Decoding Terms

Rich Deaths

decode — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:31:29 +0000

I came across the CIA’s World Factbook GDP per capita rankings today. I noticed that one of the statistics listed in the Factbook is infant mortality rate. The definition of this statistic, according to the Factbook itself, is:

This entry gives the number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year; included is the total death rate, and deaths by sex, male and female. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country.

So, I went down the GDP per capita rankings and compared the United States with other similarly rich countries. We like to talk about how good our health care is here, but I found some surprising things.

The USA has the second highest GDP per capita in the world (Luxembourg is first).
The Infant Mortality Rate in the USA is 6.5 deaths/1,000 live births.
You have to go down to GDP per capita country #35 (United Arab Emirates) to find a country that isn’t a small island and has a higher infant mortality rate than the United States.
Notable countries with lower Infant Mortality Rates than the US: Iceland, Germany, France, Ireland, United Kingdom, Italy, Taiwan, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Cuba
The European Union as a whole has a lower infant mortality rate than the US.
Middle eastern countries tend to have high infant mortality rates, in relation to similar GDP per capita countries. Example: United Arab Emirates has a GDP per capita of $25,200 and infant mortality rate of 14.51 deaths/1,000 live births. Spain has a GDP per capita of $23,300 and an infant mortality rate of 4.42 deaths/1,000 live births, less than 1/3 of UAE’s. I’d be interested to know what causes this.

I wonder why the US has such bad numbers here. I really can’t come up with a good answer. Most other first world countries have some form of socialized medicine, so I wonder if it is related to that.

Face On

decode — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:29:57 +0000

Joe Shaw has been talking about the recent first face transplant operation. As he notes, the technology and skill to perform such an operation has been around for a while, but it has not been done before due to “ethical issues.” Unfortunately, the CNN article he links to has little information on what these issues are, which makes things somewhat confusing. The BBC has better coverage of this, and the issues were discussed in the Slashdot comments. Basically, it seems to come down to three major issues:

The donor must be alive when the transplant is performed. These types of things are usually done on comotose, brain dead patients with no chance of recovery, but there is always the question of whether the person might have a “miraculous recovery” or if there was a misdiagnosis.
The patient must take large amounts of immunosuppressive medications for the rest of his or her life. These drugs are necessary to prevent rejection of the transplanted organ, but also make the body much more susceptible to infection. This requires that the good effects of the transplant be weighed against the increased health risks of immunosuppression. For certain transplants, like a heart transplant, it seems obvious that having a working heart is worth the risk of infection. The patient who received the first face transplant mostly had issues with eating and talking (she didn’t have lips to control her food or speech), but was not in physical danger because of those issues. Situations like this make the issue less clear.
The effects of doing a face transplant are as yet unknown, since it is so new. It could be that it doesn’t work well (or at all, on the long term), and the patient could end up worse off then he or she started. This is an issue with the “never do harm to anyone” clause in the Hippocratic Oath.

The first issue is common to a number of kinds of transplants, so conclusions there can probably be applied. The third one can only be known by actually doing face transplants and seeing what the results are. The most interesting ethical questions lie in the second issue, which can probably only be answered on a case-by-case basis, making appropriate general policy about the practice difficult to determine.

Heard: Rogue Wave

decode — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 01:22:57 +0000

Name: Rogue Wave
Site: roguewavemusic.com
Reminds Me Of: Some songs sound like Elliott Smith, others like 90′s rock.

Aussie vs. the Frenchies

decode — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 00:21:39 +0000

Matt linked to a hilarious page of offensive phrases in French, to be used on visits to France. Maybe a nice bound copy of this would make a good Christmas present for that irrational France hater in your life. Why you would want to visit France if you hate it so much is a little hard to understand, though.

Firefox Support

decode — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 19:34:06 +0000

While searching for which file the Thunderbird SPAM filter bits for my email are stored in (apparently in Profiles\{ProfileName}\ImapMail\{MailServer}\Spam.msf), I stumbled upon a funny conversation on Asa’s personal blog, completely unrelated to the thing he was posting on. Asa pointed to a funny and very creative piece of SPAM. In response, some random user complains that his Flash plugin doesn’t work in Firefox, then says that Thunderbird “doesn’t have much chance” and that developers should stop working on it and focus on Firefox. Asa calls him out as either a troll or someone posting a bug report in the wrong place. In response the user starts talking about how Microsoft would have provided him good support! Yeah, I can see that. Go over to some random Microsoft blog and say “My macros stopped working in Microsoft Office. You guys suck and need to stop working on Windows and IE because Office isn’t there yet.” I’m sure people would be tripping over themselves to help.

