September 2, 2004
Get me to a snobbery
This morning I find myself (in another signature moment of total distractedness) paying especially close attention to lyrics from a song called "Hummingbird" (this link will open iTunes and take you to the song in the music store) on the newest Wilco album, A Ghost is Born. Just because I am astounded to find that a pop-ish song has such poetic lyrics, I wanted to repeat them here.
his goal in life was to be an echoNow I know there is some awkward repetition on the page due to the chorus, so you have to remember that they are lyrics to a song. But how often does one find song lyrics like these that can (almost?) stand alone poetically? Not often enough.
riding alone, town after town, toll after toll
a fixed bayonet through the great southwest
to forget hershe appears
in his dreams
but in his car, and in his arms
a dream could mean anything
a cheap sunset on a television set could upset her
but he never couldremember to remember me
standing still in your past
floating fast like a hummingbirdhis goal in life was to be an echo
the type of sound that floats around
and then back down like a feather
but in the deep chrome canyons of the loudest Manhattans
no one could hear him
or anythingso he slept, on a mountain
in a sleeping bag underneath the stars,
he would lie awake and count them
but the great fountain spray of the great Milky Way
would never let him
die aloneremember to remember me
standing still in your past
floating fast like a hummingbird
remember to remember me
standing still in your past
floating fast like a hummingbird
a hummingbird
a hummingbird
Popular music sucks. =)
What would happen if Wilco suddenly became really popular? Then what would you do??? :)
Posted by Sha Sha on September 3, 2004 5:09 PMThis is an excellent question. Let's take for example Coldplay. Other than "Yellow", their first album Parachutes was not particularly popular. I thought it was pretty damn good, and was anxiously awaiting their second album (A Rush of Blood to the Head).
Well, they released that and became really popular, through songs like "Clocks" and the wretched "The Scientist." Now I like them much less, but I think they became more popular by writing crappier songs.
Thus, popularity seems inextricably linked to crappy music.
All the same, I've wondered this before. To re-state: would I like my favorite bands as much if they still wrote similar quality music but became really popular? Sometimes I think probably not. It's sad, but certainly possible that I may subconsciously aim my likes toward less-popular things.
Posted by Nate on September 3, 2004 5:24 PMFair enough. I think it's natural to like to be one of a few people who knows about something that you think is cool. Exclusivity can be a satisfying feeling. :)
Posted by Sha Sha on September 6, 2004 12:54 PM«Post a comment»
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September 3, 2004
How did I miss this?!
Here is a picture of Jupiter and its moon Io (about the same size as our moon) that I took last night with my new kickin' telescope.
Just kidding!
This is actually one of several photographs (!) that were taken by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft (now circling Saturn, its final destination) as it passed by Jupiter en route in late 2000/early 2001. I just found out about these pictures this morning while reading Discover magazine, and am awestruck. I feel like I got gypped by the press--these came out three years ago, and I never heard about them. They look like paintings! Some of them are very high-resolution! Check 'em out!
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September 5, 2004
Penta Water is based on lies
No attempt at a subtle entry title here! After doing a Google search for Penta Water this morning, my horror at the success of this bullshit has escalated. (Read this entry to see what it has escalated from. I even joined the John Stone Fitness Forums (which I happened upon during my Google search) so I could write a reponse regarding Penta Water (my contribution is titled "Penta is POISON!!!"):
http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=1974
How can they get away with such blatant lies?! How can they make so much money exploiting what people don't know?! It's so awful.
I think I'm going to start a list of links on the right side of my main page to pages that de-bunk the false, scientifically-ungrounded claims of Penta Ultra Premium Purified Drinking Water.
By the way, I know that the website says that there's some Raman spectroscopy study that has been published on Penta Water, but really: the Physics of Vibrations journal? After some sleuthing I found evidence of the article's existence here (p. 61). But isn't it a bit fishy that they don't give the authors' names on the Penta website? When I'm back at school, I'll try looking up the article on Web of Science (no access from home).
