatment for addiction probably wouldn't change all that much. Perhaps a little more attention to possible links to - and treatment for depression might arise,

But there might be a greater degree of compassion for those who suffer from addictions, if we recognized the genetic predisposition. We might also be able to develop means to identify those genetically predisposed to addiction, and better prepare them in advance to avoid becoming trapped in addictive behaviors. Perhaps also, we as a society would be more willing to make potentially addictive substances less overtly available, if we understood how we were negatively effecting those individuals.

Perhaps...

Netscape, Vmware, Microsoft and The Propellerheads ft. Shirley Bassey

Anytime I think about history repeating, I think about The Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey. So, here's your random song for the day.

But setting aside the word association...

Sometime right around 1980, a Fine, upstanding British chap by the name of Tim Berners-Lee proposed a project to create a Hypertext system to facilitate the sharing and updating of information among researchers.

In 1989-1990, Tim connected his hypertext idea to TCP (port 80)  and DNS, and the World Wide Web was born.

A few years after that the public began to connect to what had been a military and education network. Near the end of 1994 Netscape- the first commercial, Internet Hypertext Browser (Or Web Browser), was available for sale. Websites began popping up all over the place. Initially there were informative and educational websites, later commercial sites appeared, and the world wide web exploded. Think were looking good for Netscape.

In 1995 Bill Gates weighed in on the internet, calling it "...a passing fad that will go the way of the BBS".  Around this same time Netscape stated one of its goals was to "level the playing field" among operating systems (in other words, people would do most everything in their web browser, which would run on any operating system, breaking the dependency on Microsoft Windows operating system.

That got Microsoft's attention.

Microsoft scrambled to put together their own web browser, "Internet Explorer", which they originally included as part of "Windows 95 Plus!". It was awful, it was buggy, it was unreliable....

It was free.

(There are also allegations that Microsoft approached Netscape with an Offer to divide the market, which Netscape refused. Microsoft of course denies these allegations)

By 1997 Netscape was in trouble. People were getting a "Free" web browser with their "Free" operating system that came with their computer (let me just point out that nothing is free. You paid for Internet explorer. The cost was just hidden in the operating system cost, which was hidden in the computer purchase cost). Why shell out and additional $30-60 for Netscape? Internet Explorer (IE) was still fairly awful, but the reduction of funds was starting to have an effect onthe quality of Netscape's product, which was increasingly buggy.

What's more, Microsoft had introduced "Active Server Pages", a proprietary extension to HTML, which only worked in IE, and on Microsoft operating systems. It ultimately fizzled and is now largely a relic of the past, but it did help shore up the Microsoft monopoly at the time.

A handful of years later and not many remember Netscape. The code still exists, spun of as the Mozilla Project - a nonprofit (? They get over $300 million a year from Google to make google.com the default search page. Seems a fine line to me. of course That is 85% of their revenue, and google has Chrome, so Google could conceivably pull the plug at ay time, and then what happens?).

Now this all seems very unjust and anti-competition, and you'd think the world governments would have done something about it. They did. there were antitrust lawsuits and the like. But they happened to late, took to long to resolve. Netscape was long dead before anything came of it. So all that really came of it was a few lawyers and politicians made some money and garnered some press. Too little too late.


Flash forward to today. VMware has been the star of the next big thing. Virtualization and cloud computing. They have a workstation product, which users can run on home PC's which allows them to have multiple operating systems available from one computer. And they have the Suite of Server products, which allows computer hardware to be treated as a utility.

Now they are putting visualization on phones. as well, On a single physical phone, you can have your personal phone, and your company phone, each separate and protected from each other. The company get's better security, for their data, and you get to to keep control of your phone, and your data. cool stuff.

Microsoft - who for the past few years seems to have been playing nice- got into virtualization rather late in the game. they have been scrambling to catch up. They still have a long way to go.

But...

They recently, quietly announced their next workstation operating system release will include their virtualization platform. For "free" (It was already included in premium versions, Since Vista I believe). Their server virtualization system is also freely included with server operating system.

