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October 19, 2016 at 09:49PM: Chiropractic and Strokes

2016-10-20T06:08:00.001-07:00

In February Playboy model and instagram star Katie May died suddenly of a stroke at age 34. Recently TMZ obtained a copy of the coroner’s report from her autopsy which concludes that the stroke was due to a tear in one vertebral artery, which in turn was caused by neck manipulation by a chiropractor.

This is a good time to review the evidence surrounding the issue of chiropractic manipulation and strokes, which is a concern expressed by many experts but largely denied by the chiropractic profession.

Strokes in young people (<50) are extremely rare. A stroke is caused by blockage of an artery feeding the brain leading to lack of oxygen causing injury and even death to brain cells. Arteries can be blocked if a blood clot lodges in the artery (an embolus), or if a clot forms in the artery (a thrombus).

One major cause of young strokes is trauma to one of the four arteries that feed the brain: two carotid arteries in front and two vertebral arteries in back. The trauma can cause a tear in the inner lining of the artery, which is called a dissection. That tear causes turbulence in blood flow, which in turn can result in a blood clot (when blood isn’t flowing it tends to clot). That blood clot or thrombus can block the artery if it gets big enough, or a piece can break off and lodge down stream, either way causing a stroke.

Strokes in the vertebral system are especially bad since they feed the brain stem, which is a critical structure that contains many basic functions, like breathing, and connects the brain to the rest of the body. A large stroke in the brainstem is often fatal.

So, what happened to Katie May? By reports she had a bad fall during a photo shoot and felt that she had a “pinched nerve” in her neck. She visited her chiropractor who gave her a neck manipulation. Soon after that she suffered a massive stroke.

The coroner’s report indicates that she had a traumatic tear in one of her vertebral arteries, and apparently also concludes that this tear was specifically caused by her previous chiropractic manipulation.

Chiropractors are likely to argue that the tear could have been caused by the fall itself, and that her neck pain, which she thought was a “pinched nerve” was in fact due to the tear in her vertebral artery.

This is possible, but you cannot conclude the fall caused her vertebral dissection. At best you can argue that we don’t know if it was the fall or the manipulation. We would need to know details of the fall, what kind of injury it caused, the details of her “pinched nerve” pain, and whether or not it could have plausibly been vertebral dissection pain. Apparently the coroner did not think the fall caused the dissection as they blamed it specifically on the manipulation.

Even if the fall caused the dissection, that is not much of a defense for the safety of chiropractic neck manipulation. Why did the chiropractor not recognize that he was dealing with a patient with a vertebral dissection? If the details of her pain suggested a dissection, that should have been considered and evaluated. If that were diagnosed and treated it could have avoided the later stroke (there’s no guarantee, but it’s possible).

Further, you should never manipulate the neck of someone with an active vertebral dissection. That can worsen the tear, progress the clot, or cause it to embolize and cause a stroke. Saying that the chiropractor missed the diagnosis of vertebral dissection and inappropriately manipulated her neck anyway, is not a good defense.

Chiropractic and Stroke

We have written extensively at Science-Based Medicine about the published evidence regarding a possible association between chiropractic neck manipulation and stroke due to dissection. I won’t repeat that all here, but the quick summary is this:

There is an association between the risk of stroke in young people and recent neck manipulation by a chiropractor. The evidence is not sufficient to say we have proven a causal connection, but that is due to insufficiency in the evidence. The data is mostly from retrospective chart review and single case reports where the connection seems extremely clear.

Of course, we cannot do controlled trials looking to see how many strokes are caused. That is the case with most possible risks. We look for correlations and then err on the side of caution.

It is really up to chiropractors to adequately demonstrate the safety of their intervention, especially in light of evidence suggesting a significant risk.

Further, there is no convincing evidence that there is any efficacy to chiropractic neck manipulation. So there is possible risk without clear benefit.

Put simply, if chiropractic neck manipulation were a drug, the FDA would have pulled it from the shelves based upon the current evidence (or never approved it in the first place).

This is just one more line of evidence that the chiropractic profession does not have a science-based standard of care. They appear to be more concerned about their profession than the health of their patients. Every time they crack someone neck they are subjecting them to risk without any evidence of benefit.

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October 14, 2016 at 05:17AM: Computer Repair Simulator

2016-10-14T13:57:00.001-07:00

learning game for computer repairs Computer Repair Simulator (CRS) is a unique game that can be used as a learning and training tool for students that want to get into computer repairs and IT in general. It offers a realistic simulation of computer repairs, using a realistic computer model that you can work on by removing, replacing and fixing the components. The game places you into a number of different scenarios , which can be user generated, pre-made or randomly generated. The scenarios include: Repairing hardware failures on desktop or laptop computers, setting up operating systems and fixing software issues and even repairing smart phones. This is an early Alpha release. The game is not complete yet, not all features are there and it may contain bugs. Copyright Snapfiles.com

Windows 7/8/10

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September 29, 2016 at 12:24AM: Scientists Just Discovered a Major New Source of Carbon Emissions

2016-09-29T09:29:00.001-07:00

September 26, 2016 at 03:35AM: These horses just learned to communicate with humans

2016-09-26T11:09:00.001-07:00

Norwegian researchers taught 23 horses how to express their needs using symbol boards, and the horses loved it.

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September 18, 2016 at 09:57AM: Canadians: you have until Oct 7 to weigh in on using voting machines in national elections

2016-09-18T20:30:00.001-07:00

"Canadians have until October 7, 2016 to provide their feedback to the Parliamentary Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which is studying the possibility of national online voting, along with having consultations about using electronic voting machines in national elections." (more…)

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September 7, 2016 at 02:11AM: Kootenay Pass cellphone coverage demanded - British Columbia - CBC News

2016-09-07T09:11:00.001-07:00

A West Kootenay politician says he's fed up there's still no cellphone coverage over one of the highest mountain highway passes in Canada.

"We're in 2016 and we still don't have it and that to me is unacceptable" said Larry Binks, a director with the Regional District of Central Kootenay.

Binks, who lives in Creston, drives the route frequently and says there are accidents, break downs and other emergencies on the pass all the time, and in winter heavy snow and avalanches frequently close the route entirely.

