- This study suggests calcium supplements are dangerous. They can raise your risk of heart attacks. There are probably better ways to reduce osteoporosis.
- Conventional clinical trials overstate the value of drugs, says this paper. One reason is that they compare drug to placebo. In clinical practice, the choice is never drug or placebo; it is drug or other treatment (usually a different drug). “We need to put an end to this kind of gaming of the system” — a system in which standards of evidence grossly favor drug companies at the expense of everyone else.
- Doctors use patient’s need for help to remove bad reviews. “The doctors simply make their patients sign a contract handing over the copyright of any review they might publish online afterwards. So, if the patients post any bad review, the company is able to send a DMCA notice demanding that the content be removed immediately.”
- The end of mercury amalgam in dentistry.
- paleolithicdiet.com, a new site from the founder of Paleohacks
Category: Assorted Links
Assorted Links
- Shangri-La Diet story. “The day before last I had an in n out burger, fries and cream pie. It was my B-day!”
- radiation hormesis and Japan
- speaking of Japan, beauty nose: lose weight and make your nose more attractive
- Andrew Gelman illustrates how to plot data. Incidentally, time-use data like what Andrew plots led me to discover that seeing faces in the morning improved my mood the next day.
- California State proposed bill to restrict nutritional advice. Registered Dieticians want to put people with ideas different from theirs out of business.
- Bill McKibben calls the science of climate change “the easy part. . . . The scientific method has worked splendidly to outline our dilemma”.
- Steve McIntyre on Climategate
- fermented food in Beijing
Thanks to Peter Spero and VeganKitten.
Google Uses My Credit Card Without Telling Me
Last week, while looking at Google Voice I noticed a button that said “Get $10″. I thought it meant “get $10 credit for trying it” so I pushed the button. Ten dollars credit showed up. Since Google Voice is free for the calls I make I had no use for $10 credit but maybe someday….
A few days later I happened to look at my credit card bill. Google had billed me $10! I didn’t even know they knew my credit card number! It hadn’t been required for the $10 transaction. I haven’t consciously used Google Checkout. I haven’t given it to them in any other connection. Talk about data mining…
When I go to Account Settings listed under my Gmail address, one of the sections is My Products, meaning My Google Products. Under that is listed Google Checkout, although I’ve never signed up for it and (I thought) never used it. So why is it there? I looked in Google Checkout. The Google Voice $10 transaction is the only transaction listed. As far as I can tell, this proves I didn’t use Google Checkout in the past (say, 4 months ago) and forget about it. Google really did get and use my credit card number without telling me, much less asking me.
My credit card company quickly gave me a refund.
Assorted Links
- Scott Adams on realistic education
- Joshua Foer talks about memory tricks, memory competition, and his new book
- Awful side effect of drug does not remain hidden
- Testing the “10,000 hours of practice makes you an expert” idea literally
- another butter advocate: Julia Childs
- where are the climate refugees? How one climate-change prediction turned out
Thanks to Craig Fratrik, Tom George and Sean Curley.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Assorted Links
- Interview with Peter Pronovost. “The pilot who neglects a checklist before take-off would not be allowed to fly, and most safe industries have transgressions that are firing offenses. … There hasn’t been that kind of accountability in health care. … Hospitals don’t pressure physicians about teamwork for fear of jeopardizing the business they bring to the hospital.”
- Doctors taking kickbacks. Dr. William H. Resh, one of the accused doctors, defended himself like this: “I believe that it goes without saying that a doctor who agrees to consult with a company does so because of the confidence level they have in the company and the quality of its products.”
- Advanced navel-gazing — nice article in Forbes about self-tracking.
Thanks to Brent Pottenger.
Assorted Links
- “But I’m undocumented,” she said, and the room went silent.
- The dog that didn’t bark. Gates Foundation annual letter doesn’t mention global warming.
- Climategate computer code. A reader of this blog named Tierney told me, “The state of their data and databases are AWFUL. I’m not sure how anyone could look at it and still feel highly confident in the climate models!”
Assorted Links
- “As reprehensible as many [drug] industry practices are, I [Marcia Angell] believe the behavior of much of the medical profession is even more culpable.”
- Richard Posner, judge and erstwhile economist, reveals he is unfamiliar with Thorstein Veblen.
- Notes on nonviolence by Gene Sharp. “They struggled against slavery, achieved voting rights for the disenfranchised, seceded from empires,
undermined dictatorships, broke down racial segregation, strengthened exploited workers with the tools of the strike and economic boycott, restored independence to colonized nations, freed intended victims of the Holocaust, spread and defended civil liberties, achieved higher standards of living, ended discrimination, paralyzed an empire, and even defeated totalitarian systems.” - Careerism in the military. Many similarities with careerism in health science. Careerism in health science is one reason many health problems, such as obesity and autism, are getting worse.
Assorted Links
- According to Dani Rodrik, a Harvard economics prof, in November 2010 Tunisia was an “unsung development miracle.” According to a Tunisian, “for years, [President] Ben Ali and his cronies have literally stolen from his people and businesses i.e. stealing money from banks, government reserves, gold, etc.”
- Amazingly stupid legal threat against BoingBoing. Maybe a paralegal bet a co-worker that her boss will sign anything.
- No more new computers.
Assorted Links
- misleading genetic tests
- Interview with Jane Jacobs about how the residents of Greenwich Village defeated Robert Moses. One of the most amazing uprisings in America in the last 100 years.
- introduction to umami
Assorted Links
- Nassim Taleb, in this interview, sounds quite a bit like Jane Jacobs
- a fascinating prisoner puzzle
- behind the MMR/vaccine fraud
- a great Book TV program about Lockheed Martin — a parable of American governance