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Contradictory Medical Reports

By: Billy BeerSlugger

You know seems like every week I read or hear something in the about what is or is not good for your body that is completely contradictory of a previous medical study.

Yesterday it was that diet is indeed a factor in kids having Acne. The study suggests that a diet high in chocolate, potato chips and low in vegetables is linked to Acne. Which is complete bullshit because a potato chip comes from a potato which is a vegetable and they’re cooked in Vegetable oil. Previously I was told by the media and medical world that diet had nothing to do with acne and previous to that I was told to avoid chocolate and salty foods like potato chips.

I was told that a glass of wine a day was good for your heart which is great because I then convinced myself that beer has the same effect. Now a study comes out and says that any kind of alcohol for women increases their chance of breast cancer.  Awesome.

Coffee is good for you… wait a minute coffee isn’t as good for you as they previously thought. An aspirin a day is beneficial to the heart… oh but wait a minute it’s not good for the stomach lining… or the heart possibly.  Vitamin E prevents cancer.. oh but only in people that don’t already have cancer. Antioxidants are great for you… Vitamin C is great for you… You need to get a full days supply of Calcium.  I’ve seen studies to the contrary on every single one of these things.

So what are we supposed to believe? The Scientists or the Scientists? Do we go by who got the more prestigious degree from the best known University? Pick out of a hat? Do you believe the one that best suits your needs, ie. I’m going to drink my glass of wine every night no matter what they say?

Who’s got the agenda and who is doing the actual non-biased work? I think in the 80’s the tobacco companies funded studies to conclude that smoking had no direct link to Cancer so one thing to look out for is who is funding the study. Another thing to look at is the sample size. If the study has 14 people taking Vitamin E and 13 taking a placebo you can’t really conclude anything except that you need a larger sample size. Another thing to look at is assumptions based on a study.

Consider this: One study suggests a link between drinking alcohol and developing lung cancer. However, the newscaster that reads the findings conveniently leaves out the fact that a good portion of people that drink alcohol also smoke cigarettes. Yes there may be a link but is alcohol a direct cause?

I think what i’m trying to say is that studies and statistics can be manipulated pretty much any way a person or entity wants. Take for instance a Phillies game where some obscure stat will be shown on the jumbo tron as a player walks up to bat: “Carlos Ruiz is hitting .421 in home day games with a runner on 2nd base when facing left handed pitching”. Now shorten that to Carlos Ruiz is hitting .421 and that’s essentially what we are being told about these medical studies in the media. The shocking statistic but none of the details.

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The Evolution of The Music Industry

An artifact for later generations to discover
An artifact for later generations to discover

By: Robby RipChord

I Want My MTV MP3!

With the sale of The Pirate Bay to a company and their plans to turn it into a legal file distribution site (the same route Napster went) it would seem to be a monumental victory for the Recording and Motion Picture Industries.  As monumental or bigger than the fall of free Napster.  However, what these organizations fail to realize is that they are treating a symptom, not the problem and effectively putting a band-aid over a bullet wound.

The RIAA has an antiquated business model particularly.  You won’t even see a CD in 10 years the way you don’t see a Vinyl Record nowadays.  While for the last 70+ years recording labels have had a monopoly on where music could be sold and at what price, those days are gone.  The distribution of music for our and subsequent generations will be the digital way, downloads.  The problem with this and the problem that the Recording industry has not yet come up with a solution for is the unlimited amount of copies that a digital version of a song can birth.  As they are leaked onto the internet the copies go up in numbers exponentially. There have been tries to mitigate music piracy, Digital rights management (DRM) is a systematic approach to copyright protection for digital media.  This endeavor has failed miserably to curb illegal downloading although I believe is still used in iTunes.

What some of the smarter Record Labels are realizing is that the money from artists is shifting from CD sales to concert ticket sales.  That’s one part of the equation. Though to really weather the storm that is file sharing, the Record labels and or Artists need to adapt their business models.  Artists like Trent Reznor (a born Pennsylvanian I might add) have shown that you can give your music away for free and still make buttloads of money. Of course Trent and band Nine Inch Nails became famous before the tide turned the way of illegally downloading music and this business model probably would not work in most instances given NIN’s already large fan base but Trent began growing weary of the corporate greed earlier.  A quote from Reznor in states, “…the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more.” in response to Interscope’s price gouging of NIN’s latest offering. He even encouraged people to steal their albums online.

