Everyone has got an opinion about bureaucracy; most of them unprintable. And whenever there is an annoyance, there will be someone who wants to calculate and quantify it. Apparently, that includes bureaucracy.
The jury is still out on whether it is a good thing or just something else to elevate your blood pressure.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tongue firmly in cheek
The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words.
The winners are:
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief
that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take
any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year's winners:
1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops
bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the
purpose of getting laid.
3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.
8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate's disease. ( that one got extra
credit)
9. Karmageddon (n): Its like, when everybody is sending off all
these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's
like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.
11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.
12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into
your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub
in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the literature:
16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
The winners are:
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief
that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent (n.), opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take
any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year's winners:
1. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops
bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
2. Foreploy (v): Any misrepresentation about yourself for the
purpose of getting laid.
3. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
4. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
5. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
6. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
7. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.
8. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate's disease. ( that one got extra
credit)
9. Karmageddon (n): Its like, when everybody is sending off all
these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's
like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day
consuming only things that are good for you.
11. Glibido (v): All talk and no action.
12. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
13. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after
you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
14. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into
your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
15. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub
in the fruit you're eating.
And the pick of the literature:
16. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Things you really don't want to happen to you ...
see more Political Pictures
see more Political Pictures
see more Political Pictures
see more Political Pictures
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Standing on the shoulder of giants
We learn from one another and build upon each other. This is never more true than in the medical sciences where hideous tests on prisoners of wars translated into hypothermia treatment and understanding the process of wound healing.
Radical bioinformatics that will make all experiments in silico is still some time away, so scientists who want to study biological processes but don't work with live animals (either in vivo or in situ) commonly use tissue culture from derived cell lines. The most famous of which are the HeLa cells that was derived from the tumours that riddled Mrs. Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman who died of cancer in 1951.
The thing was, permission was not obtained from Mrs. Lacks' family to obtain the sample by either the physician who took the sample nor Dr Gey, the guy who propagated the cell line. Mrs. Lacks has been described as "a black woman whose body had been exploited by white scientists".
Frankly, I get Dr Gey's situation; you get samples for your experiment, you don't tend to question too much. After all, they are hard to come by. These days, what with university and hospital ethics committee having a voice in how you conduct your research, these sort of things are in the past. As the idea for informed consent evolve and people began to understand and assert their rights, no one will blindly sign forms just because someone in a white coat told them to do so.
Then again, may be not. Ask anyone who has to collect human samples for their research experiments.
But I digress.
The issue here is her tissue (notice the alliteration? I'm kinda proud of it XD). Although Dr Gey received no monetary rewards from the development of the cell lines (or so it stated), but there have been hundreds of inventions and innovations that had come about thanks to these ever multiplying immortalised cells. If the decendants of Arthur Conan Doyle could still dictate the way the source material of Sherlock Holmes is treated (and getting paid gobs of money for the right), why shouldn't her children, who are also not well-off and presumably struggling, benefit from the companies who have made millions out of the cells that had killed their mother?
*ponders*
Radical bioinformatics that will make all experiments in silico is still some time away, so scientists who want to study biological processes but don't work with live animals (either in vivo or in situ) commonly use tissue culture from derived cell lines. The most famous of which are the HeLa cells that was derived from the tumours that riddled Mrs. Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman who died of cancer in 1951.
The thing was, permission was not obtained from Mrs. Lacks' family to obtain the sample by either the physician who took the sample nor Dr Gey, the guy who propagated the cell line. Mrs. Lacks has been described as "a black woman whose body had been exploited by white scientists".
Frankly, I get Dr Gey's situation; you get samples for your experiment, you don't tend to question too much. After all, they are hard to come by. These days, what with university and hospital ethics committee having a voice in how you conduct your research, these sort of things are in the past. As the idea for informed consent evolve and people began to understand and assert their rights, no one will blindly sign forms just because someone in a white coat told them to do so.
Then again, may be not. Ask anyone who has to collect human samples for their research experiments.
But I digress.
The issue here is her tissue (notice the alliteration? I'm kinda proud of it XD). Although Dr Gey received no monetary rewards from the development of the cell lines (or so it stated), but there have been hundreds of inventions and innovations that had come about thanks to these ever multiplying immortalised cells. If the decendants of Arthur Conan Doyle could still dictate the way the source material of Sherlock Holmes is treated (and getting paid gobs of money for the right), why shouldn't her children, who are also not well-off and presumably struggling, benefit from the companies who have made millions out of the cells that had killed their mother?
*ponders*
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Unplugged
When it comes to making medical decisions, things are rarely black and white. There are laws regulating actions and also people's opinion to be considered before anything is done.
