Ponzi Schemes!

People are rather riled up about ponzi schemes right now, because discussion of Bernie Madoff's business dealings was evidently some people's first exposure to the concept of ponzi schemes. I find this very hard to believe, but have no other explanation for the sudden intense upswing in scrutiny of ponzi schemes.

Background: What are "Ponzi schemes" and why are they called that?

Ponzi was an Italian immigrant to the United States who first learned of the concept, at least in a business context, from working at a Canadian bank that employed this plan to entice people to deposit their money there - those depositing money were offered double the going market interest rate, this drawing in so many new depositors (the bank relied primarily on Italian immigrants), that it was able to keep up these interest payments despite bad loans, which in any case, probably wouldn't have been sufficient to make the interest payments and sustain a profitable bank. When the bank failed, the owner fled with a substantial portion of the money to Mexico.

Ponzi ended up slipping into a former customer's office and writing himself a check to facilitate his escape to America, but was caught by police and spent 3 years in prison.

He then got involved in a scheme to smuggle immigrants across the border and ended up spending a couple more years in an American prison when he met and studied the fashionings of a Wall Street scam artist, Charles Morse.


Ponzi's Scheme, Part 1: International Reply Coupons

IRCs are this rather fabulous device that allows people who are in one country and want to allow people in another country to send them things pre-paid to do so by translating a coupon bought in say, Italy, into postage in the United States. Basically like those pre-paid return envelopes you get from catalog companies. But the trick was that arbitrage was a valuable option due to the disparity in currency/postage values between the great wars. You paid for the cost of postage in the country of origin and then got to exchange that for the equivalent cost of postage in the country of receipt. In this case, Italy was a low-cost postage country, the United States a relatively high-cost country and as a result, money sent from the U.S. to Italy to buy IRCs which were then returned to the U.S. could then be turned into U.S. postage of a greater value than the amount sent. Pretty impressive, really. Evidently the profit was something like 400%, although it did have the complication of having to sell U.S. postage as a private citizen.

This is still a possibility, if you're on top of the fluctuations in cost of living between different countries. It was a solid plan, theoretically, but difficult to implement (potentially so difficult that the costs would have been prohibitive for a profitable company) and ultimately, Ponzi was lazy and a result he ended up paying off old investors with the investments of new investors.

In a dying interview, he expressed what sounds, uncomfortably like many financiers today: "Even if they never got anything for it, it was cheap at that price. Without malice aforethought I had given them the best show that was ever staged in their territory since the landing of the Pilgrims! It was easily worth fifteen million bucks to watch me put the thing over."

Many, many other Ponzi schemes:

If you are interested, there are plenty more examples, all following the same basic premise. Among the more interesting are a Scientology scam by Reed Slatkin, a "minister" of the "religion." Weirdly, at some point this involved a Grateful Dead roadie: "Federal prosecutors announced tax-evasion charges Tuesday against former Grateful Dead road manager Ronald L. Rakow and his girlfriend in connection with a scheme to conceal Rakow’s income, much of which he earned working for convicted Ponzi scheme operator Reed Slatkin."

Other things that for average people are scams and thus categorized as pyramid schemes as some sort and about which a bunch of difficult people who don't mind average people being scammed whine that they're not really pyramid schemes:

Avon cosmetics, Mary Kay etc.: These really don't work nowadays because if you have a legitimate product, you don't want to rely on random "representatives" to sell the bulk of your product. You want to sell it online. In your online store.

So then what could possibly be the benefit of becoming an Avon representative?

Evidently, the solution is that you are meant to bring in other people underneath you, who are selling for you, thereby allowing you to sit around and do nothing. Basically a pyramid scheme for anyone not at the top of a pyramid within the pyramid.

The thing that's really unreasonable about this, and other "work at home" plans that are just out-and-out scams, is that they prey on the most defenseless individuals - those who are least likely to be informed, most likely to be desperate, and least likely to be able to take action against those who scammed them. I mean, at some point, it has to be a legitimate claim that the "company" you dealt with misrepresented your opportunities, understated the risk, and deliberately tried to convince you that this was just an easy at home way to make money.

Video Professor Fellow: You always have to be careful when you are given "free offers." Particularly when the underlying product makes no sense, like a dvd that teaches you how to sell things on ebay. I mean, ebay tells you that. There's not a lot to it. At all. So I was not at all surprised to discover a plethora of horror stories about inappropriate charges following a "trial" with video professor.

There are many other infomercial type scams listed here. There are many more than these, but you get the idea.

Conclusion: Use some common sense, PLEASE

I've posted absurd letters from people claiming to be some variation on the son of a deposed African prince, including response letters I've sent explaining how their letters were preposterous. I think the rule is, if you're going to be scammed, it should be a good scam. Legitimate people should be confused. It should be scammish enough to send the individuals responsible to jail. If it seems too good to be true, figure out if it really is. Don't give in to the impulse to believe that wonderful unbelievable things can happen and magically fix one's life.

