Extensive and Intensive physical properties

Extensive property depends on the 'extent' of the object. Value of Extensive property will be less for smaller object and more for larger object. Example: Weight is Extensive property. Weight of cup of water is smaller compared to weight of bucket full of water.

Intensive property is independent of the 'extent' of the object. Value of Intensive property will be same irrespective of the size of the object. Example: Density is Intensive property. Density is same for water that is inside cup or bucket.

IQWiG (Drug quality control in Germany)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Quality_and_Efficiency_in_Health_Care

In Germany drug makers have to prove to IQWiG that their products are good compared to the ones already available, then only Govt. buys from that drug maker. Not many western countries are courageous and honest enough do this. In US Medicare and Medicaid are paid by Govt., and Govt. does not even negotiate for cheap price. Drug maker does not have to prove anything about superiority to sell to Govt.


US is a dream customer for Pharma

EMA and FDA

EMA is the agency responsible for regulating medicines in EU. EMA is counterpart of FDA. Till recently EMA was not forth coming in sharing drug-trail data with independent researches like Cochrane. The reason given by EMA were:

- 'these documents have commercial data'
- 'these documents have patient personal data'
- 'these documents have data about the design of clinical trail'
- 'documents  were shredded because it passed legal hold period'.
-'you can use the data for analysis but should not publish the results'

Going by these excuses EMA is representing drug makers, not the people or tax payers.

Independent researcher's struggle with EMA
http://www.cochrane.dk/research/EMA/

Now EMA has made all drug-trail data available for scrutiny.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/15/us-europe-medicines-idUSBRE86E04I20120715

Number needed to treat

Source: Your Medical mInd

It is not what it means when the doctor says "By taking a statin pill, you’ll reduce your risk of a heart attack over the next ten years by as much as 30 percent.”. It is not mean that out 100 your risk of h-a reduced by 30%. Doctor here uses 'health literacy' lingo and particularly "Number needed to treat".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_needed_to_treat

Female's ability to fight pathogens

Source: 'Why we get sick'

According to this book we (including doctors) misunderstand defense mechanism against infection as disease. Author gives example fever, diarrhea and menstruation. In fact diarrhea's case is easy to spot. Some people experience diarrhea after drinking rather acidic coffee. In this situation corrective role of diarrhea is obvious.

Book dwells lot in to menstruation. According to book, menstruation liquid is tuned for fighting pathogens and is low in nutrients(so as to not to waste good things). Morphologically, female reproductive tract (F tubes, ..cervix, vagina) is not made for upstream but for down stream traffic. Only thing that defies this traffic rule is sperm, a potential carrier of pathogens. According to the book, the rate of menstruation for a species (note, not for individual) is proportional to the rate of sexual activity. Seems menstruation in other mammals is far less compared to humans because former's frequency of sex is far less compared to that of humans.

Is Natural selection looking out for us?

Source: 'Why we get Sick' book

Natural selection does not take long term well being of species in to account. Looking out for species would require 'group selection'. Example for 'group selection' is a bird choosing not to eat and thus opting for  death so that species survives. Basically the gene, actor in Natural selection cares for its well being not that of beholder. This implies that natural selection does not always result in healthy species. Richard Dawkins implies the same in his book 'Selfish Gene'.


According to this book Natural selection does not over engineer or go for perfection. We can see this in our spine. Back problem is like cough, everyone has it. According 'The aging spine' book our spine starts degenerating as early as 2nd decade.

Uranium used in Hiroshima came from a stock pile kept in a vegetable oil factory located Bayonne bridge located in NY and NJ border. Source of this uranium was Congo and owner was Belgian business man waiting for potential customer for stock pile.

https://fopnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/staten-islands-tainted-edge-geologic-city-report-3/

specification of war

Recently I heard a talk about definition of war. We also hear the phrase 'rules of war'. This post puts those two togather.

It seems there are two definitions for war: 'Industrialized war' and 'Non-industrialized war'. Popular opinion is that Industrialized war is lawful. US Govt. often makes this point while justifying drone and Iraq war. I want to go back to colonial times of occupation of India by UK. During those times UK was able to defeat Kings in Indian states using their superior fire power. UK used gun powder and Indian kings were using swords. Going by modern definition of war, UK and India were using 'Industrialized war' and 'Non-industrialized war' strategy respectively. And UK could have justified colonial occupation as legal war, though it sounds absurd in hind sight.

So the definition of war is not clear as black and white, especially given that US has not taken part in World court.

Golden Hard and Light molding paste.