When I first read about baby Isaiah May, I was thinking: perhaps pulling the plug on a child who has permanent brain damage isn't a bad thing. But you gotta consider the parents; you may say that they are young and could have other children, but this is their child one is considering to allow to die. How many parents can make the decision to end their offspring this way when the baby has shown so much in the face of negativity?
Then there will be voices saying, "Who'll be footing the bill for the baby to be placed on ventilation? Should you spend precious resources on a child who may not survive his first year or on another baby who has got a better fighting chance?" It appears that the young parents are not financially well-off; most likely the government is paying for the treatment. Does this mean that children of poor people have less value than the children of those who can afford the care?
Decisions, decisions. I wouldn't want to be the hospital administrator in this issue.
However, I was appalled that the doctors allowed the mother to suffer 40 freakin' hours of labour . It's a miracle she still had the energy to push. Which also brings to mind, why on earth wasn't the foetus monitored for distress? Surely the foetus would have exhibited some kind of distress with the umbilical cord strangling him while he's trying to make way for the exit? When my sister was in labour for barely 4 hours, they monitored the foetus constantly and when the foetus showed signs of distress, she was immediately whisked into the operation theatre for a Caesarean procedure.
On top of that, isn't it common procedure for the foetus to be extracted via C-section when the labour is prolonged? Surely one of the biggest reason the labour took so long is because the baby is choking on the cord and couldn't get out. Is anyone looking at this hideous oversight / poor policy in the labour ward that caused the poor child and his parents so much suffering?
When I first read about baby Isaiah May, I was thinking: perhaps pulling the plug on a child who has permanent brain damage isn't a bad thing. But you gotta consider the parents; you may say that they are young and could have other children, but this is their child one is considering to allow to die. How many parents can make the decision to end their offspring this way when the baby has shown so much in the face of negativity?
Then there will be voices saying, "Who'll be footing the bill for the baby to be placed on ventilation? Should you spend precious resources on a child who may not survive his first year or on another baby who has got a better fighting chance?" It appears that the young parents are not financially well-off; most likely the government is paying for the treatment. Does this mean that children of poor people have less value than the children of those who can afford the care?
Decisions, decisions. I wouldn't want to be the hospital administrator in this issue.
However, I was appalled that the doctors allowed the mother to suffer 40 freakin' hours of labour . It's a miracle she still had the energy to push. Which also brings to mind, why on earth wasn't the foetus monitored for distress? Surely the foetus would have exhibited some kind of distress with the umbilical cord strangling him while he's trying to make way for the exit? When my sister was in labour for barely 4 hours, they monitored the foetus constantly and when the foetus showed signs of distress, she was immediately whisked into the operation theatre for a Caesarean procedure.
On top of that, isn't it common procedure for the foetus to be extracted via C-section when the labour is prolonged? Surely one of the biggest reason the labour took so long is because the baby is choking on the cord and couldn't get out. Is anyone looking at this hideous oversight / poor policy in the labour ward that caused the poor child and his parents so much suffering?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Why can't we have it all?
The happy fog induced by marijuana is nothing but a fond memory if Sanofi-Aventis has their way. They are working on an endocannabinoid receptor blocker that has shown interesting result in reducing the blood sugar of diabetics who have poor sugar control. The numbers look really good; it also helps that the drug also improves the patient's lipid profile (better triglyceride, HDL, LDL levels) and most importantly: reduces the waistline.
Unfortunately, if you are depressed to begin with, you may feel suicidal.
So yeah, trimmer waistline may correspond with a greater need for Xanax.
Unfortunately, if you are depressed to begin with, you may feel suicidal.
So yeah, trimmer waistline may correspond with a greater need for Xanax.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Numb3rs in life
Maths is the language of the universe. All digits are the same regardless whether you are in Tirana, Timur Leste, Timbuktu, Tasmania, or Tenochtitlan. They tell the same stories, uniting facts and figures, giving intrinsic value to things and data.
But like any language, some things get lost in translation. This usually happens, thanks to the spuriousness of the science called statistics where standard deviations may be deviants of the worst degree.
And the next thing we know, shit like subprime mortgage hits the fan. Why? Because the statisticians made the numbers look good.
Where is Charlie Eppes when you need him?
But like any language, some things get lost in translation. This usually happens, thanks to the spuriousness of the science called statistics where standard deviations may be deviants of the worst degree.
And the next thing we know, shit like subprime mortgage hits the fan. Why? Because the statisticians made the numbers look good.
Where is Charlie Eppes when you need him?
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