Flash ads are annoying, if for no other reason then they might cover up an ad you might actually want to read.
2007-12-07
2007-12-02
Case Study: Metabolic Effects of High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Dr. Nestle --
In a recent Seattle PI article, picked up by MSNBC, about PCC Market banning high-fructose corn syrup, you were quoted as saying that if removed from products, high-fructose corn syrup would "be replaced with sucrose (table sugar) or honey or organic cane juice, all of which are basically the same as HFCS, or artificial sweeteners." While the total caloric content of the products might stay the same, there are metabolic effects of corn syrup and HFCS that are very different, at least in a part of the population.
As a person with first hand experience with the differences, I want to share my story with you in the hopes that you can lead (or at least encourage) research into what it is about HFCS and other corn sweeteners that makes them different and how their wide spread use effects public health.
As an engineering student at Virginia Tech in the early '90s, I noticed a strong correlation between products I ate that contained HFCS and acne breakouts. Specifically I noticed that I was getting similar reactions about four hours after drinking Sprite and about four hours after eating a certain type of bar cookie that my grandmother makes. After investigating I found that the only common ingredient was corn syrup. These breakouts (which continue to this day) are typified by the formation of small (~0.5 mm) white or light yellow nodules that have the consistency of (fresh, not dried) walnut or pecan flesh in or near sebaceous glands.
Over time I found that by carefully reading food labels and avoiding products containing corn syrup (and it's derivatives), I could greatly reduce the number and severity of my acne breakouts. I also found that much of the time when I did have a breakout, I could trace it back to a specific product I had consumed. On several occasions I've even found out that a product I initially started buying that hadn't used corn syrup had changed their formulation, because it caused a breakout and I went back and rechecked the ingredients. A specific example of this was Sara Lee Cinnamon Raisin bagels (the last brand of bagels on most national chain shelves that had been free of corn syrup).
I have not found any other sweeteners, natural, processed or artificial, that cause similar problems for my body. I have found that other forms of fructose (mostly in products from outside the US) and that other corn based products or ingredients do not cause reactions. I haven't ever found an organic corn syrup so I can't draw any conclusions about the effects of industrial scale farming or processing. I also suspect that the main culprit is something (enzymes used in production?) in the corn sweeteners that, presumably, get more concentrated along with the fructose as it is processed from corn syrup to high-fructose corn syrup to corn syrup solids. For example I've found that my body can process the corn syrup in one Oreo cookie a day without a reaction, but not two, and that the small amount of corn syrup solids in a single Necco Wafer causes a significant breakout.
For background, I'm a nominally healthy and active male, now 38 years old, weighing about 165 and 5'7" tall, with no other known allergies or adverse reactions to food products. I would be willing to participate in controlled academic studies to confirm and better understand my personal observations.
Over the years I've met a number of other individuals that also get adverse reactions from corn syrup, but seem to do fine with other sweeteners. Not all of these reactions are identical or even similar to mine, but there is significant anecdotal evidence that HFCS is not the same as other sweeteners.
Thanks for your time, and I hope that this informal case study will help you understand that, from a public health stand point, there are differences between high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners that we don't fully understand and that these differences deserve serious academic research.
TTFN
Tom Sayles
Maple Valley, WA
BTW -- This is also posting to my blog "Tom's Words of Wisdom" at http://www.soot-n-smoke.com/tsayles/
In a recent Seattle PI article, picked up by MSNBC, about PCC Market banning high-fructose corn syrup, you were quoted as saying that if removed from products, high-fructose corn syrup would "be replaced with sucrose (table sugar) or honey or organic cane juice, all of which are basically the same as HFCS, or artificial sweeteners." While the total caloric content of the products might stay the same, there are metabolic effects of corn syrup and HFCS that are very different, at least in a part of the population.
As a person with first hand experience with the differences, I want to share my story with you in the hopes that you can lead (or at least encourage) research into what it is about HFCS and other corn sweeteners that makes them different and how their wide spread use effects public health.