Sounds suspiciously like history repeating. Will VMware be the next Netscape?

An Open Letter to Mud Lake and Terreton, Idaho

I am a decade-plus late writing this....

Some time in the early to mid 1990's  - At Thanksgiving, I was driving from Logan to Salmon, in the first car I ever purchased. It was an ancient Nissan 200sx, which I paid around $1500 for. Sometime shortly after passing Idaho Falls, the Engine stuttered, then stalled. I pulled over, unsure what I should do. I tried unsuccessfully to get the car started again. Then I sat in my cold vehicle, watching other cars pass by, wondering if someone would notice my plight, and contact the police to assist me.

I sat for probably 20, 30 minutes. Feeling just a wee bit stressed out, when a passing pickup truck pulled to the side, then backed up to me. Out of the cabin climbed 3 young men - I would guess they were 14 to 16 years old. They were genuine country boys. They came over to my car asked me how I was doing, then set to work trying to solve my car problem. I learned they were from Mud lake Ultimately their efforts were unsuccessful, so one of them jumped into the back of the pickup to make room for me, and they drove me into Idaho Falls, to a shopping center, where I would at least have access to a phone and food.

Roughly ten years later, My brother and I were driving to Salmon with some friends over Christmas break, I don't recall now if it was in Mud lake, or Terreton, that my Brothers card sputtered to a stop. So here we were in the the dark, around 6 or 7 pm, trying to decide what to do. Once again, a pickup truck, with three teenage farm boys pulled to a stop, and went to work trying to solve our car trouble. Once again, they were unsuccessful, so they helped us get the car to a safe spot for the night, made a recommendation for a garage to take it to in the morning, and made sure we were safely on our way, all crammed tightly into my little car.

So ten years later, I wanted to say thanks to the people of Mud Lake and Terreton. Thank you for raising exceptional young men, who were willing to come to the aid of stranded drivers, and who went the extra mile to make sure we were safe, and that our basic needs were met.

Home Canned Spaghetti Sauce

I've been experimenting... This is the current iteration...

We grew the tomatoes, and garlic, could have saved a bit more on cost by growing the herbs, carrots, peppers and celery as well without too much trouble. My cost estimation came in at about $2.00 a quart - cheaper then the expensive stuff at the store, not as cheap as the cheap stuff. That did include cost of Jars, so over the years that cost could drop to as low as $1.25 a quart, which is fairly competitive. Chemical free too...


25 lb tomatoes
1/2 cup oil
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 Stalk Celery, minced
1-2 Carrots, minced
4 yellow onions, chopped
1C Red Wine Vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup salt
4T Dried Oregano
2T Dried Parsley
2T Dried Basil
2t crushed red pepper flakes
2t Worcestershire sauce
2 Bay leaves
1/2 t Black Pepper
1C lemon Juice
6x 8oz cans tomato paste
3 Green Bell Peppers, Seeded, Chopped

Directions

1.  Select and set aside eight nice looking, firm tomatoes. Peel, and juice the rest of the tomatoes, pour into a large stock pot. (I got about 12 quarts of sauce), on low heat (just enough to bring it to a slow bubble.

2. Heat Oil in a frying Pan. over medium to medium high-heat. Add Minced garlic, celery, and carrots, and Chopped Onions. Cook well (you want brown bits on the bottom of the pan). Deglaze the pan with the Red Wine vinegar and add to Stock pot.

3. Add the remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the Tomato Paste and the Bell Peppers. Let that bubble over low heat for an hour or more.

4. Thicken with tomato paste.

5. Remove the Bay leaves, and add the chopped bell peppers. Dice and add the eight reserved tomatoes.

6. Pour into Sterile canning Jars, leaving 1/4" head space. Lid and process. Appropriately. (I used a water bath canner, and processes quart Jars for 40 min).


When ready to serve, add cooked meat, mushrooms, etc.. and enjoy!

