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Half-Life: Origins (Live Action)

2011-11-29T16:22:32Z

I favorited a YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV7zh2jxXjU Click here to watch Freeman's Mind: Episode 39 (Half-Life Machinima) Half-Life: Origins (Live Action) Half-Life Origins is an independent short by Infectious Designer. Everyone remembers the ...

One Year in Washington

2011-11-08T18:53:54Z

I favorited a YouTube video: A lot can change in one year. ...Even in Washington. In 2012, we will elect a President, not a party. Join us.

Evil social networks

2011-11-07T10:42:23Z

(UPDATE: Greetings to our friends from Hacker News. If you want to join in the discussion and haven't posted here before, please read the moderation policy first. (This is a moderated forum.))

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."

In the past I've fulminated about various social networking systems. The basic gist is this: the utility of a social network to any given user is proportional to the number of users it has. So all social networks are designed to tweak that part of the primate brain that gets a dopamine reward from social activity — we are, after all, social animals. But providing a service to millions of customers is expensive, and your typical internet user is a cheapskate who has become accustomed to free services. So most social networks don't charge their users; they are funded indirectly, which means they've got to sell something, and what they've got to sell is data about your internet usage habits, which is of interest to advertisers.

So the ideal social network (from an investor's point of view) is one that presents itself as being free-to-use, is highly addictive, uses you as bait to trap your friends, tracks you everywhere you go on the internet, sells your personal information to the highest bidder, and is impossible to opt out of. Sounds like a cross between your friendly neighbourhood heroin pusher, Amway, and a really creepy stalker, doesn't it?

Meet Klout. (Yes, that's their wikipedia stub. No, I am not going to link to them.)

[ Klout ] ... provides social media analytics that measures a user's influence across their social network. The analysis is done on data taken from sites such as Twitter and Facebook and measures the size of a person's network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content. Klout recently added LinkedIn, Foursquare, and YouTube data to its algorithm.

Sounds harmless enough, at first read. Unfortunately, it isn't.

Klout operates under American privacy law, or rather, the lack of it. If you created a Klout account in the past, you were unable to delete it short of sending legal letters (until November 1st, when they kindly added an "opt out" mechanism). More to the point, Klout analyse your social graph and create accounts for all your contacts without asking them for prior consent. It also appears to use an unwitting user's Twitter or FB credentials to post updates on their Klout scores, prompting the curious-but-ignorant to click on a link to Klout, whereupon they will be offered a chance to log in with their Facebook or Twitter credentials. So it spreads like herpes and it's just as hard to get rid of. Is that all?

No, that isn't all. Let me fire up a sandboxed browser instance and cut'n'paste a little bit of Klout's terms and conditions:

By accessing the Klout website ("Site") or using the services offered by Klout ("Services") you agree and acknowledge to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not access the Site or use the Services.

Got that? You don't need to open an account for Klout to assert that they own you; just looking at their T&Cs is enough. Now for the privacy policy:

... we may use your contact information to market to you, and provide you with information about, our products and services, including but not limited to our Service [ note that "not limited to" clause -- cs. ] ... When you visit the Site, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website ("Log Data" ). This Log Data may include information such as your IP address, browser type or the domain from which you are visiting, the web-pages you visit, the search terms you use, and any advertisements on which you click ... Klout may use both session cookies and persistent cookies to better understand how you interact with the Site and our Service, to monitor aggregate usage by our users and web traffic routing on the Site, and to improve the Site and our services [ services to who? Answer: the folks who pay Klout money ] ... We engage certain trusted third parties to perform functions and provide services to us, including ... direct marketing campaigns. We will share your personally identifiable information with these third parties ... [ there, they said it ] ... The Site is not directed to persons under 18 [ because that's about the only privacy-protected class in US law ].

Now let's look at something else.

Here in the civilized world we have a fundamental right to privacy. Klout, by its viral nature (and particularly by tracking people without their prior consent) is engaging in flat-out illegal practices. Don't believe me? Well, here in the UK activities relating to the processing of personal information are governed by the Data Protection Act (1998), a law enforced by the Information Commissioner's Office.

