Big List of Military Ranks
Ever wonder what military rank is higher than another? Does a Staff Sergeant outrank a Sergeant First Class? Buzzle has an excellent summary of ranks across all the branches of the military, including the order of uniform stripes!
The Shocking Commonness of Abortion: 33% of Women Get an Abortion
I had always assumed abortions were relatively rare. I had imagined that people who wanted babies had them, people who didn't want babies used birth control. And where birth control failed the natural statistical reluctance of the body to get pregnant would keep the numbers of unintended pregnancies low. Those who didn't use birth control, or didn't use it properly, would surely be a small minority. I don't mean to sound overly naive here, I am exaggerating my surprise slightly, but I was genuinely stunned to see the statistics and learn that 1 out of every 3 women will get an abortion in their lifetime, creating 1.2 million abortions every year in America. Regardless of where you see abortion on the morality spectrum, that's pretty messed up. Many worthy debates have been had on the morality of abortion with neither side budging, but surely both sides can agree (excluding perhaps the Catholics) that in this day and age with medical science where its at and with so many decades worth of good family planning options available, it is insanity that 1.2 million people are having unplanned pregnancies every year. The morality question attached to abortion would be relatively moot if people weren't getting unintentionally knocked up.
Before I end this post, some other surprising facts I found related to abortion:
- 28% of abortions were performed on women who identified themselves as Catholics
- 50% of abortions were done on women in their 20s.
- 61% of abortions were done on women who already had a child.
- 7% of abortions were done on women who claimed they had used protection properly (e.g., pill, condom)
- ~33% of white women will have an abortion in their lifetime (11 per 1000 per year, over an average 30 year reproductive life)*
- ~84% of Hispanic women in the US will have an abortion in their lifetime (28 per 1000 per year, over an average 30 year reproductive life)*
- ~150% of African American women will have an abortion in their lifetime (50 per 1000 per year, over an average 30 year reproductive life). This over unity percentage means that the average African American woman will have more than one abortion in her lifetime.*
Most shocking are the differences in abortion rates between whites and non-whites. We can probably assume the primary explanation is socio-economic, a side effect of reduced quality of education, reduced availability of health resources (including contraception and pregnancy prevention education).
* These numbers were based on statistics cited in this Time Magazine article. while the math was based on the source for the rest of these statistics, an article on induced abortions from the Guttmacher Institute.
You Can Buy Software and Online Services Anonymously!
A little while ago I needed to buy a competitor's software product and because they were a competitor, and a pretty unscrupulous one, I didn't want to give them my name and credit card number for fear they might do "something" with it. The solution I found is great! Visa/Mastercard/American Express gift cards that you can buy at your local grocery store, pharmacy, Best Buy, etc. The beauty of it is that you can pay in cash for the card when you buy it, leaving no record to tie back to your own personal credit card. To further cement the fake identity you can, and sometimes must (because of security checks) log on to the virtual credit card's site (using the code on the card) and supply a fake name, fake address, and fake phone number which the credit card processor might validate against.
Because of federal laws related to money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorism these anonymous cards are limited to under $300 and they cannot be recharged (you cannot add more money to them later). Also, be aware that these cards are technically debit cards, though they behave like credit cards. I have noticed that some sites, particularly ones which involved recurring fees or the possible quick accumulation of charges, will not accept debit cards.
While I am not endorsing them, nor getting any reward for mentioning them, I will say I have used the Vanilla Visa card quite a few times and have had no complaints.
Stock Trading Hand Signals
If you've ever seen footage of people on the floor of an exchange you'll have seen the furious hand gestures the traders make. If you've ever wondered what they mean, you can take a look at the reference image below or check out the New York Times article on the topic. Another useful description is found here.
Why Mosquitos Don’t Spread HIV
I has always wondered why mosquitoes don't seem to transmit HIV. If they can spread malaria, why not HIV? If they've got mouths like a syringe, why isn't being bitten like sharing a needle with the last guy the mosquito drew blood from?
Here's a synopsis of the most interesting bits of this article by Prof. Wayne Crans at Rutgers:
- Mosquitoes don't extract enough blood to cause an infection. The virus is so diffuse in infected people that it just won't take in enough to present a threat when it bites someone else. He estimates a 1 in 10 million probability that a mosquito could transfer even a single unit of HIV to another person, and a single unit would not be sufficient to cause that other person to become infected.
- HIV is broken down by mosquitoes stomachs, being completely destroyed in 1-2 days, but even before that not allowing any virus reproduction that would cause anyone a threat.
- Mosquito mouths are not actually like hypodermic needles in as much as they are effectively self-cleaning and one-way. Hypodermic needles on the other hand typically inject the second user with some of the first user's blood that had been drawn up into the syringe. Mosquitoes spread malaria because that parasite is able to reproduce inside the mosquito and spread to the mosquito's salivary glans where it can then be injected into its victim.
I hate mosquitoes, but I am at least grateful to them for this small kindness.
Beating the Polygrapraph (Lie Detector Test)
I knew lie detectors were flawed science, but I had always assumed they were just useful enough to justify their continued use... I am beginning to think differently.
