KIlling Cancer

Very interesting report from 60 Minutes on killing cancer with the Polio virus.

One of the important things here is that not only was this "cure" taken from treating brain cancer but that it also was tested on breast and prostate cancer among others with good results.

This underscores my main objection to "Titty Cancer Inc." in which the public has been made to think that breast cancer is the most important form of cancer ever and that defeating it is the best thing ever. I have long argued that cancer is cancer is cancer and that the focus on one type is probably bad. Of course 60 Minutes also did a report on "Disrupting Cancer"

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong notably said:

Patrick Soon-Shiong: A cancer is not what people think, cells growing. Cancer is actually the inability of the cells to die.

The key is figuring out the genetic mutation or glitch that prevents cells from dying a natural death. Soon-Shiong's hope is to provide patients with the precise genetic mutations that fuel their cancer regardless of where tumors are found in the body.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: The mutation that happens in lung cancer could be the exact same mutation that happens in the breast cancer. So you need to treat that patient based on its mutation not on its physical, anatomical location.

Interesting thing about the Polio experiment is that in a sense it goes to what Dr. Soon-Shiong says. The body kills the cells like it should.

Sanjay Gupta: That's a big idea. I mean, you know, the idea that the breast cancer specialist, they're looking for breast cancer mutations and they may be missing the ball.

Patrick Soon-Shiong: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

On The Jeremy Clarkson Dismissal

The BBC completely cocked up its handling of Jeremy Clarkson. It likely did so because it wanted to appeal to person who are not interested in Top Gear (Lefties). Yes it was likely that because when you read the criticisms of Jeremy Clarkson in much of the press they come down to:

He's white
He's apparently conservative
He's un PC
He insults people
He's boorish
Top Gear is a "boys club"

Essentially Clarkson represented everything that left wing UK (and US for that matter) stands for.

Apparently because I'm black I was supposed to be on board because of Clarkson's "catch a nigger by the toe" thing. Sorry, I don't offend easily. And I really don't offend easily when the person I'm supposed to be offended by insults just about everybody and THAT is a part of his "act". Personally I'm more offended by the perpetually offended who think that I, and the mass majority of black folks are too childish and thin skinned to hear that without falling to pieces or imagining Klan rallies and lynchings.

That said I do have to agree that Clarkson overstepped a major bound when he struck that producer. I am 100% against initiating violence. I am 100% for self defense, just so we're clear. The way I see it BBC should have suspended Clarkson and fined him in the form of oh, half his contract payout (preferably given to Clarkson's victim as recompense since it happened during BBC official business). Then the victim ought to have been given one opportunity to press charges. ONE time. Failure to do so would have ended the issue there and then. Had the producer decided to press charges, the BBC should have cooperated with any investigation and if any criminal conviction was secured they could have used that as grounds for dismissal OR to add that time to his suspension.

The thing is that when working for celebrities we KNOW that not a few of them have very very difficult personalities. Personally I think the producer should have knocked Clarkson right in the face one Clarkson assaulted him. It would have been quite funny to see an episode of Top Gear with Clarkson with a black eye.

But now BBC has lost a couple million viewers for whatever time slot Top Gear fell on. For BBC America, Top Gear was popular enough to run for HOURS and made up a large portion of it's programming (Star Trek The Next Generation, Dr. Who. Orphan Black being the others). I expect a definite impact on their bottom line. Maybe they don't care. That's there prerogative.

And on that bombshell...

No Water For Men

So I'm watching the Esquire channel. Watching the Six Million Dollar Man, when a commercial for Stella Artois Chalice for their latest initiative

Buy A Lady A Drink.

I'm watching a channel named after a men's magazine and I presented with a commercial to help me get water for women in some developing country. What. The. Entire. Fuck?

I'm not opposed to supplying water to people. Men, women, boys and girls. But I'll be damned if I give to ANY program that specifically excludes men and I think any man who DOES give to such a blatantly sexist program is a self hating dick.

