Time to switch toilet paper?

I'm a fan of the Charmin Ultra cuz it's so soft. However, it looks like it's not so good for the environment. Check out a comparison chart here: http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/tissueguide/ratings.aspx. It also looks like Bounty paper towels, my brand of choice, are pretty bad in that respect. I don't think I can switch from Bounty unless the "greener" brands make select-a-size rolls.

Kid A, no. Kid B, no. Kid C, yes.

Apparently we are now capable of screening human embryos for diseases and other characteristics, thus allowing potential parents to select their desired children: click. While this is not a trivial (or cheap) procedure, it raises some controversial questions.

This takes natural selection to a whole new level. I like the idea of being able to screen for debilitating or fatal genetic diseases, but I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of designer babies, i.e. choosing gender and other physical characteristics. I don't think I can say that I'm opposed to it, though.

The strugling economy is apparently taking a bite out of recycling...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/will-recycling-survice-the-recession.php

An interesting essay on the impossibility of reconciling science and religion.

http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=1e3851a3-bdf7-438a-ac2a-a5e381a70472

Jerry Coyne's piece, entitled "Seeing and Believing", in The New Republic is a review/critique of two books which attempt to unite science and religion in a Darwin Year (the 200th anniversary of his birth). The article is a pretty long read, but there are quite a few portions that are worthwhile if you have any interest in the topic.

A few excerpts that caught my attention:

"It is a depressing fact that while 74 percent of Americans believe that angels exist, only 25 percent accept that we evolved from apelike ancestors. Just one in eight of us think that evolution should be taught in the biology classroom without including a creationist alternative. Among thirty-four Western countries surveyed for the acceptance of evolution, the United States ranked a dismal thirty-third, just above Turkey."

"True, there are religious scientists and Darwinian churchgoers. But this does not mean that faith and science are compatible, except in the trivial sense that both attitudes can be simultaneously embraced by a single human mind. (It is like saying that marriage and adultery are compatible because some married people are adulterers. ) It is also true that some of the tensions disappear when the literal reading of the Bible is renounced, as it is by all but the most primitive of JudeoChristian sensibilities. But tension remains. The real question is whether there is a philosophical incompatibility between religion and science. Does the empirical nature of science contradict the revelatory nature of faith? Are the gaps between them so great that the two institutions must be considered essentially antagonistic? The incessant stream of books dealing with this question suggests that the answer is not straightforward."

"In other words, God is a Mover of Electrons, deliberately keeping his incursions into nature so subtle that they're invisible. It is baffling that Miller, who comes up with the most technically astute arguments against irreducible complexity, can in the end wind up touting God's micro-editing of DNA. This argument is in fact identical to that of Michael Behe, the [intelligent design] advocate against whom Miller testified in the Harrisburg trial. It is another God-of-the-gaps argument, except that this time the gaps are tiny."

"Most scientists can tell you what observations would convince them of God's existence, but I have never met a religious person who could tell me what would disprove it. And what could possibly convince people to abandon their belief that the deity is, as Giberson asserts, good, loving, and just? If the Holocaust cannot do it, then nothing will."

"And they fail for the same reason that people always fail: a true harmony between science and religion requires either doing away with most people's religion and replacing it with a watered-down deism, or polluting science with unnecessary, untestable, and unreasonable spiritual claims."

"It would appear, then, that one cannot be coherently religious and scientific at the same time. That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified. In other words, the price of philosophical harmony is cognitive dissonance. Accepting both science and conventional faith leaves you with a double standard: rational on the origin of blood clotting, irrational on the Resurrection; rational on dinosaurs, irrational on virgin births."

"So the most important conflict--the one ignored by Giberson and Miller--is not between religion and science. It is between religion and secular reason. Secular reason includes science, but also embraces moral and political philosophy, mathematics, logic, history, journalism, and social science--every area that requires us to have good reasons for what we believe."

You can also read some interesting responses to the article (including posts from both authors that were criticized) here: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html.

Some of the best words that I could ever hear from my father...

"Just keep it up, you are in no way falling short of what I am hoping that you would eventually become."

Thanks, Pa.

