Sad news, Overcode passed away on Saturday, September 17th.

More information and a guestbook is on his home page http://overcode.yak.net

Valhalla welcomes its latest hacker. John, may you Rest in Peace.

John's War with Melanoma is over

The other [theory] is that the intense visual and auditory output from TV damages the child's rapidly-developing brain.

I'm telling you, Nerve Attenuation Syndrome is going to be real. (see Johnny Mnemonic)

BBC NEWS | Health | TV 'may stunt toddlers' learning'

Would you want to know?

Would you want to know if, a decade from now, your brain will begin to deteriorate?

Even if you can't do much to stop it?
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The questions sound like a science-fiction brainteaser. But they became real with the announcement this week that researchers may be able to predict Alzheimer's disease nearly a decade before symptoms appear.

Experts say predicting illness raises ethical questions for doctors and societal questions about insurance, workplace discrimination and privacy.

Would I want to know that in 5 years I wouldn't remember anything, and would be lost and alone in the world? Yes, I would, because I don't think I'd want to let myself get that far.

Would you want to know if Alzheimer's is coming?

] So as America gets wider, the nation's personal ethics
] are underexercised. It doesn't matter if, over time,
] people's bodies are telling them to eat less. It doesn't
] matter if the media constantly hector the public on the
] dangers of over-eating and junk food. It doesn't matter
] that lack of exercise is a big factor in the thickening
] of America.
]
] Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., complained in the
] Washington Post, "We're talking about a public health
] problem for which our government has not taken
] responsibility." Actually, Uncle Sam has begun airing TV
] ads telling Americans to exercise more. But if
] individuals won't take responsibility for their weight
] gain, why should their government?

Indeed. Personal responsibility? What's that?

If you are what you eat, then sue

] Intravenous doses of a synthetic component of "good"
] cholesterol reduced artery disease in just six weeks in a
] small study with startlingly big implications for
] treating the nation's No. 1 killer.
]
] "The concept is sort of liquid Drano for the coronary
] arteries," said Dr. Steven Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic
] cardiologist who led the study.
]
] Larger and longer studies need to be done to determine if
] the experimental treatment will translate into fewer
] deaths, but the early results are promising, said Dr.
] Daniel Rader, director of preventive cardiology at the
] University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
]
] The treatment used a laboratory-produced version of an
] unusually effective form of HDL, the good cholesterol
] that helps protect against heart disease by removing
] plaque, or fatty buildups, from the bloodstream.
]
] "This is clearly on the level of a breakthrough that will
] have far-reaching implications," pointing the way toward
] a rapid treatment for fatty buildups, said Dr. Bryan
] Brewer, chief of molecular diseases at the National
] Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

New treatment works like 'liquid Drano for arteries'

] But while there's nothing particularly bleeding-edge
] about eating the hamburger but not the bun, now that
] low-carb dieting has gone mainstream, the diet does
] appear to hold a special attraction for hackers,
] programmers and other close-to-the-machine dwellers. For
] some geeks, the low-carb diet is itself a clever hack, a
] sneaky algorithm for getting the body to do what you want
] it to do, a way of reprogramming yourself. Programmers,
] who are used to making their computers serve their will,
] are now finding that low-carb diets enable the same kind
] of control over their bodies.
]
] Doctorow, who lost 75 pounds by cutting out
] carbohydrates, sees a natural affinity between his
] brethren and the diet: "Read the
] alt.support.diet.low-carb FAQ, and you'll find people
] attacking their bodies like they would attack a logic
] board," he says. "Substitute 'faster bus speed' for
] 'metabolism,' and you've got something pretty close to an
] overclocking FAQ, he adds, referring to a practice
] popular with hardware hackers in which computer
] processors are tweaked so that they run faster than their
] out-of-the-box speeds.

I've been trying to convince Dementia to join me on a revisit to the land of Atkins after I get back from China, because one thing you do need is moral support. You gotta have someone that's in it with you. Anyway, I thought this was a very interesting article in the fact that (1) Cory Doctorow wrote a story about hacking his body and now we learn that he has pretty much done that and (2) it's timely in accordance with what I've been doing and want to ramp up in another week.

Hackers on Atkins

Men have eagerly embodied their reputation as the sexually enthusiastic half of the population, and yet this study seems to suggest that women, deep down, are really thirsting for more. But, according to one of the study's coauthors, Northwestern psychology department chairman J. Michael Bailey, the study really just reinforces what we already know: Men are sexually simple, and women are not. "I think it really shows us how much we don't know about women more than it shows us what we do know," he says.

Interesting article about sexuality and the different means of arousal for the various gender roles.

What do women want?

] A 42-year-old Braintree woman gave birth to a baby boy
] while standing on an inbound Red Line train yesterday
] morning, refusing help from stunned passengers who heard
] her moan and seconds later looked down to find her baby
] on the floor.

] After leaving the train and heading for the stairs up to
] the station's main lobby, witnesses said, the placenta
] fell to the platform. Judge turned around, grabbed the
] afterbirth, put it in her shoulder bag, and headed upstairs.

Something is definitely wrong with this woman. Just read the rest of the article.

Refusing help, woman gives birth aboard T

Australian scientists have shown that the more men masturbate between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to develop the disease that kills more than half a million men each year.

Don't let those nuns convince you that it's a sin!

Masturbation Reduces Risk of Prostate Cancer

McDonald's is telling its direct suppliers -- those that control all stages of animal production -- to phase out such antibiotics by the end of 2004. Direct suppliers provide most of McDonald's poultry and 20 percent of its meat.

This is definitely the best news I've seen come out of the fast food industry, ever. Premium Salads are a joke, since most of them have more calories and fat than a Big Mac.

For those of you that haven't ever read up on this before, cattle, poultry and pig farmers were looking for a better way to provide growth energy (aka calories) to their livestock, because it would take several years for a calf to get big enough to send to the slaughterhouse. Through research and experimentation, it was discovered that corn was an excellent source of energy, however, the animals couldn't digest it properly. Actually, it would make them sick, so to counteract that effect, livestock are regularly fed antibiotics.

One of the theories regarding antibiotic resistant viruses is based on the fact that the food we consume has already been given antibiotics. It is possible that the virii out there have already mutated to survive the antibiotics given to the livestock.

McDonald's curbs antibiotic use in meat