"When you consider you have the highest commercial vehicle pass used seven days a week that doesn't have cell coverage, I find that distasteful."

Too expensive and unreliable?

Binks says he's tried to convince the phone companies to put cellphone coverage along the roughly 50 kilometre gap in the route, but he's been told it's too expensive.

In addition, Binks said he has also been told cellphone towers would have to rely on batteries and solar power, which are unreliable.

But he notes at the top of the summit there are already several communication towers used by emergency services in the area.

"All of the fire service for all of the Creston Valley is up there powered by solar panels and batteries."

So he plans to bring up the issue with B.C.'s Transportation Minister Todd Stone at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting later this month in Victoria.

"I'm going to meet the minister — it's that simple — and ask the minister what can the ministry do?... Is there any way to connect cell service for the travelling public?" he says.

At 1,775 metres, the winding section of Highway 3, which is known locally as the Salmo/Creston Highway, is the highest year-round highway pass in B.C.

There are two higher passes in Alberta, but only the Icefields Parkway at 2088 metres is open year round.

Google Maps: Kootenay Pass, B.C.

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September 5, 2016 at 10:20PM: Research: Yes, Being Helpful Is Tiring

2016-09-06T05:24:00.001-07:00

Imagine a busy day at work. One of your coworkers walks over to your office and asks for your help — he is struggling to understand some financial projections. You put aside what you’re doing and spend the next 45 minutes helping him sort through the formulas and numbers. He leaves your office with a better understanding of the projections.

How would you feel after this interaction? Happy that you helped a coworker in need? Worried that this interruption interfered with your own work? Tired because you spent mental energy working through his problem? Most of the published research on helping suggests that you would feel happy and energized. My personal experiences (and, I am guessing, yours) tend to be mixed.

Indeed, my recent research suggests that responding to help requests at work is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, helping coworkers in need is energizing and replenishing, particularly when that help is perceived as beneficial to coworkers — in other words, when you can see that your help has actually made a positive difference. On the other hand, helping coworkers in need drains the helper’s cognitive and emotional resources, leaving them too tired and depleted to perform subsequent work tasks.

These insights are informed by work that my coauthors and I published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. We surveyed 68 managerial and professional employees every day for 15 consecutive workdays. We asked these employees to report how many times they responded to help requests from coworkers that day at work and whether their help had been beneficial to those they helped. We also measured their level of energy throughout the day. We found that, similar to running the first few miles of a long race, responding to one or two help requests was not particularly energy-sapping on a given day for helpers. However, as with running a full marathon, responding to numerous help requests was increasingly depleting for employees. Energy depletion manifests itself as reduced willpower and ability to focus, manage emotions, or persist at difficult tasks. Helping multiple times a day left employees depleted until the next morning, even though they rested that night.

Interestingly, we found that responding to many help requests was particularly problematic for prosocial employees, people who value helping others and who help on a regular basis. Perhaps because helping others is so important to their sense of self, prosocial employees devote more time and cognitive resources to helping others. Thus, the high-quality help that prosocial employees tend to provide seems to come at a higher cost for them — they feel more depleted and derive less replenishment even when their help is beneficial to coworkers.

My coauthors and I find similar results in another study published in the Academy of Management Journal. We surveyed 82 employees from various organizations multiple times a day for 10 consecutive workdays. We found that daily helping had both positive and negative consequences for helpers. Helping was associated with positive emotions, which then enhanced helpers’ sense of energy as well as their satisfaction and commitment to work that day. At the same time, helping interfered with helpers’ own progress at work, depleted their inner resources, and hurt their job satisfaction and commitment. The positive effects of helping were more pronounced for people who are risk seeking, enjoy challenging themselves, and are motivated by the possibility of reward, whereas the negative effects of helping were more pronounced for people who are risk averse, prefer avoiding mistakes, and are motivated by preventing harm.

In light of these novel findings, what are the takeaways for helpers and help-seekers? First, it is important to recognize that, in addition to positive effects, helping has negative effects that may persist for hours or days for the helper. In the first study I show that the depleting effects of helping were stronger than the replenishing effects.

Second, on days when helpers feel depleted from helping, they can resort to short-term solutions to restore their energy. For example, research suggests that taking breaks, napping, andand consuming caffeine may be short-term solutions for depleted helpers.

Third, whereas refusing to help may constitute a social faux pas, agreeing to help at a future and more opportune time for the helper is appropriate. Thus, when possible, helpers may be better served if they help at the end of their workday or workweek, or after they have accomplished important goals of their own.

Help-seekers can play an important role in lessening the costs of helping in several ways. First, help-seekers ought to be aware of the harmful effects that responding to help requests has on helpers and should avoid seeking help from the same person multiple times a day.

Second, help-seekers may be better served if they search for solutions by first consulting resources such as manuals and websites. Doing so is likely to improve their self-efficacy and learning while safeguarding helpers’ time and resources.

Third, help-seekers can facilitate the replenishing effects of helping by expressing gratitude and by explaining to helpers how their actions benefited help-seekers’ work and day. While saying “thank you” may sound obvious, we’re less likely to express thanks at work than anywhere else. Expressed gratitude boosts helpers’ affective resources and may offset some of the depleting effects of helping.

In sum, providing help is without doubt a critical behavior in every workplace. It is important, however, to remember that it comes with a cost.

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September 2, 2016 at 05:32AM: So What If You’re Not Securely Attached? | Psychology Today

2016-09-02T12:32:00.001-07:00

It’s an old truism that everyone’s unique. And yet, for more than a century, psychologists in the field of individual differences have sought a small number of categories or dimensions for dividing people into personality types.

Based on the personality theory of Carl Jung, the popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator classifies people into sixteen personality types. The Big Five, perhaps the most widely accepted personality theory today, proposes five dimensions of personality, with each of us having a unique score on each of the five dimensions.

Another way to classify people is in terms of their relationship styles. In the mid-twentieth century, British psychologist John Bowlby developed his well-known attachment theory, based on his studies of orphans during and after World War II. The theory was further developed by his student Mary Ainsworth.