As we saw earlier, Klout assert that they have the right to collect information about you and conduct direct marketing campaigns if you visit their website. For those of us who are not lawyers, here is the ICO's conditions for processing personal data:

One of the conditions for processing is that the individual has consented to their personal data being collected and used in the manner and for the purposes in question.

...

Consent is not defined in the Data Protection Act. However, the European Data Protection Directive (to which the Act gives effect) defines an individual's consent as:

"... any freely given specific and informed indication of his wishes by which the data subject signifies his agreement to personal data relating to him being processed".

The fact that an individual must "signify" their agreement means that there must be some active communication between the parties. An individual may "signify" agreement other than in writing, but organisations should not infer consent if an individual does not respond to a communication — for example, from a customer's failure to return a form or respond to a leaflet.

...

Consent obtained under duress or on the basis of misleading information does not adequately satisfy the condition for processing.

Klout are flagrantly in violation of UK data protection law. Their terms and conditions, and their privacy policy, are riddled with loopholes that permit them to resell personal data. They violate Principle 1 of the Act ("the individual who the personal data is about has consented to the processing"). Arguably, they violate Principle 2 of the Act ("be clear from the outset about why you are collecting personal data and what you intend to do with it" — no prior notification to people they hold data on is made). The amount of personal data Klout collects is excessive (see Principle 3), they show no sign of complying with Principle 4 of the Act ("take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of any personal data"), and they may well be in breach of Principle 5 (that personal data must be deleted after it is no longer required for the purpose for which it was collected). They violate Principle 6 of the Act ("right to prevent processing for direct marketing; right to object to decisions being taken by automated means"). They violate Principle 8 of the Act (personal data is exported from the EU without due compliance with EU privacy regulations). Shockingly, Klout might actually be in compliance with Principle 7 of the Act governing information security ("you must have appropriate security to prevent the personal data you hold being accidentally or deliberately compromised") but it's hard to tell.

It kind of puts my objections to Google+ into perspective, doesn't it?

Anyway: if you sign up for Klout you are coming down with the internet equivalent of herpes. Worse, you risk infecting all your friends. Klout's business model is flat-out illegal in the UK (and, I believe, throughout the EU) and if you have an account with them I would strongly advise you to delete it and opt out; if you're in the UK you could do worse than send them a cease-and-desist plus a request to delete all your data, then follow up a month later with a Freedom of Information Act request.

Dear tea party, we are not your enemy

2011-10-30T13:00:05Z

I'm not going to lie to you. I've said bad things about the tea party. Lots of bad things. I've been snide. I've been demeaning. It's hard not to be when the term "tea party" has most often been associated with the radical fringe of the Republican Party, with folks who seem more interested in attacking science than fixing the economy, with those who seem to believe that their taxes have been raised (they haven't) that there are thousands of new regulations burdening businesses (there aren't) and that President Obama is in some kind of anti-American radical (he's not) who wrecked the economy (check your calendar).

But several people have told me that those people, the ones sponsoring the rigidly ideological debates, the ones that cheered for a congressman shouting "you lie!" during the State of the Union address, the ones with the signs where Obama is dressed up like a witchdoctor or smeared with Joker paint... that those people aren't the real tea party. Not the real, grassroots local folks who came out to protest what they saw as a failing government. Not the people who, like the folks at Occupy Wall Street, came out to raise their voices about injustice and unequal treatment.

So, okay. I'll to buy that. I'm willing to believe that the guys with the buses and the TV shows don't represent you. I believe you're still frustrated. I believe you're still searching. I believe you're feeling lost and neglected.

You know who wants to see the American government more beholding to ordinary folks? Progressives. Who wants to see American kids reaching their potential? Progressives. Who wants to cut back on waste, eliminate fraud, and make government as efficient as possible? Dare I say "ditto?"

I know there are folks who've been telling you that we're the enemy. That we want to take your stuff, control your lives, limit your rights. Those people, the ones who are saying these things? Sorry that there's not a nicer way to put it, but they are lying to you.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but I think you want to see your kids going to good schools, you want them to have the chance at good jobs, you want to see them go as high as their ability and their effort can drive them. You want to be able to go where you please, worship as you please, make your own choices about your own life without the government stepping in. Guess what? We're right there with you. Buddy, we want those things, as well.