I’m not necessarily a Nine Inch Nails fan but I don’t think there’s doubt that Reznor is a true visionary on this battlefront.

Other artists have begun to embrace a new way of distributing their music online, offering something tangible.  Mos Def has offered a free t-shirt with the purchase of his album or rather a free album with the purchase of a t-shirt.  Some artists have experimented with sending autographed album or other band related artwork in poster form to fans who buy limited edition albums. The concept of offering a physical product with a digital download of an album is a novel one and somewhat makes up for the lack of a material album in fans hands.

Whatever the idea, it has been proven that real fans will shell out money for their favorite artists for their newest release no matter if they can get it free or not.  That does not help the struggling garage band make it to the big time without an already large following but if their ideas are smart enough, viral enough and the band is actually good enough that people will want to see them then they will survive.  Just as Music Video’s catapulted artists in the 80’s and 90’s into mainstream consciousness so can it’s cousin YouTube.

The Music Industry needs to embrace these ways of selling albums rather than relying on and defending a dying business model.  There will be piracy no matter what now that we have entered the digital age, the Record Labels that adapt will be around as long as they have a product that is relevant to fans. And true, die hard fans are always going to be there and support their favorite acts.  It is now a matter of making these acts matter to the public and I’ll leave that up to the music industry and the artists themselves to figure out.

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Cell Phones and Brain Tumors

cell phone-2By: Billy BeerSlugger

The cell phone has become a necessity rather than a luxury in the last decade. I remember at the turn of the century when I thought me getting a pager was “selling out”.  I never wanted to be that plugged in or accessible to people.  Then times changed, I eventually buckled and got a cell phone then buckled again about a year ago to get the all important email/internet on the phone.

Like many of you BeerSlugger’s out there I can’t really imagine life without the cell phone now.   Telephone technology that used to be affixed to a wall has been available in your pocket now for about 15 or so years commercially.  Some 4 billion people are now or have used cell phones.

I remember when my mom got a cell phone for car emergencies in 1996 or so, back then using a cell as your main communication line was very cost prohibitive. I also remember reading a warning that came with the cell phone that stated the possible effects of the radiation emitted from the cellphone could cause, number one obviously involving the brain since you effectively hold your phone up to it.

Fast forward to today and I’ve just read a report that has me slightly concerned and has renewed an old fear about cell phones and their radiation.

A quote from the report:

Lloyd Morgan, lead author and member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society says, “Exposure to cellphone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled. Science has shown increased risk of brain tumors from use of cellphones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumors, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukemia. The public must be informed.”

Sounds like pretty serious stuff.  The report also states that the Telecommunications funded studies of Cell Phone use and it’s risk of Brain Tumors was greatly underestimated.  It is said that the telecom studies left out several types of brain tumors, did not interview people who had died or who were too sick to be interviewed as well as children and young adults who seem to be at a greater risk.   That’s a complete shocker being that like most corporations, the health of their bottom line is valued more than the health of their clients. Plus, corporations misleading the general public about the safety of their product is nothing new in the U.S. or anywhere else, just ask the Pharmaceutical industry.

The report also had special warnings about the radiation given out by iPhone users so you guys better watch out.

Reading something like this, whether true or untrue, really puts things into perspective in terms of what politicians are fighting over today and what they should be fighting over.  I for one would love the government to throw a couple million towards a tried and true cell phone safety study, though that’s not going to happen when the corporations own Washington.  I’m sure the mass media will touch briefly on this story and go back to covering who the father of Michael Jacksons’ kids are or who’s going to be the contestants on Dancing with the Stars.

I try to use the speakerphone feature as much as possible on cell phones and have noticed some cell phones give me a headache or ringing in my head when placing them up to my ear. I wonder if this is somehow related to the radiation.

With this being said and dropping all this science knowledge on you, I think it is now safe to blame all the times I got really wasted and couldn’t get it up on my cell phone being in my pants too close to my gigglebits. I reserve to use this excuse in the future if I so desire even if I don’t have my phone on me. Listen sweetheart, it’s science.

ps: I made up the thing about the special warning for iPhone users in that report. You also believed it because you didn’t read the report.  Admit you cringed at the thought having to make a decision over good health or still using your iPhone.  I think most would still pick the iPhone.

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Blogging about Blogging?