Attachment is the deep emotional bond that develops between the newborn infant and its caregiver, almost always the mother. Most children develop a secure attachment with Mom, knowing that they can rely on her as a safe base from which to explore the world. But others form an insecure attachment. On the one hand, children with anxious attachment are clingy and fussy—they don’t trust Mom, and they lack confidence to strike out on their own. On the other hand, children with avoidant attachment are aloof and independent—they also don’t trust Mom, but they’ve learned how meet their emotional needs by themselves.

It’s generally assumed that childhood attachment serves as the model for adult relationships, and there’s some evidence from longitudinal studies that support this notion. At any rate, we can certainly see secure, anxious, and avoidant relationship styles playing out in adult interactions. Secure adults form trusting relationships with others, anxious adults often drive others away with their lack of trust, and avoidant adults remain aloof and fiercely independent in their relationships.

As a description of relationship styles, there’s nothing wrong with labeling people as secure, anxious, or avoidant. All too often, though, we treat one category as “normal” and the others as “deviant.” If you recognize yourself as having an anxious or avoidant relationship style, you’ve no doubt experienced shame and a loss of self-worth for your “abnormal” behavior.

In a recent article, Israeli psychologists Tsachi Ein-Dor and Gilad Hirschberger argue that it’s high time psychologists recognize that adults with anxious or avoidant relationship styles are not broken or in need of fixing. Rather, they play important roles in human society that those with secure attachments cannot fill.

Taking an evolutionary approach, Ein-Dor and Hirschberger build on the arguments of U.C. Davis psychologist Jay Belsky and his colleagues. Belsky has proposed that under certain environmental conditions an insecure attachment style may be more adaptive. When resources are scarce, demanding children may get more than their fair share. And when Mom is overwhelmed, children are better off learning soon how to fend for themselves.

Ein-Dor and Hirschberger argue, however, that it isn’t just in extreme situations that insecure attachment styles are adaptive. Rather, even in ordinary circumstances, all of us benefit from having some anxious and avoidant types in our group. This is especially true when the group as a whole is faced with a threat and needs to decide how to respond.

The researchers set up a mock-dangerous situation to see how adults with different relationship styles respond when they are alone and in groups. As participants sat at a keyboard completing a task, non-toxic smoke started to spew forth from the computer. The researchers were looking to see how long it would take them to recognize the potential danger and to leave the room.

Because adults with secure relationship styles are trusting and self-confident, they are rather slow at responding to the smoke. And especially if others are present, they’re slow at evacuating the room. They seem to put the needs of others before themselves, and they see to it that their colleagues are ready to leave before they do so themselves.

Deciding as a group how to respond to an emergency can take time. And in some cases, a group response can be too slow. But here’s where people with anxious and avoidant relationship styles contribute to the survival of the group.

Anxious adults are constantly on the look-out for potential threats. In relationships, this means that they’re suspicious of their friends and intimate partners, and their repeated demands for proof of commitment tend to drive others away. This, of course, only confirms their prior belief that other people are not to be trusted.

In the smoking computer experiment, though, anxious adults noticed the smoke faster than the secure or avoidant adults. And when they were in groups, they were quick to voice their concerns. Thus, anxious adults serve the role of sentinel, looking out for potential threats to the group.

Avoidant adults tend to view themselves as more capable than others. Hence, they prefer working alone to collaborating, and this aloofness is often interpreted as self-centeredness by others. The relationships that avoidant adults enter into tend to be shallow and easy to break.

When avoidant adults took part in the smoking computer experiment, they were slow to interpret the smoke as a danger, but once they did, they quickly evacuated the room. In group situations, they tended to leave without warning others. This seemingly selfish behavior, however, benefited the group. That is, avoidant adults are extremely good at self-preservation, and once they detect a means of escape for themselves, others quickly follow.

Ein-Dor and colleagues tested various group configurations, and they found that a mix of secure, anxious, and avoidant adults led to the quickest retreat from the emergency. The anxious persons were the first to detect the danger, and the avoidant persons were the first to find a way out. In this way, the group as a whole responded effectively.

In our striving to be “normal,” we lose sight of the fact that each of has a role to play in society—not in spite of our quirks and oddities, but because of them. Diversity is what makes a community strong, not uniformity. Indeed, it takes all sorts to make a world.

Reference

Ein-Dor, T. & Hirschberger, G. (2016). Rethinking attachment theory: From a theory of relationships to a theory of individual and group survival. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 223-227.

David Ludden is the author of The Psychology of Language: An Integrated Approach (SAGE Publications).

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September 1, 2016 at 05:41AM: Mysterious radio signal detected by Russian telescope was actually from Earth

2016-09-01T12:44:00.001-07:00

That radio signal that might have been from extra-terrestrials? Sorry, it was actually from Earth, Russian scientists confirm.

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August 30, 2016 at 11:20PM: No, We Almost Certainly Did Not Detect an Alien Signal

2016-08-31T09:28:00.001-07:00

July 22, 2016 at 06:00AM: How I wrap earbud and charger cables so they don't get tangled

2016-07-22T14:51:00.001-07:00

In response to overwhelming demand, I made a 30-second video that shows how to wrap cables so that they stay wrapped, don't get tangled, and are very easy to unwrap.

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July 20, 2016 at 12:54PM: Master Plan, Part Deux | Tesla Motors

2016-07-20T19:54:00.001-07:00

July 20, 2016 at 11:33AM: Tesla is developing heavy trucks and urban public transit

2016-07-20T19:50:00.001-07:00

Elon Musk has just revealed his second master plan for Tesla, ten years after the first such plan was revealed as a road map for the company. The original plan called for a four-step process: build a low volume car (what became the original Tesla roadster), then build a medium volume car at a lower price (which became the Model S), to develop an affordable, high-volume car (the recently unveiled but decidedly not on sale yet Model 3). The fourth step? Provide solar power to consumers. That isn't news, but its serious implementation is.

Tesla has been a transportation company up until now, whatever Musk says. The purchase of SolarCity recently means things are changing somewhat at the company. This is even reflected in the URL: "motors" is now absent. It's just tesla.com.

Here's the TL;DR version of the new Tesla master plan, which isn't quite as procedural as the last one: Musk wants to build out more of the infrastructure around the electric car. He wants integrated solar production in private homes, he wants electric vehicles in every major automotive segment, he wants to increase autonomous vehicle safety by a factor of ten, and he wants you to use your fully autonomous Tesla as part of a ride-sharing system that will earn you money when you're not using your car.