Feminism, Racism, Women Drivers and Pollution Control

A few days ago, we were driving from Logan to Lagoon. At one point a car went bombing pat me like a crazy- I am guessing 15-20 over the speed limit, and weaving through traffic. I noticed the driver was female, and quite unconsciously said to myself. "Yep, another crazy female driver". I immediately began cataloging the many times I had in experienced rude, selfish , inconsiderate drivers who completely disregarded the law and the safety of others- nearly all were female.

Then my nerdy, logical, critical thinking persona kicked in. "Really?" it said. "Is that really true?". So I paid close attention for the next several minutes to every reckless, self-absorbed driver. More men than women. Now with critical thinker in full swing, I still could not draw any conclusions, because I was also aware that there were more men driving, and I had no idea what the normalized ratios were.
(if there were 2 crazy men for every 1 crazy woman, and as many male drivers as female drivers, then the normalized ratio is 2:1, therefore more men are crazy drivers, if however there were 4 times as many male drivers as female drivers, then the normalized ratio is 1:2 and more women are crazy drivers. See how that works?)

But it did give me a moments pause.Why was it that I remembered mostly bad women drivers? Why did I unconsciously see, bad female drivers? I had heard a few jokes about women drivers growing up, but enough to so completely condition me? Decades later? No, I don't think it is that simple. While that "humor" may have help construct the Filter initially, something was still reinforcing that filter.


Yesterday, I saw a blurb about Emma Watson speaking before the UN regarding a "#heforshe" campaign, and as I read it, I had an epiphany of sorts, An observation occurred to me. That movements like Feminism, Black pride, and so forth, no matter how good their intentions may be, they are in fact a part of the problem, rather than the solution. You see the very names they give these movements, organizations, inherently (unintentionally I am sure, but nonetheless) invoke, "us vs. them". You see you are measuring equality compared to ... what? Women's rights compared to men's rights. Black rights compared to white rights. It is inherent in the very name of the organization. And that alone creates a filter. If you are in favor of a particular "female equality movement", or "<insert  race > equality movement" you tend to notice all of the injustices, and are quite blind to all the evidence which suggests otherwise. If you are on the other side of the debate, you easily recall statistics showing that female executives earn more than their comparable male counterparts, but seem oblivious to many atrocities committed against women worldwide.

And speaking of statistics. Both sides of the argument have their very own sets of numbers, and arsenal of anecdotes, and both sides are quite confident that the other sides numbers are inaccurate or even fallacious, and that anecdotal ratios are 100:1, 1000:1 or even greater in their favor.

Us vs. them. The filters are firmly in place. Just why is it that we are worried about violence against women? And how it compares to violence against men? Aren't they both equally bad? Shouldn't we be working to eliminate violence, period? How messed up are we that we instead invest our time in keeping tallies?

I remember hearing in the news when Obama was elected, that is was a great stride forward, a victory for racial equality.I remember thinking "No it isn't. If anything, it is a step backward." the very act of the media calling attention to his race was the evidence of that. It would only have been a victory, if no one had taken notice of his race.

Think it isn't relevant? Think that we "Have to do something?" That was the argument that was used to push emissions legislation through in Utah recently - legislation which will cost millions to implement, and which will - according to the numbers gathered by those in favor of the legislation - do almost nothing. It will make a less than 1% difference in the pollution problem. Millions for a less than one percent gain. Money that could have been used to feed countless families, or invested in R&D to find a real, practical solution the problem. But no. With filters firmly in place, we forged ahead, driven by our emotions and  our anecdotes. Sometimes, maybe it is better to Do nothing now, than to Do something stupid now.

So here's an idea, instead of pledging to seek fairness for <insert race, gender, religion, etc...>, how about we pledge to be nice to everyone, and support and defend any individual who is being mistreated, without worrying about their gender, race, skin color, religion, or shoe size?

#nofilters




"Charity is .... resisting the impulse to categorize others."
   -Thomas S. Monson