Free TV, on demand

Just to make the point, www.hulu.com actually does work. There are both tv shows and movies - with tv shows, if they are on air, you can see up to 5 full episodes and usually a ton of random clips and web exclusives. Yes, there are random ads slipped in, but it's pretty much where you would see them if you actually watched the show on tv and occasionally, they offer for you to see a longer commercial at the beginning and not see commercials in the middle (a great innovation for the viewer, although from an ad perspective, I find it significantly less effective).

Why exactly is there a requirement to switch to digital television??

Most Likely Reason - Greed


I've been wondering about this from some time. I assume there is logic (probably mostly lobbyists' money going into the hands of Congressmen, but also some logic) behind this. But the weird thing is, while you see all these television commercials telling you it's happening and how you have to get a converter box (which for some reason that is completely beyond me is being subsidized by other taxpayers who aren't idiotic enough to still be watching television off an antenna), they never tell you why. There's never any rational explanation for the move. I can think of some, but I'm pretty highly educated and read a lot, so I don't think it's fair to assume that other people can draw rational conclusions. The idea that the image is better is a completely ABSURD reason for such a radical action. I believe the Consumer Electronics Association is at the helm of this (see their annoying video explaining the switch).

Here is another explanation, that implicates both the government and industry, while doing nothing for consumers, so it sounds spot on and is indirectly via Consumer Reports: "The channels being returned to the government by broadcasters in February 2009 are located between Channel 51 and Channel 69 on the television dial, along one of the most highly coveted portions of the broadcast spectrum technically known as the 700 MHz band. Signals in this band travel farther and are able to easily penetrate buildings and other forms of interference.

Congress has directed the Federal Communications Commission to reserve about a third of the returned spectrum for public safety agencies and auction off the rest. The auction of those airwaves began in January 2008 and is expected to raise billions of dollars.

One of the most often mentioned uses for the returned spectrum has been wireless broadband, which could potentially provide a potent new competitor for existing high speed Internet providers, such as cable and phone companies. A host of other wireless applications are also being touted."

As things are pretty much fine for wireless applications right now, this is clearly an unnecessary step. I also wonder, honestly, why the government has a sudden need for more public safety channels that no normal people can access anymore. How would these be public safety channels? What would they do? Here is a long, somewhat interesting attack on the auction process via an amicus brief of sorts.

It just invites too much analysis. I mean even Reuters has an article lying about it: "Congress ordered the switch to digital, effective February 17, to free up public airwaves for other uses, such as for police and fire departments." I mean, really. That's obviously not why they're doing it. That's only a third of the bandwidth, and the remainder is less than is necessary to maintain analog channels.

See, for example, what they think on the internet:

The main concern is that there is a camera inside the converter boxes - "Matarina" from youtube posted a video trying to debunk this theory. I have to agree with those commenting that it was extremely poorly done and totally uncompelling. But 41K have watched it. Yes, a lot of people are concerned about this.

Possibility 1: Conspiracy on the part of the government to spy on Americans
The main reason I don't buy this is alluded to above - I don't know exactly how many people have old televisions AND aren't using cable, but I just can't imagine that's the target group for a mass government spy operation. Unless you can explain how cable currently allows for this, in which case, this would close a loophole in the government spy program. There is a suggestion somewhere in this madness that specifically televisions made after 1995 are spy ready and thus do not need this addition. Here are some thoughts from random people.

2 weeks ago, user "Bookkid900" posted a video on CNN's ireport (a bizarre concept that deserves its own analysis vis-a-vis the dumbing down of "news") - in his own words "I have a friend who is kind of a conspiracy theorist. He was trying to convince me that the many of the digital TV convert boxes that our coming out have microphones and cameras built into them. Knowing a bit about electronics I bought one of these devices opened it up fully intending on proving him wrong. To my surprise was right. This device has both a miniature camera lens and what looks like a microphone. I was so shocked I took pictures and video Please send this out to every one you know who is using one of these devices." Here is his video.
Intriguingly, after nearly 700 views, there is only one comment, suggesting that the government wouldn't be capable of transmitting this information anywhere. Which, "Southerner01," is wildly faulty, given that information is somehow going through the box. Why would it make sense that it can come in, go out into the television, but can't be broadcast elsewhere? You should really do a little research into how sophisticated spying mechanisms have become before making idiotic comments. Especially with the "southerner" moniker. I mean, really. You already have a strike against you in terms of stereotyped intelligence.

Remarkably, a crazy man broadcasting on youtube has made this point, by referencing an even crazier website.

Possibility 2: Goal of tricking Americans into beliving things have happened that haven't actually happened

The idea here is that digital is so capable of manipulation that the government would broadcast things that didn't happen to convince us they did, for unknkown purposes. The fellow who makes this compelling argument on youtube, against his best interest, goes on at length about the concern that local governments will use the information to enforce obscure sex laws. I'm not sure this creepy guy with a twin bed and child molester-style glasses should be terribly concerned about intimacy with his girlfriend being taped, but whatever. Over 21K people have watched that video.

Sure, that's possible. But who really cares? We don't have any way of knowing what's real and what's not as it is, and we never did. The government has lied to us about international affairs from the beginning of its existence. All governments do. So you need to accept that and move on.

Possibility 3: To harrass old people

No, not a serious concern. But an extremely funny video.