As a quick aside... I should say that I took a lie detector test for a top secret clearance when I was 20 and it was the most horrific experience of my life (to that point). I was unprepared for the psychological manipulations they would employ to try to get me to reveal what they believed might be the truth. It was a horrible violation of the mind. In the end they kept insisting I had used drugs when I had never even tried them; whether they were genuinely insisting or just pretending I'll never know. Making the experience surreal, when I climbed back in my car for the long drive home I discovered I had the prescient Depeche Mode track "Policy of Truth" queued up in my CD player... It echoed exactly how I felt, the violation and vulnerability I felt for having "decided in my youth on a policy of truth", and how the truth I was sharing felt like it was being turned against me and spun into allegations of lies. I must have listened to that track a dozen times before getting home.
Depeche Mode's Policy of Truth
You had something to hide
Should have hidden it, shouldn't you
Now you're not satisfied
With what you're being put through
It's just time to pay the price
For not listening to advice
And deciding in your youth
On the policy of truth
Things could be so different now
It used to be so civilized
You will always wonder how
It could have been if you'd only lied
It's too late to change events
It's time to face the consequence
For delivering the proof
In the policy of truth
Never again
Is what you swore
The time before
Never again
Is what you swore
The time before
Now you're standing there tongue tied
You'd better learn your lesson well
Hide what you have to hide
And tell what you have to tell
You'll see your problems multiplied
If you continually decide
To faithfully pursue
The policy of truth
Never again
Is what you swore
The time before
At any rate... The other day I stumbled across a very interesting site, AntiPolygraph, which talks all about just how flawed polygraph tests are and how you can easily fool them. Read their free online book (jump to page 121). You'll learn about the two types of counter measures: behavioral and chart-recording manipulation.
The Strange Case of Emma Woods
I happened across the strange case of "Emma Woods" the other day. Emma Woods claims to have experienced a lifetime of peculiar UFO-abduction-like experiences, and she shares the details of her experiences as well as the self-, and assisted, examinations of her psyche (and body) that she's pursued. She's pursued it all with a deeply admirable semi-scientific rigor that is truly impressive. She has copious notes, journal entries, sketches of marks she's found, captures from video cameras she set up to record her abductions, and audio recordings from regressive hypnotic sessions. Whether you believe her experiences are real or not it's a fascinating site, though you should expect to be thoroughly disturbed. My bias and assumption is that her experiences are not objectively real, that they exist only within her mind or in the interpretations she has made of real and innocuous events. Unfortunately quite a bit of the site is colored with the anger and frustration she feels against the person who was conducting her hypnotic regressions. Still, an interesting read if that's your thing. Emma Woods: Is it alien Abduction?
The High Cost of Animal Genitals in Animated Movies and Television
I read once about a campaign someone started to force animation studios to draw the genitals on cartoon animals in movies and on television. The argument was that it was prudishness that caused the genitals to be hidden on screen and this practice of hiding what is real probably subtly harms and confuses children. I was marginally on their side, figuring why don't we err on the side of caution and include animal genitals, until I realized that there would be a very real and profound cost involved in having all these artists drawing and animators rendering (with computers) millions and millions of frames animal genitals. Imagine the millions of dollars extra it would have cost to have animated all of the penises and testicles involved in 101 Dalmations. If you think ticket prices are bad now, just imagine how much they would need to be to support all this extra work. So, on balance I think the way forward is just to take your child aside before you go into an animated movie or watch an animated TV cartoon and in a soothing voice tell your child that he/she shouldn't be alarmed, that all the people and animals depicted do indeed have perfectly normal genitals, it was just far too expensive to include them.
The Weird Rules of Movie Writing Credits
When the writing credits for movies or television shows flash on the screen you might not have realized there is a complicated system behind their appearance.
Here are some of the significant and interesting parts, quoted from the Wikipedia entry on the WGA screenwriting credit system:
- When a team of writers works on a screenplay, names are joined by an ampersand (&) (Example: John Doe & Richard Roe)
- When two teams of writers work successively on a script, the teams are joined by and. (Example: John Doe & Richard Roe and Jane Doe & Jane Roe)
- Only three writers may be credited for the screenplay if they collaborated and a maximum of three teams of three may be credited no matter how many actually worked on it. For example, Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) had about a dozen writers, as did Hulk (2003). The film adaptation of The Flintstones (1994) supposedly had over sixty writers. This limit doesn't include those awarded credit elsewhere for creating characters or the original story.
- Where a film has been based on a previous film, but does not remake it, a "based on characters created by" credit is given.
- An original writer must contribute at least one-third of the final screenplay to receive credit (WGA Screen Credits Manual, section III.C.3).
- Subsequent writers who work as script doctors must contribute more than half of the final screenplay to receive credit (WGA Screen Credits Manual, section III.C.3).
- A production executive who works on a script must contribute at least half the final product to receive credit (WGA Screen Credits Manual, section III.C.3).
Apparently Nobody Likes a Snitch
I was surprised to discover the website Who'sARat.com yesterday. It bills itself as the "Largest Online Database of Informants and Agents". The micro-blogged message from the site's founder, "Our Thoughts and Prayers go out to those arrested in the Mob Sweep and their Families. Keep your head up and continue the good fight. Don't forget we have plenty of room in our Informant database for your Rats..." I understand mobsters and their families make riveting television and movie drama, and in that sense they are celebrated within American culture, but I didn't realize we were publicly hoping for their success in what I had understood was largely illegal enterprise. Well, you learn something new every day. And if you've got a little cartel you're trying to keep squeaky clean of dirty rats, for only $49 you can get access to their infamous snitch list!