As an engineering student at Virginia Tech in the early '90s, I noticed a strong correlation between products I ate that contained HFCS and acne breakouts. Specifically I noticed that I was getting similar reactions about four hours after drinking Sprite and about four hours after eating a certain type of bar cookie that my grandmother makes. After investigating I found that the only common ingredient was corn syrup. These breakouts (which continue to this day) are typified by the formation of small (~0.5 mm) white or light yellow nodules that have the consistency of (fresh, not dried) walnut or pecan flesh in or near sebaceous glands.
Over time I found that by carefully reading food labels and avoiding products containing corn syrup (and it's derivatives), I could greatly reduce the number and severity of my acne breakouts. I also found that much of the time when I did have a breakout, I could trace it back to a specific product I had consumed. On several occasions I've even found out that a product I initially started buying that hadn't used corn syrup had changed their formulation, because it caused a breakout and I went back and rechecked the ingredients. A specific example of this was Sara Lee Cinnamon Raisin bagels (the last brand of bagels on most national chain shelves that had been free of corn syrup).
I have not found any other sweeteners, natural, processed or artificial, that cause similar problems for my body. I have found that other forms of fructose (mostly in products from outside the US) and that other corn based products or ingredients do not cause reactions. I haven't ever found an organic corn syrup so I can't draw any conclusions about the effects of industrial scale farming or processing. I also suspect that the main culprit is something (enzymes used in production?) in the corn sweeteners that, presumably, get more concentrated along with the fructose as it is processed from corn syrup to high-fructose corn syrup to corn syrup solids. For example I've found that my body can process the corn syrup in one Oreo cookie a day without a reaction, but not two, and that the small amount of corn syrup solids in a single Necco Wafer causes a significant breakout.
For background, I'm a nominally healthy and active male, now 38 years old, weighing about 165 and 5'7" tall, with no other known allergies or adverse reactions to food products. I would be willing to participate in controlled academic studies to confirm and better understand my personal observations.
Over the years I've met a number of other individuals that also get adverse reactions from corn syrup, but seem to do fine with other sweeteners. Not all of these reactions are identical or even similar to mine, but there is significant anecdotal evidence that HFCS is not the same as other sweeteners.
Thanks for your time, and I hope that this informal case study will help you understand that, from a public health stand point, there are differences between high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners that we don't fully understand and that these differences deserve serious academic research.
TTFN
Tom Sayles
Maple Valley, WA
BTW -- This is also posting to my blog "Tom's Words of Wisdom" at http://www.soot-n-smoke.com/tsayles/
2007-11-09
Using flash drive as swap
I'm in the process of building a new home server, in a converted big hulking heavy steel AT server case, that will mostly get used for file serving, local http serving, and routing / firewall between my wired home LAN and the wireless router to/from the Internet. One of the setups I'm contemplating is using a $50ish flash drive as a swap partition and/or disk cache, and I'm wondering if this is a good idea. I know that it might not be as fast, but it might allow the HDDs to spend more time spun down.
2007-11-08
A cure for Global Warming?
Ground said rising at Yellowstone Park
Be careful what you wish/pray for, you might get it. One sure fire way to end or at least postpone global warming would be for a full scale caldera eruption at Yellow Stone. That would probably cause a volcanic winter, leading to many years "without summers" much like 1816. If a caldera eruption induced volcanic winter causes enough snowfall and polar ice formation, the resulting reflective surface could cause enough solar radiation to bounce back into space to bring on the next ice age.
And at that point, we'll all need big SUVs to get around AND help the planet.
Be careful what you wish/pray for, you might get it. One sure fire way to end or at least postpone global warming would be for a full scale caldera eruption at Yellow Stone. That would probably cause a volcanic winter, leading to many years "without summers" much like 1816. If a caldera eruption induced volcanic winter causes enough snowfall and polar ice formation, the resulting reflective surface could cause enough solar radiation to bounce back into space to bring on the next ice age.
And at that point, we'll all need big SUVs to get around AND help the planet.
Telcom Immunity = Domestic Surveillance Cover-up
Senators Cantwell & Murry --
As a tech savvy constituent, I'm writing to make sure that you are aware of the truly devastating risk to civil liberties that the equipment widely reported (see links below) to have been installed at domestically strategic surveillance locations poses to American citizens living in the US. It is very important to our future freedoms that these reports be fully, publicly and independently investigated as a condition of any blanket grant of immunity, epically if such an investigation might find that governmental officials exceeded their statutory authority.
