Category Archives: Technology and Society

Science And Society, Technology and Society

Squaring The Decline Curve

5 Comments

Is real longevity treatment just around the corner?

People blessed with anti-ageing genes tend not to get seriously ill but die suddenly at the end of their lives, Prof Barzilai pointed out.

‘I’m seeing 100-year-olds who are not only 100 years old but in great shape,’ he said.

‘They’re driving and painting, and they say life is beautiful.

‘I have this bias that makes me believe we have the ability as a species to get to 100 if we prevent some of these age-related diseases.

‘The cost of treating 100-year-olds in their last two years of life is a third of what it costs to treat somebody aged 70 to 80. At the end of their life they die, basically, all of a sudden.

‘People who die between 70 and 80 are sick in the last few years of their life. Centenarians are dying healthy.’

Studies had revealed a strong association between reaching 100 years of age and very high blood levels of HDL, which appear to run in families, said Prof Barzilai.

Not only were HDL levels important, but also the size of the cholesterol particles. Centenarians with this HDL profile were powerfully protected against Alzheimer’s, one of the greatest causes of disability and death in old age. A similar effect was being sought by the drug companies targeting CETP.

Prof Barzilai described his “vision” as a once-daily pill which staved off the effects of old age and would probably be taken when a person reached their 40s or 50s.

Works for me. I hope, anyway.

History, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Auto World

8 Comments

The anniversary of the folly.

Having moved away from Michigan a few years before, I never went, but it does seem ill conceived. As one commenter said, for a fraction of that amount of money, they could have put together the world’s best auto museum, with many classic cars, to rival or even exceed the Ford museum in Dearborn, and it might still be there. Government in action.

Political Commentary, Technology and Society

We Control The Horizontal

22 Comments

We control the analog output.

OK, I don’t get it. I don’t take the input for my audio receiver and recording devices from my television — it comes from my satellite receiver. Functionally, the television is just a video monitor. Are they saying that they’ll be cutting off analog output on the satellite receivers/cable boxes as well?

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, I think I understand now. They’re saying “set top-boxes,” so I guess that means the cable box (though apparently satellites are going to be a separate issue). That would probably also apply to digital fiber from Verizon or AT&T. And the sets that are affected are the ones without digital inputs? I still don’t see how this prevents piracy, unless you don’t have HDMI or other digital inputs to your DVD recorder.

Administrative, Technology and Society

Computer Problems

23 Comments

I’m running Fedora 11 on my primary desktop. The mobo is a couple years old. Lately, it’s started randomly freezing, or occasionally shutting itself down without warning. I was going to run memtest on it, but I can’t even get into the BIOS to change the boot sequence. I hit “del” repeatedly during boot, but it ignores me and always goes to the hard drive. Does anyone have any suggestions (other than just upgrading the board, processor and memory, which I’m considering…)?

[Wednesday morning update]

For those asking, no, it is not a wireless keyboard.

And so far, I’ve had no problems since swapping the memory sticks.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

What Do Dietary Supplements…?

4 Comments

…have to do with finance regulation?

One of the Dems I’d love to see get booted out this November is Henry Waxman. Unfortunately, some of the most destructive politicians (e.g., Waxman, Frank) are in the safest seats. That’s not a coincidence, of course. The safer your seat (or at least the perception of safety), the more outrageous the behavior.

Social Commentary, Technology and Society

A Facebook Problem

9 Comments

Jonah has one:

Is it bad form to “un-friend” folks I don’t know personally and send them to the fan page? It seems awfully rude. But I have actual longtime 3-Dimensional friends who can’t “friend” me because I hit the limit.

I don’t have that problem, not just because I’m not as popular and well-known (and debonair) as Jonah, but because I take Facebook friending almost (but not quite) as seriously as meatspace friending. I don’t Facebook friend people that I don’t know and have not interacted with (at least on line, if not in flesh and blood)– to do so would seem to make the term “friend” meaningless. The only exceptions are if we have a high number of mutual friends, or if someone takes the trouble to write a note with the friend request explaining who they are and why they want to be friends, which doesn’t happen very much (about three times, in my experience).

That said, it wouldn’t have to be rude if you explained why. I would think that most would understand. It might be nice to have a script that would be autogenerated when you did it to provide the explanation. It would be a pain to have to cut and paste it for each unfriending. And never having unfriended someone, I’m not even sure that such an explanation is an option, short of actually sending them a Facebook message, which would be a royal PITA. I don’t think you’re automatically alerted if you’re unfriended (it’s happened to me once, and I didn’t receive any notice of it — I just noticed one day that they were no longer my Facebook friend, or rather, I wasn’t theirs). So I guess if you unfriend a lot of people, some of them will notice, and some of those will ask for an explanation. I guess something else to do would be to put up a notice on your wall warning the general Facebook friendom that some of them were about to become unfriended, with an explanation why and a request not to take it personally.