Author: Kirk

Avoid Radiation (Duh!) – Challenge Your Doctor (Huh?)

A fellow McKesson employee forwarded on to me an article about how people are failing to grasp the severity of medical images today (can we blame Oprah for this one?).  Yes, having a CT scan is painless, quick, and effective – but is it necessary?  A CT scan is a massive amount of radiation being flooded through your body.  It shouldn’t be something taken lightly and if you’re recommended to take one by your doctor you should really take the time to make sure it is necessary.

But what about your kids?

As usual, the kids get the stinky end of the stick.  The article mentions that some modalities have a pediatric setting, but techs may not know about it or may not use it.  Kids are particularly susceptible to radiation damage too, as their cells are dividing and growing much more than an adults.

How serious is all this?  The article gives a few good numbers:

Exactly how much radiation is too much? Because CT scans came into vogue in the 1980s and radiation-induced cancer takes roughly 20 years to develop, long-term studies of CT scans and cancer are still under way. But scientists are already anticipating future health implications. Indeed, researchers found a population of 25,000 Japanese post-atomic-bomb survivors who were exposed to roughly the same amount of radiation as two CT scans. Based in part on those studies, the Food and Drug Administration estimates that an adult’s lifetime risk of developing radiation-induced cancer from a CT scan is roughly 1 in 2,000. Worse, the risk for children is even higher.

Compared with adults, children are more sensitive to radiation because they have longer life expectancies and because their cells divide more rapidly, making their DNA more vulnerable to damage. A child’s risk of developing a fatal cancer from one CT scan is as high as 1 in 500.

1 in 500 risk of developing a fatal cancer from one CT scan?  Those are some numbers that I think should make you think twice about needlessly obtaining radiation-based medical exams, particularly for your kids.

So who’s up for one of those fancy-shmancy radiation-free MRIs?  What?  No longitudinal studies for adverse effects at all?  Well, I’m sure the doctors wouldn’t do anything dangerous with me, right?

The Canadian Copyright Reform Bill Has Landed: Bill C-61

Here in Canuckland we’re starting to see the government work to update our copyright laws.  Just last week Bill C-61 was dropped, and boy did it make a splash.

As usual, Michael Geist is working to translate this thing into common everyday language.

If you’re at all interested in fixing this corporate-driven legislation for something that actually protects copyrights while extending logical and reasonable rights to Canadians, get involved.

Look up your Minister and write them a letter.  If you’re really pressed for time, someone has even written up a form letter that you can simply sign.  They’ll even mail it off for you.  It doesn’t get easier than this, people.

I wrote up my own letter to my M.P., as I’m taking this a little personally and wanted to make sure Mr. Hiebert knows about my specific concerns.

Oops, He Did It Again

So two nights out of three we’ve had a camouflaged visitor come by.

This time he spent over a minute in the carport … or did he actually go into the back yard as well?

I spoke with the police last night. They offered to have someone drive over to watch the video, but it was 10:30 at night and I didn’t want to wait up. She asked that I call when I get home from work tonight so they can send someone over. I’m not sure she quite understood that it is a digital video, and that I could email them to her if she wanted me to.   Or maybe they want to be able to check out the equipment to make sure these aren’t fakes? I’m not really sure how many of these kinds of things they get, to be honest.

Say Cheese, Dirtbag

Maybe you’ve heard that our car was broken in to twice over the last two months? Well, not technically broken in to, as we had forgotten to lock the doors at night. But it was sitting on our driveway and we thought we lived in a safe enough neighborhood. Maybe my bike being stolen out of our carport should have tipped us off earlier, but, well, maybe I’m thick-headed.

So I decided to have a little technical fun and setup some surveillance. A webcam connected to my computer running a motion detection software package (love Open Source … see the motion project). And look who came to visit us last night around 4am?

(click picture for a video)

I’m sure the police will be interested in watching my little video. FYI the little white squares are where the software is detecting motion.

Next steps are to see if I can get a better resolution out of my webcam, and maybe even place one down in the carport to figure out what he did in there for 10 seconds.

Don’t mess with a geek little man!

My Inner Claustrophobe Is Squirming

Beware those of you who are claustrophobic, for this video will make you squirm.  Well, it did for me at least.

How did I come across this?  I was searching for a fellow named Keith Dryer (I think – no luck so far) and came across a video of some guy name Keith going into a dryer (how odd!).  That video wasn’t so bad because there wasn’t that moment where I said “He’s not going to be able to get out!”.

Not this one though … this one had me squirming in sympathy.

Spreadsheets Make Me Uneasy

Here’s some random insight into the person that is Kirk – working with spreadsheets, heck even thinking about them, makes me feel …. uneasy ….. unsettled ….. anxious.

When you open a new spreadsheet, you’re shown the first 10 columns or so and the first 40 rows – or whatever your monitor can show.  But start to work within it and you’ll notice something: you can’t run out of rows or columns.  There’s always another row you can add or see.  So how many rows are there, exactly?  Well, there’s the part that makes me anxious – it’s an infinitely large document, in two dimensions.  Go ahead, open one up and scroll to the bottom right corner of the document … YOU CAN’T!

Think about it (or put yourself in my neurotic shoes) – when you work with a spreadsheet you’re manipulating something that is infinitely large in both the x and y-axis.  When you open a spreadsheet, add a single cell of info, and save that file, you’re wrapping up infinity in that file – twice.

This just unnerves me.  It makes spreadsheets feel unnautral, unwieldy, inefficient, and dangerously brazen in their assumption that they can so easily capture infinity, twice, inside.  How dare they be so audacious, and how dare the world use them so flippantly!

P.S. I know a word processing document can have unlimited pages, but that’s only infinity in one dimension so my brain doesn’t seem too perturbed by them.  In fact it seems to relish that unlimited potential and enjoys working with it.  It’s the fact that spreadsheets do this in two dimensions that seems to be the keystone of my neurosis.

Film Editing Does Make a Difference

Have you stopped and noticed the art of film editing recently?  You know, the act of putting all those snippets of clips together into a cohesive film?  Have you ever wondered just how much of an impact editing can have on a film?  Sure there’s academy awards for it, but really – does that mean anything?

I’ve stumbled across a few enterprising videos that take films and create new trailers for them, casting them as very different films.  The quality varies, but some of them are quite good.  Here are a few I think are particularly effective:

Don’t make Jack a dull boy …

This one was scary before, but now …

Sacrilicious!

Disturbing on so many levels:

It’s Not Itchy – Really!

This morning Marley woke up with a little rash around her leg.  It quickly expanded to encompass most of her body, at an alarming rate.  The doctor says Benadryl, and Prednisone if things aren’t under control in 24 hours.

Right now we’re flummoxed as to the cause.  We’re comforted by the fact that immune/allergic reactions like this can take days or longer to actually show up, and that the Benadryl seems to be working.  Here’s hoping for a quick recovery little girl!

Happy To See I Wasn’t The Only One

Did you ever get to know Bob Ross?  Did he ever help you experience the Joy of Painting?  Sometimes I miss that man, his warmth and patience, his willingness to explore mistakes as creative input.

I’m happy to see such works as this one that let me know that I wasn’t the only one he touched so deeply.

Sure it is a parody – but they say it is the sincerest form of flattery.