Boeing cafeteria goes green.

When I went to the cafeteria at work today, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had replaced the styrofoam plates with ones that are made out of 100% recycled paper (and are compostable). The only downside is that there is no convenient plastic cover for these plates like there was for the old ones, though they did have some plastic wrap available to cover food. I guess this is part of our commitment to ISO 14000.

If I ever become a vegetable, please let me die.

A recent article about the death of an Italian woman who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) reminded me of the Terri Schiavo case. I'm pretty sure I fall on the "right to die" side of that argument. It seems to me that in these cases one thing that made the choice of whether to disconnect life support (or not) more difficult was that the conscious parties involved did not know what the vegetative person would have wanted. So this is my attempt to make my preference in that undesireable event clear: if I am in a PVS for more than a year, please pull the plug. And after I'm done, go ahead and donate my organs and cremate my remains.

A humurous take on the "base" metaphor.

What does it mean when someone says that he reached second base with another person? Today's XKCD may help answer that question, and is sure to entertain in the process. Check it out here: http://xkcd.com/540/. I think some of it will be lost on non-techies, but it is worthy nonetheless.

More proof that wikis are awesome.

Even the U.S. intelligence community uses one to share information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the general public will never see an article on there, though.

Free e-file with no strings attached.

I have always felt that the ability to electronically file your taxes for free should be a right as a citizen of the United States. If the government makes you pay taxes, you shouldn't have to pay someone an additional fee to figure out how much you need to pay. It looks like the Free File program has finally achieved something close to how I think things should be.

For years there have been ways to e-file taxes (both federal and state) for free, but there have been stipulations that limit access to these options, such as caps on income. For the past couple of years I have semi-manually filled out my tax returns because I refuse to pay to have my taxes done. Thankfully, the IRS had PDF forms that you could fill in, though you had to perform the calculations yourself. Missouri went a step further and provided PDF forms that automatically performed the calculations. The drawback was that I had to print out my tax returns and mail them in.

It now looks like the IRS is offering Free File Fillable Forms that perform calculations and allow e-file! It is completely free for the federal return and there are no limitations, including on income. I should note that this option is similar to filling in the paper forms, except that it is all done electronically. People who are not comfortable with crunching the numbers or deciding which schedules to fill out are probably better off with the commercial software packages/websites that guide you through the process, though usually at a cost. In any case, you can bet that I will be utilizing this service this year. Unfortunately, this does not apply to state returns, so I would have to either pay for a Missouri e-file (head shake) or mail in the state forms as I have done in the past (head nod).

An interesting take on the U.S. rail system.

I've been an advocate for enhancing the national rail system in the United States, especially after riding the trains in Japan. I knew at least one person (Michael Schwartz) shared my sentiments. I now know that there are others. This article has some interesting ideas on the issue. The guy who is interviewed basically wants to create a system modeled after the European one. It would be viable, more efficient, and more eco-friendly alternative to flying.

An SD card that does WiFi!

Seriously...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye-Fi. I kinda want one.

That's why you get a battery back-up.

I was using my office PC almost 2 hours ago when the power went out. This was the first time I had experienced a power outage since I moved into my house. I didn't understand why it had happened, because there was no snow or rain outside, though it had drizzled a bit the night before. Fortunately, I have a battery back-up for my office computers and my media center PC, so they did not experience a power interruption. Since I no longer had a working Internet connection, I decided to shut down my computers.

I called up Ameren, and their automated system helpfully informed me that there were about 650 houses without power in my area, and that the problem was being worked. The estimated completion time was 15:00, which wasn't too bad. I'm now at my mom's house, but hopefully the power has been restored at mine.

Everybody's got an online social network.

...even Boeing. Only theirs is supposedly for networking and collaboration within the company. It's called inSite, and it was rolled out the last scheduled work day last year...which is good cuz you can't expect productivity to be very high at that time. Unfortunately my productivity has not improved this year because of it. In order to help put an end to my addiction, I set a goal of 100 connections by the end of the week. I already reached this goal at 15:59 Tuesday afternoon, so I guess I have to go back to doing real work for the rest of the year...

Z2K9 update.

