Entries from November 2009 ↓

I like this airport for the following reasons:

1. The alcove of secret free WiFi. Which is barely functional at the moment, so maybe they figured out how to block it?

2. The paper airplanes in the tunnels :D

3. Banjoe’s Cafe. It’s not on everyone’s beaten path, but if you find it, it’s worth the walk. I’m currently enjoying their Thai chicken sandwich. Yum! And I think they gave me a whole by accident instead of a half. I should probably walk back over there and return it, but… I think not. They’d probably have to throw it away anyway. Or some such rationalization.

What seems to have been found is a lot of good science and a little bad science, with plenty of human foibles thrown in. Of course the negative aspects are exaggerated on websites run by climate change skeptics, and minimized by people on the other side of the debate, but it’s really just science in its underwear.

Humans make judgments based on the wrong kinds of information in many circumstances. For example, we sometimes base our judgments of the quality of a group’s arguments on our perception of how consistent the group is in communicating those arguments. That is, we decide how right people are by how consistently they agree. Many groups, aware of this bias, have learned to emphasize consistency and consensus above almost all other virtues. Civil rights groups have implemented this principle for decades. Nancy Pelosi imposed it on the Democrats, after seeing the political benefits of the Republicans’ emphasis on party loyalty. Science has also felt the pressure to unite behind a single message, knowing that the public would find the science itself to be more credible if there were fewer visible disagreements among scientists. Keep the arguments in the family. Don’t air your dirty laundry.

But that’s stupid. People disagree, and their disagreements, per se, have nothing to do with the quality of the ideas they are discussing. In fact, in areas where we don’t actually know for certain what’s going on (e.g., all of science), the disagreements themselves are an important element of the method for approximating the truth more and more closely. Science can never be perfectly certain about anything, but imperfect certainty is not the same as total ignorance; imperfect certainty leads to working suspension bridges, space shuttles that don’t always blow up, cures for diseases, and therapies for mental disorders. Science doesn’t discover Truth, really; it formulates working models. And the models, in most fields, have worked better and better over time.

Sadly, the way many members of the general public see science seems more like religion or theistic monarchy, and that creates problems. Scientists are supposed to be the infallible high priests handing down wisdom from on high. With that setup, any perceived inconsistency is assumed to invalidate the entire enterprise. Always h the baby with the bathwater.

• A skeleton is found with weird features: throw out a century of evolutionary research.
• Climatologists can’t explain ten years’ tree ring data: throw out half a century’s findings on climate change.
• Red wine drinkers in the Mediterranean live longer than other people elsewhere: throw out all we know about the negative effects of alcohol.

Scientists don’t think like this; only certain non-scientists do. Individual findings almost never invalidate an entire body of work (though there are notable exceptions). Science cannot be held to some arbitrary rules of consistency completely divorced from the realities of what science is. Science, although sometimes requiring quite a lot of expertise and knowledge to carry out, is inherently mundane. The steps are humble and unpretentious. You change one thing to see if another changes. You measure two things and see if they are related. You seek the opinions of other people who understand the issues and look for a consensus. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you don’t, but you almost never find unanimity.

Finally, heed the wisdom of Gavin A. Schmidt, a NASA climatologist: “Science doesn’t work because we’re all nice. Newton may have been an a**, but the theory of gravity still works.”

Contradictions — even (or especially) my own — bug me.

1. The congresspersons opposing a government-run option in the currently-proposed healthcare reform plan are all beneficiaries of a lavish single-payer healthcare plan funded at taxpayer expense.
2. Al Gore’s monster mansion and constant airline flights continue to create, like, a thousand Pakistani peasants’ worth of carbon emissions.
3. We still claim to be a nation interested in peace, but we spend more on our military than anyone else. In fact, we spend about as much as all the other military budgets in the world, combined.
4. The people pushing for the harshest punishments for illegal immigrants are often the same ones who celebrate our immigrant forefathers. Said forefathers settled here, usually without the permission of the American cultures and nations that were already in place, and often in direct violation of the wishes of the legitimate inhabitants.
5. Our current President was elected largely as a reaction to the excesses of his predecessor, but he has since followed Bush 43′s lead in his use of executive powers, his capitulation to our oligarchy, his treatment of suspected terrorists (with the arguably small exception of the prisoners in Guantánamo), and even our overseas military involvements.
6. Several of the lawmakers in the healthcare debate — both pro and con — are accepting donations from organizations with a vested interest in making sure any new program serves corporations rather than American citizens, and it shows.
7. And finally (drum roll please)…. The GOP’s health care plan for its employees covers abortions.

That last one surprised even my cynical self, I gotta say.

Lou Dobbs has just quit CNN. I know some Hispanic activism groups will be happy about this, since the move reduces CNN’s perceived hypocrisy in regards to Hispanic and immigration issues, but I’m not as enthusiastic. Don’t get me wrong: I think Dobbs is yet another demagogue entertainer masquerading as a journalist, like Bill O’Reilly or Keith Olbermann (I was going to add Beck and Limbaugh, but I’m not sure they even really masquerade that much; they’re just entertainers, even if many of their fans seem so desperate to validate their own political views that they insist on seeing them as newsmen despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary). However, the news networks, like the political landscape of the country, seem to be getting more and more Balkanized, with less and less true dialogue between individuals who have opposing opinions. Or maybe it’s always been this way, but it’s certainly not getting any better.

