Localoaf

Soy products are very much a staple in my life. I enjoy my cheerios (every morning!) with soymilk, tofu prepared in many, many ways, and every now and then whole soybeans (edamame).

I knew that soybeans contain isoflavones, a type of phytoestrogen, but I hadn’t realized the great controversy surrounding them. Here is one vehement protest. In this article, Jim Rutz claims that soy is feminizing, creates sexual confusion, and is accountable for homosexuality. Moreover, “research in 2000 showed that a soy-based diet at any age can lead to a weak thyroid, which commonly produces heart problems and excess fat,” and uses this to suggest that soy is also possibly behind today’s rising obesity rates.

I admit I laughed at the last bit. That’s almost like saying, “Divorce rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed within the past year; there is a similar trend in soy consumption, so this must imply correlation if not causation!!” I’m interested to see his citations for this article.

Here is a much more objective article from the FDA. While the controversy over phytoestrogen is similarly acknowledged, the FDA affirms that research is far from conclusive.

“…[S]ome studies suggest that high isoflavone levels might increase the risk of cancer, particularly breast cancer… [S]ome studies show just the opposite–that under some conditions, soy may help prevent breast cancer… Unlike the controversy surrounding soy isoflavones, available evidence on soy protein benefits is much clearer.”

I take many statistics with a grain of salt. It seems as though for every statistic that shows one thing, there’s an existing one that shows the opposite. How confusing!

Anyway, until the arrival of more concrete results, I will continue my soy-lifestyle. It’s funny.. most people use soy as a substitute for something else, but for me I can’t think of anything that could adequately replace soy.

Apparently, Google just deviated from its Don’t-be-evil gospel to make the most out of the shopping season.

This morning, Gmail showed me an ad headlined “Kinderarbeit Teppiche” (child labor rugs), pointed to a price comparison site. The email, by the way, talked about sexual abuse of children.

This should cheer you up. Here’s a quick round up of some of the funnest stuff, measured by my own bizarre interestingness metric, that I’ve found while taking breaks (procrastinating) from my writing and studying (yes, a lot of these are old, but I hope they make you smile).

Linerider is an exceedingly simple flash game where you drawn lines that your sledder then travels down. It seems Excitebike-ish in that you basically create your own course. Google or search Youtube for “linerider” to find some amazing courses built by others.

The Funniest is great… you just have to browse their top images to see what I mean.

I found The Funniest through the well known comic XKCD, well, because it’s published by the same guy. Everyone has seen the ubiquitous “sudo” comic, but hell, why not have another look.

Here’s Ben Folds covering “Such Great Heights”.

Apocalypto trailer via SNL:

Where’s the cream cheese?

And finally, a great quote from Richard Dawkins (NOT really work safe).

I’m looking for a good Why? video, any one have one? Why? is a band out of San Francisco. Here’s the Google challenge of the week; how many tries does it take you to find Why? related content through Google?

Ok, back to work…

… are Washington and the Kremlin are now no farther apart than the speed of light, atleast technically.

Many of you might be familiar with this story, but as somebody who listened to it for the first time, I am totally fascinated by this recap of the first-ever live television broadcast by Walter Cronkite. Every time orbiting Telstar would pass over Atlantic, it would provide an 18 min window of communication between Europe and United States. One of those windows witnessed Kennedy reassuring the dollar to a question that some how got serendipitously squeezed into the window before telstar went down the horizon. Ta-da! The dollar gains strength almost instantaneously! This recap is just awesome!

If anything has changed in the whole story…it is no longer Washington and Kremlin….but New York, San Francisco, London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Bangalore….and that’s the way it is. Thursday, December 07, 2006. Good day!

I found this interesting trivia in Amartya Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian“. He mentions that the first ever printed book was a Chinese translation of an Indian Sanskrit treatise, Vajracchedika prajnaparamita (yes, all one phrase which means the Diamond Sutra) was printed in 868 AD. The introductory note of the printed material explicitly mentions that it was made for ‘universal free distribution‘.

I am not sure if that means ‘allow modifications of the work’, but never the less, Dr. Sen thinks this as a crowning achievement of Buddhist technologists interested in expanding public communication. Among other things, Dr.Sen does an excellent job of convincing that the habits of democracy and public debate are not unique to the West as argued by Samuel Huntington.

Wii owners, read carefully.

Things you must avoid at all cost to ensure your safety, the safety of others, and perhaps most importantly, the safety of your Wii.

Here is a nice example where all three apply:

More from the manual

Children have been playing with buckets for millenia.
But guess what. There’s a new kid on the block. It’s Mr. Bucket.

Earlier this evening, apropos of nothing, I began singing the Mr. Bucket theme song. Softly at first, but then louder, more confidently. The words were popping out of my mouth like balls.

It is a truly terrible toy. Essentially, children are cleaning. Chasing after little balls with pooper scoopers. And in a particularly Sisyphean twist, just as one thinks her task is complete, the balls pop out of his mouth.

I know you remember this commercial. Even if, like me, you never played with or even saw Mr. Bucket in the flesh. What could make such a miserable toy so unforgettable? I’m convinced that it’s the jingle. It’s the sounds, not the images, of Mr Bucket that are forever etched in my mind. But what makes the Mr. Bucket jingle so effective? Beyond the obvious cache of the songlet’s obvious NSFW connotations?

The MB themesong adheres to a pretty strict pop-music formula when you get right down to it:

VERSE 1
I’m Mr. Bucket toss your balls in my top
I’m Mr. Bucket out of my mouth they will pop

CHORUS
I’m Mr. Bucket!
We’re all gonna run!
I’m Mr. Bucket! Buckets of fun!

What are some other jingles you’ve found to be particularly effective? Do they fit the pop model?
Why is pop music so good at getting us to buy things?

Bockwurst and I were discussing an interesting question today: how much Internet traffic would remain if every human on Earth suddenly died? The Internet was designed to withstand a nuclear attack, but what would it be like if it did? What kind of applications would still be exchanging data with one another. How much data? How long would the power last? One imagines email clients and RSS readers would continue fetching on desktop machines, operating systems and security packages would continue phoning home for updtates, DNS servers would continue to exchange names. What other services would be running? Anyone care to offer a back-of-the-napkin calculation of how much traffic would remain, and for how long?

a few weeks back, NYC-based artist cory arcangel came to town to talk to us. one of my favorite projects he made was the google adsense/kurt cobain suicide note mashup. it’s pretty interesting. while cobain’s letter doesn’t specifically mention depression or emotional problems, the probabilistic methods used by adsense have associated his words with ads for therapies that kurt may’ve found helpful. these placements are made based on some machine “understanding” of the text, and probably prior user clickthrough behavior in similar scenarios.

in that vein, i wanted to open up a contest, to see if we can’t find some awesome unintended google ad juxtapositions.

for example, there is a dutch dating site, farm date, which strives to play matchmaker to the country’s lonely farmers. they had to sue google for some, ahem, inappropriate google ads.

gmail is also rife with potentials, as they try to place ads next to personal emails. entries don’t have to be funny necessarily, sometimes google is just scarily accurate about what it should sell you in a given context…

post any ridiculous screencaptures here in the comments, or describe memories of eerie adsense ghosts of internets past.

i’ll wait some indefinite period of time, and then arbitrarily declare one of the submissions the winner. that person will win a drink, on me. if you’re in the bay area, i’ll gladly buy you that pint in person. beyond that i’ll paypal reimburse the cost of yer bev.