So please take your rifles and turn them around. You're pointing at the people who are trying to help you. By the way, when it comes to those rifles? We don't want them. Heck, I've got several of my own. I don't want to give them up and I don't need yours. The people who've been getting you agitated about evil liberals coming to snatch every gun in America just want to sell you ammo at jacked up prices, but buy all you want. No one is going to stop you. Just know that they're laughing every time they convince you to buy another box "before Obama takes them away."

Some of those same folks trying to scare you also want you to think that progressives don't think America is a special place. They're lying about that too. We also believe in American exceptionalism. We believe that the founding principles of America—equality, democracy, opportunity—are unique and wonderful; that the establishment of this nation lifted the whole world.

However, we also believe that America cannot rest on its laurels. Democracy and human rights? Still as great as ever, but it's been decades, even centuries, since the US could stake any kind of unique claim to those ideals. It's been a long time since most of the things that make people say "only in America" could really only happen in America. We helped give those ideas to the world, but we don't always do the best job of living up to them. We need to do better. The best way we can spread democracy and human rights is just the way our founding fathers wanted—by making sure we protect the best example of those principles right here at home. That's all progressives want.

Since we're talking about the founders, let's talk about what the founders wanted out of their government. They wanted protection, sure. They wanted the ability to defend themselves from enemies without and enemies within. They wanted to guard their rights.

They also wanted to regulate business.

Listen, I know that's enough to make some people choke, but that's what this country is about. Hey, it's what just about every country is about. What good would a government be if it didn't protect you from fraud and deception? Do you really want to face off one on one with billion dollar international companies? Our founders didn't want that. They went out of their way to empower the government to keep business in check. They didn't do it to be cruel. They didn't do it because they wanted to stop people from becoming wealthy. They did it because they understood all too well what an unregulated market looks like.

There's nothing un-American about a well regulated market. Nothing wrong with the government investing in infrastructure, with the government championing industries or taking over banks—just ask George Washington. Letting the market control the government instead of the other way around, that's un-American. Worse, it's just plain stupid.

Over the last thirty years we've run a kind of long experiment. We've cut back and cut back on the regulation of the markets. And we've dropped the tax rates lower, and lower, and lower. We called it "supply side economics."

Thirty years ago, the average CEO made 40 times as much as the average worker. That means those CEOs were taking home $400,000 for every $10,000 their workers made. That seems like a lot, doesn't it?

Today, the average CEO makes 200 times what his workers are making. He takes home $2 million for every $10,000 that a worker makes. Does that mean CEOs have gotten 5 times better while workers stayed the same? Hardly. The failure rate of companies is no better than it's ever been. In fact, it's worse, so CEOs are not making golden decisions. On the other hand, worker productivity is way, way up in America. Workers are actually working harder, working longer, and contributing a lot more value to their companies than they did 30 years ago. They're just not getting a share in the profits. The guys at the top are taking it all. CEOs didn't get better. They just learned that they could buy enough political cover to take all the cash. That way, it didn't matter if they did a good job.

Conservative economics just doesn't work. We've tried it for thirty years now. Tax rates are down by 60% on the people at the top. Their salaries are way up. They are sitting on record piles of cash. So are the corporations they control. For everyone else, things have gotten worse. And the only answer they have is "give us more." Take the last crumb—the 2% of the wealth that's controlled by 50% of the people—take that crumb and give it to the guys on top. That's what they're telling you now.

It hasn't worked here, or elsewhere, anywhere, any when, ever. It won't work. It doesn't work. It can't work.

You know what really scares those guys? They're afraid you'll remember. They're afraid you'll remember that the nation isn't supposed to belong to them. They're afraid you'll realize that they are not the job creators. You are. It's the average folks, the 99%, who create demand. Demand creates jobs. As long as all the money sits stagnant at the top, there will be no demand.

You want to stand against the forces that are distorting our government, the forces that are making it harder for average people to get by, the forces that are threatening the future for you, your kids, and your grandkids? We're there. Right there with you. It doesn't take a blackboard and a lot of weird theories about ultra-secret conspiracies to understand what's going wrong. The guys who are pocketing the bucks aren't making a secret of it.

Just this past week, the GDP of the nation actually passed where it had been before the crash. It hit record values. Did you notice? Probably not, because the GDP helps measure the wealth of the nation, but not the health of the nation. All that wealth is in very few hands.

