Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

What happens if you have a 6-foot alligator fight a 13-foot python? Apparently, the fight ends with a draw as they both end up dead. Recently in the Everglades (Florida), rangers found the remains of this epic battle:

The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded.

…

The python’s remains were found with the victim’s tail protruding from its burst midsection. The head of the python was missing.

The slightly disturbing picture can be found here.

Experts said that there have been four known similar encounters in the past; in these cases, the alligator either won or the battle was a draw:

The rangers say the find suggests that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators’ leading position in the food chain in the swamps.

Wow. Now I’m very scared of Florida.

The Internet is a wonder; with it you get to learn all sorts of strange and interesting things. The other day a friend mentioned that I, as a vegetarian, shouldn’t drink Guinness because it has fish in it.

One quick Google search later and I learned that Guinness and other beers use Isinglass, which comes from fish bladders, as a finishing agent to clarify (remove sediment from) the beer. Strictly speaking, the
Isinglass stays on the bottom of the vat, but it’s likely that minute bits are still in the beer.

Wow, I wonder what else is in that glass. :-)

Though it hasn’t worked that well so far, I’m trying to watch what I eat. And like the engineer I am, this means looking at a lot of data on the nutritional value of food. And I’ve discovered that calories are incredibly clever and will sneak into you however they can.

Since I live in Seattle, my friends and I go out and get coffee quite often. I’m not a coffee drinker (I know, I’m weird), so I end up getting hot chocolate or Chai. I know that both of these are not healthful, but I didn’t know how bad until I looked it up. A grande hot chocolate with whipped cream totals to 440 calories and 23 grams of fat. That’s a lot of calories! In fact, it’s the same as McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger (440 calories and 23 grams of fat)!

So next time I’m considering what to get at Starbucks, I’ll ask myself “do you feel like a double cheeseburger?” Hopefully, that will be enough to convince me to get a nice cup of simple decaf tea.

Wow, it’s a long time since I posted anything. I had been doing such a good job of writing and using delayed posting to spread out when things come online, but then I got lazy. And now my head is full of mostly pointless thoughts just waiting to be “defenestrated” out into the blogosphere. :-)

Recently Google added compostable plates, utensils, cups and napkins to our cafeterias. The napkins and plates are made of special paper so they biodegrade easily. The cups and utensils are made of corn starch. For those that are curious, my friends and I have done a few taste tests and the utensils taste just like rice cakes.

Along with these, we have compost bins to toss these and food scraps into. And presumably this gets used as soil additive or mulch. So it would be used to grow more crops.

Now the interesting part (for me): if someone throws away some left-over chicken and it’s used to fertilize the plants, what does this mean for my vegetarian sensibilities? Is there a ethical problem with eating “Chicken-fed cucumber”? :-)

Aside from being really amusing, I suppose it’s not an issue, as random dead animals have been feeding plants forever as part of the circle of life.

Somewhat related, we realized over lunch that one of the traditional “don’t eat things that have nervous systems” approach to vegetarianism has a few flaws. After all, potatoes have eyes and corn has ears. :-)

I can’t quite explain it, but all the hype about Global Warming just doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test. Keep in mind, I completely agree that our polluting the environment is bad and we should reduce pollution and try to find cleaner energy sources. This seems like a no-brainer, as it’s a socially responsible requirement to being a good citizen of the planet.

This is related to my previous post about environmentalism and how it is shifting from true science to almost a faith. Environmentalism even has it’s own Eden, fall of man, and prediction of coming doomsday (all this is covered in detail in this excellent speech by Michael Crichton). And to complete the “faith” analogy, no matter what happens (hot, cold, wet, dry, hurricanes, no hurricanes), it all comes down to Global Warming.

Media coverage tends to be given to stories generating more excitement and ratings. As a result, impending catastrophes sell. Suppose there were two studies: the first claiming that “There’s a bit of warming, but we can’t statistically predict too far into the future since we only have limited data.” While, the second says, “The entire West Coast will be under water in 100 years.” Obviously the latter is going to get far more attention than the former.

30 years ago, Newsweek published on article on the imminent danger of global cooling:

Citing “ominous signs that the earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically,” the magazine warned of an impending “drastic decline in food production.” Political disruptions stemming from food shortages could affect “just about every nation on earth.”

Fortunately this fell into the bucket of all things that get ridiculously hyped by the media, but don’t happen. Some of my favorites in this bucket are Y2k (anarchy, no electricity, no water, unrest, and rioting for at least a year) and the Population Bomb (”in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death”).

Both of these didn’t come true and that’s great for us. But I doubt we’ve learned our lesson about over-hyping potential events and becoming the boy that cried wolf. (Though, of course, in this case, I don’t think people are intentionally lying.)

With this over-hype comes over-commercialization of university research and politicization of science. At worst, these can lead people to get the cart ahead of the horse, that is, make the evidence fit the conclusion (like that whole pesky WMD thing). At best, “facts” get spread that get things way out of proportion. I remember in high school we watched a video where the narrator claimed that every day in Brazil, mankind was clear cutting a piece of the rain-forest the size of New Jersey.

A simple analysis shows at that rate Brazil would be out of rain-forest in just about 365 days (the area of Brazil divided by the area of New Jersey). Obviously this “fact” wasn’t quite right.

Anyway, my original point was I think there’s sufficient intrinsic motivation to take care of the environment, but the hype with worst case and doomsday scenario will hurt the cause more than help it. You shouldn’t have to scare people to convince them of something and treat dissent as if it were heresy. I’m still a firm believer in civil discourse based on fact and reason. Hopefully that doesn’t make me a dinosaur. :-)

Now that Pluto was kicked out of the solar system, Neptune is the last planet in the solar system.

I really hope that we kick out Neptune too. Then we can all joke, “The solar system ends with Uranus.”

A recent study has made a big splash in the news with eye-catching headlines like: Raunchy Lyrics Prompt Teens to Have Sex. In what should be a simple example of correlation does not mean causation, we have a media sensation that rocking local newscasts and newspapers. I’m sure Oprah will chime in soon.

In the above linked article, compare the headline and then read the article’s first sentence: “Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.” The headline implies causation and the leading sentence implies correlation.

After all, it’s seems like common sense that teens that have sex tend to listen to music with sexual lyrics.

If the journalist actually read the study, they would see the following in the conclusion, “Our results suggest that the relationship between exposure and behavior may be causal in nature … however, our correlational data do not allow us to make causal inferences with certainty.”

My guess is that the headline implying causation sells more papers or gets more viewers. It’s another reminder that media companies exist to make money; not necessary to deliver the full truth. Which is a shame; the research study has lots of interesting info in it.