By: Billy BeerSlugger

You know I love sites like LifeHacker.com that kind of scour the internet for you and present you with the best stuff.  LifeHacker specifically resides on my iGoogle page and i check out the site pretty much daily to find out a lot of (Do it Yourself) DIY type stuff or how to save money on this and general other “How to”‘s.

Now to be fair LifeHacker does come out with a lot of original content, however, most of their daily posted content seems to be of the “check out what this website wrote about” variety. So essentially LifeHacker and many other sites like it are “Blogging about Blogging”. Seems a little redundant but also seems to be working for some people/companies.

Of course it’s kind of ironic that in this post I’m blogging about blogging about blogging but we’ll try and put that aside for a minute and focus in Blogging2.

So sites like LifeHacker do serve a great purpose and provide their audience with a condensed snapshot of interesting and useful posts from other blogs thus providing you possibly with things you didn’t know about or allowing you to skip the search part of the internet experience trying to find information on a topic.

Either way though, it’s a symbiotic relationship between the blogger and the blogging. The blog with the original post is provided with traffic they wouldn’t have had through the ancillary post linking to their website. The blog that is linking to the original post is receiving search engine consideration for the post and thus expanding their internet exposure all while not really writing any original content. There’s not a loser in this equation.

However, there is something to be said about your “bread and butter” being other people’s content. Contributing a paragraph or two along with an endorsement and reaping all the rewards. Kind of like in college if your roommate got a keg and had a great party you were somehow glorified as well just for living there. You did none of the leg work but do get credit.

Anyway, I know a lot of you BeerSlugger’s out there may not be into these subjects as much as I am but it’s stuff I think about.  I feel like I’m cheating a little when I post a Youtube video because it’s not my video so I guess there’s content copying all over the blogging realm. I’m not losing sleep over it though it’s easy to go to sleep after 10 beers.

BTW: This is BeerSlugger.com’s 200th post. I’m getting drunk to celebrate.

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You’re a Douche Bag: There’s an App for That!

A-man-with-a-Carling-iPin-002
Hey everyone, look how much of a d-bag I can be!

By: Billy BeerSlugger

There are some people who just went absolutely crazy for the iPhone when it came out, waiting in line and camping out at Apple Stores like they were releasing the newest installment of the Star Wars franchise.  I get some of the hype over the I Phone, from what I gather it’s one of the better Smart phones released to date and like many other smart phones it keeps you in touch with your email and microblogging apps like Twitter.

However, I feel like it’s a real shame to waste all that shiny new motion sensing, finger sliding, file sharing technology on various degrees of douchebaggery.  It’s not particularly the iPhone I have a problem but the kind of hop-on-the-bandwagon, non trendsetting, generally generic jerk off that i see abusing the technology at bars and other functions.

There’s something about a guy at a bar fake chugging a beer from his iPhone Carling iPint App or two douchebag iPhone buddies simulating light saber fighting with that App that makes me want to grab these grand trinkets of technology and super smash them on the floor, finishing with a Jim Belushi “Sorry” from Animal House.

Seriously, there’s already enough ways that technology is moving human interaction more toward the digital/internet side, we don’t need the topic of conversation at the bar to be what you can do on your iPhone or the iFart or SimStapler Apps you just downloaded.  What ever happened to good old conversation about shit that matters; shit that doesn’t involve your iPhone or iApps because guess what, I don’t give a fuck what bullshit you can pull of besides making a phone call. It just makes you look like a retard for substituting activities and conversation with your iPhone rather than general human interaction.

Here’s my latest and greatest invention, the new iFuck App.  It’s an application which allows promiscuous Men and Women to make sexual advances via a fingerswipe at the bar.  One finger flick and your Fake Name, phone number and a picture of your genitals are sent over to that girl you’ve got your eyes on across the bar.  She can either accept your invitation to go home and iFuck you or deny your invitation which takes the embarrassment of actually having to walk up to a girl to and have a conversation before getting shot down. I think it will be bigger than the CowToss App.

But seriously, I saw a Spiderman movie once and some old guy said with great power comes great responsibility.  Don’t be a d-bag and use your powerful iPhone to drink fake beer, make fart noises or fake staple something, be responsible and stick to productivity enhancing Apps.

BTW: I can down a pint of real beer faster than you can drink your iPint. How do you like those iApples fucko?