Of course, no one would think to do that. And I think it’s because of the image of Open Source vs. Corporate development. In Open Source development, there is often a name on the software being produced, and the developers are much more open about the process. I wonder how many people email Linus Torvalds for support with their Linux installation. But Microsoft Office doesn’t have a person associated with it. It’s just Microsoft’s product, and not Steven Sofinsky‘s, even though he’s the VP of Microsoft Office. Both of these views of developers have pros and cons, of course, but I wonder which one is better in the long term.

Exit Strategy

decode — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 04:33:47 +0000

The US National Security Council has released a document outlining their strategy for “Victory in Iraq”. The goal? We’ll have achieved victory in Iraq when it is peaceful, democratic, and the terrorists have been defeated. In other words, the goal is so nebulous that the war can be extended indefinitely. Did we expect anything else?

Big Letters

decode — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 02:27:52 +0000

BoingBoing wrote about shelves in the shape of letters. They’re pretty cool. What Cory failed to mention was the price, perhaps because he couldn’t read the German on the site to find the order form. I can read it, and I created an order for 7 pieces to spell the word SHELVES. The price? €9029.00 ($10,645.10 today). Shelves shaped like letters are cool and everything, but a $10,000 set of shelves is a bit much, don’t you think?

Attitude

decode — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 07:48:42 +0000

I was searching the web for the lyrics to a song today for which I couldn’t remember the title or artist. The only thing I found was a forum post that no longer exists. So, for posterity’s sake, I present here the lyrics of “Attitude” from Stephen Wiley‘s 1990 release “Rhythm And Poetry”. Words transcribed by me from the cassette tape liner notes.

Attitude

Home boys are rappin’ on the street
They got the Reeboks on their feet
They got the cars the gangster lean
Speakers boomin’ the bass is mean
Got their hats pulled to the side
Dark glasses on jackets open wide
They got the look to set the mood
They say they’ve got “the attitude”

The attitude
The attitude
They say they’ve got
The attitude

Now ladies I’ve seen you in the beauty salon
Cutting hair off and gluing it on
Pressing your hair into the latest style
I’ll rap about you for awhile
Pasting on your fingernails
Ready to attack the nearest male
You’ve got the look rehearsed the movies
You think you’ve got “the attitude”

The attitude
The attitude
They say they’ve got
The attitude

Attitudes changing everyday
What to wear what to say
Used to be “cool” was best
Now it’s “ice cold,” “chilllin” or “fresh”
You can’t keep up, it moves so fast
You’re runnin’ through all your cash
Buyin’ the stuff it takes to prove
You’ve really got the attitude
You know it’s never gonna last
“Right now” is gonna be “past”
The attitude you’ve got today
Is only gonna fade away
But there are things that never change
Today, tomorrow, forever the same
I’m gonna rap about the dude
Who’s really got “The attitude”

The attitude
The attitude
Who’s really got
The attitude

You may not notice what he wears
Instead you see how much he cares
Servin’ God’s his claim to fame
“Helping hand” is the middle name
He doesn’t gossip, brag or boast
He’s full of love and the Holy Ghost
Walkin’ bold talkin’ smooth
You know he’s got “the attitude”

The attitude
The attitude
You know he’s got
The attitude

I saw a lady the other day
Teaching children how to pray
In a circle on the ground
Children red, black, white, yellow and brown
Moving closer to listen in
I heard her praying once again
Give us grace that we can prove
To all the world “your attitude”

You may be jammin’ to my groove
Wond’ring about this attitude
You say – it’s not my car, my hair, my clothes
Then what is it because I wanna know
How do I get it, where do I begin
(I said) open your heart and let Jesus in
You’re not livin’ ’till you’ve met the dude
His name is Jesus – “the attitude”

The attitude
The attitude
His name is Jesus
The attitude

Norge

decode — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 03:49:31 +0000

It all started out with a sketch. Then it developed into a viral marketing scheme with hilarious videos. God Bless Norway.

Linux is Better at Web 2.0

decode — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 22:31:56 +0000

We all knew that Linux is better than MS Windows at most stuff. What I have recently learned is that it is also better at Web 2.0. Click on the below thumbnails to see screenshots of iClock and notice how much Linux rocks the house:

iClock under Linux

iClock under Windows