Futurama Is Back, Baby!

It's been a long time, but Futurama is back!

The 1st Futurama DVD movie came out yesterday and is as perfect and satisfying as can be.

Plus it has an entire episode of Hypnotoad. All glory to Hypnotoad!







Now here it is, your url(s) of the day:

Send some emails to Bender Bending Rodriguez at bender@ilovebender.com and revel in his scorn.

Check out all the Futurama math that's way over your head at http://www.futuramamath.com

Futurama's new official site: http://www.ilovebender.com

Just Wonderin'

Why is it people set up some "Foundation" for a disease only after they get it?










Now here it is, your url of the day:
Bad Sex Award Contestants

My Zombie Powers

Recently at my hospital there was a stern reminder about isolation techniques, specifically regarding doctors and MRSA rooms. Doctors are notorious for not donning gowns or gloves when entering a MRSA room. The 'reminder' was also a demand that nurses play hall-monitor and tell doctors to wear their gloves and gowns.

My first response is "Fuck that shit! Why do I have to police dumb-shit doctors?" Then I calm down and remember how serious MRSA is and if I have to demean myself to becoming a hall-monitor, then so be it.

But let me pick on my own kind. There are plenty of nurses who don't gown and glove for MRSA rooms. I see it all the time. Just last week I had someone helping me with a vent patient and they seriously were about to leave the room with their gown and gloves on to fetch something! They looked back at my disapproving scowl and sheepishly took everything off at the door.

That is a prime case right there. Now, it's OK to enter a MRSA room to fix an IV pump sans gown (but not gloves!), but any direct contact other than pushing a button demands full iso garb.

MRSA is everywhere. I probably have thousands of litters of MRSA critters in my various orifices right now. The trick is that I'm healthy enough to keep them from building a city. Everytime I get a cut or get seriously ill, I do worry... hell, I get damn a-feared about MRSA!

I try to think of my hands as radioactive zombie claws infected with the touch of evil.
I must wash them and cover them, lest they destroy your grandma with a single touch!










Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://www.tunefind.com/

Be A Surgeon

Here's something fun (via the amazing Ursi's Blog):

Virtual Hip Surgery!

Edheads also has an eclectic mix of other activities.









Now here it is, your url of the day:
Crabb's English Synonyms

John Stewart Rocks

You know, the wonderful thing today about conservatives and government is they seem awfully interested in running this thing they despise. The president is very fond of saying, "I don't trust the government to keep money. It's your money." As a matter of fact, isn't it all our money? Not just the one tax rebate. Pretty much the whole fucking thing's ours, isn't it?

Conservatives have this idea that you can trust government to protect national interests overseas militarily, but not to pass out cheese. It's this idea that corporations function well, but governments can't. But they're made up of the same atomic material, are they not? Isn't government us?

Read the rest of John Stewart's excellent interview (pg. 122) in the free online edition of Rolling Stone.










Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://www.badmags.com

The Power Of The Little Black Box

Maybe it's because I don't have any desire for owning a cell phone, or maybe it's because of simply being curmudgeonly, or perhaps it's because some cell phone users are just plain friggin' annoying, but I would love to have one of these devices that silence nearby cellphones, even if they are illegal.

The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone.

How awesome would it be to shut down that cell phone person in the theater, yammering in line at at the store, or not paying attention to traffic in the car behind you? How about that barista who is supposed to be making your Pumpkin Spice Latte but instead answers their call from Buffy who wants to tell all about a shiny object they are looking at?

I once watched a lady caring a baby in one arm and her shopping bag in the other wrestle with the dilemma of which one to put down on the ground in order to answer her cell phone! Seriously, she actually made a motion to put her baby on the store floor in order to answer the phone! Through an amazing contortionist act she was finally able to get the phone out without putting anything down only to start yapping to someone about... absolutely nothing.
I could've pressed my little black box and potentially saved her and her baby!

The possibilities are endless. If these devices flood into the country, there could be an all-out frequency war.

But, like the article points out, it's rather unfair for the courteous cell phone users. If I ever get a cell phone, I will definitely try and be a courteous one.
Although I do relish the thought of buying a giant Trigger Happy TV phone and screaming at it in a crowd.




At any rate, I love this quote from the article:

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people."

I'm all about making a noise in this world, but that's a lot different than just making annoying noise.










Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://www.blabberize.com

Mental Health Pandemic

Psychology has had a rough past century. It started out as a dandy, then got drunk on its power, and later embarrassed itself at every social function. In the past few decades it was saved by newly-designed medications which now ride comfortably atop their own drunken conceit through valetudinarian lands.

The new edition of Skeptic magazine holds an article by John Sorboro, "The Trouble with Psychiatry", which examines psychiatry's loose affiliation with scientific back-up.

The article *gasp* starts off by saying that Tom Cruise has a point in his attacks on psychiatry!
OK, it doesn't say Tom is sane, it just says he has a point when he asks "where's the medical test?"
He's still seriously batshit insane along with his crazy cult and its answers.

The article explores psychiatry and asks,

Can psychiatry be a medical science of the mind? The answer would appear to be mostly no. Science requires us to accumulate observable empirical data in order to formulate and or validate general laws of prediction. This works nicely when we are talking about models that have a limited number of variables that can be accounted for and held constant, such as specific sensory functions or the limited functions of specific cells or organs like the heart or kidneys. It isn't impossible to make some predictions about the general behavior of humans, but individuals are not automatons. They have backgrounds, experiences, drives, conscious needs, and goals that are unique.
...
The more complex the behavior and the higher number of variables within the system in which the behavior occurs, the less likely it is that it can be accurately correlated with anything in particular.

That is the problem. And as the article goes on to point out,

Psychiatry in general creates diagnoses based on self-report, conjecture, and culturally determined definitions of pathology, and then looks for biologic markers after.

The article does acknowledge the "impressive strides" of neuroscience, but the majority of modern psychiatry still relies on the above subjectivity.

The number of psychiatric illnesses in the DSM keeps growing and includes everything from jet lag to premature ejaculation. We are today in the midst of a veritable mental health pandemic. It has been estimated that over 26% of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. I am waiting for that number to swell to 51%, at which point I suspect those people may turn around and diagnose the remaining 49% as being "abnormal," which, statistically speaking, they will be!

And here's a good point:

I could walk into any emergency room in the country complaining of chest pain. I would not automatically get a diagnosis of a heart attack. I could walk into any psychiatrist's office in the country with a complaint of depression and what I would likely get would be a diagnosis of depression.

Differential diagnosis is definitely not psychiatry's forte.

Almost everything psychiatry does depends on how the patients choose to present, what they choose to reveal, the non-specific language used to express themselves in emotional terms, what we choose to see or hear as important, what our interpretation of their responses are, how we choose to respond in turn, what they choose to do with our recommendations, and finally what they choose to tell us about the results.

The article goes on to discuss quickly the issues of "Is proving variation the same as proving disease?" and "medical psychotherapy" (medicating symptoms without knowing or treating the cause, and furthermore without knowing if the medications are even effective).

It's a good article at pointing out the problems with psychiatry, but what is the direction in solving them?

It's neuroscience.









Now here it is, your url of the day:
http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

The Afterglow

Don't let the Halloween bliss waft away.

Head on over to Secret Fun Blog
and revel in the nostalgia.


365 Days Until Halloween!