I have used both hard and light molding paste.
Hard molding paste creates harsh texture. The edges are too pronounced and create shiny rounds when photographed.

Light molding paste creates much smooth texture. You could dilute Light molding paste to make the texture smoother.

Unable to turn off caching on USB drive (Win2008 R2)

Another nasty bug from Win2008 R2. At last MS gave mind of its own to OS. Great job

Hitachi Travelstar-5K500.B rated for low power

Seagate


Hitachi


General opinion is 5200rpm disks consume less power compared to 7200rpm; someone even suggested that Data centers run 5400rpm just because it takes less power.

Hitachi Travelstar-5K500.B

Seagate spec

I chose Hitachi Travelstar-5K500.B hard drive for laptop, just to keep the load on battery low.

TV keeps dogmas alive

TV has successfully kept people backward thinking. TV dramas have to prolong all sorts of ancient dogmas just to stay in business.

I wonder how the world would have been without TV? atleast less obese...

Some vote for dinner and some for future

In a democracy, some vote based on the policy that take effect immediately(ex: policy that subsidizes food grains) and others may vote based on the policy that takes effects gradually over decades(ex: high-speed train, etc... ).

Democracy where these two classes are in equal number may not prosper because they completely drag each other down, and their ambitions fail to co-exist. Such a stratified society is a sign of bad policy, root cause of many problems.

Etching in Prestige pressure cooker

I purchased 12-Ltr Prestige Pressure cooker from VCT Electronics Amazon Marketplace on Nov of 2010. Cooker has not been used more than 10 times and has developed "etches". This is aluminum cooker.

Outer surface of vessel and lid(both inside and outside) are shiny and look perfect.

Etched inner surface (bad subject for MACRO photography)





Too late to claim damage in 2010 TAX.
.

Nietzsche on materialism

"Possessions are usually diminished by possession"

I have heard some say Nietzsche writings are sharp, an example of it

Pre-cambrian sex-judgementality of US media

I think people seem to go out of their way to attribute sexual motivation to every damn action. Media does upright job of transforming these normal acts in to standard models like 'pedolphallia', 'nymphomania', 'fetishist', 'bisexual', 'non-sexual', 'lessbbian', 'hgaay', 'sssoodoomy'.

According to these pundits(with simple pre-Cambrian brain), majority of the world is gay because men put their arm around other men. These pundits do not even consider that every action(especially social behavioral) must be read in the context of that society.

While we in US dissect benign sexual behaviors and trademark, Chinese try to feed(with many flaws) the massive amount of people .

Lately I have started doubting endless Church scandals.

Ok- Gandhi sexuality

I read long back, in late 90' that Gandhi slept with naked women and also claimed celibacy. His point of view was if you are truly celibate you would live with women and resist, not run away like coward.

This line of argument may sound abnormal for modern generation that is driven by instant gratification; not yielding(crawling) to a desire is considered mental disease

a fetish object for the right...

In BBC interview, Regan's son said "Regan is a fetish object for the right..."
BBC
Well deserved description, I thought.

Diversity in rather "refined" society

By refining I mean fine tuning. We begin the process of refinement by identify the things that are most

suitable

comfortable

profitable

acceptable(socially, etc...)

Based on these factors we narrow down ourselves, bolster our comfort-zone; sometime at the cost of diversity. Refinement is good in several areas like Engineering(technical and medical) but not best for lifestyle areas.

Profit driven refinement
Initially retail shops stock popular items; and few years later stock only the popular items. Here are few examples for bad(according to me) refinements(in US)...

There is specific color for everything. One of my friend called this practice as color-coding. In one of the US metro, color of my friend's shirt was taken as indication of his sexual orientation. This confusion may appear as result of stereo-typing but the originally idea that people of x orientation should wear y color was designed to make (refine) identification easier.

Far easier example for color coding is girls like pink. This is more of a product refinement. In the past, in India I have worn light pink color shirt for office. Such lack of color-code would not go unnoticed these days. This transformation is an example for narrowing.

Here is example for utensils refinement. I have fond it hard to get a cup or mug with sharp brim; such a cup has to be made up of steel or aluminum. Such cup is essential for my kitchen activities. Off course retail stores do not stock because majority does not use tools any more.

Looks like profit driven refinement has been gradually engulfing the whole every area of life. It is more like the police lifestyle of communist society but all in the name of efficiency and profitability.

Making religion and politics palatable

Religion and Politics are twins; addition of Sssexxx in to this pool would make the religion and politics more palatable. This is not my fantasy, there are one-stop-religion offering all the three under one Poolygaaamous brand...

Heaven everywhere