Category: Science

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For God’s Sake Man It’s Only A Weather App

I recently saw that the Met Office had a new weather app. I think it popped up on the front page of the app store. I was interested as I’m quite fussy about my weather apps. Once you get used to one and the information it gives you it’s quite hard to change. Much like buying a new wallet, which I have to do soon and it fills me with dread. By the way, I don’t like the term “app”, I’m not particularly fond of the term “application”, to me these are programs and always will be.

Here’s the front page of the new app:

The new app had embedded video forecasts from the Met Office – these are not needed, I’m too old to care for video forecasts. Also, video on a phone is antisocial and useless, I can get the same information without the noise and movement. I think this may be a generational thing. I don’t need sound and people to inform me something that I can see in a diagram or map. It could possibly be why I also don’t like the news that is broadcast into our homes all the time [hint: change channel, which I do].

 

Here’s another view of the new app:

I’m not sure I like the days across the top. I think that’s mostly because I the older app [which is still available] had the days going down the screen. The worst part of the new app is the weather alert screen. This screen used to be a map with colours over it.

This is a good weather warning map. It tells me what I need to know. The new app just has text to read. I can’t be bothered to read it. The text is broken down into regions. I can be even less bothered to find my region and then decode the words. Oddly, I do like listening to radio weather broadcasts so maybe I’m just weird here.

One last thing. The new app has done away with proper weather charts. These actually mean something to me and I like them. They give an overall impression of what is really going on in the weather. Here are some examples of good stuff:

Day by day and then lovely extra information if you need it. There’s a page that will give hour by hour predictions too.

Look at these maps. Aren’t they pretty and lovely. They let you know what’s going on. The new app doesn’t have this. Which is a shame. I do get the feeling that sometimes things are “improved” to include lots of new functions but the reality is that they just fuck them up.

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Going Underground

Spent an hour under the Kent countryside one afternoon as I dived into the world of Chislehurst Caves. They are man made caves in the chalky hills. They are also quite impressive and a good place to go when you want to escape the summer heat and humidity. The tour guide was a bit cheeky but funny in the right way and he was knowledgeable, he was just the sort of person you want to show you around.

According to the guide Hendrix and Zeppelin both played the caves, which would have been amazing to see but I guess the sound would have been terrible. Although this was the late 60s and early 70s so you would have been smashed out of your head and not notice.

I would recommend this tour as it was good value and interesting.

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Impressive Tech?

So, I saw this the other day while waiting at a set of traffic lights.

Van
Van

I was impressed because the sign seems to imply that the van is “restricted” to particular speeds in different areas.

Restricted to me means that the driver can NOT go above those speeds when on those types of roads. I just wonder how it works. I will grant you that the tech for this already exists and I’m not entirely sure why it isn’t compulsory.

You can fit a vehicle with a GPS receiver and a set of maps so it “knows” where it is. This is connected to the ECU and hey presto, you can’t go faster than the speed limit allows. It should be easy enough. There might be some issues with travelling on the motorway over a bridge and the GPS thinks you are suddenly in a 40 zone but this can be worked around I am sure. I am not sure why these aren’t the law.

Anyway, if the van uses impressive tech then that’s brilliant. If the tech is a biological ape then that’s shit.

I’ve asked Sky. When I get a response I’ll put it here!

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Stupid Comparisons

The following picture was tweeted by BBC Radio 4 this morning as an explanation for the scale of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel. I have a few things to say but initially I would like to let you know that the genius of man never fails to surprise me. We have been so successful in being brilliant. The things we can do to overcome problems are stunning. An irritating by-product of this is that our ingenuity has also been used to create ever more bizarre ways of killing our own species.

comparisons

I have a few things to say:

  • I am not even aware of Nicaragua’s GDP and I care not a lot. How about comparing it to teachers employed, or even the cost of other tunnels. 12.5 billion seems reasonable to me in terms of EU budgets.
  • I have never understood the football field comparison. Surely people understand that football fields are roughly 100m long anyway. It’s not necessary.
  • This is the one that really bugged me. 4,000,000 cubic metres does NOT compare to a height. One is a volume and the other is NOT. Apart from reservoir engineers who can picture or comprehend this volume anyway.
  • Because I know exactly how much a freight container holds???
  • Why do I need a diagram showing me the distance between London and New York. They haven’t even used the Great Circle. I get it 3200km is a long way.