God Bless America...

...and the occasional random laws that manage to pass that actually protect average citizens, entirely contrary to the goal of America, that being to crush 90+% of people's spirits into submission to the man. But, one of the winners prevents the jerk living somewhere in the radius of 4-5 floors on either side of me from using a jackhammer at 7am. Of course, if I find him, he will, mysteriously not be jackhammering anymore, ever. Let's say. But I did feel better on finding a maintenance employee a floor up frantically searching for the source of the noise as well. Better, as I'd specifically been told that this unacceptable maintenance and construction could not legally occur so early (because this is like the upmteenth time over the past 6 months, usually involving me finding construction workers who speak no english - see earlier posts - of course, query legality, as there is absolutely no shortage whatsoever of workers who will do construction in the heart of america at a time when the umemployment rate is hovering near 7-10% and it is relatively difficult to pass through the american educational system and have absolutely zero english profeciency. As in, unable to communicate in english that you don't speak english. I can, right now, perform that feat of wonder in 6 languages in whose countries I haven't illegally been working). So, WTF. Honestly, and they wonder why people are forced to resort to vigilante violence. Enforce the laws and make this world liveable, now. I really cannot listen to any more construction.

What is Modal and why is it so absurdly soft?

I should start by recommending that if you are not familiar with modal, you should immediately buy a shirt made out of it. It is like really soft light cotton, just drapes wonderfully and is like magic. And it is not expensive.

Evidently it is made from reconstituted cellulose from beech trees. This evidently means it is a variation on rayon.

So what exactly is rayon? Absolutely fascinating. So rayon is "technically" not an artificial fiber because it is made from trees BUT is treated as artificial because of the enormous amount of work required to turn the beech tree into rayon. Which doesn't really make sense to me because it's not as though they just picked the cotton for my sweatshirt and boom, there it was, but whatever. Miscellaneous information: rayon was originally created in the late 1800s by the French as a silk alternative.

The process of production is rather complex, so I'm just going to quote it from here: "The manufacture of rayon begins with cellulose, frequently extracted from wood pulp, although any plant material with long molecular chains is suitable. The cellulose is steeped in caustic soda, which concentrates some of the cellulose into soda cellulose, which is then rolled or pressed to remove excess soda solution. After pressing, the cellulose is shredded into a substance called white crumb.

The white crumb is allowed to oxidize, forming shorter molecular chains, and treated with carbon disulfide. The soda cellulose reacts with this substance, forming yellow crumb due to inorganic compounds that emerge during the chemical process. This yellow crumb is dissolved in a caustic solution, which relaxes the hydrogen bonds in the cellulose, producing a highly viscous substance. This substance gives its name to the manufacturing process, called the viscose process.

This viscous fluid is allowed to age, breaking down the cellulose structures further to produce an even slurry, and then filtered to remove impurities. Small air pockets are forced out to ensure a strong, even fiber, and the mixture is forced through a spinner, which forms many even strands of fine thread that enter a setting solution to form cellulose filaments: also called rayon. The rayon is stretched to form a strong, even bond, washed, and then formed into rayon fabric."

The process for making modal is a variation on this, known as polynosic. So some of the differences that make rayon very different from the magnificence of modal include that the molecular chain length of the cellulose is twice as long as traditional rayon and it is actually a mix of rayon and polyester fibers.

Modal is trademarked by Lenzing AG, which also has Tencel, another excellent fiber. Here is a video babbling on about the lovely textiles -it is in German, but it is pretty easy to get the idea.

Monkeys pt. 9

Commerical Abuse of Monkeys!

A broad subject. We will start with totally random things.

1) Career Builder's use of monkeys:

So career builder created an ad campaign that had to do with monkeys some time back. In case you don't remember, here is a link to a boardroom full of monkeys dressed in rather elegant suits, a table covered with bananas, and a disturbed regular white-collar worker. A little weirder, and as part of some sort of "alernative" viral marketing campaign, they offered up the monk-e-mail, an e-mail, the content of which contained a monkey. An example is offered here (courtesy of this site).

Okay, so this is just kind of weird and honestly, a general problem with using animals for commercial purposes. Not only is career builder relying on stereotypes to characterize monkeys but it is also using them for commercial gain, none of which goes to the monkeys. Actually, I don't know that. But I'm willing to guess that these monkeys didn't receive trusts as a result of their work. I'm actually not kidding on that point. I do kind of have an issue with this, just based on the general view that you should gain based on your work, so although perhaps the trainers etc. should receive some recompense, clearly the monkeys should as well. No really, I mean it.

2) Insane people concerned with monkeys in the media:

Um, right. So some character named "Mr. Monkey" rather unironically made a list of famous monkeys. It is full of great information, like that Howard Stern had a monkey on his show - except of course that Baba Booey is not a monkey but a nickname for a person, so it really only vaguely has to do with monkeys.

Someone I had almost forgotten about - Elijah, the pet chimp in Being John Malkovich. I've seen the movie several hundred times but didn't think of him, I suppose because he actually is so human in the movie. And is really given more attention than some of the characters by Cameron Diaz (in one of her great roles). Theoretically at least, he is really treated as a human, being given childhood psychological trauma, just like everyone else who grew up when he did.

