Apr 01
NASA tests more tech that will help take us to Mars, apps get some important updates, and PlayStation 4 gets a new special edition console. All the news tidbits and rumors you missed yesterday, here on BitStream.
Apr 01
The democratization of 3D printing has made many a dream and idea come true, but for all the fairy tale stories, some things are kept out of the media. Yes, 3D printing does seem like magic, almost instantly giving physical existence to otherwise digital only objects, but the product that comes out of the printer is rarely the polished finished … Continue reading
Apr 01
Tidal's 'High Fidelity' test rewards audiophiles with half as much free trial
Posted in: Today's Chili
Tidal windmilled its way into music streaming relevance this week when it relaunched under the stewardship of its new owner, Jay Z. Apart from strong celebrity endorsement, Tidal’s main selling point is a $20 premium tier offering lossless (non compr…
Apr 01
Hey there Verizon subscribers, remember that whole “supercookie” ordeal from not too long ago? Well, it looks like it’s time to put that mess behind us because the ability to wholly opt out of said tracking system is finally available, according to T…
Apr 01
Every year ThinkGeek comes up with an April Fools’ joke product that you want to be real. The EnCounter Wearable Interactive Quest is one of those ideas. It’s a fitness tracker that turns your movements and activities into tabletop RPG quests. It even has an A.I. dungeon master that narrates your adventures via a headset.
The device goes full dork with random encounters, which completely abandon its fitness metaphor and just gives you imaginary enemies to pretend fight. Fortunately (?), you can form a party with other EnCounter users.
I think most of the EnCounter’s features are doable with current technology, but I don’t think an A.I. can substitute for a good dungeon master. Come to think of it, a dial-a-dungeon master/narrator service would be great on its own.
Apr 01
The biggest complaint I hear as a weight-loss coach is, “I don’t have enough time.”
Trust me — I get it! As a full-time working mom with four small children, I’m plagued with not enough hours in the day. So here are six simple tips to keep you consistently working out.
1. Schedule it.
Busy people must schedule their workouts. I mean it. Open up your google calendar, iCal or your appointment book and schedule it into your day (just as you would a dentist appointment). This ensures you DO have the time each day.
If your schedule is always jam packed, you can’t start the day thinking you’re going to fit exercise in somewhere.
2. Keep your scheduled appointment.
Now that your exercise is scheduled, keep your appointment! Don’t change it, reschedule it, or skip it. You’d never skip an important work meeting then tell your boss, “I didn’t feel like showing up today.” Your health and well-being is just as important (if not more!) than any other appointment. Honor yourself.
3. Exercise first thing in the morning.
Most of us don’t have business meetings and doctors’ appointments at 5:30 a.m. This is prime time to get your workouts done since you’ll never have conflicting appointments. I realize morning workouts sound brutal to most people, but after two weeks you get used to it. I promise!
4. Mix up your workouts.
Day one, do a HIIT workout. Day two, lift heavy weights. Day three, increase joint mobility with yoga. Boredom is one of the biggest reasons why people don’t stick with an exercise program. Don’t wake up and run every day. You’ve got to mix it up.
5. Make it fun.
The more fun you have while exercising, the more likely you are to do it. On weekends go for a long bike ride or hike with your family. Or, do your normal exercise routine with your family. On the weekends I workout with my girls. Their energy is contagious and we laugh the whole time (which burns more calories!). I also do yoga once a week with my husband. We look forward to this mini-date.
6. Join a fitness accountability group.
Let’s face it. It’s easy to give up on yourself, because nobody knows if you skipped your workout (or ate an entire cake!). By joining a support group, you’re forced to stay accountable, because others are looking for you to check in that day. It’s like having your own team of cheerleaders. You feed off their energy which propels you forward.
There you have it — six simple tips to keep workouts consistent. The better the consistency, the better the results!
Apr 01
While the United States is overwhelmingly vaccinated against preventable viruses like measles, mumps and rubella (on account of them coming altogether in one shot), there are certain pockets around the country where vaccination rates are dipping below the 95 percent needed to maintain herd immunity. These under-vaccinated communities, coupled with travelers bringing the measles over from other countries, have resulted in an unusual amount of measles cases — 644 cases over 23 outbreaks in 2014, and in 2015 to date, 178 cases over four outbreaks. These numbers represent the greatest levels of measles that America has ever seen since measles was first eradicated from the country, in 2000.