At least they didn’t mention double decker buses.

The ONLY comparison that should be made is country area and Wales because it leads to countries being described in KiloWales [thanks to More Or Less for that].

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Don’t Be A Dick

I am going to be hypocritical here. I am going to lecture about not being nasty and trying to keep the discussion calm and then I am going to rage about things on my most public of forums.

The big message and thing I try to remember is that when tackling the issues that I disagree with or know are wrong then it’s very hard not to be a dick. It’s too easy to get angry and want to shout at people. I have written about this before, I follow some people on Twitter and various other internets because I want to know the sort of things they are saying. I want to try to listen to their points of view and to see where they come from.

Don’t Be A Dick started with Phil Plait giving a talk at TAM:

Phil Plait – Don’t Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

I often have to remind myself of this. My instant response when reading tweets like these below is to scream FUCK OFF at these arseholes. I don’t think I am made for being nice when such hatred and misinformation is spread.

Ken Ham is currently building an ark in Kentucky.

Answers in Genesis use confirmation bias to “prove” the bible.

Matthew Lawrence is religious and believes hell is expanding.

The pope continues to seem reasonable until you realise that he won’t endorse contraception, gays or hand over kid-fucking priests to the police and justice system.

“Pastor” Alex Rivas should be all about love and forgiveness, unless you are gay or LGBT.

Lifeforce claim to cure many things using a method that doesn’t work.

Dana Ullman talks bollocks.

All these people are cunts.
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Screw

I walked along the river Medway today from Allington Locks to Maidstone town centre. I should point out that the river walk is delightful, I recommend it. The only issue was the obnoxious music beingplayed by the Beefeater Inn called the Malta Inn. Why they have to pump music outside I don’t know. It spoils the peace and calm of the river.

N51 17 14.3     E00 30 30.25

This is where I was when I spotted an awesome thing of engineering. On the other side of the river was a very large Archimedes Screw. I say large because I have never seen a screw this big before. I’m used to the screws that you can play on in kids water parks and things but this was impressive!

Archimedes Screw
Archimedes Screw

I don’t know what it’s there for. Obviously it raises water and brilliantly so but why just there? I am going to have to ask around to find out.

screw map 1

screw map 2

It can be seen using images on Google earth. I was hoping to have some company or website pop up and declare what it does but there was none. It is rather an object of wonder.

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Indigo

This is Part One of Bullshit Saturday.

Two weeks ago a flyer dropped through my letter box. It advertised the Indigo Spiritual and Holistic fair. I decided to go. This may seem a surprising decision given my very clear declarations here that religion is bollocks along with alternative (not) medicine. I thought it would be a good idea to try the dark side and visit, to see what actually happens at these events.

I struggled a little bit because I had to pay to get in the fair. This money would go towards organising more of these things, but my paltry GBP1.50 entrance fee probably would be much among the total takings.

I was actually excited about this. I wanted to see what manner of stuff is said and sold here. I also find it utterly fascinating just how much the human brain can deceive itself.

This fair took place in a small village hall. There were stalls and talkers in the main hall, the healing room was off to the side and there was also a room where talks were taking place. I will point out now that anything I quote in this communication will be a direct quote form a leaflet. I did not have the guts to actually talk to anyone, next time I will. I felt as though I had a massive arrow above my head saying UNBELIEVER or worse SCEPTIC. I was an explorer in a strange new world.

