Thoughts on writing and other things
I was reading someone else's blog entry on the craft of writing, and wanted desperately to quote this since it seemed appropriate, but couldn't justify it, so I quote it here because it's my blog and I can do as I please and not feel guilty about cluttering someone else's space:
There's the wretched rent to pay,
Yet I glower at pen and ink:
Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray,
It is later than you think!
-Robert Service "It Is Later Than You Think"I wonder if I made less money if I would be more inclined to write.
Anyway, today's random ideas and observations:
1. Fake constructed languages: take a phrase, translate it into Swedish using Altavista's Babelfish service, then do a quick and dirty character substitution cipher.
2. There's a news bit about a drug, Vytorin, that successfully reduces cholesterol levels and helps with other heart disease risk markers, but doesn't seem to have much of an effect on actual patient heart disease. The immediate reply is that it must be corporate malfeasance and that they must have lied! This is always a possibility, but the reality is that the drug does "what it says on the can". The question then becomes whether things like cholesterol levels are not a good predictor of patient outcomes. That would certainly throw an axe or two into the current thinking on heart disease.
3. CNN did a recent bit on Autism, and noted that even though organomercurials have been removed from vaccines, the rate still rises. At what point does it become justified to dismiss this hypothetical link outright? Some would say we passed it a while ago, but then the thorny issue comes up of whether the people who continue to harp on it are actively harming children with autism because they are diverting research funding and public attention to a tree which, for all anyone I've ever spoken to can tell, has no cat in it. This doesn't, of course, indicate that vaccination is not related, but that's another question entirely.
4. Speaking other questions (but not) entirely: Immune and autoimmune disorders are positively linked with mood disorders. Not very strongly, but there is some correlation. Assume that this link is real. Would it be possible to have an infectious disease (or a biological weapon) that affected mood? The SF stereotype is the "disease that makes you a psycho raving homocidal looney" weapon. Strategically, though, causing depression among an enemy's ranks would lead to quicker surrender and an easy victory and could easily be made subtle enough to not be obvious. Put away your tin foil hat, the CIA is doing it with disease!
There's the wretched rent to pay,
Yet I glower at pen and ink:
Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray,
It is later than you think!
-Robert Service "It Is Later Than You Think"I wonder if I made less money if I would be more inclined to write.
Anyway, today's random ideas and observations:
1. Fake constructed languages: take a phrase, translate it into Swedish using Altavista's Babelfish service, then do a quick and dirty character substitution cipher.
2. There's a news bit about a drug, Vytorin, that successfully reduces cholesterol levels and helps with other heart disease risk markers, but doesn't seem to have much of an effect on actual patient heart disease. The immediate reply is that it must be corporate malfeasance and that they must have lied! This is always a possibility, but the reality is that the drug does "what it says on the can". The question then becomes whether things like cholesterol levels are not a good predictor of patient outcomes. That would certainly throw an axe or two into the current thinking on heart disease.
3. CNN did a recent bit on Autism, and noted that even though organomercurials have been removed from vaccines, the rate still rises. At what point does it become justified to dismiss this hypothetical link outright? Some would say we passed it a while ago, but then the thorny issue comes up of whether the people who continue to harp on it are actively harming children with autism because they are diverting research funding and public attention to a tree which, for all anyone I've ever spoken to can tell, has no cat in it. This doesn't, of course, indicate that vaccination is not related, but that's another question entirely.
4. Speaking other questions (but not) entirely: Immune and autoimmune disorders are positively linked with mood disorders. Not very strongly, but there is some correlation. Assume that this link is real. Would it be possible to have an infectious disease (or a biological weapon) that affected mood? The SF stereotype is the "disease that makes you a psycho raving homocidal looney" weapon. Strategically, though, causing depression among an enemy's ranks would lead to quicker surrender and an easy victory and could easily be made subtle enough to not be obvious. Put away your tin foil hat, the CIA is doing it with disease!