So, tea party, you can let those folks get you to keep holding the door for them while they walk off with the last crumbs, or you can join us in trying to put things right.

You remember how they want you to believe we want to take your stuff and control your lives? The people who are telling you that, are the ones who are already doing it. They're taking your wealth, taking your legacy, robbing your children of a good eduction, stealing from you the retirement you've earned. When are you going to say enough?

Let me finish up with a little Lincoln...

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

You want to really take this country back for the common person? You may not have noticed, but we've been shouting the same thing. So help us. Work with us. Let's stop fighting for the amusement of the people robbing us, and figure out how to bar the door.

The Price of Plutocracy

2011-10-27T19:34:30Z

With income inequality on everyone's radar today, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tweets this:

Quite so. This gives me an excuse to repost one of my favorite tables. It compares how much income various groups make today vs. how much they would be making if everyone's incomes, rich and poor alike, had grown at similar rates since 1979. As you can see, by 2005 the bottom 80% were collectively earning about $743 billion less per year while the top 1% were earning about $673 billion more. It's sort of uncanny how close those numbers are. For all practical purposes, every year about $700 billion in income is being sucked directly out of the hands of the poor and the middle class and shoveled into the hands of the rich.

One of the points this drives home is just how much the story of growing income inequality really is a story of the top 1%. Inequality has increased within the bottom 99%, but not all that dramatically. It's really the top 1% and the top 0.1% where all the action is. So if the Occupy Wall Street folks are ever looking for an alternate slogan, they might consider "Give us back our $700 billion."

You can, of course, try to concoct some story in which growing income inequality has boosted economic growth, so that the gains of the rich have been solely from income that nobody would have gotten otherwise. But it's a pretty tough story to tell, because there's simply no evidence for it. The American economy hasn't been growing any faster over the past 30 years than it did in the 30 years before, it's just distributed the gains of its growth disproportionately to the rich.

To bring this home a little more vividly, take a look at the row labeled "41-60." That's the dead middle of the income distribution. If all income groups had grown at the same rate over the past 30 years, that median household would today be making about $10,000 more than they are. That's the price we pay for our growing plutocracy.

Want more charts? This one comes from the chart pack we did for my article earlier this year, "Plutocracy Now." Click the link if you want to read it, or else click here if you just want to browse the charts.

Comments | Post Comment

A Voice From the 1%

2011-10-28T01:30:34Z

Shared by SteelWolf
Read the whole thing.

The impetus behind the Occupy Wall Street movement - a vague sense that the rich are getting ever richer while everyone else suffers - was confirmed by a recent report from the Social Security Administration showing that while total employment and average wages remained stagnant, the number of people earning $1 million or more grew by 18% from 2009 to 2010. Those figures give real substance to the "We are the 99%" slogan, yet Republicans continue to insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, that if anything those "job creators" deserve an even greater share of our national income. The Tea Party, meanwhile, has launched its own "53%" movement, inexplicably rallying the working class to the defense of the wealthy. The one group rarely heard from in this rancorous debate is the 1%, whose incomes and taxes are its focus. I am one of them, and here is my perspective, which may surprise you.

Profits up for Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell

2011-10-27T17:03:32Z

Life's great if you're part of the 1 percent in the oil industry. Exxon Mobil:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Exxon Mobil reported quarterly earnings of $10.3 billion on Thursday, a surge of 41% from a year earlier.
Why? Higher prices for oil and natural gas.

Profit at the oil company soared compared to the same period a year ago, when it was $7.4 billion. Per-share income climbed to $2.13 per share from $1.44 in the prior year.

Shell:

LONDON—Royal Dutch Shell PLC Thursday said net profit for the third quarter more than doubled, driven by strong oil and rising natural gas prices and as major projects ramp up production.
Net profit for the quarter totaled $6.98 billion, more than double the $3.46 billion posted a year ago. Group revenue was $123.41 billion, compared with $90.71 billion in the third quarter of 2010.

Well, that's just bully for them. Of course, they had some help getting there. Think Progress unpacks these numbers.

Shell has spent nearly $8 million on lobbying in 2011, making it one of the Top 20 Spenders of 2011, and the second biggest spender of the oil and gas industry.