The plan doesn't go into much detail about the SolarCity acquisition other than to say that the Powerwall home energy storage system will be integrated into the SolarCity solar-roof system. We'll probably hear more about this as Musk fleshes out the specifics of said integration.

Now let's get to the vehicles. Musk doesn't think Tesla will need to build a lower-cost vehicle than the Model 3, because two things are imperative. One, the company desperately needs to scale up production volume – that's something its cognizant of, and necessary to bring in some positive cash flow. Secondly, it's because Tesla is developing both heavy-duty trucks (think semis) and high passenger-density urban transport (think buses or trams), and plans to unveil them next year.

Add full autonomy to the mix, and Tesla believes we'll be able to shrink the size of the vehicles and eliminate their human operators, which is probably welcome news to fleet managers and logistics folks, but less so to truck and bus drivers. There's some logic to it, as autonomous and connected public transportation and cargo delivery could be controlled for maximum efficiency and minimum congestion.

On the subject of autonomy, Tesla remains resolute that deploying Autopilot in a beta form was the correct thing to do, claiming when used correctly it's much safer than a typical human operator. Indeed, the company says it'd be "reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press, or some mercantile calculation of legal liability." Don't expect Autopilot to go away or be renamed, but do expect the "beta" label to go away when the system safe has improved to the point where it's ten times safer than the US vehicle average.

Lastly, car sharing. It's pretty much what it sounds like. Think about what percentage of a 24 hour period you're actually using your personal vehicle. If you're not driving your fully-autonomous vehicle at that moment, Tesla wants you to make it available to other users to rent. Tesla will also operate fleets in places where this isn't practical based on demand. It sounds neat, but there's a lot of details left to work out, and a lot of local politics to play. Just think about Uber's recent experience in Austin.

There's a lot to unpack here, so let this all soak in and come back later for more analysis and commentary.

Related Video:

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July 18, 2016 at 08:25AM: Making Art Can Reduce Stress, Regardless of Skill Level

2016-07-18T19:51:00.001-07:00

July 17, 2016 at 10:00AM: Watch SpaceX try its second ground landing at 12:45AM Eastern

2016-07-17T20:44:00.001-07:00

Now that sea-based rocket landings are relatively commonplace for SpaceX, the company is hoping to achieve repeat success with ground landings. Elon Musk and crew are launching a Dragon capsule full of cargo to the International Space Station on July 18th at 12:45AM Eastern, and they're using this nighttime mission to attempt the second-ever ground landing of a Falcon 9 rocket. You can watch SpaceX's live stream below starting at 12:25AM.

There's a lot riding on this besides bragging rights. The mission is carrying an international docking adapter that the ISS would have received last year if not for a Falcon 9 breaking up on launch. As you might gather, SpaceX really can't afford to lose that part a second time -- it'd not only hurt the ISS' supplies, but cast doubt on its attempts to improve reliability.

Source: SpaceX (YouTube)

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July 16, 2016 at 10:02PM: 10 Purchases You’ll Probably Regret

2016-07-17T07:26:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it’s the thrill of a sale that lures us into buying something we don’t really need and can’t afford. Other times, it’s the urging of others to “keep up,” be like them, or fit in with the group.

Then there are those crazy, inexplicable moments where we wake up to realize we spent good money on a hulking pile of crap, an overpriced membership, or an unplanned splurge.

Whether it’s a shirt you never wear or a car you absolutely hate driving, we’ve all made purchases we aren’t particularly proud of.

10 Purchases People Almost Always Regret

Still, some “regret purchases” tend to leave us full of self-loathing far longer than others – simply because we should have known better or because they were so dang expensive to begin with.

Want to avoid a purchase you might live to regret? Several money bloggers and financial advisors weighed in to share the most common financial blunders they’ve heard to date.

Boats

If you gather enough boat owners in one place, you’re bound to hear horror stories of pricey repairs, depreciating values, and plain ol’ hassle. The truth is, boats are mostly giant money pits for the vast majority of people who own them. Worse, they are money pits that depreciate in value at lightning speed.

“There is an old joke that say the best two days of a boat owner’s life are the day he buys his boat – and the day he sells it,” says Ryan Guina of CashMoneyLife.com. “Boats tend to be very expensive to own and maintain, and many are purchased on a whim.”

Before you buy anything that has an engine and floats on water, make sure to assess the total costs of ownership – not just the price you’ll pay to pull your new boat off the lot. Consider the costs of financing, insuring, and maintaining your new floating ride, along with transportation costs like gas, cleaning fees, and winter storage fees. And remember you’re paying all that for something you might only use a couple of months per year.

If you’re determined to get out on the water, a better idea is to rent a boat several times per year instead, says Guina. You’ll spend a lot less money without all the commitment. And you’ll never have to sell your boat for a fraction of what you paid, either.

Anything ‘As Seen on TV’

We’ve all seen those late night commercials for cleaning supplies, Sham-Wow type cloths, real estate sales courses, and pressure cookers, but are any of those purchases really necessary?

Paul Moyer of SavingFreak.com says absolutely not. In fact, he says, only about 25% of them are worth anything close to the asking price. How does he know? He’s a self-proclaimed “sucker” for infomercials that promise the world and deliver little more than regret.

“The guy on TV selling them is awesome and the products seem like they will change your life, but in reality they are usually just another addition to the junk drawer,” says Moyer.

If you didn’t need it before you got lured into a 30-minute infomercial, you certainly don’t need it now. Moyer’s advice? “Turn the television off,” he says.

DVD Collections

Nearly everywhere you go, you’ll find bins of DVDs and movies you can purchase for $4 or $5 each. But, are these really a good bargain?

Jeff Rose of Good Financial Cents doesn’t think so. “I don’t know a single person who doesn’t have at least a few DVDs at home and, unless you have kids, you do not watch them” says Rose.

Plus, with movie-streaming and rental services like Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, RedBox, and GameFly readily available, we no longer need to buy DVDs and store them like long lost artifacts.

Can we just stop with this? Please?!

