Domain: newhousenews.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to newhousenews.com.
Comments · 11
-
200th Reflecting on the 300th
A quick google turned up this article
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/tilove092006.h tml -
Re:You always have to wonder though
Eating zeolites wouldn't be much worse than eating clay, and they aren't even being eaten in this application.
The only thing the product is doing in the quoted example is filtering out some of the undesirable materials that accumulate in the oil as it is used. The zeolite does this by forming a molecular seive. It isn't an additive -- it's kind of the opposite. The end product of the process is probably no worse for you than the original oil would be by itself.
The "natural" cooking process produces plenty of undesirable materials all on its own (ever looked up what adds flavour to barbequed food??), so critiquing anything that isn't a "natural food process" is simplistic. Some processes produce undesirable stuff, some don't. Some risks are inherent in *any* food, but they outweigh the alternatives. Heck, plain, natural potassium in our food is one of the biggest sources of natural radiation exposure in our bodies, but we wouldn't solve the problem by eliminating K from our diet -- we'd die.
Save your paranoia for some actual and unnecessary risks, such as the ones you list later (artificial preservatives and flavours, which can usually be replaced with more benign stuff or done without), or perhaps save it for the excessive use of oil in cooking in the first place, for which there is ample evidence of increased risk for some types of cancer. -
Sounds like a good way to spend tax dollars
Send soldiers to Iraq and make sure even in Humvees they have a cooling suit. And also see to it they always have bottled water to drink.
This reminds me of when Pratap Chatterjee was talking on C-Span booktv about his book "Iraq, Inc. : A Profitable Occupation" about all the wasteful spending and downright scams military contractors were running. -
Re:Libre, *not* gratis.
There have been several attempts in recent years to *require* ultrasounds before abortion (as much for the woman's safety as anything, since having an ultrasound *before* abortion increases the chances that the abortion will actually be a success). Some anti-abortion activists are behind the push and Planned Parenthood is very much against it, recommending that women *NOT* be allowed to see the ultrasound results before abortion. If it wasn't routine, why would they fight against a law requiring that women be shown their ultrasound information before an abortion?
-
Re:I won't worry about the laptopI know. I was being a little nit-picky since you said that microwave cooking doesn't "break atomic bonds". There's always some luddites/technophobes out there that think every new technology is killing them. Unfortunately some of them are students of Science, and can wrap their paranoia in plausible language. It then gets repeated until these myths turn into well known "facts" in public opinion.
On the other hand, there is evidence that more mundane cooking methods are more dangerous. Barbecuing meats or any other organic matter can create benzopyrene which is a potent mutagen and carcinogen. Even burning toast (like in a toaster) has been found to produce the dangerous chemical. Now, none of the scientists involved in these studies are telling people to stop grilling food, and stop having burnt toast for breakfast. Of course, some groups have taken those results and used them to further their agendas. I've seen a repeated claim that a grilled steak contains as much benzopyrene as 300 cigarettes (which is supposed to make you believe that a grilled steak is as dangerous as 300 cigarettes, except the soundbite never mentions that cigarettes contain many other toxins and carcinogens). While it's strictly true, it's neither useful, or helpful.
Even vegetables that are cooked to higher than 120 degrees Celcius can form the carcinogen acrylamide. No one calls for us to renounce bread, nuts, french fries, and coffee. At least I didn't find any immediate results for that (I guess militant vegans [as opposed to the sane ones who can accept other people's food preferences] aren't eager to lose some of the few foods they are willing to eat).
Now, microwave cooking can not cause the first toxin to form (because it requires incomplete burning of fat and oils at 300 to 600 degrees C), and it's unlikely that it can cause the second to form either (deep frying and roasting tend to cause it). That must make microwaves safer than conventional cooking, right.
:-P -
Laser Dazzler?
Is it possible that someone with military experience or some such? Especially considering Colorado Springs. There's six huge and important military installations within about a 5 mile radius of the COS runways. Not to mention that it's easily accessible by the public, probably one of the worst security features (I used to work for Western Pacific Airlines!