The oil and gas industry ranks as the third largest spender on lobbying in 2011, spending a combined total of over $75 million.

Shell is sitting on $13 billion in cash on hand. Added together, the Big Five oil companies — BP, Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell — are sitting on cash resources of $59 billion and made nearly $1 trillion in profits over the past decade

Big oil tax loopholes, including oil industry specific tax breaks and unnecessary general provisions, will cost the federal treasury $40 billion over the next decade.

But they're job creators, right? So the $40 billion they're sucking out of treasury for the next 10 years is all good.

Protect IP Act Breaks the Internet | Everything Is a Remix

2011-10-27T14:43:27Z

Shared by SteelWolf
Well done video calling it like it is.

Utilize the Stockdale Paradox to Help Achieve Personal Growth [Brain Hacks]

2011-10-23T19:00:00Z

Admiral James Stockdale was held as a prisoner of war for eight years during the Vietnam War and was tortured in excess of twenty times by his captors. He was able to withstand all of this without losing his mind by employing two seemingly contradictory views: faith that he would prevail in the end no matter the difficulty and facing that he must confront the worst aspects of his current reality.

Deliberate living blog Disrupting the Rabblement examines how by meshing those two views as his mental focus, Stockdale never wavered from the belief that he would be rescued. Many others did not fare so well.

Then comes the paradox: While Stockdale had remarkable faith in the unknowable, he noted that it was always the most optimistic of his prisonmates who failed to make it out of there alive. "They were the ones who said, ‘We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, ‘We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

What the optimists failed to do was confront the reality of their situation. They preferred the ostrich approach, sticking their heads in the sand and hoping for the difficulties to go away. That self-delusion might have made it easier on them in the short-term, but when they were eventually forced to face reality, it had become too much and they couldn't handle it.

Hopefully no one reading this post will ever have to go through a hostage situation similar to Admiral Stockdale. Even so, we can put the Stockdale Paradox to work in changing our lives for the better. If you're morbidly obese you need to know that you can eventually lose the weight, but you have to admit to yourself that right now you're fat, not fluffy, and need to get started working on your weight loss goals by facing the brutal truth of your situation. The paradox can similarly be applied to people who struggle with debt, an unhappy marriage, and many other unhappy situations. Photo by the US Navy.

The Stockdale Paradox | Disrupting the Rabblement via Afford Anything

Missions accomplished. For real.

2011-10-21T17:41:35Z

President Obama announces end of Iraq war

Osama bin Laden, brought to justice. Republicans said it would be rude to go after bin Laden on Pakistani soil, but President Obama did it anyway and SEAL Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden on May 1.
Moammar Gadhafi, removed from power. The Bush administration signed a peace deal with Gadhafi, despite the Lockerbie bombing. President Obama supported the Libyan people who successfully removed Gadhafi from power, ultimately killing him.
Iraq war, ended. George W. Bush said the mission was accomplished nearly 8.5 years ago, and in 2007 and 2008, Republicans like John McCain said he wanted to stay there a thousand years, it that's what it took. Now we'll be out be end the of 2011. And that's a real mission accomplished.

Commonwealth Fund grades nation's health system performance, and it's not good

2011-10-20T06:58:37Z

Shared by SteelWolf
So much for "best in the world."

Via Sara Kliff, the Commonwealth Fund has released its annual national score card on the U.S. health system performance. The overall score for 2011 is 64 out of a possible 100, a three point loss from last year.

Here's a graphical snapshot:

(Click here for a full-sized view.)

And the overall assessment, which isn't pretty.

U.S. health system performance continues to fall far short of what is attainable, especially given the enormity of public and private resources devoted nationally to health. Across 42 performance indicators, the U.S. achieves a total score of 64 out of a possible 100, when comparing national rates with domestic and international benchmarks. Overall, the U.S. failed to improve relative to these benchmarks, which in many cases rose. Costs were up sharply, access to care deteriorated, health system efficiency remained low, disparities persisted, and health outcomes failed to keep pace with benchmarks. The Affordable Care Act targets many of the gaps identified by the Scorecard. [...]
Of great concern, access to health care significantly eroded since 2006. As of 2010, more than 81 million working-age adults—44 percent of those ages 19 to 64—were uninsured during the year or underinsured, up from 61 million (35%) in 2003. Further, the U.S. failed to keep pace with gains in health outcomes achieved by the leading countries. The U.S. ranks last out of 16 industrialized countries on a measure of mortality amenable to medical care (deaths that might have been prevented with timely and effective care), with premature death rates that are 68 percent higher than in the best-performing countries. As many as 91,000 fewer people would die prematurely if the U.S. could achieve the leading country rate. [...]