3) Monkeys and Reality:

Now here is a thought: wikipedia has an entry titled "List of Fictional Apes." Query whether it really makes sense to call real monkeys in movies "fictional" because they are playing characters - like if you're playing a character and you don't know it, are you really fictional? I'm not at all sure. It's rather Truman Show-esque --> so if I'm living my life and don't know that I'm a character in a film, am I really a character or am I myself? I think I'm just myself.

4) Actual documentation of my babbling:

Evidently, chimps acting are doing so in a state of terror: "In order to force them to perform, trainers often beat young chimpanzees with their fists, clubs, or even broom handles. Shock devices may also be used. This systematic pattern of abuse and dominance causes the animals to be constantly anxious and fearful, always anticipating the next blow."

Yikes. And it goes on:

"Apes are routinely beaten into submission and forced to pantomime human behaviors that are foreign and confusing. The public learns nothing about a chimpanzee or orangutan by watching him or her riding a skateboard or dancing in a tutu. In fact, it is misleading to portray these animals as cute, cuddly, childlike creatures, and doing so encourages people to acquire these intelligent, strong, and often dangerous animals as 'pets.'"

Fair point. Chimps are not particularly good pets, nor are they human. And, dear god, Jane Goodall is in support of what I'm saying, so clearly it's correct.

But really, the problem is the same as with anything - you can forget that people are horrible until you are faced with the fact that they treat animals horrifically. I wouldn't normally cite PETA as a source, but this handout makes a rather compelling case. "Steve Martin's Working Wildlife" is a fascinating example (NB that no, not the steve martin you're thinking of).

Wow. Does this guy look creepy, or what? It really isn't surprising that he disposed of an unwanted chimp in an inappropriate manner.

In any case, this diatribe could go on indefinitely. Point being, there is something to be said for not using actual animals in commerical media. Particularly monkeys. For some reason, it looks especially exploitative.

Monkeys pt. 8

Monkeys and Cotton!

1) Sock Monkeys:

Sock Monkeys are, rather logically, monkeys made out of socks. What is a little weird about it is that the sock monkeys look like normal rather cute toys and not at all like socks. So you might be asking, what's up with with "sock" adjective?

Rockford Red Heel, a sock company that makes durable socks with red heels, takes credit for this particular creation. So much so that the socks and monkey dolls are presented side-by-side in the purchase area. Oddly, these sock monkeys cost $25-$35 each. I mean, yes, they are very cute and I am very tempted to buy one. But, really? Maybe $15? I don't know. Anyways...

Of course, the main question you're asking is, my goodness, the economy and everything the way it is, how I can afford to get Sally Jo that amazing Rockford sock monkey? Well, as luck would have it, the folks at Rockford are kind enough to offer FAQs (I will not get started on how annoying I find the use of "FAQs"). It is very simple. You need a pair of Rockford socks (you may need an additional sock if you want to make a hat) and you should probably use large size socks. Furthermore, you will need "stuffing, thread and two buttons for the eyes. Most people also do a small amount of embroidery on the face (black embroidery thread and an embroidery needle will take care of all your basic needs)." If you want accessories, facts, or delightful coffee table books, check here.

Here are the specific instructions.

I have to admit, I am extremely motivated to make one of these dolls.

And for the true aficionados, there is a sock monkey blog. Sadly, there isn't much posting, but I'm not sure how much you can talk about this subject.

There are a scary number of sites dedicated to dealing with sock monkeys:
Monkey of Sock
Sock Monkey Fun (includes a lawyer sock monkey and a featured monkey of the month)
Hazel and Melvin's Sock Monkeys (Just tons of stuff, including their saved adopted monkeys...)

Luckily, Hazel and Melvin have given me a good transition into the topic I really wanted to talk about, monkey prints.

2) Monkey Print Clothing:

Here it is, the Sock Monkey Dress. This piece is "a custom-designed, couture piece custom fit exclusively for you," including 30 faces with individual name tags. Oh, BTW, it's $1,500. For a sock monkey dress.

There are of course some more tasteful monkeys to be found. For example, the fabric finder in its "Monkey Jungle" section has a number of prints of monkeys dressed in clothes from the Renaissance era. Obviously, this is also pretty weird.

Alternatively, and while playing into the, monkeys love bananas stereotype, Hart's Fabric offers a more entertaining and kid friendly (and significantly more affordable) alternative with its "Monkey and Banana Cotton Fabric Pink." Delightful, really.

Of course, what I was really looking for was a Lily Pulitzer print. Here is a great example for children, in Pink Monkey See Toile - a fun little bathing suit. You have to be a little creative to see the monkeys, particularly as they are small and rather monochromatic. But if you look closely, you will see that they have their arms interlinking and alternate between being light and dark colored. Very cute.

Cargill: Oh la pauvre bete

So just a quick update on my high-fructose corn syrup friend of yesterday, today Cargill's rice production in Venezuela was seized by the government, i.e., nationalized.