And water.org?

Safe water transforms lives. For more than twenty years, Water.org has pioneered safe water and sanitation solutions that give women hope, children health and communities a future. Join us.

Because men don't need safe and sanitary water.

Fuck you.

I cannot imagine a "lets get water to disadvantaged people" program that explicitly said they were giving it for men, that wouldn't be immediately (and rightly) taken apart for it's sexism. But there is no misandry. Doesn't exist.

Some Thoughts On The Forthcoming Apple Watch

I am generally an Apple fan. I'm not a consumerist so I'm not exactly their ideal customer (I write this on the last model of the BlackBook. you'll figure it out). I have a first generation iPad because, well it does what I want it to do. I have an old 32GB iPod touch because it does what I want it to do. I also own a relatively large collection of watches.

I like watches. I live analog watches the most. Mind you I'm not a technophobe, I loved Fossil's Wrist PDA product and probably put a few years on my eyes while it worked. I also have a Nike+ Gps watch because I run, not jog, run and I have other GPS items that I can record my bike rides, though unfortunately it doesn't sync with Nike+. The point being is that the idea of the Apple Watch appeals to me, but I'm not sure if I'll buy one...or at least do more than buy one and wear it every now and then until it collects dust.

I say this because the reason I like my watches is because they are all different. Different straps. Different shapes. Different features. It is not merely the same watch with different interchangeable faces. Furthermore; when they were bought they were bought with the clear understanding that they would never do anything more than what they do and I rarely have to replace a battery (for those that are not self-winding).

Problem is that the Apple watch for me, would be a very expensive "look at me" piece that got worn very few times. Even at it's cheapest, $350 so I'm told, that would be a very expensive "look at me" piece. Perhaps that just means I'm not the customer that Apple is looking for. I also wonder if the current generation, having not had a need for a wristwatch since they have phones on them at all times, will warm to this past the initial "ohh this is nice" phase.

One way to kind of gauge this would be to see how well the Pebble watch is doing as well as looking at how popular the short lived iPod Shuffle that people converted into a watch was because anyone paying attention knows full well that the upcoming iWatch IS that iPod Shuffle idea with a far better design and OS.

One thing from my Wrist PDA days though: Battery life. It was quite annoying to discover that my watch was dead because I had forgotten to charge it overnight. Or it was dead because some process on the watch went wild and ate the battery. Or that it died simply from sheer use. It charged via USB so I took to plugging it up any time I wasn't traveling. I'm not sure how the masses of people will take to having to do the same (particularly if they are using the health tracking monitors that require contact with the body).

We shall see soon. I hope if goes well for Apple in the long term. I figure most people aren't packing a dozen or more watches in their homes, so one good watch is all they will want. If that's the case, and they're willing to pony up. Apple could very well have a hit on it's hands.

Makes No Sense...

From the NY Times in regards to Dominique Strauss-Kahn:

Not least in France, where sex with prostitutes is not illegal, but soliciting and pimping are, the case has generated questions about whether the laws against prostitution need updating. Some argue that the country should adopt Sweden’s practice of prosecuting the clients of prostitution rather than the prostitutes themselves, some of whom can be victims of abuse, coercion or trafficking.

If one needs a prime example of misandry this would be it. If it is OK to have sex with a prostitute, that is, if it is OK to conduct the actual business, how is it that soliciting is illegal?

Imagine that you were told that buying alcohol was legal but you couldn't go to the store and ask for the bottle on the shelf.

What these kinds of laws actually represent is a irrational criminalization of [heterosexual] male behavior. What kind of people pass these kinds of laws? If the product or service is legal, then it's solicitation is legal. You cannot have business of ANY kind without solicitation.

It is high time to remove the emotionally imbalanced and those susceptible to their pleadings out of government and away from the levers of legislation.

Faux Outrage

From the NY Daily News

Target is being criticized for advertising its "Annie"-themed clothing line with white models when the movie character is played by a black actress.