Dobbs’ exit, on the one hand, makes CNN just a teensy bit more honest and accurate (by removal of the opposites). On the other hand, diversity of opinion on the network will suffer. I said I’m not enthusiastic, but I also don’t really mind him leaving; I just don’t think it’s as big a deal as some people do.

My guess is that, within a year, we will see Dobbs join O’Reilly, Beck, and others on the Fox Kind Of Like News network. What was a somewhat refreshing conservative point of view on CNN will be lost in the roar of conservative righteous indignation constantly pouring from Fox, which will be a shame. On the other hand, Dobbs will also continue spouting his particular mix of lies, half-truths, and misleading statements about immigration and Latinos, and that will get lost in the roar, as well. I hope.

I believe it is no exaggeration to say that I now number among the giants of technology like Alexander Graham Bell and Whoever Invented That Huge Computer That Filled A Whole Stinking House Or Something. Yes, I have conquered pit stains.

I know it’s a gross topic, but it must be discussed. I have researched this issue, and I think my sweat has no more than average pit-staining properties. However, I sweat more than the average Joe, no matter what the temperature, and I live in a place where it’s at least kinda warmish or hottish for about seven months of the year and ridiculously unrealistically hot (with medium to stupid high humidity) for an additional three. So I get more than my fair share of sweaty armpit nastiness in my shirts, after a while. I know I’m not the only one who has this problem. I’ve seen others’ old T-shirts with the crusty, hardened, darkened fabric that has the Smell That Just Won’t Totally Go Away. I won’t name names, but that’s just because I may not be able to remember them. I’m old.

I have previously tried lots of things to kill the pit stains, recommended by well-meaning but ultimately useless posts on the web, articles in magazines, etc.:  vinegar solutions, detergent pre-soak, baking soda, alcohol, commercial products (Spray ‘n’ Wash, etc.), and even adding aspirin to water or vinegar solution. But now I tried something that works.

This most recent pitstain destruction experiment was was influenced by (a) blog posts from some smart people describing cleaning cloth diapers, (b) some nerds restoring yellowing plastic museum computer consoles to their original factory white, and (c) the observation that adding oxy-clean to vinegar makes for some fun laundry-time drama.

Without further ado, here’s the research report. The test subject was a shirt. Button-down camp-type short-sleeved shirt. Light, airy, entirely comfortable thin cotton fabric. I love that shirt. It had become infested with crusty, darker yellow stains in the pits, especially in those underarm seams. You know the ones. After 4 years of frequent wear, the stains were no longer just a color or smell; they were a tangible physical anomaly in the fabric, about as stiff as if I had massaged a thin layer of Elmer’s glue into the fabric and let it dry. Seriously. Kind of disgusting. The stain-crusties had proved resistant to washing, scrubbing, and all the attempted interventions I listed above. So I did the following:

1. Saturated the fabric (dunked it) in 100% white vinegar. Did not wring it out; wanted lots of vinegar. None of that wussy “solution” business you read about on home-helper-type websites. This was all vinegar.
2. Sprinkled (liberally) my local, cheap, generic version of Oxy-Clean on the affected areas of the fabric. It foamed, it got hot (as in “it-kinda-scared-me” hot), it made an enjoyable sizzling sound. It did not all dissolve at this point.
3. I scrubbed the oxy into the vinegar-saturated fabric like I was hand-washing nasty diapers. Next time I might use a scrub brush or nail brush with the fabric on a hard backing surface, to make sure it all gets down in the crevices. I applied the oxy to the inside of the shirt, where the sweat would presumably have first contact with the fabric. The gritty texture of the undissolved oxy was satisfying to grind into the recalcitrant, hardened armpit stains. Die! Die! Die! And like that. Actually, I didn’t scrub it for long. Maybe a minute or two.
4. Added a whole lotta (maybe 50% in the final solution?) Simple Green degreaser to the vinegar and swished around. Threw the shirt in there.
5. Put the shirt in the solution, made sure it was pretty well saturated and nearly covered with liquid, and let it soak for about a day. After a couple of hours I noticed the fabric had soaked up lots of the liquid, so I diluted it about 50/50 with water.
6. The next day, I wrung out the shirt and threw it in the washer with some other clothes.

When it came out of the wash, the pits were pristine in both color and texture, almost like brand new fabric. They were also fresh-smelling. Hooray!

I consider this merely a first experiment. There are several variables that need to be investigated. Parameters must be established. But it worked!

DISCLAIMERS: My hands seem unaffected, but still you might consider wearing dishwashing gloves. The fabric was 100% cotton, with a nice light-colored plaid print. I did not see signs of fading, bleaching, or discoloring, but I only tried this on one shirt, one time. YMMV. I do not know how this method would affect synthetics or any other fabric. I don’t know if the Simple Green was really necessary; I suspect not. I don’t know how strong the solution has to be, or how long it needs to sit. I don’t know if these fumes will kill you or cause your unborn baby to be born a horrible mutant freak unqualified for all but talk show hosting careers. So, obviously use this at your own risk. But it seemed to work, and since I did it I haven’t noticed any slurring of speech or mental confusiowhat are the spiders doing on my walls they are smiling at me wearing Charlie Chaplin masks and doing that weird dance with the potatoes on the forks and holy cow I’m translucent now gotta go