As with many dictatorships, there are food shortages, so Chavez is blaming the rice shortage on the rice companies. Sort of an unlikely source, but hey, you don't get to be a dictator by being rational...:)

Of course, Cargill is just the beginning of the end for a travel-friendly (that is, my reason for being interested in Venezuela) country that is beautiful and could be a tourist mecca. I don't doubt that things will come back, but not any time soon (see, what happened to the Cuba of yesteryear...)

Cargill did, however, get a reassurance that no more plant takeovers were planned - not much of a reassurance from a company that just forceably seized your assets, but as good as you're going to get when you're exploiting a 2nd/3rd world country. You get what you pay for, in the end.

Intriguingly, the day before the nationalization, Cargill sold $450 B in bond notes (10 yr). Coupon about 7.35, rating A. But interesting. Did Cargill know this was coming? It was a private placement, so the info is limited, but it's a question that simply popped into my head when I noticed the timing. Given my personal business experience, the answer is yes. Which means, Chavez is in cahoots with western businesses doing business in Venezuela. Which means...a lot of really troubling things. That I won't get into, b.c. I need to return to another exercise.

Monkeys pt. 7

Monkey Medicine!

Now I certainly didn't think I would come across this - an article on zoopharmacognosy (animal self-medication - click on the pictures to read the article), a topic that has always fascinated me, given me hope, and which I briefly got to experience while in the Amazon jungle. Over (emphasize over as this is clearly a low number, dependent on the direct derivation) 50% of modern medicines are based on natural plant sources.

The first example is of a chimpanzee experiencing fatigue, diarrhea, and discolored urine. She chooses, while separated from the group, to chew and digest some leaves of the plant Vernonia amygdalina, which contains venonine, an antibiotic and antiparasitic, that is evidently widely used by African healers to treat diseases as diverse as scurvy, malaria, and rheumatism.

A number of the other plants observed by researchers to be used by sick monkeys in the wild are antibiotics, antifungals, antiparasitics and so forth.

An interesting focus is on Aspilia leaves, the active compound of which is thiarubrine-A, found to be remarkably effective against solid tumors, i.e., cancer. (NB, that tragically, I do not have access to medical databases and as such, am limited in my ability to see how later western research may have played out - although herbal sites reiterate the findings in the wild) However, they have been shown in traditional medical circles to stop bleeding.

Particularly cool, is Karen Strier's belief that female muriqui monkeys use plants to regulate hormones. Evidently, at the beginning of their mating season, they eat a number of plants high in a substances that mimic estrogen and progesterone in the body. Subsequently, after giving birth, they eat different plants that limit the monkey's fertility. Kenneth Glander believes that howler monkeys have even attempted to control the sex of their offspring by ingesting certain plants that alter the electrical "potentials" in their reproductive tracts.

So monkeys are an excellent source of finding medications - highlight on monkeys and not on other animals, not because other animals don't engage in this behavior, but merely because they tend to do so either in a way that is more efficient or (more likely to me) in a way that is more obvious and easily comprehensible to humans and as a result, more reported in western media. NB, that insects, parasites and indigestion (due to a diet with a lot of leaves) are the main issues they face and as a result, the primary source of medicine with which we are familiar.

It is possible that in composing this series I have become somewhat biased towards monkeys in a way that I wasn't before, but this bothers me. The title, "Primates in Traditional Medicine and as Hunting Trophies" was a bit of a clue-in. In India, there are some who treat rheumatism with monkey brain consumption and asthma with monkey blood. I actually do feel a little squeamish about killing the monkeys for this purpose, but of course, there is also a public health issue since diseases can pass from primates to humans.

To actually treat primates, I found a great deal of technical information that is insufficiently interesting for me to discuss, but should you take an interest in say, the appropriate level of creatine in an adolescent chimpanzee, check out the excel chart, Nonhuman Primate Formulary.

Oh High Fructose Corn Syrup is SOOOO Good For You...

Perhaps you have seen the HYSTERICAL commericals by the Corn Refiners Association?

Here is an example.

The Corn Refiners Association is, of course, the national organization representing the corn refining (aka, "wet milling") industry. Given the top-heavy consolidation of the farming industry, it is less than surprising that there are only 7 members of the organization, and the list certainly reads like a top ten for big gifts for good kids from Santa: Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill Inc., Corn Products International Inc., National Starch LLC, Penford Products Co., Roquette America, Inc., and Tate and Lyle Ingredients Americas, Inc. Each of course deserves its own analysis, but for now, I am focused on the commercials.

Its own website explains the media blitz (although not why they hired some horrifically ignorant ad team): "Last year, corn sweeteners supplied more than 55 percent of the U.S. nutritive sweetener market." "Nutritive sweeteners," I think entirely misleadingly, merely means that the sweetener has calories, so literally speaking, there is some type of nutrition.

But first, for those of you who didn't read the book, what is corn syrup?

Corn syrup is a syrup substance made up of cornstarch and glucose (liquid sugar). Why corn syrup? It's cheap: it is "often used in place of sugar in American-made processed and mass-produced foods, candies, and sodas to help control costs."

