A brief update

I haven’t posted here in a few days, but I’m writing this now to remind myself that I want to actually keep this blog going and not give up on it.  Probably not much of substance this weekend, though, as I have to study the Lotka-Volterra equations, carbohydrate structures and reactions, Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations, and the history of intellectual property, particularly as it relates to early modern British scientific instrument makers.

That last one is actually really interesting, and something I hope to make the subject of a series of posts sometime in the near future.

More Google ad nonsense

Well, the Prophecy Watch ad is finally gone from the Google News sidebar on a “swine flu” search, but it’s been replaced with a bunch of woo-pedlers trying to sell miracle herbs to cure swine flu and malaria. I hate humanity sometimes.

Headline writers

One of my biggest beefs with traditional news outlets is the headline writers. I’ve seen two extraordinarily irresponsible headlines in the last day or so: one claiming “another death” from swine flu in California, and another claiming that there was swine flu in Michigan. Reading either article would tell one that neither of those things are true; as of yet no one in the US has died of swine flu and there has not been so much as a suspected case in Michigan, but the headline writers apparently don’t bother to read the articles or think about potential consequences beyond increased sales or web traffic.

I’ll see if I can track down the headlines I saw and post links later.

A brief aside…

Why the fuck does the Google News search page for “swine flu” consistantly have an ad for “Prophecy News Watch” in the sidebar? The “buy surgical masks” ad I get, but Prophecy News Watch?

Actually, I get that too, and find it disgusting. Taking advantage of the confusion that people understandably feel when confronted with something as horrifying as a potential global pandemic is fucked up. There’s no more polite way to say it. Fucking death cultists.

Swine flu

I’m sitting at work with nothing much to do, so I’ve been following the swine flu outbreak as the story progresses.  It’s kind of crazy to be able to watch reports come in of new cases and updates to existing cases in almost real time.

So far it looks like there have been approximately 1300 reported cases in Mexico with 81 fatalities, at least 200 reported in New York (mostly children), with no fatalities, or even hospitalizations, 7 confirmed in California, 2 confirmed in Kansas and Texas each, and one reported in the UK (a flight attendant who just returned from Mexico).

Here’s a brief list of sites I’m using to keep abreast of the situation:

http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/

http://www.newfluwiki2.com/frontPage.do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_H1N1_flu_outbreak

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/

 

Update:  Looks like some students in New Zealand may have brought it back with them after a trip to Mexico, though the infected individuals have not yet been tested to confirm that it is the new strain of H1N1 swine flu

Intro

Well, this is my blag. I anticipate it being mostly an aggregation of miscellanious thoughts about science, politics, and whatever other thoughts pass through my mind and into cyberspace.