I saw the Penta water at Whole Foods! Then I subjected my boyfriend to a five-minute rant about how it was bullshit pseudoscience and shouldn't be allowed.
Posted by Gwen on September 5, 2004 9:38 PMI too have seen Penta (as well as other, similar procucts) at whole foods, and gave my girlfriend the same speech... it really is disturbing... so the next question (raised in the forum after your posting) is whether there is anything consumers can do about it. Is it possible to sue them for false advertising? Please post a follow-up on whether their "publication" makes any sense... Perhaps it is worth a call to their coorporate headquarters (recorded of course) to investigate their official stance is on the validity of thier claims... might be fun!
Posted by Chris on September 6, 2004 12:26 AMYou know, I feel the same way listening to people at electronics stores trying to sell computers to old ladies.
"Oh no, ma'am, you *need* 512MB of RAM to check your e-mail..."
We should band together and form a vigilante group against corporations who take advantage of the ignorance of the masses.
A....very nerdy...vigilante group....
Posted by Sha Sha on September 6, 2004 1:00 PMSo I've done a bit of research on Web of Science today. I couldn't find the exact paper shown in the above entry from the Physics of Vibrations journal, but I did find some others by the same authors on the same subject. The problem may be that Physics of Vibrations is such an obscure journal that not even Web of Science lists it.
The paper I got a copy of is called "Spectroscopy of Spontaneous Raman Scattering of a Liquid-Water Local Structure in the Field of an Intense Ultrasound Pulse" by A. P. Brysev et al. Incidentally, this was published the same year as the Penta-cited paper, so it should be similar in content too.
Essentially, they showed that the structure of water molecules relative to one another changed when the water was hit with an ultrasonic pulse using a technique called Raman spectroscopy.
This sounds a lot like what Penta water is claiming BUT when they describe their methods, they say that "the laser was synchronized so that its pulse was generated just before the trailing edge of the ultrasound pulse crossed the focal point. The spatial–temporal coincidence of the laser and ultrasound pulses was observed by the light diffraction on the ultrasound wave." Essentially this means that they observed the water's structure IMMEDIATELY after the ultrasound was applied. This is because the changes in structure last for only picoseconds (1/1,000,000,000,000ths of a second). Thus structural changes may occur, but water returns to normal immediately after the driving force for change (i.e. the ultrasonic pulse) is gone. So the only way they could observe altered clustering was to observe it right away.
Also, the article never mentions Penta water specifically, so I'm not quite sure why Penta warrants citing these articles on their website (albeit in a half-assed way). I'd post the article itself, but I'm not sure it's legal. Here's the full citation (if anyone is interested I can email you the PDF):
A. P. Brysev, A. F. Bunkin, R. V. Klopotov, L. M. Krutyanski, A. A. Nurmatov, and S. M. Pershin, "Spectroscopy of Spontaneous Raman Scattering of a Liquid-Water Local Structure in the Field of an Intense Ultrasound Pulse." Optics and Spectroscopy, 93:2, pp. 282-285 (2002).
Posted by Nate on September 16, 2004 3:18 PMPenta water... yes...
I'm not sure if it's nationwide, but Penta water sold at Whole Foods in San Diego explicitly says that their findings are endorsed by researchers at UCSD. A professor, who will remain nameless, wrote a letter to them in protest. Penta water ended up giving him an out of court settlement... ie., hush money.
bah humbug!
Posted by Ngoc on September 16, 2004 4:35 PMHoly cow. That's crazy, but totally in line with their usual marketing ploys consisting of outright lies. All of the researchers they usually seem to cite come from Russia.
Aw hell. Here's the link to a PDF of the paper I'm referring to in my comment above.