The size and scope of the biggest outbreak this year, which links 131 cases to exposure at the Disneyland theme park last December, has focused the nation’s attention like a laser to the tiny communities scattered around the U.S. that have chosen to skip vaccinating their children, without medical justification. In the story below, three infectious disease experts weigh in on what America has learned by turning an ear toward these communities and keeping a wary eye on the growing number of infections.
1. The measles vaccine may be a victim of its own success.
Dr. Walter Orenstein, Associate Director of the Emory Vaccine Center, says a lack of memory about the scourge of measles may be contributing to rising non-vaccination rates in certain pockets of the country. Americans used to be really scared of the measles — until one day, we weren’t. To illustrate the point, Orenstein related a personal story about the polio vaccine, which he received in 1955, about how insistent his mother was on protecting him from the paralyzing disease.
“I tell a joke; I was in second grade when the Salk polio vaccine was licensed,” said Orenstein over the phone. “I was none too happy to get a shot for something I knew nothing about, but my mother said, ‘Better you should cry than I should cry.’”
“There were fears about these diseases that aren’t here today, in part because vaccines have been victims of their own success,” he continued. “If people aren’t aware of it, they can let down their guard.”
Because measles is so contagious, the virus used to be a near-universal and serious disease in the United States. From 1912 to 1916, there were an average of 5,300 measles deaths per year. And while deaths began going down thanks to better nutrition and improved medical support, in the late 1950s, complications from the disease left an average of 150,000 people with respiratory problems and 4,000 with encephalitis (brain swelling). A 1962 study also found that more than 90 percent of Americans had contracted measles before the age of 15.
For more: What really happens when you’re infected with measles
That all changed in 1968, when doctors began to distribute the measles vaccine as we know it today. Almost immediately, the measles rate plunged, and then plunged again when public health officials began recommending a second shot of the vaccine. The successful vaccine eventually helped eradicate measles transmission in the U.S. by 2000.
Now the memories of painful measles rashes and potentially deadly complications from the virus are long gone from the public conscious — and that may be a bad thing. Parents are robbed of an urgency to vaccinate as soon as possible, and doctors have gone so long without treating the disease that they seem to be missing diagnoses, which is what seemed to be the case when members of an Arizona family visited three separate healthcare facilities before anyone diagnosed them with measles.
2. The U.S. needs to help other countries strengthen their immunization programs.
Despite the fact that measles is a completely preventable disease, the virus still infects about 20 million people and kills an estimated 146,000 around the world. Some of the infected make their way to the U.S., where they can encounter pockets of under immunized communities (as they did with the Amish in 2014, or Disneyland visitors in 2014 to 2015). It’s the perfect powder keg for a measles outbreak, and one way to prevent that from happening is to mount a worldwide immunization campaign to eliminate the virus from the world. Indeed, by February of this year, the U.S. had already experienced measles importations from Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, India and Dubai, according to Dr. Anne Schuchat, Assistant Surgeon General and the director for the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
For FY2015, the U.S. Agency for International Development has given $200 million to Gavi, an international vaccine alliance that has immunization programs in countries like Yemen and Haiti — up from $75 million in FY 2009. U.S.A.I.D. has also pledged a total of $1 billion from 2015 to 2018, which is estimated to help vaccinate an additional 300 million children and save at least 5 million lives. This funding is key to the U.S.’s continued relative safety from measles, even as non-vaccination may rise in some American communities, explains Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota.
“International programs are so important; it’s not just the direct benefits to those countries around the world, but it’s an indirect benefit to us,” said Osterholm to HuffPost. “There’s a vaccine protection halo that we benefit from when we protect those in other countries.”
But much more still needs to be done, and failed and fragile states are particularly vulnerable to viral outbreaks. For instance, because of the havoc that the Ebola outbreak wreaked on countries in West Africa, public health officials fear that millions of children are now vulnerable to measles because they’re behind schedule on their vaccinations.