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Automatically Flushing Toilets

auto flush toiletBy: Billy BeerSlugger

You know I’m a fan of a lot of the new technology that has come out in the last couple years. I’ve applauded the likes of such bathroom innovations as the auto-sensing sink faucet and even the auto-flushing urinal.  We’ve had motion sensing technology for awhile but it always takes a while to make it’s way into mainstream use.

One bathroom fixture I’m not particularly fond of is the auto-flushing toilet.  Call me crazy or gross or whatever, I kinda want to know whats going on when I get up from the toilet.  I want to bask in the glory of what I just birthed and see if there’s anything in there that’s not supposed to be or that I don’t remember eating.  Now with the automatic toilet, you don’t have this luxury.  As soon as you get off the toilet… WOOOOSSSSSHHHHH!, and it’s all gone. Plus the toilet may flush again inadvertently while your pulling your pants up or whatever other motion you may make which wastes water.

I don’t see why we couldn’t have just stayed with the old use your foot to flush the toilet technique in public and office building bathrooms.  There’s some instances where new technology doesn’t necessarily mean an improvement of experience and this I believe is one of those cases.

Again I’m fine with the motion sensing sinks (for the most part) as well as the motion sensing urinals, I don’t have to use my hands and get nasty public bathroom germs on them, this is a good thing.

Another thing I wish more public bathrooms would have is the trashcan by the door.  If you don’t have the trashcan by the door I’m throwing the paper towel on the floor near the door because I usually use this to open the door.  If you think about it, pulling the bathroom door handle after washing your hands is essentially defeating the purpose.  You wash your hands to get rid of germs but then reacquire them when you touch the door handle.  In a perfect world we could use the honor system and believe that everyone washes their hands after using the lavatory but we don’t live in a perfect world.

A solution to not throwing the paper towel by the door is waiting for someone else to open the door or (again in a perfect world) all public bathroom doors would open out so as you would only need to push the door open (preferably with a sleeve covered forearm).

If you are someone who plans buildings or are custodian of a public bathroom, please heed these suggestions and I will stop throwing paper towels on the floor by the door.

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Soap – It’s necessary but what is it?

1151By: Billy BeerSlugger

So I’m taking a shower this morning and I’m in there just suds’n it up with my Irish Spring soap bar and it kind of dawns on me that I’m not really sure how soap works.  Yea I know it supposed to get you clean but how and why?

Hopefully you’re taking a shower at least once a day for hygiene purposes but maybe you have run into the same questions I have about soap.

I did some research and here goes my best explanation of the phenomenon known as soap:

Soap is made up of  sodium or potassium salts of fatty acids which are gotten when combining common oils or fats with a strong alkaline solution (usually lye) in a process known as saponification. The fats are hydrolyzed by the base, yielding alkali salts of fatty acids (crude soap) and glycerol.  Glycerol is a substance found in most bar soaps I’m guessing because it is in my Irish Spring.

Soap is an excellent cleanser because of its ability to act as an emulsifying agent. An emulsifier is capable of dispersing one liquid into another immiscible liquid. This means that while oil (which attracts dirt) doesn’t naturally mix with water, soap can suspend oil/dirt in such a way that it can be removed.

Grease and oil are nonpolar and insoluble in water. When soap and soiling oils are mixed, the nonpolar hydrocarbon portion of the micelles break up the nonpolar oil molecules. A different type of micelle then forms, with nonpolar soiling molecules in the center. Thus, grease and oil and the ‘dirt’ attached to them are caught inside the micelle and can be rinsed away. Basically you can get more ball sweat bacteria and facial grease off of you with soap than you can with regular water, which is a good thing.

The earliest users of soap date back to around 2800 BC in Ancient Babylon.  There was a found that was recipe written on a clay tablet.

The Ebers papyrus (Egypt, 1550 BC) indicates that ancient Egyptians bathed regularly and combined animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance. Egyptian documents mention that a soap-like substance was used in the preparation of wool for weaving.

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Fastest Way to Get Beer Cold

full-coolerBy: Billy BeerSlugger

It’s an age old question, “What’s the fastest way to get your beer cold?”. Everyone’s been there.  You buy a case of beer from the distributor and it wasn’t cold or you need to chill that case in the basement that you couldn’t fit into the fridge.

What do you do?