Posted by Nate on September 16, 2004 4:50 PMI got a really nice email from a math/engineering librarian at the University of California San Diego a few weeks ago. It provides a nice follow-up to Ngoc's earlier comment. I'd planned to post her email, but things got busy at school, so I'm just now getting around to it:
From: Deborah Kegel
To: nate@lomtick.com
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 22:11:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: I like the Penta info on your blog
Nate -
Thank you for pointing out the hazy science behind Penta. There is no
scientific research supporting Penta done by UCSD or Scripps. When
alerted to this allegation last winter by a physician from a major eastern
UC medical clinic, I looked and looked in Web of Science, Chem Abstracts,
PubMed, and other credible indexes of scientific research and also queried
a colleague at Scripps Research Institute - there was nada. I even called
Penta hq in Carlsbad and the person in research who I was transferred to,
didn't give me a name/citation when I specifically asked him about the
research from UCSD or Scripps. He emailed me a pdf of research, but it
was unreadable.
There used to be the following on the Pentawater aka hydrateforlife web
site under Research:
"A study conducted at a Major Southern California University demonstrated
Penta was absorbed 14.3 percent faster than unprocessed water. The study
compared the rate of water influx of Penta into a cell to that of the
rate of the influx of other water."
but they've taken it off. (Hmm, maybe because it was not true?!) The
internet wayback machine is quite useful in documenting the misinformation
and when it appeared. Pentawater even said "A collaborative study
conducted by the University of California San Diego and Scripps Research
Institute" at one point in 2003, but it's not there anymore on their web
site. The only citations are to Russian research and the papers aren't
medically based at all.
You may run into old press releases on the web or on popular health sites
or flyers at grocery stores that still have that misinformation or the
statement about Scripps or UCSD, but it's just plain wrong. I hadn't heard
the rumor about a lawsuit that Ngoc mentioned, but I'm glad something made
Penta stop saying it.
I don't think much of the US Patent Office for granting a patent on this,
but if you search the principal US class/subclass [ 424/439 : Food or
edible as carrier for pharmaceutical] that is assigned to their patent,
you'll find some other dubious patents including a treatment for baldness
involving oolong tea. The USPTO is not the FDA in terms of testing for
efficacy.
Personally, I left a note at my local Wild Oats affiliate store on a Penta
contest entry form saying they ought not to carry the product as it was
bad water science. Alas, the product is still there, but health food
stores have a number of products with puffery medical stories. Let the
buyer beware (and I hope that the buyer paid attention during chemistry
and biology class in high school/college). Too bad the FDA can't get some
teeth back into regulating herbal supplements and other products making
medical claims without the proper testing and scientific studies on
harmfullness. Unfortunately, San Diego is home to both high level
scientific research institutions and also to companies making money off of
people who are scientifically ignorant.
Deborah Kegel
UCSD Math/Engineering Librarian
[All opinions expressed are my own and not that of UCSD.]
wow this is great. aren't librarians wonderful. i'm so glad that what i intended to be a fun little laugh at a sample i picked up at a food show has turned into a downright gang-bang of penta. huzzah.
Posted by mpc on November 25, 2004 11:41 PM«Post a comment»
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September 7, 2004
Boop boop boop
I find this absolutely hilarious (from the Best of Craig's List):
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phi/39855889.html
Especially the "**" bit at the end. That's just not right. Hee hee.
I nearly wet myself reading this one:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/about/best/chi/37009799.html
Posted by Nate on September 8, 2004 12:21 AMROTFL!!!
That is one of the funniest things I've ever read! :)
Posted by Pete on February 1, 2005 9:25 PM«Post a comment»
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September 22, 2004
Terrestrial black hole
If you've ever heard anything about North Korea, chances are that it only served to incite curiosity. Until recently, I had only learned from my 10th grade history teacher that from space at night, North Korea looks like an island of emptiness surrounded by the bright lights of its Asian neighbors. Furthermore, nothing seems to go in or out (other than foreign aid, of course), much like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. In other words, it sounded to me like the country was a big, mysterious land stuck in the Stone Age.
Well, much of the fog has been lifted by this weblog, which I haven't been able to stop reading since I began. Essentially, an American had a chance to visit North Korea in 2002, and wrote about it, complete with pictures. I warn you: you may not be able to complete your work while reading this.
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