“We have so many situations today where underlying governance issues are so significant that it makes it a challenge to deliver any kind of childhood immunization program,” said Osterholm. “Depending on how you define it, we may have as many as 33 to 36 failed states in this world today, where its very difficult to deliver health care services, including vaccinations.”
3. We’re failing to explain basic scientific concepts in school.
Measles vaccines may be understandably low on the list of priorities for parents in war-torn or fragile states, and in the U.S., under-vaccination used to be a problem concentrated in low-income, poorly educated parents with little access to transportation or services. But one of the stranger paradoxes behind low vaccination rates in some pockets of the U.S. in 2015 is that wealthy, well-educated parents seem to be behind the non-vaccination “movement.” Why would these parents take such an anti-science perspective, especially if they’re affluent and college-educated or better?
Because we’re failing to teach basic scientific concepts in schools, says Orenstein.
“It’s a failure of our educational system,” said Orenstein. “I call [unvaccinated children] children of of more highly-schooled, but not highly-educated parents.” This distinction manifests itself in the rational — yet incorrect — belief in the causal link between vaccines and autism diagnoses, or the observation that if Unusual Event B happens after Unusual Event A, then A must have caused B. But a single case, or even multiple cases of B coming after A, do not prove a causal link. What’s needed instead, explained Orenstein, is an epidemiological study (a population-based study) to determine if autism rates are higher in vaccinated children vs. unvaccinated children. And epidemiological studies have proven, time and again, that vaccinations do not cause autism.
4. We still don’t understand why people don’t vaccinate themselves and their children.
Scientific evidence in support of vaccines is one thing, but we still don’t understand what motivates a parent in a developed country to forgo vaccines for their children. While it’s easy to ridicule or shame them before dismissing them as a lost cause, key to defeating measles for good will be for researchers to humble themselves and admit they don’t know the slightest thing about what motivates these parents, said Osterholm.
“We have a lot of work to do to figure out really what it is that we know and don’t know, and be humble enough to accept that we don’t know,” said Osterholm. “What motivated people not to get vaccinated, and who are they?” This is a major issue both for the U.S. and some countries in Europe, where anti-vaccination movements are even more, ahem, virulent.
Once we understand the whys, said Orenstein, we could develop stronger programs and tactics to help acknowledge parental concerns while presenting facts to counter the myths. Currently, research on how to change a parent’s mind to accept vaccines is scary and sobering; there’s evidence that tackling the issue from a number of different angles made anti-vaccination parents even more stubborn about their beliefs, according to a 2014 study of 1,800 parents. It’s studies like these that make Osterholm suspect that strict state policies mandating vaccination may actually backfire.
“There’s actually been some recent data showing that the more comprehensive and potentially punitive your efforts are to get people vaccinated, the more people actually reject and fight it, and do whatever they can to get around it,” said Osterholm. “We have to understand that better, because in the end we want to see more people up to date on their vaccinations” — not just pass new, ineffectual laws.
On the other hand, policy experts have found that the harder a state makes the process of seeking a non-medical exemption to vaccines, the fewer parents pursue that option, reports Mother Jones.
For more: Vaccines should be as non-negotiable as seatbelts, experts say
5. Other people (besides non-vaccinators) are claiming medical rights, too.
The United States has always been a country to glorify individual rights, even at the expense of the public good (see: gun laws, or lack thereof). But one good thing that has come out over the debate about mandatory vaccination policies is that other groups of people are beginning to talk about their right to health, just as some non-vaccinating parents hold fast to their right to medical choice.
“The really important conversation started in the U.S. because of this outbreak is that the conversation around vaccination has shifted from personal rights to the consideration of additional rights,” said Dr. Stephen Parodi, an infectious disease physician and associate executive director for the Permanente Medical Group. For instance, while some may claim the right to choose vaccines (or not), others, like the immunocompromised, who can’t get vaccines for medical reasons, and parents of infants who are too young to get vaccinated, are speaking out about their right to herd immunity and protection from preventable viruses.