Performance on indicators of health system efficiency remains especially low, with the U.S. scoring 53 out of 100 on measures that gauge the level of inappropriate, wasteful, or fragmented care; avoidable hospitalizations; variation in quality and costs; administrative costs; and use of information technology. Lowering insurance administrative costs to benchmark country rates could alone save up to $114 billion a year, or $55 billion if such costs were lowered to the level in countries with a mixed private–public insurance system, like the U.S. has.

The lack of improvement on many health system indicators—such as preventive care, adults and children with strong primary care connections, and hospital readmissions—likely stems from the nation's weak primary care foundation and from inadequate care coordination and teamwork both across sites of care and between providers. These gaps highlight the need for a whole-system approach, in which performance is measured and providers are held accountable for performance across the continuum of care.

There is some good news. The lower right quadrant on that graph (click here to see it full size) shows that some regions are reducing hospital readmissions under Medicare, and thus showing significant savings. Control of high blood pressure has improved significantly since 2000 and smoking rates are still steadily declining.

Some of the gaps found in this year's study will be addressed by the Affordable Care Act, most significantly by providing access to health insurance which will in turn provide more access to care. Some of that access to care is still questionable, however, particularly if Medicaid ends up being significantly cut in ongoing deficit, debt and budget negotiations. But the ACA should also prompt and reward more effective and efficient delivery of care, which will help close more of these gaps.

Bitcoin implodes, falls more than 90 percent from June peak

2011-10-18T16:45:00Z

Bitcoin, the world's first peer-to-peer digital currency, fell below $3 on Monday. That represents a 90 percent fall since the currency hit its peak in early June.

Supporters argue that Bitcoin has fundamental advantages over conventional currencies. The system is designed to transfer funds without a central authority, freeing Bitcoin users from bank fees and government regulations. The Bitcoin protocol offers robust anonymity, and the protocol guarantees that there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins in existence, which supporters have argued would give the currency a stable value.

Read the comments on this post

Wall Street Loses Its Immunity

2011-10-18T20:09:44Z

Shared by SteelWolf
Keep protesting!

How dare the protesters criticize Wall Street?

Mountains of Mental Disorders

2011-10-12T07:25:00Z

This is a story about a man who lived in a house. Here it is:

The house was a lovely thatched cabin, situated in a wooded valley between two little hills, set against the spectacular scenary of a snow-capped mountain. He'd been born there, and he'd lived there all his life.

One day, there was a knock on the man's door. He opened it to find two official-looking people carrying clipboards, with serious expressions on their faces.

"Hello, sir. We are officials from the Ministry of Mountains. Sorry it took us so long."
"Oh... excuse me?", the man replied, puzzled.
"We're very sorry we didn't get here earlier."
"I'm afraid that I don't know what you mean. I wasn't expecting any..."
"Hmm. Let me explain. The Ministry of Mountains exists to help people who live on mountains. So, you see, we're here to..."
"Ask for directions to the mountain? It's about 10 miles down the road. Just look up - you can't miss it."

The official looked unamused.
"No. We're here to help you, sir."
"Help you to cope with the rigors of mountain living!" the other chimed in, helpfully.
"But... I don't live on a mountain."
"I'm afraid you do. Look - " and the first official unfolded a large map. "Do you agree that there is a mountain, here?" and she pointed to a spot 10 miles down the road.
"Yes. Actually I just told you about i..."
"...and, do you agree that you live - here?"
"Of course, but..."

