Andy's blog

Where does all the water go?

WaterUsage

The above chart is modified from the USGS website to include only fresh water.  The salt water almost exclusively goes into thermoelectric power and there's no way we're running out of that.  Public supply includes both household and industrial use.

The point is, if a state like California gets into big water trouble, an obvious solution is to remove incentives or add some deterrents for all the farming and just grow a bit less corn.   For instance, you could have tiered pricing where the water remains cheap when bought in small quantities, but gets more expensive in large quantities.  I don't know what you're supposed to do about the desert cities like Las Vegas, but there's always the Flushless Urinal!

Where does all the water go?

WaterUsage

The above chart is modified from the USGS website to include only fresh water.  The salt water almost exclusively goes into thermoelectric power and there's no way we're running out of that.  Public supply includes both household and industrial use.

The point is, if a state like California gets into big water trouble, an obvious solution is to remove incentives or add some deterrents for all the farming and just grow a bit less corn.   For instance, you could have tiered pricing where the water remains cheap when bought in small quantities, but gets more expensive in large quantities.  I don't know what you're supposed to do about the desert cities like Las Vegas, but there's always the Flushless Urinal!

Do we really need to drink 8 glasses of water per day? Um, no.

Apparently, the idea that we should drink 8 glasses of water a day is completely made up.  It seems no one as any idea where this fact comes from and the best guess of one reviewer is that it came from an obituary of Fredrick Stare, a renowned nutritionist who gave the unreferenced claim in one of his textbooks that one should have "somewhere around 6 to 8 glasses per 24 hours and this can be in the form of coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks, beer, etc."  [1].  This quote actually seems to be in line with the current consensus, that you should replenish the fluids you excrete each day, which is typically about 10 cups.  However, you can intake the water in a variety of ways, through food (which typically is about 4 cups) or any beverage.  So a better rule of thumb is to drink 6 cups of something per day [2], but you probably do that anyway.  Some people even think this is an overestimate. 

[1]    H. Valtin. " Drink at least eight glasses of water a day." Really?  Is there scientific evidence for" 8 x 8"?  AJP-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 283(5):993, 2002.
[2]    http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

Do we really need to drink 8 glasses of water per day? Um, no.

Apparently, the idea that we should drink 8 glasses of water a day is completely made up.  It seems no one as any idea where this fact comes from and the best guess of one reviewer is that it came from an obituary of Fredrick Stare, a renowned nutritionist who gave the unreferenced claim in one of his textbooks that one should have "somewhere around 6 to 8 glasses per 24 hours and this can be in the form of coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks, beer, etc."  [1].  This quote actually seems to be in line with the current consensus, that you should replenish the fluids you excrete each day, which is typically about 10 cups.  However, you can intake the water in a variety of ways, through food (which typically is about 4 cups) or any beverage.  So a better rule of thumb is to drink 6 cups of something per day [2], but you probably do that anyway.  Some people even think this is an overestimate. 

[1]    H. Valtin. " Drink at least eight glasses of water a day." Really?  Is there scientific evidence for" 8 x 8"?  AJP-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 283(5):993, 2002.
[2]    http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

The Departed -- Just call Dignam, dummy.

I don't understand why "The Departed" got 92% fresh tomatoes as well as an A from the avclub.  I mean, the first hour was compelling and they play "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" twice, which is a kick-ass song.  (By the way, if anyone can tell me the difference between The Dropkick Murphys and Pounding Molly, let me know)

Dropkick Murphys - "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" (Hooligans...

But the last hour of the movie doesn't work at all.  The semi-love triangle is done extremely poorly and is pretty unbelievable.  Jack Nicholson goes from a smooth, collected mob boss at the beginning to a raging goofball and I'm not sure why.  Maybe some sort of dementia is setting in in his old age.  And worst, the brilliant Billy Costagan (DiCaprio) goes and makes a violent, terribly planned citizens arrest instead of just sending the incriminating tapes to Dignam or some other authority.  You'd think after over a year of high stress, deep undercover work, he could kick back and lay low for a week instead of going vigilante for no good reason.  Like Nicolson, DiCaprio's character seems to suddenly undergo a shift in personality for reasons that aren't at all clear.  I understand Scorsese's choice to kill everyone, both heroes and villains, but surely a better story that was truer to life and the characters could have been found with a little more thought.

But what I really don't understand is why this only bothers a few reviewers.  My theory is that reviewers watch way more movies than me and a whole lot of them are really bad.  I'd say this is bad for a "good movie" but compared to a lot of the crap out there, I can see why it gets relatively good ratings.  Still, "The Dark Knight" and "Slumdog Millionaire" both got 94 tomatos and there's no way "The Departed" deserves to be on the same footing as those two.

The Departed -- Just call Dignam, dummy.

I don't understand why "The Departed" got 92% fresh tomatoes as well as an A from the avclub.  I mean, the first hour was compelling and they play "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" twice, which is a kick-ass song.  (By the way, if anyone can tell me the difference between The Dropkick Murphys and Pounding Molly, let me know)

Dropkick Murphys - "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" (Hooligans...

But the last hour of the movie doesn't work at all.  The semi-love triangle is done extremely poorly and is pretty unbelievable.  Jack Nicholson goes from a smooth, collected mob boss at the beginning to a raging goofball and I'm not sure why.  Maybe some sort of dementia is setting in in his old age.  And worst, the brilliant Billy Costagan (DiCaprio) goes and makes a violent, terribly planned citizens arrest instead of just sending the incriminating tapes to Dignam or some other authority.  You'd think after over a year of high stress, deep undercover work, he could kick back and lay low for a week instead of going vigilante for no good reason.  Like Nicolson, DiCaprio's character seems to suddenly undergo a shift in personality for reasons that aren't at all clear.  I understand Scorsese's choice to kill everyone, both heroes and villains, but surely a better story that was truer to life and the characters could have been found with a little more thought.

