The Ramblings of an Accountant

First of all, thank you all for your kind wishes and sympathy last week. I was a bit of a mess for a while, and C and friends poured alcohol into me on Tuesday night.

Dad's already talking about getting another dog. (Yet) another tricolour bitch, so, whatever her name ends up being I suspect her real name will be Luce-Pop-Whatever... I know even when I was home a couple of weeks ago I managed to call Poppy "Lucy" by mistake.

(If you're not familiar with "Shelties", I would have a quick gander here - they are utterly adorable, incredibly affectionate and quite intelligent.)

I'll try and get hold of some photos of both Lucy and Poppy at some point and PICSPAM y'all!

Work's been manic this week, so in lieu of any other content, have some newscientist content instead.

Thanks to newscientist, a successor to the Oncology Ontology Project has been found. Kill or Cure?. For the uninitiated, the website categorises those things that the Daily Mail have proclaimed (loudly and clearly) either causing or curing cancer.

A few selections:

Cause: Aspirin, Babies, Bread, Calcium, Cheese, The Pill, Dieting, Eggs, Fibre, Fish, Gas, HRT, Mammograms, Milk, Mouthwash, Pizza, Pregnancy, Rice, Sex, Spices, Statins, Stress, Sun, Sunscreen, Tea, Vitamins, Wine.
Prevent: Aspirin, Babies, Bread, Calcium, Cheese, The Pill, Dieting, Eggs, Fibre, Fish, Gas, HRT, Mammograms, Milk, Mouthwash, Pizza, Pregnancy, Rice, Sex, Spices, Statins, Stress, Sun, Sunscreen, Tea, Vitamins, Wine.

(And yes, I am quite aware that a lot of those are valid. But, trust me, you don't want to put yourself on the Daily Mail's side in that debate.)

Also from newscientist (you can tell I've been going through back issues, can't you?), excuses for failing at sport with scientific accuracy

And finally (as Feedback would say) if you're of an apolcalyptic bent, Fifty ideas to change the Earth is rather quite interesting. Unfortunately you do need to be a subscriber to see all fifty. (And NS seems to have removed the Institution Subscription, more bad luck.)

Busy, busy, busy, so here's some New Scientist content to keep you happy. (Must get back to finding their dodgier headlines. These are almost sensible!)

Terry Pratchett: Fighting to keep the fantasy alive

The prolific author discusses tinkering with science, his battle with Alzheimer's, and the odds of escaping from a crab bucket

Ten inventions that changed the world

To mark its centenary, in June the Science Museum in London had its curators select the 10 objects in its collection that had made the biggest mark on history. These then went to a public vote to find the most important invention of past centuries. Results in pictures, just follow the link.

In (very slightly) related news (in other words if you get why they're related, you're doing well!), I've been listening to Flanders and Swann a lot at the moment. They are very good. I know a lot of my friendslist hold a soft spot for them as well, so I ask you all - can anyone recommend me artists in the same vein as F&S (and Tom Lehrer, of course). Weird Al, unfortunately, doesn't qualify.

(Fic is only about 100 words from being finished. Need to get this month's finance report mocked up and the cash management numbers finished before I can finally look at it. *phew*)

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've been taking the royal pee out of newscientist for several years on this blog. The premise being that New Scientist was once a respectable mainstream science magazine.

This view has now been challenged, as I came across this: Feedback, February 1993

Some people become so devoted to the creations of film and TV that they spend their time writing stories set in those fictional universes. And some go even further. Feedback learns that there is - in America, again - an underground subculture devoted to publishing magazines which describe in vivid detail the imaginary sexual exploits of the characters in film and TV soaps and dramas.

There is even a sub-subculture of primarily female authors who concentrate on sexual encounters between male characters from their favourite serials.

Most popular of all, apparently, is Star Trek. Very strange . . .

Er, why is a popular, mainstream Science magazine concerning itself about slash? Or is has there always been a bent for science fiction in the mag?

Hmm.

Ahahah!

And seconds after posting up my last entry, about science reporting, new_scientist's headline today is the shocking news that

The behaviour of proteins that are popular with researchers is more likely to be reported inaccurately than that of their less fashionable counterparts.

Even proteins are not exempt from celebrity status, obviously!!!

Er. Is it just me or does this just really freak you out?

A staff of domestic robots with a single personality would be easier to handle.

I'm thinking either Jetsons or Terminator. Or both*.

Though, "Butlerbot" - hands up who was thinking a shiny Gordon Jackson there???

And now I'm just thinking about having robot servants that come in a variety of characters. All sharing the same brain. And I realise that the meerkats are giggling to themselves. Oooh dear.

* Now *there's* a crossover.

See you wait a whole month for one, and then NS serves up lots at once. Today's epicness is the news that Video conferences could become more interesting with software that can instantly alter a person's sex or race. Because nothing says "professionalism" more than a Homer Simpson icon (and nothing says "diversity" than pandering to other people's prejudices. Sheesh.)

An interesting thing happened at the weekend, which I completely forgot to mention.

I did mention that J, A, cuvalwen and I skipped off to the Science Museum on Saturday and had fun in the Launch Pad. What I failed to mention was what happened there.

Now J, my sister, has Reynaud's Syndrome and from reading the Wikipedia article, I can pretty well confirm that it's primary and definitely genetic (Mum makes a mean pastry and I remember my sister's fingers turning dark blue when we picked sprouts one Christmas morning). And yes, it has been properly diagnosed. But, as with all 'quality of life' conditions as opposed to 'quantity of life' conditions, it remains untreated as it hasn't been researched enough yet.

It was interesting to read the article where it talked about "avoiding attacks" as if this is something that comes and goes, like migraine. It's not. And the best proof I have of this happened at the weekend.

There was one of those infra-red cameras set up so we were all poncing about rubbing each other in (mostly) publicly accessible places. J was stood there and then A noticed her hands. While we were all radiating mostly red in cooler parts (i.e. where clothing was present) our exposed skin mostly radiated white (except my cheeks which were a nice pink, thank you very much!), J's hands were purple. It was warm in the room, her hands felt fine (she was not reporting any pain) and yet, there for all to see, was absolute proof that her extremities were cold.

So no, Wikipedia, one does not suffer "attacks", it's always there. Just once your extremities get below a certain temperature it starts hurting. That's all.

Actually, I think I've got enough scientific evidence for New Scientist here. *cough*

(Disclaimer: I appreciate that Reynaud's Syndrome does encompass both extremes – sufferers can be prone to flushing as well – it's more a problem with body temperature regulation, but the article linked to doesn't mention this and it's not something my sister suffers from, so I'm not mentioning it explicitly…)

A few links, as I'm busy today.

Ironic: Conform to our society says PM by celebrating our differences.

Hmm.

Nostalgic: I've finally found the childhood series of books that I've been looking for. Timbucktoo.

Freaky: Bat with incredibly large tongue. Now there's a date for the Christmas season!

Even more freaky: a livejournal dedicated to (frequently slash) pairings of inanimate objects / concepts. anthropomor_fic Witness the incredible Character Death / AU fic. Truly scary!!!

Oh, and a little celebration is to be had. The counterpane count clocked 135 on Wednesday. While this doesn't seem to much, this is actually 1/4 of the entire piece. Only three-quarters to go! And, hopefully, I will have caught up with my original deadline of 1st September 2010 by the end of the weekend! I'm wondering whether to press on with trying for 1st September 2009 and do it in a year less than originally thought. But that way may lead to madness and death!

I'll *definitely* post pics next week. I promise!