Workshops

There were four workshops planned for the day. They were titled:

  • Aura drawings
  • Colour Therapy
  • Guided Meditation
  • Tropic Skin Care

These seemed quite awesome. It would have been brilliant to attend some of these but not this time. I felt like a fish out of water. Next time maybe. However, a few words on each might be worthwhile. Aura drawings – bullshit, colour therapy – bullshit except that we each like certain colours, guided meditation – possibly bullshit, need to listen to the claims they make, tropic skin care – seems ok apart from some of the website claims.

Tropic Skin Care

Their website makes the following claim:

Our products contain the purest naturally derived ingredients and are free from harmful toxic chemicals.

ALL make up and creams are free from harmful toxic chemicals. It’s the LAW.

Colour Therapy

Maz provides information about colour therapy. I didn’t go to the talk but I did pick up a leaflet and I will quote from it now.

Did you know . . . . . Kylie Minogue painted her bedroom pink – the colour of love – to aid her recovery from cancer.

Now, I’m not sure I am surprised. A woman paints her bedroom pink. I would be interested to know how many women with pink bedrooms or who wear pink clothes or pink anything had died from cancer. Kylie also had a load of proper medicine. Also, pink is the colour of love. How very fortunate. How do you find out what colour represents which thing? Is it tested over time with a control group? How much pink do you need in your life? What shade of pink?

Here website is here, I have read it. Maz has an advance colour therapy diploma from the British School Of Yoga, not a basic diploma. Perhaps she knows more colours. Also she reckons she defeated her breast cancer through giving up medicine:

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 it was a major turning point in my life. My decision was to refuse all surgery and non-naturalistic treatment. I had previously worked as a Script Supervisor for TV and film, but when I was told of the ‘dis-ease’ in my body I immediately started to look at my life and make significant changes.

Note her use of the term dis-ease, alternative practitioners love it. I am glad she is cured but I question her choices. I would also like to know more about the extent of the cancer and what her physicians thought, we only have her word for it. I am now about to get inot full on rage mode having noticed something on her website.

I clicked on the tab that said read more about colour therapy.

Colour is simply light of varying wavelengths, and thus each colour has its own particular wavelength and energy. Each colour of the rainbow resonates with the seven main chakras in the human body, and understanding these colours and chakra relationships can be used to restore the balance of energy within the body according to where it needs it most.

Not quite rage yet, but if you invoke chakras then you are talking bullshit. It’s the next bit that is most disturbing.

What is colour therapy used for?

  • Treating cancer illness and disorder

This is wrong more ways than I can count. It is illegal to claim to cure cancer and she does not claim that. She does claim that colour therapy can treat cancer. I wonder what evidence she has to make those claims? She can fuck right off. Even more so that at the bottom of her page it says the following:

Marilyn Humphreys makes no claims to diagnose, treat, prevent, mitigate, or cure diseases  with any advice or product(s). Any health related information for educational purposes only. None of the information should be misconstrued as medical advice. The ultimate responsibility for your choices and their effect(s) on your health are yours and before applying any therapy or use of herbs, supplements, etc. you should consult your health care provider.

She has just told us that she refused medicine and cured her cancer. She makes claims that colour therapy will treat cancer. She can stop saying this shit for her own financial gain. I’m going for a breather before writing any more on here.

The Stalls

Here are my impressions on the stuff being sold at this fair. I walked around twice to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Again, I didn’t ask any questions, maybe next time. Also, I didn’t buy anything. I did have a cup of tea, but I bought no products.

Here’s my notes from wandering and writing what I saw being sold:

  • Crappy stone/semi precious stone jewellery
  • Motivational quotes on place mats
  • Pictures of unicorns, angels and wolves howling (lots of purple)
  • T Shirts
  • Hippy hair braids
  • Angel statues
  • Incense
  • Angel mugs
  • Minerals
  • Runes
  • A “real” witch selling herbs and stuff
  • Broomsticks and models of witches and wizards
  • Clocks
  • More angels

Lots of people had their faces painted, mostly because there was a face painter there, but this did add to the hippy atmosphere. Also, quite a few women had flower loops in their hair, it must have special properties or something.