High-fructose corn syrup is just corn syrup on crack. Literally, it "comprises any of a group of corn syrups that has undergone enzymatic processing to increase its fructose content, and then been mixed with pure corn syrup (100% glucose)."

Anyways, pretty much all studies show a correlation between obesity and consumption of high fructose corn syrup, fructose potentially simply suppressing the sense of fullness, just to start, along with a tendency towards liver disease and diabetes, just from being exposed to it. I can't even be bothered to get into all the health issues, the massive amount of misleading information by commerical entities, the total disregard for the health of our citizens by our government (of course, that assumes that you mistakenly believe that the FDA is looking out for citizens and not the people who pay their salaries, the corporations, but that's for another time). The issue being that high fructose corn syrup has just saturated our food since it really kicked into high gear in the late seventies/early eighties. There are a lot of potential problems, the most compelling of which is that enzymes required to digest high fructose corn syrup are totally different from those required to digest normal sugar.

One of the main issues is that people don't realize that when they eat, for example, ketchup, they are ingesting a sugar substitute at all, let alone one that is terrible for the body. Also there is talk that there is mercury in it, if everything else wasn't bad enough.

If you feel like being amused, check out the spoof of the most recent commercial.

6 hour power v. 5 hour energy

This is a truly remarkable marketing stunt to me.

The standard shot energy beverage on the market was 5 hour energy. It tasted like crap, but all this stuff does.

Then, in the last month or so, "6 hour power" pops up on the market.

Now, I have a ton of 5 hour energy. From personal experience, the crap does not work. So the idea of adding to the market strikes me as totally bizarre. But obviously, the truly hilarious part is BARELY changing the idea (the packaging is quite similar) and adding an hour. It reminds me of this commercial out now about how if you buy one yogurt, you only get 80 calories and the other just fattens you up with the ABSURD figure of 100 calories. Honestly, if you are in a situation where 20 calories is going to make a major difference for you, you're either an infant or insane.

Monkeys pt. 6

Monkeys for sale!

So in general, buying animals is sketchy for any number of reasons. To really generalize, it seems to me that people who get involved in selling animals are interested in profit (obviously) and are generally taking advantage not only of the animals but more over of those purchasing the animals. But let's see how that plays out for monkeys.

We'll start with technicalities. Monkeys become sexually mature at approximately 30 months. Typically a female has a monkey a year, with a 160 day gestation period. Occasionally (like with humans) twins are born, and most births are at night. As logic would suggest, generally monkey births are timed to coincide with an abundance of food in their environment. Specifically, "monkeys living in Brazil, Peru and Colombia have sexual union during June to August which is a dry season. So that the birth may occur on wet season in which food availability is abundant and female can spend less time on foraging." The men are not involved in raising in the baby.

Controversy: problems begin when you recognize that much monkey breeding is done for the purpose of using the off-spring for laboratory trials, i.e., shooting them full of things and treating them in ways that the FDA won't currently allow humans to be treated. In this photo, you can see the protests treatment of monkeys in Nepal.
In fact, 120 airlines around the world have prohibited the transportation of monkeys aboard their planes (only 12 airlines still allow for this). The main issue is that monkeys are often kidnapped from the wild and then transported to these "breeding areas" and then sold as though they were bred there, even though they were actually kidnapped. I suppose it doesn't technically matter, except that western countries can't pillage 3rd world countries for their own amusement and potential scientific gain. That just doesn't go over well.

Speaking of the protesters to the right, Nepal banned the export of monkeys late last year. Not that that necessarily means anything. If you want to see a really brutal video of the treatment of the animals, see here. Even fast-forwarding through it, I had major issues watching it.

But ignoring the political etc. issues, let's say you plan on buying a monkey. Some of them are terribly cute, especially when clinging to toys ( :-)). Price for a monkey seems to start somewhere around $2500, although depending on the specific type of monkey, the price can be upwards of $10,000. Here is another site with monkeys for sale.

Here's an intriguing note on a monkey-for-sale site: "Until now, all primates on our "Monkeys for sale"-page were sold within a month (mostly days after our monthly email)."So evidently there is a high-demand for monkeys.

Perhaps my favorite random site is generally speaking about young children wanting animals and then launches, somewhat inexplicably, into a discussion of pet monkeys. Like that's a standard pet purchase for young children.

Particular concerns including finding a vet that will treat the monkey, getting nasty disease that are rather easily transmitted from monkeys to humans, and the circumstances in which the monkey was raised. Problem with the last being that "primates that are isolated or confined in cramped quarters are far more likely to be neurotic and aggressive," i.e., psychological damage inflicted on infant primates can cause permanent damage, as with humans.

I have to be honest here - I can't possibly understand why a person would want a pet monkey or would want to take care of what has obviously been proven, over and over again, to be an uncontrollable animal. Here are some thoughts along those lines. Since you now can't ship a monkey across state lines, it's going to be even harder to buy a monkey. So ideally this will be less of an issue. Honestly, if you think you need a monkey to pass the time, you really, really need a hobby. Seriously.

Crossing a Picket Line

So I have no interest, ever, in crossing a picket line. I know it's a little dated, but I am hugely in favour of unions and union rights and pay that is sufficient to support a family and benefits commensurate with living and paying taxes in a first-world country.