If you find that bargain bin calling your name, says Rose, step away. “Even though a $4 movie night seem like a good deal, it rarely is,” he says.

Just One More Drink

If a beer or glass of wine with dinner is a good thing, five or six drinks is even better, right?

Actually, nope. Not at all. Those few extra drinks can lead to more than a hangover; they can lead to regret.

Unfortunately, let’s have “just one more drink” is a stance many of us take too often. While you might have more fun with a few more drinks under your belt, going overboard will inevitably lead to regret and wasted funds more often than not.

“When you’re eating out, alcohol is so expensive, but if you’re having a good time and having great conversation, it’s easy to just order another one for you and maybe even for your friends,” says Cat Alford.

If you’re not careful, says Cat, this can add another $50 or $100 to your bill, which can cause a really unpleasant end to your evening meal.

If you plan to drink at dinner, try to limit yourself to one or two. And if you’re still enjoying the conversation and ambiance afterward, take the party with you and drink at home. Your pocketbook will thank you.

Exercise Equipment

Do you hang your laundry on a perfectly good elliptical machine or treadmill? If so, you’re not alone. Year after year, people rush out to buy home exercise equipment so they can get back into shape and get rid of that spare tire. But over time, our enthusiasm for home fitness seems to wane. And if you don’t use your treadmill, it can even serve as a daily reminder of your expensive failure to stick with the program.

At that point, you can either sell it for a less or hang your clothes on it, which is what most people seem to do. Still, there are other alternatives to consider if you’re worried you won’t use that thigh-master calling your name.

“Instead of that impulse treadmill, get a one-month membership to the local gym – at least at first,” says Joseph Hogue of My Work from Home Money. “If you stick with it, then maybe you’re ready for a bigger at-home purchase.”

Related: 5 Ways to Get Your Workout Without a Gym Membership

That Backyard Hot Tub

A hot tub for the backyard can seem like a great idea if you’ve got achy joints or simply love the idea of soaking with a cold drink in hand — but will you really use it enough to get your money’s worth?

“You may enjoy it the first few times,” says Jim Wang of Wallet Hacks. “But eventually, the cost of maintenance and the fact that you have to deal with chemicals along with the infrequency with which you use it all make a hot tub a near-instant regret.”

“I have a friend who bought one many years ago and the times he’s cursed it greatly outnumber the times he’s been in love with it,” notes Wang.

Vaccuums Sold by Door-to-Door Salesman

Vaccuums are notorious for dying well before their time – or, at the very least, clogging up and becoming almost unusable before they are officially “dead.” You can buy a more expensive model, sure, but even the Dysons of the world may not last more than a few years. So, what are you to do?

Caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, you may be enticed into a “home vacuum demonstration” by a friendly Kirby salesperson intent on selling you their latest model. But if you buy the pitch hook, line, and sinker, you may live to regret it!

Financial planner Peter Huminski of Thorium Wealth says he fell for the spiel twice – twice!

“I know this may sound funny, but I have owned two now, and they are the purchases I’ve regretted most in my life,” Huminski says. Long story short, Huminski paid $1,500 for his first super vacuum that was supposed to last a lifetime. When it didn’t, he got roped into paying several hundred dollars to get a new one shipped out. That one, he says, worked for another year then died.

Now he sticks to cheap vacuums, he says. Even if he has to replace them every few years, it’s a lot cheaper than forking over $1,500. “I will never buy another vacuum over $100 again,” he says.

Related: Handling Door-to-Door Solicitors

Timeshares

While you might score a deal buying a discounted timeshare from a frustrated owner on the secondary market, these week-long vacation blocks aren’t always a good deal when you consider what you actually get for the full sticker price.

“People get excited by the hype of great vacations all over the world and only for a small amount of money,” says Ricky Lalvani of Richer Soul. But if you dig a little deeper, you might find that the numbers don’t really work out in your favor.

“The math on a $25,000 week is that it’s immediately worth about 80% less for most people,” says Lalvani, adding that timeshares are notoriously hard to sell. And after that, he says, you’ll still have the “ongoing and ever-increasing costs of maintenance, exchange company membership, exchange fees, and then special assessments,” he says.

“The better deal is to rent the week from someone else who just wants to recover a little bit of their massive loss.”

That’s right; you can easily rent a timeshare or vacation condo without actually owning one. And most of the time, you’ll end up much better off.

An Expensive New Car

Is there anything like that new car smell? The simple elegance of an odometer with only eight miles clocked so far? The feel of clean leather sets unspoiled by your kid’s grubby fingers, dog hair, or stray Doritos crumbs?

Buying a brand new car with all the bells and whistles offers a glimpse of the good life – a chance at a new beginning. But once the newness wears off and your car is an inch deep in Cheerios and opened mail, the only thing left to “savor” is that huge new car payment you signed up for.

We’ve run the numbers before and, like it or not, new cars are still depreciating assets that can suck your finances dry if you let them.

“I always recommend my clients purchase a one- to two-year-old certified vehicle if they are looking to purchase a new car,” says Joseph Carbone, Jr., founder of Focus Planning Group. “You’d be amazed at how much money you can save on a ‘practically’ new car.”

Related: Two-Sided Coin: Should You Always Buy a Used Car?

Extended or ‘Extra’ Warranties

Whenever you make a big purchase — from used cars to appliances to that biggest buy of all, your home — you’ll likely be offered an extended warranty that will cover breakdowns or replacements of major components within a predetermined window of time.

But extended warranties are rarely a good deal for consumers, and there’s a reason companies try to push them at the point of sale. Their profits come from the purchase of your warranty — and the fact that they’ll do almost anything to avoid paying out if you do in fact need to use it.

An extended warranty on a car, for example, can add thousands of dollars to your total purchase, says financial planner Kenneth Feyers of Retirement Seeds. And if your warranty doesn’t cover the exact repairs you actually need… Welp! You’re out of luck.

The same can be said for home warranties, says Kate Dore of Cashville Skyline. “In most instances, these service contracts don’t cover as much as you would expect.”

At the end of the day, saving the extra cash in an emergency fund is almost always a smarter move.

