Cheap date
Oh man. The price to buy a vote for Scottish independence is just £500? Bloody hell.
Looks like a duck
Another day, another pair of jeans that won’t do up comfortably. If I had a scale I’d weigh myself.
Fat placebos
Isn’t it great when I can tie two unrelated things and make a blog post out of them?
Last night we (well, I made Neil) watched Fat Surgeons, a documentary series about really, really obese people undergoing gastric bypasses in a final desperate attempt to lose weight. They covered a couple of cases — a man who had undergone surgery years ago, and a woman who was getting it done on camera. It was a pretty typical series, but I did have a flash of untrained, uneducated guess-type inspiration / revelation.
It’s all to do with temptation and willpower. The surgeon and patients all said they couldn’t diet any more, they couldn’t resist eating crap food and lots of it. So they kept putting on weight. Sure, I get that. But after they had surgery, their habits changed. They were choosing healthier food and trying to do some exercise. While they had had a major surgical procedure, it seems that the biggest change was psychological.
Cue the tying. An article I read this week, Placebo Effect Stronger Than We Thought?, mentions something called sham surgery, which can be used as part of double-blind testing of medical treatments. If only it was possible to test this out on patients wanting gastric bypasses — the surgeon makes the incisions and keeps the patient under for the correct amount of time, leading them to believe that they have had their stomachs stapled and intestines partially bypassed, and see if their attitudes toward their diet change.
Ducking the issue
Oh please — unnatural abstinence and forbidding the use of contraceptives that help prevent sexually transmitted disease is the real threat to humanity’s future.
Mebbes aye, mebbes naw
At the moment it’s a wee bit better to be part of the UK than the Eurozone — no wonder the SNP wants to wait. Also, this devolution max nonsense? That’s a certain ‘politician’ wanting all the glory without the real responsibility. Grow a pair, make it a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ referendum.
(Or, as Neil suggests, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland should vote in a referendum on whether they want Scotland in the UK. That’ll call a few bluffs.)
Update: UK sets terms for Scottish independence vote. Neil’s idea is still better.
Oscar
We were very kindly invited to a Hogmanay party in Swindon this year (yes, it’s Hogmanany. The hostess is Scottish). This is one of the dogs that was in attendance:
Sweet fellow.
Only an excuse
No one tell my sister- or mother-in-law this: Drug shields lungs from smoking damage.
Homes of the future
This ‘new architectural trend‘ sounds like… a block of semi-detached houses knocked through into one. Which I would not be opposed to, as long as there’s someone out there who’s willing to come and clean it for me!
The only problem with planning, building, and moving into this almost-definitely bigger home would be that we’d get more stuff to fill it. Neil and I have plans, both as individuals and a couple, for the future (these do not include making more babies, which we have always wanted to leave to serendipity). A couple of extra rooms would be good, or a bigger shared communal area.
Makers
Makers does what it says on the tin. It’s about guys who make stuff. The tinkerers and inventors. In a near future.
I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. This is because I am far too aware of who Cory Doctorow is — it sets up expectations. I’m glad my fears weren’t realised. This novel was kind of fun, actually. It revolves around Lester and Perry, two really clever guys, and Suzanne, a reporter who follows their ups and downs.
It does a ‘what happens next?’ kind of story, following the dot-com boom and bust. It seems a plausible vision of our near future — I know 3D printers are pretty damn exciting things and Neil would probably worship the ground I walk on if I could ever afford to surprise him with one.
That’s the beauty of Makers — it takes things we (or the nerdy / geeky among us, at least) know already exist (the aforementioned 3D printers, Disney) and applies them to a more cyberpunkish world. More stuff, more disposable stuff!
(The other thing that was really fascinating was the fatkins sub-plot. I can totally see it happening in our world of quick fixes.)
All in all, if you’re a bit of a techy person — by that I mean you’re not the ‘Apple mass-market consumer electronics are so innovative’ type — Makers is the novel for you. It reminded me a little of Neal Stephenson’s work, and that’s high praise.
Amen, brother
‘Nuff said:
Happy new year
Dawn in Nassau:
