Month: February 2012

Personal Science and Varieties of DIY

Seth Roberts2 Comments

How does personal science (using science to solve a problem yourself rather than paying experts to solve it) compare to other sorts of DIY?

Here’s an example of personal science. When I became an assistant professor, I started to wake up too early in the morning. I didn’t consider seeing a doctor about it for several reasons: 1. Minor problem. Unpleasant but not painful. 2. Doctors usually prescribe drugs. I didn’t want to take a drug. 3. Sleep researchers, based on my reading of the sleep literature, had almost no idea what caused early awakening. They would have said it was due a bad phase shift of your circadian rhythm. They often used the term circadian phase disorder but never used the term circadian amplitude disorder — apparently they didn’t realize that such a thing was possible. I decided to try to solve the problem myself — an instance of DIY. Except that, if I made any progress, that would be better than what the experts could provide, which I considered worthless.

There are thousands of instances of DIY, from fixing your car yourself to sewing your own clothes to word processing. Here is one dimension of DIY:

1. Quality of the final product. Better, equal, or worse to what you would get from professionals. Richard Bernstein’s introduction of home blood glucose testing led him to much better control of his blood glucose levels than his doctors had managed. Same as my situation: DIY produced acceptable results, the experts did not.

In contrast to Bernstein, who reduced his blood glucose variability within months, it took me years to improve my sleep. That is another dimension:

2. Time needed. Personal science, compared to other DIY, is orders of magnitude slower.

Here are some more dimensions:

3. Training needed. I don’t know how much training personal science requires. On the face of it, not much. I had acne in high school. I could done self-experimentation at that point. It just didn’t occur to me. On the other hand, I think effective personal science requires wise narrowing of the possibilities that you test. For most health problems, you can find dozens of proposed remedies. How wise you need to be, I don’t know.

4. Commercialization. Some forms of DIY are entirely the creation of businesses — cheap cameras, home perms, IKEA, etc. Bernstein’s work happened because of a new product that required only a drop of blood. The company that made it wanted doctors to do DIY: measure blood glucose levels in their office (fast) rather than having the measurement made in a lab (slow). When I started to study my sleep, no business was involved. Now, of course, companies like Zeo and the makers of FitBit want users to do personal science.

5. Price. My sleep research cost nothing, which in the DIY world is unusual. The term DIY is almost entirely a commercial category: Certain books and goods are sold to help you DIY.

6. Customization possible. Some kinds of DIY give you the tools to build one thing (e.g., IKEA, home perms). Other kinds (e.g., Home Depot, word processing) give you the tools to build a huge range of things. This dimension is variation in how close what you buy is to the finished product (Ikea = very close, word processing = very far). Personal science allows huge customization. It can adjust to any biology (e.g., your genome) and environment (your living conditions).

7. Benefit to society. If I or anyone else can find new ways to sleep better — especially safe cheap easy ways — and these solutions can be spread, there is great benefit to society, by comparison to DIY that allows non-professionals to reproduce what a professional would create (e.g, IKEA).

You might say that personal science isn’t really DIY because, compared to other DIY, (a) it is much slower and (b) the potential benefit to society is much greater. But those features are due to the nature of science. Any form of DIY has unique elements.

My mental picture of DIY is that there are two sides, producers and consumers, and in many domains (health, car maintenance, word processing, etc.) they creep toward each other in the sense that what producers can make slowly increases and what consumers are capable of slowly increases. When they meet, DIY begins. In some cases, the business has done most of the changing; the DIY is very easy (e.g., Ikea). In other cases, the consumer has changed a lot (literacy — not easy to acquire). Either way, the new DIY causes professionals who provided that service or good for a living to lose business.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts2 Comments

Thanks to Ryan Holiday, Matt Cassel, Tom George and Dave Lull.

Carl Willat Suffers From the Willat Effect

Seth Roberts6 Comments

Carl Willat, for whom the Willat Effect is named, wrote to me:

I had two cartons of half and half in the fridge, neither had reached its expiration date but one was three days newer. I wondered if I could taste the difference between them, and I found that I could. Neither was sour, but one tasted fresher. I made a batch of vanilla ice cream out of each of them, figuring that together with the other ingredients I was adding (vanilla, egg yolks, cream, salt and sugar) the difference in taste would be less noticeable. After putting both mixtures through the ice cream freezer I tasted them [side by side] and one tasted a lot better. I gave a friend of mine a spoonful of each and she immediately noticed the difference. She correctly identified the good one and described it as tasting fresher and lighter. I can’t bear to eat the less good batch and I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t want to give it away for fear someone will think it representative of what my ice cream tastes like. I’m sure in the past I’ve made plenty of ice cream of this same quality that I and everyone else thought was perfectly acceptable, even delicious.

The fascinating part is “can’t bear to eat the less good batch”. Same thing with me and tea: In the last half year or so, I’ve made hundreds of side-by-side comparisons of tea. I now throw away cups of tea I don’t like. I never used to do that.

The DIYization of Beer Brewing and Innovation

Seth RobertsLeave a comment

The key point — as far as I’m concerned — in this article about the DIYization of beer brewing comes in the middle of a paragraph:

Home brewing is part of a broad spectrum of DIY activities including amateur astronomy, backyard biodiesel brewing, experimental architecture, open-source 3-D printing, even urban farming. . . . Many of these pastimes can lead to new ideas, processes, and apparatus that might not otherwise exist.

Likewise with the DIYization of science: It will produce new ideas, solutions, etc. The Shangri-La Diet is an example.

Thanks to David Archer.

Vitamin D3 in Morning: 4000 IU Better Than 1000 IU (Story 20)

Seth Roberts10 Comments

Daniel Lemire, a Canadian computer science professor, left the following comment here

I have irregularly taken 1000 UI in the morning for years with no noticeable effect.

For about two years, I have had poor sleeping patterns characterized mostly by the fact that I tend to go to bed at 1am or later (and I get up around 7:15 am [woken up by an alarm clock]). Whenever I would try to go to bed earlier, I would simply fail to fall asleep.

After reading this blog, I increased my intake of D3 to 4-5,000 IU. I’m now falling asleep about an hour earlier. This could be a placebo effect, of course, but I consider it a very significant improvement.

It is unclear whether I have more energy. I don’t know how to measure such an effect. I expect that I’m less irritable, but that’s a side-effect of getting more sleep.

I asked him for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I’m in my 40′s. I enjoy a flexible schedule and often work from home.

You write: “For about two years I have had poor sleeping patterns characterized mostly by the fact that I tend to go to bed at 1 am or later (and get up around 7:15 am [woken up by an alarm so that he can eat breakfast with his family and walk his kids to school]). Whenever I would try to go to bed earlier, I would simply fail to fall asleep.” You mean you are still tired when you get up? You want to sleep longer but are unable to?

I was getting about 6 hours of sleep, and yes, I was still tired when I got up. I’m less tired now that I am getting around 7 hours of sleep.

“I tend to go to bed at 1 am or later”. What was the average (median) time of going to bed? When you went to bed at this time (“1 am or later”), how long would it take you on average (median) to fall asleep?

The median is 1 am. I fall asleep immediately. I don’t go to bed unless I know I will soon fall asleep: I tried to go to bed earlier, but it made me feel worse about my insomnia and I did not get better sleep. I tend to stay up until I feel like I must go to bed.

“After reading this blog, I increased my intake of D3 to 4-5,000 IU.” How many days have you been at the new dosage?

2 weeks +/- 3 days.

Was this the only change?

Yes. As far as I can tell. The time did not change. It is around 7:30 am. Soon after I get up. Before coffee.

“I’m now falling asleep about an hour earlier. ” What time (median) is that? How long (median) does it take you to fall asleep? What time are you now waking up?

I now fall asleep around midnight. I just instantly fall asleep. So I am getting approximately 7 hours of sleep.

“I expect that I’m less irritable.” You’ve noticed that you’re less irritable?

Yes. I feel less irritable.

What brand and formulation (e.g., capsule, gelcap, tablet) of D3 do you take?

Walmart house brand (“equate”). Tablets, 1000 IU/tablet. I take 4, sometimes 5. (Median is 4.)

Lame Response of the AMA to HealthTap

Seth Roberts3 Comments

Many years ago, when I was a professor at Berkeley, I sought out David Freedman, a professor of statistics, for comment on an idea of mine. I knew he would dislike it — he was negative about everything — and I wondered how strong his reasons for disliking it would be. It turned out, as I expected, that he disliked it but — I was glad to see — had no convincing reasons. That was helpful, I thought.

Likewise, it is obvious that the AMA would dislike HealthTap, a website that solicits doctors’ answers to medical questions (along the lines of “I have X symptoms. What should I do?”). Here’s the AMA response:

Dr. Peter W. Carmel, president of the American Medical Association, says he is concerned about the use of online medical information, which should “complement, not replace, the communication between a patient and their physician,” he wrote in an e-mail. With online health information sites, “a medical history is not taken, a physical exam does not occur and any suggested treatment is not monitored or assessed,” he said. “Using this information in isolation could pose a threat to patients.”

These comments could have been made by someone with no medical training. Practically everything has a hypothetical downside (“could pose a threat”). Since he fails to call into question the obvious upside (patients will get questions answered much faster and cheaper), he is practically endorsing it.

Stephen McIntyre on Gleickgate

Seth Roberts3 Comments

Gleick might as well have signed the fake document. Mosher identified him as the author almost instantly. The fake memo, unlike the actual documents, put Gleick in a position of prominence in the climate debate, whereas, in his actual encounters with skeptic blogs, Gleick has come across as an erratic and even comic figure. The style parallels came afterwards.

From here. I sat next to Peter Gleick at a friend’s dinner party about five years ago. He seemed to me staggeringly accomplished, not erratic (or comic) at all. Yet recently I too found him to be comic. Remember that famous New Yorker cartoon — “On the Internet, no one knows I’m a dog”? The bitter truth is “On the Internet, no one knows I’m a nice person.” I don’t mean Gleick is not a nice person — if anyone is a jerk it is me for what I just quoted — I mean that his recent actions strike me as weirdly uninhibited.

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts4 Comments

Thanks to Peter Spero and Allan Jackson.

Excellent Customer Service From Fidelity Investments

Seth Roberts6 Comments

Because I am in China, I want my new credit card sent here. After 45 minutes arranging this, my credit-card company asked me one last security question: What were the last four digits of the bank account used to pay my most recent bill? I told them. They said my answer was wrong. Huh?

I pay my credit card bills through Fidelity Investments (which is not a bank). I contacted them. I was routed to their BillPay department. The person who helped me, whose name I wish I had written down, said that he was as puzzled as I was. It was not clear at all why my answer was wrong. He suggested a conference call. He started a conference call with my credit-card company. Within a few minutes, he and the credit-card company representative figured out that there was a mistake in the number listed by the credit-card company. Their software had lost the last digit of my account number, so that if my account number had ended in 12345, their records would have showed 1234. (Yet the payment still went through.)

I was greatly relieved. “At least the problem had a solution!” I told the credit-card-company representative. Imagine not being able to control one’s money because of a software error. I was/am grateful to the Fidelity representative for quickly solving a problem that had nothing to do with Fidelity.

You might think that such heavily-used software would by now be free of bugs. But it wasn’t.