More than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition asking the company to replace ads with ones featuring girls of color.

"Being African American is not ugly, it is not bad and we are sellable!" the petition says. "These grossly misleading ads are adding to the divide and does not give young African American girls aspiring to become actors anything to be optimistic about."

Funny thing about this is:

Original Annie

The original Annie, including Daddy Warbucks, is white. Had white folks gone about complaining to whomever about the replacement of the white character, as originally conceived, by a black one, people would have shitted themselves. Yet I would completely understand doing so. It's not like The Wiz vs. The Wizard of Oz, in which the former was based on the latter but clearly named to establish that these were in fact different visions of the same movie.

In this case the entire idea of Annie was remade for whatever purpose. Now people want to be mad about advertisements that feature girls of the same race (mostly) as the originally conceived Annie and folks are upset.

To me, better to have not even remade Annie so that the perpetually outraged could go about making their own stories rather than insisting on placing themselves into others.

Seriously. I cannot get myself worked up over this!

What Kind Of Engineering Is This?

So there I was perusing autotrader.com as I contemplate my next car given that one of my current ones has nearly 200k miles on it. Generally speaking, I call quits at 200k. So having had a 1987 6 series, I looked at the new(er) model 645ci's for sale. They have dropped in price quite a bit (hello depreciation). Also that model is the only one you can get a manual transmission with (the current lineup doesn't have a manual unless you get the M model. No thanks). So having lined up an interesting model, I went and did the due diligence: Google Search: known issues with 2005 BMW 645ci

And the above is partially what I found.

Wow.

Apparently the engineers at BMW who designed this engine decided that to get coolant to the engine they would put a pipe from the front of the engine where the water pump is, to the back of the engine. Of course this pipe isn't a part of the aluminum block. No it's connected at both ends by a rubber seal.

Seriously. And it gets worse.

At the back of the engine is a cover that directs the coolant to the two banks of the engine. This too is connected via a gasket.

Do you know what it takes to replace the back cover? Removing the tranny and the exhaust.

Seriously.

Do you know how much that costs at the dealer? About 2 grand. But that's not all.

Do you know that the pipe they fitted is KNOWN to leak at the rubber seals. Do you know that this is expected at about 89k and can happen at 40k or so.

Seriously.

You know how much the dealer wants to charge to replace that with another failure prone part?

$5000 - $9000.

You read right.

However did that get past the management? I've read that a sales person told one owner that "well the car was 80K new so you should expect high repair costs."

Sir. There are high repair costs and there is a total engineering fail. The cooling system design is the latter.

Now I'm a diy person so I don't scare easy on old cars. Valve cover gaskets are cake to me. I've done 'em at least 8 times already. I've done a power steering rack. I've done motor mounts, Alternators, and the like. If I have the tools, agreeable weather and can do the job safely, I'll do it myself. But the online PDF I saw to replace that pipe ran nearly 30 pages with photos. The amount of stuff you have to remove just to get at the valve covers shocked the hell out of me.

I think that the management at BMW said to themselves one or both of the following:

1) Well we stuck these fools for $80k+ when the car is new so these suckers can pay us nearly $11k to pay for our design flaws.

or

2) Well the original owner paid us nicely. We can make more loot when this car hits the second hand market and these poor buyers get stuck with these cars they invested in and have to pay for repairs (hopefully coming to us, but we'll take the money for the parts).

So this is my PSA for those of you out there looking at any V8 BMW from 2004-2010. If the pipe has not been replaced recently (preferably with one of those aftermarket ones I've seen) AND the alternator cover (whatever that is) gasket hasn't been done, along with both valve cover gaskets, do NOT purchase the vehicle unless you are willing to do the job yourself. You are going to get hit with a rather large repair bill because these are labour intensive jobs.

PS While I'm at it, can we do away with these engine covers? Unless they are helping airflow around the motor or helping dissipate heat there is no reason for them and they're just another thing that has to be removed and re-installed when work has to be done.