But what I really don't understand is why this only bothers a few reviewers.  My theory is that reviewers watch way more movies than me and a whole lot of them are really bad.  I'd say this is bad for a "good movie" but compared to a lot of the crap out there, I can see why it gets relatively good ratings.  Still, "The Dark Knight" and "Slumdog Millionaire" both got 94 tomatos and there's no way "The Departed" deserves to be on the same footing as those two.

Gone Baby Gone -- just ask the kid, dummy

I just watched Gone Baby Gone, and I liked it, but I don't understand two things.    1) When Casey Affleck has to make the difficult choice between returning a kidnapped girl to her irresponsible, coke-addicted, single mother or leaving her with the loving kidnappers, why not ask the girl herself where she'd rather stay?  2) Why couldn't Morgan Freeman and his wife just have become foster parents 10 years before the movie started and saved troubled kids through legal and morally unambiguous means?

Of course the answer to both is that addressing either item would remove all the moral ambiguity from the story and we'd be left with a pretty straight forward resolution at the end, but this is one case where tying everything together neatly would actually make a lot more sense.  Still, the movie was intense and provided a fun look at Boston, so it still gets good marks, but if the characters could only think outside of their twisted, semi-unnecessary conspiracies, everyone would have been a whole lot happier.

Gone Baby Gone -- just ask the kid, dummy

I just watched Gone Baby Gone, and I liked it, but I don't understand two things.    1) When Casey Affleck has to make the difficult choice between returning a kidnapped girl to her irresponsible, coke-addicted, single mother or leaving her with the loving kidnappers, why not ask the girl herself where she'd rather stay?  2) Why couldn't Morgan Freeman and his wife just have become foster parents 10 years before the movie started and saved troubled kids through legal and morally unambiguous means?

Of course the answer to both is that addressing either item would remove all the moral ambiguity from the story and we'd be left with a pretty straight forward resolution at the end, but this is one case where tying everything together neatly would actually make a lot more sense.  Still, the movie was intense and provided a fun look at Boston, so it still gets good marks, but if the characters could only think outside of their twisted, semi-unnecessary conspiracies, everyone would have been a whole lot happier.

Choosing the Right Cold Medicine

I'm officially annoyed at the generics pharmaceutical industry for making the legitimate desire to get better or at least alleviate the symptoms of a cold into a game of choosing between a blobby mucus animation or a smiling Mount Rushmore, both of which mix a few active ingredients together into a cocktail which doesn't necessarily even treat the appropriate symptoms.  I mean, this isn't like Coke vs. Pepsi or McDonalds vs Burger King where there's no good reason to prefer one to the other so why not have goofball marketing.  This is about not feeling like crap, so lets be serious about this.

The Merck manual gave a really nice overview of how to properly treat a cold.  In summary, it says don't buy the ridiculous drug cocktails that combine cough suppressents, nasal decongestants, pain relievers and antihistamines all into one colorful capsule.  Rather, figure out what symptoms you have and treat them with individual drugs.  Are you stuffy, or do you have a headache due to sinus pressure?  Then try pseudephrine which will constrict the blood vessels in your nose that were dialated because of the viral infection.  Do you have a fever?  Then take acetominophen or aspirin to bring it down.  Are you coughing like crazy?  Then determine whether it's a productive cough or dry cough and then take the appropriate expellant or suppressent. And if one active compound doesn't work well, you can try another.  Different people respond better to different things. 

I'm still pretty confused about how to figure out, or even get an educated guess about whether one has a bacterial or viral infection.  If you know of any good references about that, let me know.  Its important because if its a bacteria, then you can go to the doctor and get an antibiotic presciption, but if its a virus, usually the best you can do is treat the symptoms as needed and wait it out.

 

Choosing the Right Cold Medicine

I'm officially annoyed at the generics pharmaceutical industry for making the legitimate desire to get better or at least alleviate the symptoms of a cold into a game of choosing between a blobby mucus animation or a smiling Mount Rushmore, both of which mix a few active ingredients together into a cocktail which doesn't necessarily even treat the appropriate symptoms.  I mean, this isn't like Coke vs. Pepsi or McDonalds vs Burger King where there's no good reason to prefer one to the other so why not have goofball marketing.  This is about not feeling like crap, so lets be serious about this.

The Merck manual gave a really nice overview of how to properly treat a cold.  In summary, it says don't buy the ridiculous drug cocktails that combine cough suppressents, nasal decongestants, pain relievers and antihistamines all into one colorful capsule.  Rather, figure out what symptoms you have and treat them with individual drugs.  Are you stuffy, or do you have a headache due to sinus pressure?  Then try pseudephrine which will constrict the blood vessels in your nose that were dialated because of the viral infection.  Do you have a fever?  Then take acetominophen or aspirin to bring it down.  Are you coughing like crazy?  Then determine whether it's a productive cough or dry cough and then take the appropriate expellant or suppressent. And if one active compound doesn't work well, you can try another.  Different people respond better to different things. 

I'm still pretty confused about how to figure out, or even get an educated guess about whether one has a bacterial or viral infection.  If you know of any good references about that, let me know.  Its important because if its a bacteria, then you can go to the doctor and get an antibiotic presciption, but if its a virus, usually the best you can do is treat the symptoms as needed and wait it out.