How to Avoid Making a Purchase You’ll Grow to Regret

If you’re worried about overspending or constantly find your closets filled with stuff you don’t really want, it might be time to reassess your spending habits and ask yourself what is going on. Perhaps you love playing victim to every television ad you see. Or maybe you’re just a sale sucker who can’t say no to a “good deal.”

Whatever your spending weakness is, look for ways to talk yourself out of purchases made on the fly. Instituting a 24-hour wait period before you make a big purchase can be an extremely smart move, as can setting a fun-spending limit that you agree upon with your spouse.

On top of that, simply learning to tell yourself “no” can help a great deal. The excitement of buying stuff can be addictive, but with a lot of purchases, all you’re really left with in the end is the bill.

What purchases have you regretted in your life? What would you add to this list?

Related Articles:

The post 10 Purchases You’ll Probably Regret appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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July 8, 2016 at 07:52AM: Canada Revenue Agency does not demand payment in iTunes cards, warns RCMP

2016-07-08T15:02:00.001-07:00

The warning comes after a young immigrant in Burnaby fell victim to a scam and turned over thousands of dollars worth of iTunes gift cards to scammers via Snapchat.

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July 2, 2016 at 09:00PM: Richard Feynman on Teaching Math to Kids and the Lessons of Knowledge

2016-07-03T07:02:00.001-07:00

Legendary scientist Richard Feynman was famous for his penetrating insight and clarity of thought. Famous for not only the work he did to garner a Nobel Prize, but also for the lucidity of explanations of ordinary things such as why trains stay on the tracks as they go around a curve, how we look for new laws of science, how rubber bands work, and the beauty of the natural world.

Feynman knew the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. And was often prone to telling the emperor they had no clothes as this illuminating example from James Gleick’s book Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman shows.

Educating his children gave him pause as to how the elements of teaching should be employed. By the time his son Carl was four, Feynman was “actively lobbying against a first-grade science book proposed for California schools.”

It began with pictures of a mechanical wind-up dog, a real dog, and a motorcycle, and for each the same question: “What makes it move?” The proposed answer—“ Energy makes it move”— enraged him.

That was tautology, he argued—empty definition. Feynman, having made a career of understanding the deep abstractions of energy, said it would be better to begin a science course by taking apart a toy dog, revealing the cleverness of the gears and ratchets. To tell a first-grader that “energy makes it move” would be no more helpful, he said, than saying “God makes it move” or “moveability makes it move.”

Feynman proposed a simple test for whether one is teaching ideas or mere definitions: “Without using the new word which you have just learned, try to rephrase what you have just learned in your own language. Without using the word energy, tell me what you know now about the dog’s motion.”

The other standard explanations were equally horrible: gravity makes it fall, or friction makes it wear out. You didn’t get a pass on learning because you were a first-grader and Feynman’s explanations not only captured the attention of his audience—from Nobel winners to first-graders—but also offered true knowledge. “Shoe leather wears out because it rubs against the sidewalk and the little notches and bumps on the sidewalk grab pieces and pull them off.” That is knowledge. “To simply say, ‘It is because of friction,’ is sad, because it’s not science.”

Choosing Textbooks for Grade Schools

In 1964 Feynman made the rare decision to serve on a public commission for choosing mathematics textbooks for California’s grade schools. As Gleick describes it:

Traditionally this commissionership was a sinecure that brought various small perquisites under the table from textbook publishers. Few commissioners— as Feynman discovered— read many textbooks, but he determined to read them all, and had scores of them delivered to his house.

This was the era of new math in children’s textbooks: introducing high-level concepts, such as set theory and non decimal number systems into grade school.

Feynman was skeptical of this approach but rather than simply let it go, he popped the balloon.

He argued to his fellow commissioners that sets, as presented in the reformers’ textbooks, were an example of the most insidious pedantry: new definitions for the sake of definition, a perfect case of introducing words without introducing ideas.

A proposed primer instructed first-graders: “Find out if the set of the lollipops is equal in number to the set of the girls.”

To Feynman this was a disease. It confused without adding precision to the normal sentence: “Find out if there are just enough lollipops for the girls.”

According to Feynman, specialized language should wait until it is needed. (In case you’re wondering, he argued the peculiar language of set theory is rarely, if ever, needed —only in understanding different degrees of infinity—which certainly wasn’t necessary at a grade-school level.)

Feynman convincingly argued this was knowledge of words without actual knowledge. He wrote:

It is an example of the use of words, new definitions of new words, but in this particular case a most extreme example because no facts whatever are given…. It will perhaps surprise most people who have studied this textbook to discover that the symbol ∪ or ∩ representing union and intersection of sets … all the elaborate notation for sets that is given in these books, almost never appear in any writings in theoretical physics, in engineering, business, arithmetic, computer design, or other places where mathematics is being used.

The point became philosophical.

It was crucial, he argued, to distinguish clear language from precise language. The textbooks placed a new emphasis on precise language: distinguishing “number” from “numeral,” for example, and separating the symbol from the real object in the modern critical fashion— pupil for schoolchildren, it seemed to Feynman. He objected to a book that tried to teach a distinction between a ball and a picture of a ball— the book insisting on such language as “color the picture of the ball red.”

“I doubt that any child would make an error in this particular direction,” Feynman said, adding:

As a matter of fact, it is impossible to be precise … whereas before there was no difficulty. The picture of a ball includes a circle and includes a background. Should we color the entire square area in which the ball image appears all red? … Precision has only been pedantically increased in one particular corner when there was originally no doubt and no difficulty in the idea.

In the real world absolute precision can never be reached and the search for degrees of precision that are not possible (but are desirable) causes a lot of folly.

Feynman has his own ideas for teaching children mathematics.

***

Process vs. Outcome

Feynman proposed that first-graders learn to add and subtract more or less the way he worked out complicated integrals— free to select any method that seems suitable for the problem at hand.A modern-sounding notion was, The answer isn’t what matters, so long as you use the right method. To Feynman no educational philosophy could have been more wrong. The answer is all that does matter, he said. He listed some of the techniques available to a child making the transition from being able to count to being able to add. A child can combine two groups into one and simply count the combined group: to add 5 ducks and 3 ducks, one counts 8 ducks. The child can use fingers or count mentally: 6, 7, 8. One can memorize the standard combinations. Larger numbers can be handled by making piles— one groups pennies into fives, for example— and counting the piles. One can mark numbers on a line and count off the spaces— a method that becomes useful, Feynman noted, in understanding measurement and fractions. One can write larger numbers in columns and carry sums larger than 10.