So imagine my dismay when a few days ago en route to an appointment I noticed an inflatable rat and several union members standing outside my sister's old apartment building (across the street from mine). That is that, and it wouldn't have surprised me at all as I was always a little suspicious of the management of the building. But the real problem was that the union members surrounded the whole block, including a fish restaurant, a blockbuster, and most tragically, the whole foods. See the thing is, whole foods is the only supermarket within an 8 block radius and moreover, the only one at all that stocks the gluten-free foods I need to survive. But I can't cross a picket line. So I stayed away for days, waiting, hoping, that at 5 today, for some magical reason, the union folk would leave.

They were gone, and I got my necessary supplies, but I felt and feel horrible. I feel like I crossed the line even though I didn't, technically at least. Of course, my whole premise in entering the whole foods is that whole foods is not actually the subject of the protest; rather, the owner of the building is the subject (everything is housed in one like 30-40 story building). If it was actually the whole foods, well, I don't know what I would do. I suppose I would have to find rice flour and start making my own pizzas and pretzels. Probably a good survival exercise, but not sure I am up to that on the handful of hours of awakedness I have per day.

Random plug - glutino products, while wildly-overpriced, rock. I will do a separate posting of the best gluten-free foods so you don't have to spend years trying all kinds of creepy stuff like I did.

Monkeys: pt 5

What do Monkeys Eat??

First off, interesting fact. Monkeys are generally herbivores or omnivores. Interestingly, there is a particular type of primate known as the Tarsier that is actually a carnivore. It is also incredibly creepy looking. (see creepy looking thing just below) The Tarsier lives in the islands of Southeast Asia, although fossil records show that it once may have roamed most continents. To be more clear, are mostly "insectivorous," which of course means they eat insects, but also partake of a tasty small bird, snake, lizard or bat, as the fancy hits them.

Most monkey herbivores are in the region of Asia. It's difficult being a herbivore. With more intestines and stomach acid than other monkeys, including "little compartments, called saccules, and in each one there is bacteria and different kinds of enzymes to break down the plant matter," there is quite a bit of work in being a monkey that eats plants.

On the other hand, most monkey omnivores are in the Americas. Some are even aficionados of shellfish. They can be rather aggressive in their tactics, indeed "several species of monkeys, and chimpanzees, but not the other apes, have been known to attack and eat other monkeys. Baboons, the most adept hunters on the ground, often eat meat and sometimes manage to kill small antelope." Yes, they eat each other as well as small antelope.

Monkeys do also eat bananas. Here is a wonderfully bizarre article about why monkeys were originally associated with bananas. As with many things, it is the fault of white people (which may of course be true. I certainly don't know). This particular argument is that the Americans took over the Philippines, they ate bananas there, and so to mock them, cartoonists showed monkeys eating bananas, i.e., equating the locals with bananas.

While it is certainly true that cartoonists were big on racial stereotypes during that time period, it seems remarkable to me that I've never heard this before (especially since I had almost an entire class in middle school on racial stereotypes in cartoons - it was supposed to be American history).

Far more bizarre, the monkey/banana association has led to a classic programming/logic problem known as the "Monkey and banana problem." (here's a breakdown for those who care, taken from here: "The Monkeys and Bananas Problem
Consider the following synchronization problem. A boat delivers bananas to a desert island which is inhabited only by monkeys. The boat delivers one load of bananas at a time, but the load has a variable number of bananas in it; when it arrives, it calls the deliver(int nbananas) function, where nbananas specifies how many are delivered (at least one is always delivered). Bananas are placed in a crate on the beach. When a monkey is hungry, it goes to the crate. If there are enough bananas in the crate, it takes what it needs; otherwise, it joins a queue of monkeys waiting for the boat. The monkeys are greedy and are not always satisfied with just one banana. A monkey wanting to get nbananas bananas calls monkey(int nbananas). Calling monkey should cause it to wait in the queue until it gets nbananas bananas, then leave. A monkey will to stay at the head of the queue until it has all the bananas it wants, rather than, for instance, grabbing 3 out of 4 bananas and then going to the back of the queue to wait for its final banana.
Devise a solution for the monkeys-and-bananas problem which follows the rules given above, and incorporates
correct concurrency control using only semaphores.
We can use a semaphore as a counter to count the number of bananas. The head monkey needs to be treated
specially, since it has to stay at the head of the queue until it gets all the bananas it wants. Therefore we
make the head monkey wait on the bananas semaphore and create a separate semaphore for the rest of the
monkeys, which we call queue. The head monkey signals queue when it has all the bananas it wants, as
long as at least one monkey is waiting in the queue. Since we cannot determine the queue value ourselves,
we need a separate variable to count how many monkeys are waiting by the crate, and we protect this
variable with the semaphore mutex. Here's a solution:
sem bananas = 0; // could initialise to any value
sem queue = 0; // all monkeys except head monkey wait here
int monkeys = 0;
sem mutex; // to protect "monkeys"
// put "nbananas" bananas in the crate
void deliver(int nbananas) {
for (int i=0; isignal(bananas);
}
// monkey wants "nbananas" bananas
void monkey(int nbananas) {
wait (mutex);
monkeys++;
if (monkeys > 1) { // i.e. there was already a head monkey
signal(mutex);
wait(queue);
}
else
signal(mutex);
// now I am the head monkey
for (int i=0; iwait(bananas);
// wake up the next monkey
wait(mutex);
monkeys--;
if (monkeys > 0)
signal(queue);
signal(mutex);
}"

