Last week, I was looking for some replacement pucks for my Rebound game. It’s missing two of each color.

Today, I was looking up lyrics to “Like A Hurricane” by Niel Young. The website I landed on had this advertisement on it:

Ok, kind of freaky. But I figure that a cookie was set on my computer that stored what product I was searching for and this advertisement accessed that cookie to determine what to display. Understandable, but still a little unsettling.

It just so happened that my mp3 player was on shuffle and it was playing “New American Century” by KMFDM. By pure coincidence the next line I heard was “Your every move is logged and tracked.“

Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is an endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.

from This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff

I thought my mp3 player was dying. After fully charging it, the battery indicator would only fill in 2 of the 4 bars.

It took some searching, but I found one remedy to try before buying a new battery or player. I let the battery drain completely. Even at half capacity, it took around 5 hours to discharge. After it turned itself off from lack of power, I charged it via the USB cable instead of the wall charger. This charges the battery slower and apparently batteries like that.

I’m not sure if this process works with all lithium polymer batteries, but it worked for the one in my Cowon A2. When I started the player up this morning, it had full bars!

On reddit today, there was a link to an animated map of obesity trends in the United States. When some commenters expressed a desire to discover the causes for this dramatic increase over the past 20 years, neolduser posted the following paper they had written for a Social Problems class. I found it to be really interesting and it wasn’t published anywhere else on the internet, so I obtained permission to post it here.

Many people, especially conservatives with their emphasis on personal responsibility, seem to see the problem as an individual pathology. If you’re not in shape, they might say, it’s your own fault and you can fix it just as well as anyone else. Through the study of genetics, however, science has shown that we all fight a different fitness battle. It’s a lot harder for some than others. James O Hill presented a more conclusive argument for obesity being primarily a social problem. “Despite obesity having strong genetic determinants, the genetic composition of the population does not change rapidly. Therefore, the large increase in . . . [obesity] must reflect major changes in non-genetic factors."( Hill and Trowbridge 1998)

In a study of over 12,000 members of a single social network in which individuals were surveyed repeatedly over a period of more than 30 years it was found that ” A person’s chances of becoming obese increased by 57% if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval, among pairs of adult siblings, if one sibling became obese, the chance that the other would become obese increased by 40% and if one spouse became obese, the likelihood that the other spouse would become obese increased by 37%.” (Tamburlini et al. 2007) It is clear that interpersonal relationships and social learning play a significant role in the spread of obesity. Micro-sociological causes include social eating, lack of group exercise, group transportation (driving vs. walking), and group popularization of sedentary recreation such as video games or tv. The same principles of social learning can be turned around, however, to promote health through group pressure to maintain an appealing body shape, nutritious social eating, athletic group activities, and choosing active recreation. If an individual finds themselves in a health-negative social network they should exert themselves to change group behaviors or, if that fails, join more positive networks such as athletic clubs and nutrition blogs, or find health conscious meal companions.

On a more macro scale our society exerts pressures on us that are inescapable no matter our immediate social network. Advertisements may not be mal-intentioned as they pressure us to consume one product over another but the net effect is simply pressure to eat more. The rising standard of living means that many households have moved to two incomes to make ends meet, discouraging in-home preparation of nutritious meals. Increasing car ownership and distance from home to workplaces makes it easy to walk very little. Available work and entertainment are trending towards those requiring sitting in front of a computer screen for much of the day. “The proportion of income required to buy food in the United States is among the lowest in the world and has declined steadily since the 1950s”(6) Much of the most readily available foods such as those found in vending machines, given out at social events and cafeterias, or found in the nearest and cheapest restaurants are the worst types of foods we can eat.

As the universality and scale of these social forces increase, so must the scope of our institution and community based responses. Possible counters include programs to bring healthier foods to vending machines and cafeterias. Norms of what foods are provided at work or in social settings can be changed bit by bit by aware decision makers. Schools and employers can encourage physical activity with PE classes or gym memberships. Employers, religious organizations or social clubs can create sports leagues or plan physical community events. Healthcare companies can provide health information and surveys to their customers which at the same time will serve their interests by lowering claims.

Depending on political ideologies as to the proper role of government in solving social problems the government can get involved as well. In fact, as Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition, points out the government already is involved in an arguably negative way. ““We put maybe one-tenth of one percent of our dollar that we put into subsidizing and promoting foods through the Department of Agriculture into fruits and vegetables,” he says. As a result, the price gap between high-sugar, high-fat foods and more nutritionally valuable fruits and vegetables is artificially large.””(Scott Fields 2004) It is predicted that removing subsides of corn, fats, and sugars would have a negligible effect to the end consumer but the effect would be much greater if the government subsidized fruit and vegetable growers so the costs would comparatively lower for these healthier foods. Incentives could be paid to workers willing to bike to work or join a gym.

Government could also theoretically place a “fat tax” on un-healthy foods then use the revenue for the healthy food subsidies or other government sponsored wellness programs. The end effect would be less money for advertisement of un-healthy foods although that could be regulated directly as well. Laws could dictate what foods are sold in public schools. Tax deductions could even be given to people who live a demonstrably healthy lifestyle.