Sincerely,
Thomas J. Sayles
Washington Post
A Story of Surveillance Former Technician 'Turning In' AT&T Over NSA Program
NY Times
U.S. Focused on Obtaining Long-Distance Phone Data, Company Officials Indicate
San Francisco Chronicle
Secret court may end up hearing AT&T illegal surveillance lawsuit
Legislation backed by White House would allow transfer
Seattle PI
NSA able to spy on AT&T users, group asserts, Internet advocates sue to end monitoring
As a tech savvy constituent, I'm writing to make sure that you are aware of the truly devastating risk to civil liberties that the equipment widely reported (see links below) to have been installed at domestically strategic surveillance locations poses to American citizens living in the US. It is very important to our future freedoms that these reports be fully, publicly and independently investigated as a condition of any blanket grant of immunity, epically if such an investigation might find that governmental officials exceeded their statutory authority.
Sincerely,
Thomas J. Sayles
Washington Post
A Story of Surveillance Former Technician 'Turning In' AT&T Over NSA Program
NY Times
U.S. Focused on Obtaining Long-Distance Phone Data, Company Officials Indicate
San Francisco Chronicle
Secret court may end up hearing AT&T illegal surveillance lawsuit
Legislation backed by White House would allow transfer
Seattle PI
NSA able to spy on AT&T users, group asserts, Internet advocates sue to end monitoring
2007-10-18
Programmer time...
One of the fundamental limiting factors is available programmer time.
~Tom Sayles
... also stated as "One of the fundamental limiting factors of _______ is available programmer time." Where the blank can refer to almost any thing, process, system or group.
This is true of all (or almost all) modern systems, projects, products and even societies. It is probably also true of overall economic efficiency, output and per capita income.
I've finally gotten the opportunity (at work) to brush off my programing skills. For about the last two weeks I've been writing plug-ins, in Java, for ImageJ (an open source image processing package). These have been the first few projects I've done in Java, and I've also been able to get up to speed using Eclipse and JUnit.
Eclipse is hands down the best programing IDE I have ever used. Its integration with JUnit has allowed me to quickly learn and implement "test driven development".
~Tom Sayles
... also stated as "One of the fundamental limiting factors of _______ is available programmer time." Where the blank can refer to almost any thing, process, system or group.
This is true of all (or almost all) modern systems, projects, products and even societies. It is probably also true of overall economic efficiency, output and per capita income.
I've finally gotten the opportunity (at work) to brush off my programing skills. For about the last two weeks I've been writing plug-ins, in Java, for ImageJ (an open source image processing package). These have been the first few projects I've done in Java, and I've also been able to get up to speed using Eclipse and JUnit.
Eclipse is hands down the best programing IDE I have ever used. Its integration with JUnit has allowed me to quickly learn and implement "test driven development".
2007-10-13
Postel's Law
"Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others"
~Jon Postel, in RFC 793 § 2.10
This is often reworded as "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you receive".
Inventor of the Web
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee did in deed invent the World Wide Web, almost single handedly. He wrote the first web editor, web server and web browser. Furthermore it was his openness (no patent and no royalties claimed), building on the neutrality of the early Internet, that allowed others to make their contributions to the Web transforming it into what we think of as the Internet today. And this is the primary reason we have one single public Internet rather then several large private and only loosely interconnected networks (AOL, MSN, CompuServe, etc.).
Along with Jon Postel, Guglielmo Marconi and Alexander Graham Bell, Tim Berners-Lee is probably one of the most important people in the history of modern communication.
Along with Jon Postel, Guglielmo Marconi and Alexander Graham Bell, Tim Berners-Lee is probably one of the most important people in the history of modern communication.
----- Original Message ----
From: Carol Sayles
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 8:43:01 AM
Subject: good one"When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission."
~Tim Berners-Lee on Net Neutrality
# posted by TomS : 6:10 AM
OK Tom, now that is a very good Quote ! ! ! !
But did he really "invent the Web" ?
I recall Ivan Sutherland talking about the possibilities of all the small computers the world over being connected and how much bigger than the largest main frame that will get and quickly!
Seems to me he said all his Grad students were excited too. At that time in the 80s local connections were starting to out grow main frames I think?