To Feynman the standard texts were flawed. The problem

29
+3
—

was considered a third-grade problem because it involved the concept of carrying. However, Feynman pointed out most first-graders could easily solve this problem by counting 30, 31, 32.

He proposed that kids be given simple algebra problems (2 times what plus 3 is 7) and be encouraged to solve them through the scientific method, which is tantamount to trial and error. This, he argued, is what real scientists do.

“We must,” Feynman said, “remove the rigidity of thought.” He continued “We must leave freedom for the mind to wander about in trying to solve the problems…. The successful user of mathematics is practically an inventor of new ways of obtaining answers in given situations. Even if the ways are well known, it is usually much easier for him to invent his own way— a new way or an old way— than it is to try to find it by looking it up.”

It was better in the end to have a bag of tricks at your disposal that could be used to solve problems than one orthodox method. Indeed, part of Feynman’s genius was his ability to solve problems that were baffling others because they were using the standard method to try and solve them. He would come along and approach the problem with a different tool, which often led to simple and beautiful solutions.

***

If you give some thought to how Farnam Street helps you, one of the ways is by adding to your bag of tricks so that you can pull them out when you need them to solve problems. We call these tricks mental models and they work kinda like lego — interconnecting and reinforcing one another. The more pieces you have, the more things you can build.

Complement this post with Feynman’s excellent advice on how to learn anything.

--
Sponsored by: Slack - Making teamwork simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.

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June 30, 2016 at 12:44PM: Artificial pancreas likely to be available by 2018

2016-06-30T21:24:00.001-07:00

The artificial pancreas -- a device which monitors blood glucose in patients with type 1 diabetes and then automatically adjusts levels of insulin entering the body -- is likely to be available by 2018, conclude authors of a new paper.

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June 28, 2016 at 10:43PM: Milking won't stop until Canadian online shoppers speak up: Neil Macdonald - Politics - CBC News

2016-06-29T05:44:00.001-07:00

In the hot lobbying firefight going on at the moment over the government's systematic stifling of international online shopping by Canadians, one important voice is absent: consumers.

This is not terribly unusual. Farmers seldom ask the cow for permission to milk it.

But Canadian consumers seem largely unaware that a significant matter of their economic self-interest is being decided by others, quietly and behind closed doors.

In the Canadian order of things, access to consumers is controlled by government, which grants pretty much exclusive privileges to Canada's business sector, in return for guarantees of stability and an unshaken status quo.

That is especially so with e-commerce, at least where the massive American and European marketplaces are concerned. So strictly is international online shopping controlled, and penalized, that Canadians seem to have largely given up trying.

Once Canada Customs tacks on protectionist duties and sales taxes and customs brokers add their fees, the package often becomes so expensive as to render the purchase pointless, which of course is the point.

If a Canadian buys something worth more than $20 Cdn from a U.S. website, a federal customs agent will intercept it, open it, delay it, add federal and provincial sales taxes, and, depending on the origin of the merchandise, perhaps pile on some duty charges. ( Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Further, the Canadian threshold for taxing and applying duty to imports, known as de minimis, is a mere $20, the lowest in the developed world (the Americans don't tax or apply duty to any package worth less than $800 US, more than 40 times the Canadian limit).

This pax canadiana, designed mainly for the benefit of Canadian retailers and, they would argue, their employees, has been around forever, but a loose coalition of Americans and Canadians has for years been demanding that Canada open its online consumer market.

The group includes small and large Canadian businesses that buy and sell mostly with Americans, courier companies, big online retailers, resellers like Amazon and eBay, and even powerful American politicians.

"Canada's low de minimis threshold represents an unnecessary trade barrier between our two countries," wrote 12 U.S. senators in a letter to then-Canadian ambassador Gary Doer last year.

eBay Canada has been lobbying the federal government to raise its $20 threshold for charging Canadians cross-border duties and taxes on goods purchased online from the U.S. (REUTERS)

Now, the coalition believes it is close to success, perhaps as early as this autumn's budget update, but believes the key is galvanizing Canadian consumers.

"Either we start behaving like a trading bloc or we don't," says Maryscott Greenwood of the Canadian-American Business Council, which recently put up an online petition, sponsored by Liberal MP Sonia Sidhu (who has an Amazon facility in her Ontario riding), demanding that Canada "dump the duties and taxes."

The council says it has so far collected more than 1,000 signatures from Canadians, but lobbyists like Greenwood also know that Canadian consumers, unlike Americans, are relatively quiescent, and many seem to have accepted that being Canadian means paying more taxes and higher prices for just about everything.

Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers' Association of Canada, says his group simply cannot afford a seat at the Ottawa table, but is delighted to lay out the CAC position: it wants the Canadian de minimis threshold raised to at least $800, which is the American level, and which is also the amount of merchandise a Canadian can physically bring back across the border after 48 hours in the U.S.

In the past, says Cran, CAC had the ear of Stephen Harper's finance minister, Jim Flaherty, even though the Conservatives ultimately did nothing about the de minimis threshold. (A spokesman for interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose could not articulate the party's current position on the issue.)

Stepping gingerly

Nowadays, Cran says, his group is ignored, and business groups are allowed to speak for consumers.

"How does that make sense?"

That's not to say there aren't free traders in cabinet. International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, for one, is seen as supportive of a sharp increase in the Canadian import threshold.

International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

But the government, knowing the Retail Council of Canada's resolute opposition to any change in the status quo, and the fact that the RCC represents businesses employing 1.9 million workers, is stepping gingerly.

The RCC complains that unlike American retailers, Canadian merchants must collect sales taxes for Ottawa and the provinces, which puts them at an unfair disadvantage.

"We are listening to both sides intently," says Daniel Lauzon, spokesman for Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

"While we're broadly supportive of streamlining custom processing and importation requirements, when it comes to waiving duties and taxes, we need to carefully consider the impact that would have on Canadians and on Canadian businesses," he wrote later, in a magnificent bit of boilerplate echoed by Chrystia Freeland's spokesman.