The lack of current political discourse on these solutions is disturbing. The obesity epidemic is a real problem but it is framed as an individual problem instead of the largely social one that it is. Either ignorance, apathy, or entrenched corporate interests are impeding these issues and solutions from being discussed in our homes, workplaces, and halls of government.

o “Center for Disease Control” 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2010 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm)

o R. Peto and Others - 4 Mar, 2010 New England Journal of Medicine Volume 362:855-857.

o Wolf AM, Colditz GA.1998 “Current estimates of the economic cost of obesity in the United States” Obesity Research 1998;6(2):97–106.

o Hill, James O., and Trowbridge, Frederick L. Childhood 1998 “obesity: future directions and research priorities” Pediatrics. 1998; Supplement: 571.

o Tamburlini G., Cattaneo A., Knecht S., Reinholz J., Kenning P., Rosén M., Christakis N. A., Fowler J. H. 2007 “The Spread of Obesity in a Social Network” N Engl J Med 2007; 357:1866-1868, Nov 1, 2007.

o Scott Fields 2004 “The Fat of the Land: Do Agricultural Subsidies Foster Poor Health?” Environ Health Perspect. 2004 October; 112(14): A820–A823

You may have heard about the ‘US military killings’ video released by WikiLeaks today. If not, you can read up on it here. Basically, American military killed 12 Iraqi civilians because they were mistaken for insurgents.

A fellow redditor that served in Iraq posted his interpretation of the events and I thought it was worth sharing.

I’m military and been right over that neighborhood at a different time; the video may be disturbing but doesn’t strike me as unjustifiable. The coverup is what we should save our real vitriol for. I know some of you will immediately dismiss this as you view everyone in the military as inherently evil. I find that silly. (There are also people who think I can do no wrong because I AM and I find that dangerous). Give it a read anyway.

War is an ugly, atrocious action. Bad things happen every day; good things only rarely. It’s a waste of money, time, potential, and especially lives. What’s in this video is distasteful to say the least, but it’s also intentionally inflammatory (presumably so WL gets more clicks, and we all obliged them). This video is from a period of increasing, and increasingly violent, action by insurgents. Mortar and rocket attacks, IEDs/EFPs, executions in the most grotesque manner, were all becoming the norm.

The men you hear are reacting to stress from a variety of sources: lack of sleep because of indirect fire attacks, stress from friends being WIA/KIA, stress from feeling little support from the Iraqis at that time, from being away from home and family. In all that stress, they still behaved according to the rules of engagement. They positively identified small arms (which are a threat) and misidentified an RPG. Had I not known, I would also have called out RPG. It unfortunately looks like it, and that was amplified by the pose he took. WL added in captions to let you know there were cameras to amplify outrage, but having flown around Baghdad in helos everything looks like a threat after they shoot at you.

Shooting the van was also justifiable because the “insurgents” were going to collect their wounded and weapons. Clearly the aircrew were wrong, but not unjustifiably and probably only in hindsight. They followed the ROEs, received approval to fire, and did so efficiently. Further, the initial statements that said they were engaged with a violent group also does not strike me as “cover up.” If you’ve ever been involved with an emergency situation you know the first reports out are usually wrong. The later reports, however, I find repugnant. Events like this make me want to stay in the military because I don’t want the bastards trying to cover up what was a horrific mistake thinking I won’t be right over their shoulder next time.

I have found virtually all the military members I was with in Iraq serious, professional (at least on duty!), and genuinely concerned for civilians. You saw the soldiers running out with the kids. Genuine concern there, from fathers, older brothers, cousins that know kids like that back home. The amount of work we did to keep civilians out of harms way was breathtaking sometimes because it put us in much more vulnerable situations. I’m good with that. I signed up, they didn’t. As for the attitude and demeanor of the aircrew, yep, it’s stomach-turning. I did see this on occasion, and it’s not something I’ve seen many redditors say they teach you in training. It’s a defense mechanism to deal with the privations and violence you see. Dehumanizing the enemy makes it easier to deal with it. If you’ve never read or seen a synopsis of On Killing you absolutely should. That’s why running over a body was seemingly funny. I’m ashamed to say I’ve had similar gut reactions of really terrible things, and like those guys I feel awful about it when I reflect.

This post isn’t to justify the killings, but hopefully to tone down some of the hyperbole. It’s a terrible tragedy; it’s a waste; I’d love to see us out of Iraq as soon as feasible. It’s not a war crime. It’s not 18-year-old kids just wanting to kill people for the fun of it. Now, let’s all be pissed together that it took this long to get the real story out. OK, too long of a ramble but I needed to get it off my chest. Ask away if you have questions; I’ll tell you what I can.

He does answer some questions. If you are interested, you can check them out here.

I agree with one commentator who said

At issue in [this story] is the length to which the military will go, and has gone before, to cover up the brutality of these military interventions. The scale isn’t equal to, say, Abu Ghraib, but the ultimate effect is the same, particularly in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Winning hearts and minds in the rest of the world, but particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, is all but impossible when these atrocities–and the subsequent cover up of them–are inevitably revealed. Keeping the hearts and minds of Americans will prove to be just as difficult when these stories come to light.