There were people giving readings and I should do this next time. It seemed to be about GBP20 for the cheapest option but I am utterly fascinated with what they might say. The readings ranged from a psychic to someone reading runes, another with tarot cards and another with a computer telling you your life plan from your date of birth. This is all clearly bollocks but I am intrigued.

Another stall was offering aura photography and interpretation. Maybe next time but it is pretty interesting. Oh, by the way, you would think that if these people can capture the “aura” then science and medicine would use it so much for diagnosing and treatment. Hold on, what’s that you say? My doctor has never asked about my aura? Of course he hasn’t because your doctor knows bullshit when he sees it (or doesn’t). If your doctor mentions an aura to you, get up, leave, say “thank you” and never go back.

Leaflets

I am going to mention some of the leaflets I picked and ridicule appraise them.

Angels For You

This lady has psychic abilities and is priced “very reasonably”. Her leaflet claims she can perform “reiki” and use “Angelic oracle cards” along with her being guided by the “Angelic Realm”. Her website is no more. She doesn’t really make any specific claims in her website but she will:

answering questions with my pendulum

Such power should only be used carefully I am sure. Oops, I just found something amazing:

We also offer Crystal Healing; we place crystals on different parts of your body, corresponding to chakras, constructing an energy grid, which will surround you with healing energy.

I love the idea of an energy grid. It sounds like the National Grid, mini pylons spread over your body to align your “energy”. So, if you want to impress people explain what the actual definition of physical energy is:

The capacity for doing work.

This means that anything that has an energy can be used to power something, however small, and, more importantly, it can be measured. See that, MEASURED.

Chakras:

reiki_chakra

Souls Intention

This woman was giving readings from her computer. I expect that she has a program that spouts loads of saved Barnum statements once you enter a date of birth and where you were born. Apparently this format of soul reading originates from “The numerology of Moses”. I am not going to look this up.

Your soul plan is a blueprint for your life, a map to guide you on your own life path. Later the leaflet explains that our

Soul contract which, on a deeper level, we chose before conception.

So, before your father’s sperm entered the egg inside your mother your soul contract was in place.

This woman also offers reiki. Of course she does. But more importantly she offers the

Usui Skiki Ryoho Technique

I don’t know how many types of reiki you can have but apparently there is more than one. Not only all this but also Mindset Therapy.

Here’s an idea of her costs:

  • Souls Intention Reading 1 hour £40
  • Souls Healing Session 1 hour £30
  • Full Souls Intetion reading 2 hours £75
  • Mindset Therapy 2 hours £50

Perhaps I am in the wrong business. But then at least I have measurable outcomes.

Hags Hollow

This chap is a witch. Yep, full on witch with spells and shit. He will undertake a reading and include a spell for GBP30. If you want just a spell then that’s GBP15. He also offers apprenticeships, for £140 you can enrol in the full course that covers the following:

  • Introduction to Ancestral Magic
  • Protection
  • Witch Lore & Craft
  • Spell Craft
  • Healing
  • Prosperity & Abundance
  • Cursing & Dark Casting

Because nothing says caring that learning how to curse. Luckily this man will also remove curses. He also goes no to explain what witchcraft is and offers the following disclaimer:

Both of these belief systems crossover into one another and there is no right or wrong way to practise the craft. These are both general explanations and in no way a reflection of anyone’s personal beliefs.. Simply follow your heart and be open to anything that the universe presents.

So, no right or wrong way to practise something that has no measurable outcome. I’m glad about that.

I have so much material I will spread this over a few communications. I also hope to attend some more of these fairs in the future. They are enlightening [but not how people there would think].

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Hmmm. Snoring Cure?