"So you do live on the mountain. The very ground beneath our feet right now is part of that mountain nearby."
"No it's not." The man protested. "This is a valley, miles away. I mean just look outside. We're clearly not on a mountain now, are we?"
"How old fashioned. That's what we used to think. But, thanks to advances in geology, we now appreciate that these hills and valleys are merely a part of the mountain."
"Yes!" the other said, whipping out a textbook and becoming increasingly enthusiastic. "You see, a mountain is merely a mass of rock, and this rock extends underground for a considerable distance... It's impossible, really, to draw a line on the map and say categorically, this side is mountain, this isn't. So 'mountains' are an arbitrary construct. 'Hills' are likewise just protrusions of the underlying mountain and..."

The man was even more confused now. "Umm... well, I suppose, technically...but..."
"...so yes, so you do live on a mountain. And we know that this is very difficult. You're exposed to all kinds of dangers like blizzards, altitude sickness, avalanches..."
"Not really. It's nice here. It doesn't even snow most years."
"That's unlikely. You agree that mountains have blizzards and avalanches? Right. And you earlier agreed that there's no dividing line between you and a mountain. So logically..."
"Er..."
"So you are in danger! Don't worry, though. We're here to help. To start off with, we're going to reinforce your house with six tons of cement, to protect you against rockfalls. The construction crew will arrive tomorrow morning. Now, as for those blizzards..."
The man had had enough of this.
"This is absurd. Now look - there is a guy who really does live on top of the mountain in a rickety old shack. Old Grandpa McHermit. He might actually need your help. I don't. Get out! And if I see anyone with a bag of cement tomorrow morning, I'll shove it right up their..."

---

As you may have guess, this story is a metaphor. There is a movement in psychiatry at the moment, away from a 'categorical' view of mental illness towards a 'spectrum' view. Mental disorders are not things you either have or don't - defined according to some arbitrary cut-off. Rather, they're things that everyone has, to some degree.

This has already happened, or is happening, to autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders, and more.

Now, the "spectrum" or "dimensional" approach has much to recommend it. It's true that diagnostic cutoffs are arbitrary. It's true that the categorical approach doesn't capture the true degree of variation that real people display.

My worry is that these new "spectra" are, in practice, merely the old categories, just bigger. We still think of people as being ill or not-ill, although we may call it on the spectrum or off it. Worse, we still think of "ill" in the same way as we used to i.e. as referring to the most severe end of the spectrum. The only difference is that we've expanded the old category of "ill" to cover more people.

This is evident in the fact that we still use the old categorical labels. It's the autism (or schizophrenia or bipolar) spectrum, even though "autism", in the old sense of a discrete disorder, is now supposed to be just one extreme of that spectrum. Yet the point about an extreme is that it's unusual, so why call it that?

We don't call the rainbow the red spectrum. We don't call height the midget spectrum. We don't call hills part of the mountain spectrum.

The point is, we really think of color and height and altitude as spectra, not as approximations to an extreme point, and that's good, because they are. Now it might well be possible to think of autistic or bipolar traits in the same way - but not if we call them autistic and bipolar traits. And not if we just rename them, while keeping the mental associations the same.

Not unless we can find a way of referring to what's currently called the autism spectrum without making anyone think of autism when they hear it. Similarly for "bipolar" and all the rest. Until we get to that point, there's a real risk that "spectra" will just be big categories.

Edit: This post has been very kindly translated into Hebrew over at the alhasapa.com blog.

Rabbit-Hole Economics

2011-10-14T20:46:26Z

Shared by SteelWolf
Truth.

Tuesday’s Republican debate opened the door on a fantasy world where nothing looks or behaves the way it does in real life.

If my brain was an imaginary friend

2011-10-11T17:52:07Z

Shared by SteelWolf
Hahaha.

A comic about memory, bagels, and my Great Aunt Marlene.

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Ben Goldacre: Battling Bad Science

2011-10-05T17:36:12Z

I favorited a YouTube video: http://www.ted.com Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrit...

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City | NYC General Assembly - StumbleUpon

2011-10-04T05:07:34Z

Shared by SteelWolf
A good summary of grievances we should all share, although I'm sure it's far from exhaustive.

Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster

2011-10-03T06:40:41Z

Shared by SteelWolf
Lovely

Our top-down road test in one of the best-looking, best-performing cars available

When Mercedes introduced the SLS in 2009, the Gullwing coupe dropped jaws and turned heads with its retro inspiration and powerful guts. The move also firmly staked its claim toward the future expression of the brand. Designed at the same time but only now available, the SLS Roadster brings the thrill of a convertible to this already near-perfect driver's car—along with a few new additions.