The Zune problem was apparently caused by a software bug related to leap years. Here's Microsoft's official response: http://forums.zune.net/412486/ShowPost.aspx. I hope mine actually works tomorrow.

Curse you, Zune gods!

Last night (actually early this morning) I discovered my Zune 30 frozen on the logo screen. I thought it was related to the issues that I had with it during my recent trip to Asia. The two times it froze there (while I was trying to switch songs), draining the battery and restarting seemed to get things back to normal. This time that didn't work. I've spent the last couple of hours looking up Zune freeze fixes, and even tried disconnecting the battery (which requires popping open the case).

I eventually found a couple of articles which lead me to believe that I'm not the only one with this problem, and it is actually a bit of an epidemic (I hesitate to use that word since so few people actually own Zunes). See http://mobilitysite.com/2008/12/z-day-hits-zune-30s/ and http://gizmodo.com/5121311/30gb-zunes-failing-everywhere-all-at-once. Microsoft even posted the following Zune service status:

Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. The Zune Social might be slow or inaccessible. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!

My brother Chike ran into this DIY fix: http://gizmodo.com/5121618/how-to-revive-dead-zunes-30s. I'm a little hesitant to try it, since Microsoft is working on a fix. But then again, my Zune is already well past warranty and I already opened it up. I hope they come out with some direction soon, so that I can start listening to my Zune soon.

Fried chicken, chocolate cake, and chicken tikka masala.

During my recent trip to Japan, I found out that many Japanese people celebrate Christmas by eating KFC and a Christmas cake, which I think is quite hilarious. So I suggested to my mother that for Christmas dinner (yes, we have Christmas dinner even though none of us is really Christian) this year we should have fried chicken and chocolate cake. She more than obliged. The dinner consisted of a fancy salad, fried chicken, rice, shrimp scampi, chicken tikka masala, beans, cakes (one variety, one chocolate), and pie (apple and pumpkin). I'm normally a fan of the standard ham dinner, but this might have topped it.

Asia travelogue.

I have started my travelogue for my trip to Asia. You can find it here.

Yes we can.

Two years ago I predicted that the U.S. would not be ready for Barack Obama to be president in 2008, and that 2012 would be his year. It's a good thing that nobody pays attention to my political predictions.

So where was I when I found out that he was officially projected to win? Well, I had been following the race all day yesterday, and saw that he had a healthy lead before I left my mom's house for my indoor soccer game. I didn't find out that he was the winner until I returned home around 20:20, 20 minutes after he was declared the victor. I did have a suspicion, though, when on my way home I received a text message from my friend Robert which simply said "Yes!"

But what about Missouri? This is only the second time my state has been "wrong" about the president in over 100 years...and the margin was tiny - less than 6000 votes (49.4% to 49.2%). How did the Democrat Jay Nixon manage to win the gubernatorial race so handily (58.4% to 39.5%) if the presidential race was so close? I'm guessing due to a combination of a few factors:

1. Nixon, having served as the attorney general for 16 years, was already very popular in Missouri.
2. Hulshof, his opponent, was not the ideal Republican candidate.
   
3. Obama is (at least perceived as) too liberal for Missourians.
4. St. Charles County had the highest voter turnout by percentage in the state.
5. Missouri may have more pro-white racists than pro-black racists.
   

As an aside, I am also happy that Proposition C (which mandates investor-owned electric companies provide certain percentages of power from renewable sources, with a target of 15% by 2021) was passed. I'm not exactly thrilled that all the other state-wide amendments and propositions passed, though.

In any case, my enthusiasm for politics, which always peaks at election time, has already begun to wane. I hope that Obama does well in his first term as president, but it's time for me to return to being mostly apathetic.

Can I die from eating blue cheese?

Thanks to Wikipedia I just found out that blue cheese is made by adding Penicillium spores. I am allergic to Penicillin. I've been eating blue cheese for a while with no ill effects, so I assume I'm good to go. I hope I can't get sick from eating it because it is near the top of my list of favorite cheeses. Apparently (from a quick Internet search), there are people with Penicillin allergies that are affected by blue cheese, but it appears that this is pretty rare.