So, stumbled across a snoring cure. You can see the website here. Now, I’m gonna call bullshit on this right now, but that would seem rather unfair to the company so let’s look a little closer at what they claim.

I have screen clipped their website and I will discuss each section. The main page looks like this:

Snoring1

This says that you wear the ring on your little finger and that it is a snoring treatment that is guaranteed to work. Apparently it’s also been clinically tested! They have made a very specific claim here that wearing this ring on your little finger will make you stop snoring. What else do they have to say?

Snoring5

This explains how it works. Or rather it doesn’t. All it says is that there are Acu-activators on the ring. A quick google shows that this isn’t a real term and isn’t used anywhere apart from the stop snoring website.

Snoring9

It’s not looking too good for this product and we’ve not even really started. I think they may be trying to imply that the things on the ring activate acupuncture points? This is irrelevant as acupuncture is clearly bullshit.

Next bit from the www.goodnightsnoring.com website:

Testimonials amount to nothing. The plural of anecdote is NOT data. I don’t care. 3500 years of history can’t be wrong can it? Of course it can. We now use medicine with evidence not rubbish about Chi and acupuncture points. Also, being mentioned in the Daily Fail is not necessarily a good thing. In fact if a medical “cure” is mentioned in the Mail or Express you can pretty much assume it’s bullshit.

Now, the website covers this with the following page:

Snoring7They claim that a good clinical trial was performed and the results were almost a miracle. This is good because if there is good evidence then I would be prepared to change my mind. The goodnightsnoring.com website doesn’t have a link to the clinical trial. I want to be able to read it and then change my mind. It seems that these are extraordinary claims and so it would be prudent to examine the evidence.

I searched PubMed. There was nothing about the Snoring Ring as being sold here. So I tried searching Google Scholar. Nothing again, just a paper about breast cancer. This was troublesome, my two main sources for scientific papers were showing nada. I decided to look using plain old Google. I searched for “snoring ring clinical trial”.

search1

From these results I wasn’t interested in the Snoring Ring website, there’s nothing on there. I also couldn’t care for a news article in the Daily Fail [they don’t know how to report science]. The other links were mostly places that sell the product and so have probably just got the blurb from a product information release. What interested me originally was the ASA link.

In 2012 a complaint was made to the ASA about the evidence for the claims that the Snoring Ring company were making. The complaint was upheld and the company were told not to make claims about the snoring ring. The so called medical trial was completed after this ruling by the ASA!

Also in the search results was a link to ANTISNOR, a company who produce anti snoring rings. Now, this company mentioned on this page a French company who had done the clinical trials.

In 2012, a French scientific research organisation, Proclaim (www.proclaim.fr), studied the effect of AntiSnor Acupressure Ring . . . .

The Proclaim website doesn’t exist. Even though ANTISNOR link to it. Oh dear, the trail has gone cold.

There are a number of RED FLAGS on the original website. The mention of the following aspects all cause concern. They don’t mean it doesn’t work, they just mean we should be sceptical until we have seen the evidence.

  • Money back guarentees
  • Testimonials
  • No links to the evidence
  • Publicity from the Daily Mail
  • Anecdotes
  • Non invasive and side effect free
  • Appeal to antiquity on the acupressure part of the site
  • No email address to ask for a copy of the clinical trial

So far, I’ve had some people say they think this work and no actual medical trials even though one is claimed. Back to Google.

Another link from Google heads towards Princeton Consumer Research. It appears that this company will undertake clinical trials for you and then allow you to use the results in your publicity. Here’s a Princeton Brochure with their claims. After finding this I found a company called Aspen Clinical Research. They had a pdf linked here and also Aspen-Clinical-Anti-Snoring-Ring-Media-Coverage1 from my site. This PDF essentially claims that the publicity they managed to produce for the Anti Snoring ring was brilliant. They seem to be more of a PR firm than a clinical trial firm. This makes me very wary.