At Iowa State as I recall one of the Foods Professors said that the very same bread recipe with special extras and exact quantities have been arrived at by people a world apart and no one stole it, they just both experimented until they found the same great taste. Both could prove their experiments. I think this was 19Th century restaurants.
Love, Mom/Carol
2007-10-12
Freedom is not free
"When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission."
~Tim Berners-Lee on Net Neutrality
~Tim Berners-Lee on Net Neutrality
2007-10-09
Server uptime
What if all computers could do as well as a linux server?
tsayles@PopsHP:~$ uptime
16:51:11 up 287 days, 18:51, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.02, 0.00
tsayles@PopsHP:~$ sudo reboot
2007-09-30
Way cool image editing
If you've ever done some digital editing of your photos you need to watch this video on a new technique / plug-in called liquid rescaling.
Liquid Rescale GIMP plugin
Liquid Rescale GIMP plugin
2007-09-24
Reforming patents, promoting innovation
Found a link to this in a recent Lockergonme e-mail.
Google Public Policy Blog: Reforming patents, promoting innovation
Google Public Policy Blog: Reforming patents, promoting innovation
Both ends of I-90 in one day
On my home from the airport last night I made a little detour around the Seattle Stadiums to drive the western most 1/4 mile of I-90. Earlier in the day, I had been driven around Boston's Logan airport, which put me at eastern terminus of the USA's longest Interstate Highway.
I guess this points out that I'm a true highway geek.
I guess this points out that I'm a true highway geek.
2007-09-19
Liberty Quotes
I hate flying these days.
Liberty - Wikiquote:
Liberty - Wikiquote:
- The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
- Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
- It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.
- It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
- Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.…The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.
2007-09-10
Photos on Wikipedia
Looks like several of my longeing and vaulting photos have been used on Wikipedia in the longeing and vaulting articles. Who would have thought that one of my mentors, Tammy, and one of my longeing students, Holly, would get pictured as world class examples of longeing. And I don't know quite what to make of the fact that not only are two of my vaulters are shown as examples of vaulting, but I'm there too.
2007-09-06
2007-08-30
NASA Employees Fight Invasive Background Check
I don't find this too surprising, as I suspect that NASA is much more involved in the "Technical Measures" our country uses in international intelligence then most people realize.
The computer monitor I bought surplus from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center back in about 1998, has a little red plaque that states "CLASSIFIED USE AUTHORIZED". Given the proximity of GSFC and the NSA facilities at Fort Mead and the interruption of NASA TV coverage of shuttle missions during certain strategic international events, I suspect that there are some fiber optic cables linking the two carrying highly classified data. If NASA and NSA are sharing various communication and maybe even computing resources, I can see how such a blanket security decision might get made.
I predict that the government lawyers in the lawsuit will push to have the case dismissed on the grounds that defending against the complaint would require the disclosure of national security information.
Scientists sue NASA, Caltech over deep new background checks - International Herald Tribune:It sounds like there was a blanket decision to basically require security clearances for all NASA employees and contractors.
The computer monitor I bought surplus from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center back in about 1998, has a little red plaque that states "CLASSIFIED USE AUTHORIZED". Given the proximity of GSFC and the NSA facilities at Fort Mead and the interruption of NASA TV coverage of shuttle missions during certain strategic international events, I suspect that there are some fiber optic cables linking the two carrying highly classified data. If NASA and NSA are sharing various communication and maybe even computing resources, I can see how such a blanket security decision might get made.
I predict that the government lawyers in the lawsuit will push to have the case dismissed on the grounds that defending against the complaint would require the disclosure of national security information.
2007-08-27
Supporting TOR
Looks like Chris Prillo, the guy behind Lockergnome, is thinking about using TOR.
TOR or VPN? ~ Chris Pirillo:
TOR or VPN? ~ Chris Pirillo:
IMHO, I think that supporting and using TOR is very worthwhile way to promote freedom not only on the Internet, but also in the off line world. In many parts of the world TOR allows users to access information that their government or ISP choose to censor. Take a few minutes and set up your own TOR server.
"information wants to be free" -- Stewart Brand
2007-08-23
Re: old laptop & linux
Barry --
There are a couple of flavors of Linux that will load and boot off a floppy and PCMCIA Ethernet cards are actually better supported then wireless cards. So you should be able to boot of the floppy connect to the Internet via the Ethernet, then download and install just about any "distro" [distribution] you want to try.