Carl Krawitt, a father from the anti-vaccination hotspot of Marin, California, petitioned to the school board in January to bar unvaccinated children from the school where his son, six-year-old Rhett Krawitt, goes to school. Why? Because Rhett is a leukemia survivor, and he can’t get a vaccine because his immune system is still recovering from four years of chemotherapy.
“If you choose not to immunize your own child and your own child dies because they get measles, OK, that’s your responsibility, that’s your choice,” said Krawitt to NPR on Jan. 27. “But if your child gets sick and gets my child sick and my child dies, then … your action has harmed my child.”
Another dad, pediatrician Tim Jacks of Phoenix, Arizona, wrote a scathing open letter to the mother who chose not to vaccinate her children and ended up exposing his three-year-old daughter to measles when she sought treatment at a hospital. Like Rhett, Jacks’ daughter Maggie also has cancer, and is too immunocompromised to get vaccinated. Jacks also has a 10-month-old son who is too young to get the first measles vaccination — usually given somewhere between 12 to 15 months. From Jacks’ letter:
Unvaccinating parent, thanks for screwing up our three-week “vacation” from chemotherapy. Instead of a break, we get to watch for measles symptoms and pray for no fevers (or back to the hospital we go). Thanks for making us cancel our trip to the snow this year. Maggie really wanted to see snow, but we will not risk exposing anyone else. On that note, thanks for exposing 195 children to an illness considered ‘eliminated’ from the US. Your poor choices don’t just effect your child. They affect my family and many more like us.
Apr 01
This is probably one of the easiest and most mind blowing things you can ever make for your friends. No cooking or baking required, and it only takes 2 ingredients.
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings: 16 sandwiches
Ingredients:
1 pint ice cream, any flavor
2 rolls cookie dough
FOR THE FULL RECIPE, CLICK HERE.
Original post by Alvin Zhou on Spoon University.
Apr 01
It used to be that all college admission notifications were delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. You didn’t even need to open the letter to know what was inside: If it was a thick package, you had gotten in and the envelope contained a zillion forms to fill out. And if you didn’t make the cut, the letter that came was a small envelope sending regrets and wishing you well elsewhere.
Nothing is quite that simple anymore, is it? Many colleges today notify applicants by email. A few still support the post office for old times’ sake. And some require that you log onto their site and check your application status at a precise date and time. Just in case the whole application process hasn’t been sufficiently stressful, imagine tens of thousands of student applicants hovering over their computers for the moment admission notices are posted.
The role of parents in this “learning the news” process is fraught with land mines. Here are a few things NOT to say to your teenager:
1. “Wow! You got into Harvard! Now we just have to find a way to pay for it.”
First, congratulations; acceptance to the top elite schools is quite an accomplishment. Second, just exactly what were you thinking? The how-to-pay-for-it conversation is one you have before you kid applies to schools, not after they’ve been accepted, says Lynn O’Shaughnessy, a nationally recognized college expert who blogs at The College Solution.
So just to recap the pickle you now find yourself in: Your child has worked his or her behind off for four years of high school, survived repeated SAT tests and prep classes, played on three varsity teams and practiced piano faithfully for an hour every night of her life since she was seven — and you? — you just kind of forgot to save for college?
OK, fair enough; college is expensive and many of us live paycheck to paycheck. But you also forgot to tell him or her they were applying to schools that they could never in a million years attend without taking out hefty loans that will take decades to repay.
This is a cruel message to hear if your kid’s heart is set on the elite school. Time to revisit the safety school options, where your child is a more desirable applicant and which more likely offered him or her a financial aid package of grants, not loans.
Lesson learned: Getting your child’s hopes up for something that is unlikely to happen isn’t smart parenting.
2. “I just don’t understand why Ben got into UCLA and you didn’t.”
College admissions officers work in mysterious ways, for sure. But the larger point here is that parents should not complain in front of their teenager about how unfair their child’s college rejections are or denigrate the teenagers they know who did get into these schools. This only builds resentment, says O’Shaughnessy. Instead, she said, parents need to acknowledge their child’s pain regarding the rejections, but they should then focus on the positive — the schools and opportunities that the child enjoys.
Being positive and not trash talking other kids also sets a good role model for your own teenager. Not everyone will get into their dream school, so time to show a little kindness towards others.
