http://www.withoutbound.net/blog Pontification on politics, health care, geek subjects, and my life. Fri, 08 May 2009 01:54:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en (Not really, although if I were a neuroscientist [which, I am sure, the professors who made a noble attempt to teach me that subject would agree it's a good thing for everyone that I am not] I think it would be a promising area of research. It's known that increased ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/05/07/pinnochio-region-located-in-journalists-brain/ Tyler Cowen and Megan McArdle both recently posted about streetcars, asking why people like them so much. I've been pondering this question myself since I spent a month in Philadelphia last fall, living in a sublet less than a block from a streetcar stop. It was great. And I still ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/24/streetcars/ Apparently yesterday the Supreme Court discussed underwear. The article is especially bizarre for that reason, but the case is about whether middle school officials can strip search students. The student in question was suspected of having prescription-strength ibuprofen. Ibuprofen! I'm aware that many schools have (ill-advised and unnecessary IMO) rules against ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/22/maybe-civil-liberties-come-with-the-diploma/ Our new apartment in Philadelphia has a rooftop deck. I'm excited about starting a new herb garden (it'll still be in pots, but I won't be limited to the number I can reach on the windowsill). One of the first things I'll plant is rosemary. I like pretty much everything ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/14/rosemary-grapefruit-granita/ Exciting news in women's health: a relatively cheap DNA test for HPV (the virus that causes cervical cancer) looks like it works better than Pap smears in preventing cervical cancer through early detection. (New York Times, New England Journal of Medicine). This is huge for developing countries. The widespread use of ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/13/the-end-of-pap-smears/ This is so true. I didn't realize how important pens were going to be when I entered the medical field, and now I am sort of fixated on them. Today, in fact, I was teaching a CPR class and needed to provide a pen for people to sign the attendance sheet. ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/11/me-big-nerd/ A friend mentioned that her kid is building a model of the Great Wall for school, and her husband is trying to keep from taking over. That reminded me of one of my favorite childhood memories. When I was in maybe third grade, I had one of those projects and I ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/11/building-with-dad/ I heard an ad on the radio this morning for a company that will finance a brand new computer as long as you have a bank account and can afford weekly payments of $29.99 -- for 12 months. They're selling this as a way to (1) get a computer when ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/10/usury/ Via Jacob Grier, a very convincing post against URL shorteners. The worst problem is that shortening services add another layer of indirection to an already creaky system. [...] The extra layer of indirection slows down browsing with additional DNS lookups and server hits. A new and potentially unreliable middleman now sits ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/10/twitter-broke-it-who-buys-it/ Somebody recently invited me to a Facebook group called "We Will Not Pay To Use Facebook. We Are Gone If This Happens" (currently with 3,815,847 members). Apparently in light of Google's interest in Twitter, I've been seeing people talking about how they're not going to pay to use Twitter.* What I want ... http://www.withoutbound.net/blog/2009/04/05/evidence-please/