There might also be one or more "appliance" distros that could do something useful with your old computers. I'd start by looking at some of the rPath distros. Perhaps you could mod the laptop case and turn it into a web connected picture frame?
Linux actually does a decent job with more legacy hardware then you might think, especially if the HW was popular for small servers and/or with the geek crowd. For example Linux grew up on SCSI drives and have very good support for most SCSI devices built in. Also if you're into tweeking drivers, with Linux you can always write or modify your own drivers.
I've got an old 486 file server in a beefy steel case sitting beside my desk waiting to have the new motherboard, processor , power supply, etc. installed. It's so old that it won't boot off the CD without a BIOS upgrade, otherwise it would already be running as my disk back-up server.
But like with an old jeep, even with Linux there is a point that the best thing to do with a system is take it to the recycler or post it on Craig's list.
TTFN
Tom
Barry Briggs wrote:
There are a couple of flavors of Linux that will load and boot off a floppy and PCMCIA Ethernet cards are actually better supported then wireless cards. So you should be able to boot of the floppy connect to the Internet via the Ethernet, then download and install just about any "distro" [distribution] you want to try.
There might also be one or more "appliance" distros that could do something useful with your old computers. I'd start by looking at some of the rPath distros. Perhaps you could mod the laptop case and turn it into a web connected picture frame?
Linux actually does a decent job with more legacy hardware then you might think, especially if the HW was popular for small servers and/or with the geek crowd. For example Linux grew up on SCSI drives and have very good support for most SCSI devices built in. Also if you're into tweeking drivers, with Linux you can always write or modify your own drivers.
I've got an old 486 file server in a beefy steel case sitting beside my desk waiting to have the new motherboard, processor , power supply, etc. installed. It's so old that it won't boot off the CD without a BIOS upgrade, otherwise it would already be running as my disk back-up server.
But like with an old jeep, even with Linux there is a point that the best thing to do with a system is take it to the recycler or post it on Craig's list.
TTFN
Tom
Barry Briggs wrote:
Tom,Did I mention this laptop does not have CD, ethernet or USB. It has an PCMCIA (not cardbus) I have an ethernet card that goes in the PCMCIA slot. Normally I load things over the floppy or the ethernet port. It does not have backup since the battery pack died a long time ago.This is sounding more and more like a futile, time consuming job. I have another big computer, but it is even older (P100) and has lots of strange hardware in it - SCSI CD, NEC 4 CD changer, backup tape drive (floppy) 720k 5 1/4 floppy, etc. It was my web server running tiny until I ran out of disk space and bought a Fry's $300 wonder and moved to Apache.Barry
On 8/22/07, Tom Sayles wrote:Barry --
Laptops in particular tend to have more proprietary hardware and
software, so some of the custom designed devices might not work or be
fully supported. If you have (or get) a wireless card with good open
source drivers for it, you should be able to set it up for lightweight
web browsing [don't expect to surf youtube] or maybe even as an
X-terminal.
I've also heard of people having success using old laptops as web
server / internet gateway / firewall because they have a small footprint
and built-in back-up power.
Assuming that the bios supports booting off a CD and that by modern
standards it's memory challenged, my first suggestion would be to try a
Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux live CD on it.
Another fun item might be to try the OLPC os on it.
TTFN
Tom Sayles
Barry Briggs wrote:
> Tom,
>
> I have an old (12 years) Sharp laptop that currently has windows 95
> installed. It would make a good candidate for linux.
>
> Questions:
http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/USSHornetFlashlightTourAugust2007/index.html>
> Do you think there is any chance the old hardware would work with linux.
> If so, which version is my best bet?
>
> Any luck selling the old Jeep???
>
> Jon was just here and we took lots of pictures of the places we went:
>
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/USSHornetFlashlightTourAugust2007/index.html
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/RosicrucianEgyptianMuseum2007/index.html
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/HistoricCarRacesLagunaSecaAugust2007/index.html
> http://bdbriggs.dyndns.org/DayTrips/CaliforniaRailroadMuseumAugust2007/index.html
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Barry
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