We had a chance to check the new model out first-hand when Mercedes invited us to France's sunny Côte d'Azur to spend a day-and-a-half in the supercar (which I shared with good friend Jean Aw from Notcot). Driving from Monaco into Italy, up to Col du Brouis and back down to St. Jean Cap-Ferrat made for an idyllic itinerary to experience driving with the top down at its most chic.

What's so impressive about the car is everything. Respectful of its heritage in the coveted 1950s 300 SL Roadster, the SLS also firmly represents all that Mercedes-Benz has to offer. It incorporates some of the most sophisticated engineering and technology available, yet is both easy and an absolute pleasure to drive. The interior perfectly balances sport, luxury and comfort. Both sinner and saint, while many other cars and supercars achieve many of the same levels and worthy praise, few bring it together so seamlessly and perfectly. (Though the Ferrari FF comes to mind).

The Roadster shares all of the same technology and equipment as the Coupe. Its lightweight aluminum construction, seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission and AMG 6.3 liter 571-horsepower V8 engine all makes for the same 0-60 time of 3.6 seconds. The more rigid body is only 60 pounds heavier than the Gullwing, impressively retaining the same performance (and most of its trunk space).

New options to the Roadster are a much welcomed AMG Ride Control and a very impressive set of Internet-enabled performance functions called AMG Performance Media, which reside in a tab of the car's on-board computer system. A kick-ass Bang & Olufson sound system is also available, and includes a 250 watt subwoofer. Another feature I liked (though didn't need to try) is the Airscarf neck vent, which blows hot air to keep you warm for off-season, top-down driving (heated seats are also available).

Ride Control lets you select from three preset suspension and transmission variations: Comfort, Sport (stiffer, higher performance ride) and Sport+, even more firm and tuned for the highest-performance conditions. This is really helpful for traveling most comfortably from urban traffic to the countryside, freeways or track. It also adjusts the sound of the engine and exhaust from a purr to one of the best sounding roars I've heard—the consensus among other journalists there as well.

Want to see how many Gs you're pulling on the track? The Performance Media option, an Android-based mobile platform, provides high-speed Internet access (when the car isn't moving). Multiple racing-inspired screens show real-time temperatures, performance, tire pressures, lateral and linear acceleration and a host of track-related functions. This section is seamlessly integrated into the rest of the car's system, which itself is well-designed and intuitive to use. As you'd expect, the car is highly customizable, including custom paint colors.

Rumored to start around $200,000 and available at Mercedes dealerships, this beauty may be unattainable for most of us, but its exceptional design is something we can all enjoy.

How To: Use vinegar to diagnose cervical cancer

2011-10-03T06:35:01Z

Shared by SteelWolf
In case you didn't see this one already.

In developing countries, a new, inexpensive treatment allows nurses to spot pre-cancerous lesions on a woman's cervix and remove them—without needing a medical lab, and without surgery. It has huge implications for women's health, because cervical cancer kills 250,000 women every year.

In fact, before pap smears became commonplace, cervical cancer killed more American women than any other sort of cancer. But in places where the pap smear isn't practical, this new technique can help. From the New York Times:

Nurses using the new procedure, developed by experts at the Johns Hopkins medical school in the 1990s and endorsed last year by the World Health Organization, brush vinegar on a woman’s cervix. It makes precancerous spots turn white. They can then be immediately frozen off with a metal probe cooled by a tank of carbon dioxide, available from any Coca-Cola bottling plant.

... Dr. Bandit Chumworathayi, a gynecologist at Khon Kaen University who helped run the first Thai study of VIA/cryo, explains that vinegar highlights the tumors because they have more DNA, and thus more protein and less water, than other tissue.

It reveals pre-tumors with more accuracy than a typical Pap smear. But it also has more false positives — spots that turn pale but are not malignant. As a result, some women get unnecessary cryotherapy. But freezing is about 90 percent effective, and the main side effect is a burning sensation that fades in a day or two. By contrast, biopsies, the old method, can cause bleeding.

Via Robyn Lloyd