3. “I’ll miss you so much. I really want you to stay closer to home.”
Where your kid goes to college isn’t really about having your needs met; this is about your kid and his or her needs. Leaving for college is typically the point at which our baby birds spread their wings. A few may recognize that they aren’t quite ready to fly and choose to stay closer to home or attend community college, but many are eager to launch into young adulthood. Your job is to let them, not make them feel guilty about it.
4. “A gap year is crazy. It will put you behind everyone else.”
Some kids need a break from the pressure and routine of academics and just want to do something else for awhile. Gap years are common in Europe and growing in popularity in the U.S, according to the American Gap Association.
Think about why you fear a gap year will put your child “behind.” Behind in what? There is no race to the finish line of life, is there? If your kid wants to travel or volunteer or work for a year to save some money, why stop him? Real life experience counts for a lot and when he does go to college, he’ll be a year older and wiser. Nothing wrong with a more mature freshman who is ready to buckle down and study.
Many colleges will offer your student a deferred enrollment once he is accepted so he won’t need to go through the whole application process again.
5. “I’ll take money out of my retirement savings so you can attend college.”
Generous, but stupid, say most advisers. Some parents think that plundering their retirements accounts to finance their teenager’s higher education costs makes sense. This is misguided thinking.
Withdrawing from your retirement savings means diminishing your investments. Tapping into your nest egg early could put your own future at risk. And don’t count on just extending your work life with the goal of replenishing the retirement savings you used to pay for college; health issues and layoffs can interfere with the best-laid plans. Remember, they give out student loans but there is no such thing as a retirement loan.
Would you add anything to this list? Let us know in comments.
Apr 01
Don Draper has been called everything from a “pretty bad person” to a “bad dude” to a “rotten asshole.” Even Jon Hamm, the man who has played Draper for seven seasons on “Mad Men,” doesn’t seem too fond of his onscreen alter-ego.
“Don Draper is a pretty dismal, despicable guy,” Hamm said in a 2013 interview with The Guardian. Speaking to GQ for the magazine’s March 2015 cover, Hamm said people who excuse Don’s behavior are pretty much wrong. “I’m the guy who lives with the guy every day, and I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no,'” Hamm said. “But I also get the thing in popular culture, American culture, where you see a broken thing and go, ‘I want to fix that. I want to shape that. I want to cure that.'”
As a result, Don is often aligned with Tony Soprano and Walter White in the annals of television’s recent era of difficult men. But according to “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner, expecting even an ambiguous, Journey-aided comeuppance for the erstwhile Dick Whitman is probably unwise.
“I love Don,” Weiner told The Huffington Post in a recent interview. He added: “I’m not saying Don hasn’t done bad things. I’m not saying Don does not have some behavior that is less than ideal and less than exemplary. He’s certainly not the most loyal person and he’s situationally ethical, and that’s the story. But people who crave justice should not be watching television, they should go get a job in justice. Because I’ll tell you one thing, people who work in the justice business don’t think Don is so bad.”
Don’s issues go deep — psychiatrists have pegged him for having everything from attachment disorder to antisocial personality disorder to narcissistic personality disorder. He lies and cheats, and while he’s not a murderer like Tony Soprano, it would be a leap to call him a pillar of righteousness.
“People doing bad things and being impulsive and making bad decisions and being cruel to each other and double crossing each other — that’s called conflict,” Weiner said. “That’s the lifeblood of the show. If they think I’m going to pull back at the end of it and make a moral judgement on this person I want them to identify with — and who they do identify with, mostly because of Jon Hamm, the magic of casting …”
Weiner trailed off before finishing that thought, but his point was pretty clear. Besides, he’s not even convinced there are “Mad Men” viewers who hope to see Don’s ultimate downfall.
“I don’t agree with you that most people want him to be punished,” he said later in the conversation, after a detour about how Hamm was the only actor who was complex enough to play the different shades of Don. “There are people who say that. There are people who — I think it’s what they enjoy about the show: He’s so dastardly. But as soon as you’re in a language of putting Don on trial for being good or bad, you’re missing out on a lot of fun of the show.”
“Mad Men” returns on AMC on April 5.
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.