If I’m at home and do not have access to a cooler or mounds of ice, I’m putting a six pack in the freezer and as many beers as I can fit in the fridge.  After about 20-25 minutes the beers in the freezer will be cold and you take from the freezer and replacing from the fridge.  You will have to do this for a good hour before the remaining beers in the fridge have cooled sufficiently.  You will also have to watch out for beers in the freezer so that they don’t actually freeze and explode.

The best way, as explained by the show Mythbusters on The Discovery Channel:

In a cooler, combine salt, water and ice and just add beer for ice cold beer in about 5 minutes.  The salt melts the ice and lowers the freezing point to 27 degrees.  The water provides the surface area coverage to chill the beer optimally.

In contrast, using just ice and water to chill the beer would take about 15 minutes to get the 36 degrees achieved by the ice, salt, water mix in 5 minutes.

Of course you could use a fire extinguisher to cool the beer and it would be cold in about 3 minutes, but as I always say, “Safety First”.  You may need that fire extinguisher after you get drunk.  There’s nothing worse than accidentally starting a fire when you’re drunk and the fire extinguisher being empty from you chilling the beer with it.

So using conventional means, filling your cooler with salt, water and ice is the optimal way to cool your beer the fastest.

If you didn’t already know this, Now you know…. And Knowing is Half the Battle.

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Going Green: Plastic Water Bottles Vs. Filtered Tap Water

Not Bio-Degradable
Not Bio-Degradable

By: Billy BeerSlugger

There’s not really any doubt that we as Amricans produce a lot of trash.  According to the EPA we produce about 4.4 lbs a day or about 1,600 lbs per year.  Every year we as Americas throw out 2 million tons of polyethylene bottles used for such drinks as Dasani and Aquafina bottled water.  These bottles require 18 million barrel’s of Oil to make each year (about a days worth of Oil Imports).  True these bottles can be recycled, but only after adding more virgin petroleum and that’s not even counting the environmental impact of shipping them, carbon emissions, burning more fossil fuels.

Yea sure a plastic water bottle is convenient, take it with you throw it away after use, but at the cost of buying bottled water (even in bulk) coupled with the environmental costs, is it really worth it?

So what are the differences, if any between bottled water and home filtered tap water like Pur and Brita?

Well, bottlers like Dasani and Aquafina start with tap water and use a process of reverse osmosis to filter it.  Yes tap water,  not spring water, not water melted from a glacier, not water from an underground aquifer, the water hasn’t been blessed by a priest, rabbi or minister, it’s tap water.

However, water coming into your home through pipes has a lot more stringent guidelines which must be met than bottled water does.

From WaterFilterComparisons.com:

The Federal regulations (FDA) that govern the quality of bottled water only apply if it is transported across state lines, and only require it to be “as good as” tap water, not better. 60-70% of bottled water companies bottle and sell the water in the same state to avoid Federal purity standards, thus avoiding complying with basic health standards, such as those that apply to municipally treated tap water! There are no assurances or requirements that bottled water be any safer or better than tap water.

City tap water can have no confirmed E.Coli or fecal coliform bacteria. FDA bottled water rules include no such prohibition (a certain amount of any type of coliform bacteria is allowed in bottled water).

City tap water, from surface water, must be filtered and disinfected. In contrast, there are no federal filtration or disinfection requirements for bottled water.

Most cities using surface water have had to test for Cryptosporidium or Giardia, two common water pathogens, that can cause diarrhea and other intestinal problems, yet bottled water companies have no such test.

City tap water must meet standards for certain important toxic or cancer-causing chemicals, such as phthalate (a chemical that can leach from plastic, including plastic bottles); some in the industry persuaded FDA to exempt bottled water from the regulations regarding these chemicals.

City water systems must issue annual “right to know” reports, telling consumers what is in their water. Bottlers successfully killed a “right to know” requirement for bottled water.

Filtering water at home is in my opinion the best way to get the cleanest available water, the cheapest as well.  You know that you are at least getting federally tested and treated water and with a using an activated charcoal filter with an NSF 53 certification seal on the box (like Pur and Brita) you will remove such health-threatening contaminants as lead, microbes and volatile organic compounds, rather than merely improving taste and odor.  All at a fraction of the cost of buying bottled water.

So not only is filtering your own water cheaper and better for the environment but in most cases filtered water is better for you than bottled water.

Bottom line, get yourself a Brita instead of lugging bulky packages of bottled water home from the store, save yourself some money and spend it on better contaminants like Beer and Wine.