:O)!! Interestingly enough, many non-lethal weapons developers are headquartered in the area, to include Jaycor, Loral, and Raytheon. It may be possible that someone or someone's was able to gain access to a Laser Dazzler and is 'having some fun', or causing major trouble. Interesting thought... I saw these on a program on History Channel, and they were pretty amazing, and could possibly result in such things. -
Re:Well...I am fairly convinced that the problem which most people have with cell phone users is that they cannot hear both sides of the converstation, hence my comment. Personally, I don't care about people carrying on conversations in resturants, but I know that many people do, including some that own them.
Many have started to use 'cell phone jammers', which are illegal in the U.S. and I believe that it's a good law, but I do respect people's wish to create 'quite zones' on their private property. The previously mentioned paint additive can allow this, and does so without infringing on the rights of people who happen to be nearby. I didn't say this before, but I believe that this will be the most common usage of this technology.
-
Re:I hate it.."Bombs are rarely used for the purpose of killing people these days. They're used to destroy facilities, bridges, buildings. That kind of things."
Very good, who told you that? Look there. Amazing technology. This shows what a bomb really does and the effects are very well known and intended. The damage to humans is so immense, would the real effects shown on TV, people in US would not support this.
Why do you think that napalm-like fire bombs are developed and used? Probably to surgically melt down bridges and buildings at night;)
I find it interesting that in almost all press reports in USA only US losses are counted and never the total count of injured and killed humans is mentioned. Could it be that the numbers would not look very good?
It is talked about 60-something billion $'s of cost for this war - the total material cost of destroyed infrastructure, building, bridges, equipment is completely unknown.
Human losses are not publicized either the www.iraqbodycount.net tries to get number but those are only civilian deaths. How many are injured and to which degree is unknown.
The total count of humans killed in this escapade is intentionally kept quiet, or maybe the corpses of "other" soldiers dug under somewhere are not even counted.
I guess, it would be simpler, to lock the "leaders" causing wars into a room and only let them out again, once they get along. This would save all this stupid and destructive war making and weapons developing.
-
Re:off topic...
-
Re:Demonstrating harm is tough. Or is it?
Oh come on! You can't show that Microsoft "harms consumers" because some idiot wrote a worm and other idiots helped spread it by executing a script file attachment to an email. It's not like the thing just auto-spread. There was a lot of stupidity involved. You could as easily send a Perl script to any UNIX out there ask the users to save the attachment and then execute it. Same result. Granted Outlook didn't have enough warnings about executing scripts but to say tht it shows that *Microsoft* has harmed consumers is just plain stupid. I mean really, wake up!
Microsoft deserves part of the blame for ILOVEYOU and Melissa. Their dominance has created a dangerous monoculture for the virus to propogate in. A most heterogenous network of computers would make it drastically harder for a virus or worm to propogate. Microsoft's consumer level operating systems effectively have no security, meaning that once a single user is infected, everyone on the machine is infected. This assumption of little to no security created an culture of programmers that assume that users have write access everywhere. As a result, lots of programs require Administrator access under NT. As a result, lots of users run under Administrator access under NT. So NT's security features are largely ignored.
However, this doesn't really count as harm for anti-trust purposes, making bad decisions in software design isn't against the law, just frustrating.
-
Cell Phone Jammer
Has anyone come up with a personal anti-cell phone device?
In the US, use or sale of these would be illegal. The FCC specifically bars devices that intentionally cause interference. Owning, manufacturing, marketing, offering for sale or operating a cell phone jammer is punishable by an $11,000 fine and up to a year in prison for each offense.
The laws relating to this vary as you move around the world. There are companies in England, Japan, Taiwan, and Israel that manufacture jammers. This Link should tell you more. According to this article, Hubgiant of Taipei, Taiwan sells a personal Cellular telephone jammer. There are others around, but I'm sure that there are plenty of scams for them out there- if you get a "illegal" jammer in the US, and it doesn't work, who are you going to complain to?