Aspen Clinical Research even went so far as to persuade the press that there was a National Stop Snoring Week in 2014. This is depressing reading.

stopsnoringweek

I hadn’t realised there would be companies that are willing to be paid to undertake some form of research to legitimise PR claims and also produce media puff.

Both Aspen Clinical Research and Princeton Consumer Research do not seem concerned with legitimate medical trials, rather they concentrate on PR friendly trials to produce media results. Neither of the websites were searchable from their homepages. Also, both companies seem to be offering to pay participants. This can’t be a good thing, it would bias the results. All I want is a copy of the clinical trial for the Anti Snoring Ring and I can’t find it. What I have found are companies who provide easy results for PR.

It seems to me that these companies offer to do science the wrong way around and therefore they don’t offer science. It looks like the cycle goes:

  • You have a product and want to make specific claims
  • You will be banned from advertising if you can’t substantiate these claims
  • You PAY one of these companies to do a trial for you so you can then substantiate your claim
  • You then advertise claiming scientific proof.

The correct cycle should be:

  • Scientific research indicates that a specific product could work
  • The product is developed
  • A trial is designed and the details published before being conducted
  • The product is tested rigorously
  • The product is deemed to work, the product can be advertised with specific claims
  • The product is deemed not to work, the product can’t be advertised

I feel utterly depressed at the state of media manipulation and that there are companies that do this as their raison d’etre. Everything we see and hear is manipulated to sell products. I started this communication as a simple investigation into the evidence for a product as they claim. What I found was a collection of companies willing to provide you the evidence you want so you can claim what you want for your product that (probably) does nothing.

Anyway, I can’t get to the evidence for the Snoring Ring. I haven’t found the paper with details of the trial and so I am going to complain to the ASA about their website claims. Watch this space.

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Burn It

So, the xmas break, which requires food and alcohol, along with a significant drop in exercise has resulted in what I would call a considerable gain of mass. I have written about mass loss before and I wrote more here also. To lose mass you have to burn more energy than you consume. It’s that simple [and no, you don’t have a gland problem!]. Not a lot else to it, it’s the psychology of it all that will fuck you over. I like eating and I comfort eat. It’s the self discipline that hurts. I know that when I am a healthy mass and exercise I can maintain that mass and still have blow-outs now and then.

So, before I get to my numbers, here are some facts about fat and exercise.

  • One pound of fat is roughly 3500 kcalories.
  • 10 metres walked or ran is roughly one kcalorie burnt.
  • Daily intake for a man should roughly be 2500 kcalories.

So, my ideal mass would be <80Kg. However, I’ve not been that for a long time and I would be happy with <82.5Kg which comes in at 13 stone in old money. I am currently hovering around +90Kg. This upsets me greatly, but it is my own fault. Now is the time for action. Let’s just assume I want to lose 10Kg just to make the numbers easy. It’s worth knowing how long this will take and what effort I will face. I think many people are unrealistic about mass loss.

Some maths:

10Kg is approximately 22 pounds of fat to be lost.

22 pounds of fat is roughly 77 000 kcalories extra that needs to be burnt.

If I reduce my daily intake by 500 kcalories then this would take 22 weeks, as I would lose one pound per week. This is nearly half a year, which is a depressing amount of time to be on a restricted calorie diet.

If I maintain 2500 kcalories per day and run to burn the excess I will need to run 770 kilometres. Given that my average run is probably around 10km this means 77 runs. If I manage to run twice a week, on average, then this is over 35 weeks which is again an intolerable amount of time.

What I need to do is reduce my calorific intake while at the same time exercising to produce the desired results in a shorter (but sensible) length of time. I aim to be a healthy mass again by the end of March. This gives me three months or twelve weeks. I need to lose around 2 pounds per week. I can do it. I am determined to do it as some of the health issues that I have mentioned previously are back.

My progress isn’t going to be public. I am not going to start tweeting about this all the time. I probably won’t even mention it if I do or do not get down to the target mass.

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