Ad hoc

Andrea Stairs, CEO of eBay Canada, says the status quo is ad hoc and shambolic.

"There is no effective de minimis level right now," she says.

Canadian travellers are given a different limit than Canadian online shoppers. And while courier services faithfully turn every shipment over $20 to a customs broker, Canada Post is more haphazard, taking in shipments from the U.S. Postal Service and "literally dumping parcels on a conveyor belt" for Canada Customs to peruse.

As a result, consumers who insist a purchase be sent by post instead of courier can easily find a shipment worth much more than the $20 threshold on their doorstep, unopened, untaxed, with no duty or broker's fee added.

Andrea Stairs, CEO of eBay Canada, says packages worth more than the $20 Canadian threshold are more likely to have taxes and duty added if they're sent via courier rather than by post. (Canada Post)

Like the coalition behind the online petition, eBay badly wants the de minimis level raised. So does Amazon, but neither e-commerce giant is ready yet to use the power and reach of their websites to appeal directly to Canadian customers, which, says one lobbyist involved in the effort, "would mean game over by tomorrow morning," but which would also annoy the government.

"We've preferred working with the government to get it to move," says Stairs. "And we've done some scholarly work." (That's a reference to a recent C.D. Howe-reviewed study that basically concluded the government spends dollars to collect dimes for the sake of protecting retailers.)

Lauzon, the finance minister's spokesman, says the government intends to consult Canadians "widely" about the issue in the months to come.

And almost certainly, the subject will come up during the Three Amigos summit this week. The U.S. takes every opportunity to press for a de minimis increase.

But the reality is plain: unless Canadian consumers speak, and loudly, the milking machine will remain in place. There is no force more powerful than the status quo.

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June 22, 2016 at 04:35AM: New study says using a standing desk doesn't burn calories

2016-06-22T11:46:00.001-07:00

Just standing isn't enough; you gotta move.

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June 22, 2016 at 01:04AM: Bright white LED street lights make you blue

2016-06-22T08:19:00.001-07:00

The American Medical Association warns of the harmful human and environmental effects of high intensity street lighting.

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June 18, 2016 at 11:47PM: Apple doesn't understand photography

2016-06-19T06:48:00.001-07:00

June 18, 2016 at 11:07PM: When everything else fails, amateur radio will still be there—and thriving

2016-06-19T06:45:00.001-07:00

June 13, 2016 at 01:38AM: BlackBerry: We're Here To Kick Ass And Sell Out Users To Law Enforcement. And We're (Almost) All Out Of Users.

2016-06-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

Back in mid-April, it was discovered that Canadian law enforcement (along with Dutch authorities) had the ability to intercept and decrypt BlackBerry messages. This level of access suggested the company had turned over its encryption key to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. BlackBerry has only one encryption key for most customers -- which it maintains control of. Enterprise users, however, can set their own key, which cuts BlackBerry out of the loop completely.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen -- despite publicly criticizing Apple for locking law enforcement out of its phone with default encryption -- refused to provide specifics on this apparent breach of his customers' trust. Instead, he offered a non-denial denial, stating that BlackBerry stood by its "lawful access principles."

The matter was left unsettled… until now.

A specialized unit inside mobile firm BlackBerry has for years enthusiastically helped intercept user data — including BBM messages — to help in hundreds of police investigations in dozens of countries, a CBC News investigation reveals.

This unit, which cracks open BlackBerries for nearly anyone who comes asking, is very proud of its work.

One document obtained by CBC News reveals how the Waterloo, Ont.-based company handles requests for information and co-operates with foreign law enforcement and government agencies, in stark contrast with many other tech companies.

"We were helping law enforcement kick ass," said one of a number of sources who told CBC News that the company is swamped by requests that come directly from police in dozens of countries.

Go team! While these sources remain generally upbeat about throwing customer privacy and security to the wind, the official word from the company is less enthused. In fact, it's nonexistent.

In response to questions from CBC News, a BlackBerry spokesperson said it "will not address the questions given the extremely sensitive nature of this process."

This unadvertised service is apparently so popular BlackBerry has streamlined the process. It offers government agencies a list of boxes to check for what kind of information they'd like retrieved from a phone (including the ominously vague "other"), as well as the option to declare any request "exigent."

It also asks that the requesting party sign off on some boilerplate saying the request is legal in the requester's country and that it is not being done to "control, suppress or punish… political or religious opinion."

Of course, BlackBerry is not a government agency so it really can't do anything if someone "perjures" themselves by signing the form and moving directly towards suppression, punishment, etc. The best it can do is not allow that entity to make any more requests. I'm guessing this almost never happens because the quoted sources seem like a bunch of overly-cheery do-gooders. Policing the police would require BlackBerry to second-guess the government entities it seemingly can't wait to assist.

"Narco trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, crime against children, knowing you are stopping those things … how do you not love doing something like that?" said the insider.

Yup. [Insert whatever the Canadian equivalent of "'Murica!" here.]

In its hurry to help supposed good guys track down alleged bad guys, the Canadian branch of BlackBerry's "full give" operations is skirting around statutes meant to protect locals from inappropriate demands made by foreign countries.

Christopher Parsons, a research associate at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, who has studied the privacy practices of tech companies, is worried by the secrecy of BlackBerry's process and its potential for abuse.

[...]

He said BlackBerry is allowing foreign police to bypass the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, a diplomatic agreement that allows Canadian officials to review requests from foreign police and consider whether they are legal under Canadian law.

But, as Parsons points out, law enforcement agencies are probably thrilled to have someone on the inside willing to violate treaties with the drop of pre-printed form. Adhering to MLAT may result in significant delays, whereas approaching BlackBerry directly sets its team of super-secret gofers in motion immediately.

Of course, the major downside here is that very few criminals are likely still using BlackBerries. Most of the company's customers are enterprise users and they have the ability to lock down their phones so tight not even BlackBerry can get into them. But for all the panicked talk about going dark, BlackBerry's special ops unit says it's still surprised at how many criminals are unaware the company is basically the local PD at this point.

The nails were already in the coffin for BlackBerry. Each new exposure of its highly-proactive law enforcement assistance is only going to hasten the dwindling of its user base.

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