Yeah. I don't know why, but that doesn't seem terribly complicated to me, except for the obvious issue that each monkey can be a bottomless pit and I suppose to go anywhere, you would have to specify in the program that once a crate was empty, the head monkey had to leave or at least move to the back of the line. Sure, there's the uncertainty, but you always have that where free will is concerned. But, clearly, very clearly, I digress here.

Finally, I will share the story of a crazy Canadian fellow who decided to subsist on monkey food pellets. He lasted a week and it didn't go well. He did lose a few pounds, but evidently lost his mind in the process.

Wired is not a legitimate publication

I draw this conclusion from two articles I came across during recent research.

Example 1: "Laziness Could be the Basis of Bipedalism, Human Civilization"

Summary argument: "Why do humans walk on two legs? Because it's easier than walking on four"

Great. That would be a great argument, if it weren't the case that it would be easier for EVERYTHING then. So why in the world would humans choose to do this (and the chimp/human I highlighted in a post a few days ago) and pretty much everyone else would go on walking around on all fours? Honestly, I am offended that this is even on the internet. It may as well be some Nigerian scammer's website.

Example 2: "Scientists Find Genetic Root of Opposable Thumb, Upright Gait"

Summary: a gene was found that when spliced into rats etc. activated thumbs and big toes.

AND?!?

They show a "picture" (very fuzzy, hard to tell what's going on but from what I can gather, the rat in question has five appendages sticking out of its hand, none of which look like a thumb) and then conclude of the gene in question, "So perhaps HACNS1 is what allowed human beings to develop tools and civilization -- and car insurance and bombs."

Um, right. Something that kind of maybe causes a rat to develop a "thumb"-type thing that is further away than normal likely led to car insurance and bombs. That makes a lot of sense. In stupid world.

Monkeys: pt 4

Opposable Thumbs!

Of course, when most people think of the advantages of primates, they think of opposable thumbs, reason being that this is the major physical distinction between other animals and primates. There is even a reference (perhaps multiple?) to the utility of opposable thumbs in the movie Madagascar 2.

In my study of what makes the opposable thumb so great, I clearly stumbled across some weak sources. For example, one site is telling me that sans opposable thumb, I would not only be unable to touch other fingers to each other (just tried it - untrue) but that moreover, picking up a piece of paper would be entirely impractical (don't even need to try it because I know from personal experience that is totally untrue - it makes very little difference whether you use your thumb after about 15 minutes of practice).
Phrased differently, this doesn't seem as unreasonable, although it still seems inaccurate: "The thumb, unlike other fingers, is opposable, in that it is the only digit on the human hand which is able to oppose or turn back against the other four fingers, and thus enables the hand to refine its grip to hold objects which it would be unable to do otherwise. The opposable thumb has helped the human species develop more accurate fine motor skills. It is also thought to have directly led to the development of tools, not just in humans or their evolutionary ancestors, but other primates as well. The opposable thumb ensured that important human functions such as writing were possible. The thumb, in conjunction with the other fingers make humans and other species with similar hands some of the most dexterous in the world.^"

For example, the only reason writing is easier is that we rest the instrument on the thumb. It doesn't have to be opposable for that. It could be a stick of wood.

Um, okay. Ignoring that this simply has not been my experience with my thumbs in the past (or is it as I sit here and play with them trying to figure out what all this could possibly be referring to) let's assume it's true. Thumbs are better tools than normal fingers. Great. But what's the HUGE advantage that allows man to rule the planet? The development of tools? Seriously? I mean, koalas essentially have opposable thumbs and they spend most of their time sleeping, the rest getting high on eucalyptus and being extremely aggressive towards anything that comes near them. What happened there with the god-like intervention of the opposable thumb? Ditto for pandas.

Onto some interesting randomness: monkeys have opposable thumbs that are higher up on their palms than their other fingers, which at the very least, could make some difference.

Finally, on my point that this all sounds like a lot of nonsense, please read the Onion's news-breaking article about dolphins developing opposable thumbs and how this clearly means that we will no longer be a superior species. Seriously folks, it's a thumb. It doesn't do much. People get by just fine without them. Weirdly, I have to make an argument I'm uncomfortable with here, which is that the whole focus on opposable thumbs and their greatness is a reactionary stance by educators attempting to justify an evolutionary curriculum as important to science. I am totally for teaching evolution, but not at the expense of spouting nonsense or overinflating borderline irrelevant issues. Yes, the opposable thumb is useful. No, it is not some panacea that separates us from other animals and no, it should not be used as a political ploy that poisions and confuses childrens minds. Just tell them about the findings on the Galapagos, explain how certain people drew other conclusions from that and move on. Enough with the ridiculous opposable thumb nonsense.