Wake up and smell the coffee, or find the technoserf dead is a must read if you have the latest cell phone on contract. But wait, there is more: are you sitting on a leather couch, watching rugby in your new authorized Springbok jersey?

Week after week
We wish our lives away
For a brief break
In a boring struggle to survive…

New website is up an running: HistoWeb.

This is primarily aimed at serving medical and dental students at the University of Pretoria from outside the firewall. Other students of Histology could also benefit. If you find mistakes, please send me a note.

To use the system, read the Need help link at the top left of the front page. All functions should work well in Firefox and Seamonkey but newer versions of IE will also work. It has not been tested with Chrome, but I also don’t foresee any issues in that regard. The pages make extensive use of Javascript, so it should be enabled.

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Histology: A Text and Atlas (Histology (Ross))

At the Whole Foods Market in Wellington Florida. Picking up yoghurt and milk to make some yoghurt. And 88% chocolate. And found a 99% Lindt bar. It is 11:41 on Sunday, 19 June 2011 as I check out. Woman behind me is unloading a few bottles of wine. Cashier: “Sorry m”am, we are not allowed to sell alcohol before twelve.” Ha! It’s not only in Africa…

Excellence 99% Cocoa Bar

Will they bow to the world? I will not go so far as other people to say that there is a direct relationship between the two, but one can’t help but feel a little bit of perverse joy… My sincere apologies to those innocent victims of their government; we feel your pain in South Africa.

Use as necessary when dealing with bureaucrazy.

Kafkaesque

Having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality.

“Kafkaesque” is an eponym used to describe concepts, situations, and ideas which are reminiscent of the literary work of the Austro-Hungarian writer Franz Kafka, particularly his novels The Trial and The Castle, and the novella The Metamorphosis.

Catch-22

Situation in which an action has consequences which make it impossible to pursue that action.

Catch-22 is a satirical, historical novel by the American author Joseph Heller, first published in 1961. The novel follows Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier, and a number of other characters. Most events occur while the Airmen of the fictional 256th squadron are based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea west of Italy.

Within the book, “Catch-22″ is a military rule, the self-contradictory circular logic that, for example, prevents anyone from avoiding combat missions.

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he were sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.” Another character explains: “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”

Hobson’s choice

The choice of taking what is offered or nothing at all.

A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. As a person may refuse to take that option, the choice is therefore between taking the option or not; “take it or leave it”. The phrase is said to originate with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England. To rotate the use of his horses, he offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all.

Hobson’s choice is often misused to mean a false illusion of choice, but it is not a choice between two undesirable options, which is a Morton’s fork.

Morton’s Fork

A Morton’s Fork is a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives (in other words, a dilemma), or two lines of reasoning that lead to the same unpleasant conclusion.

It is analogous to the expressions “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” “between a rock and a hard place,”. The expression originates from a policy of tax collection devised by John Morton, Lord Chancellor of England in 1487, under the rule of Henry VII.

His approach was that if the subject lived in luxury and had clearly spent a lot of money on himself, he obviously had sufficient income to spare for the king. Alternatively, if the subject lived frugally, and showed no sign of being wealthy, he must have substantial savings and could therefore afford to give it to the king. These arguments were the two prongs of the fork and regardless of whether the subject was rich or poor, he did not have a favorable choice.

This is the opposite of the Buridan’s Ass.

Sophie’s choice

A tragic choice between two unbearable options.

A choice between two persons or things that will result in the death or destruction of the person or thing not chosen.

Sophie’s Choice is a novel by William Styron published in 1979. It concerns a young American Southerner, an aspiring writer, who befriends the Jewish Nathan Landau and his beautiful lover Sophie, a Polish (but non-Jewish) survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. The difficult decision that shapes the character Sophie is sometimes used as an idiom.

Buridan’s ass

It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass is placed precisely midway between a stack of hay and a pail of water. Since the paradox assumes the ass will always go to whichever is closer, it will die of both hunger and thirst since it cannot make any rational decision to choose one over the other.

Buridan’s ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. The paradox did not originate in Buridan’s time; it dates to antiquity, being first found in Aristotle’s De Caelo, where mentions an example of a man who makes no move because he is as hungry as he is thirsty and is positioned exactly between food and drink.

Procrustes

A Procrustean bed is an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced.

In Greek mythology Procrustes or “the stretcher [who hammers out the metal]“, also known as Prokoptas or Damastes “subduer”, was a rogue smith and bandit from Attica who physically attacked people, stretching them, or cutting off their legs so as to make them fit an iron bed’s size. In general, when something is Procrustean different lengths or sizes or properties are fitted to an arbitrary standard.

Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition

Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22

Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories

Possible reading:

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron

Rhetoric by Aristotle

If informed consent was really informed, people would most likely not give consent.

“Science Myths” in K-6 Textbooks and Popular culture

The complex and abstract nature of Science makes the subject difficult to understand. But complexity is not the only barrier to our understanding Science. The subject is made much more difficult by the presence of numerous misleading “Science Myths” which circulate in the popular culture, which are handed down from parents to children, and which have become so common and widespread that they appear widely in science textbooks and are taught as facts in grade school.

You are all taking a chance with you health and you life. Take a look at:

1. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bitter-orange/AN01218
   

   With bitter orange, you may develop migraines, fainting, and potentially deadly stroke and heart attack.

2. http://nccam.nih.gov/health/bitterorange/
   

   Many herbal weight-loss products now use concentrated extracts of bitter orange peel in place of ephedra. However, bitter orange contains the chemical synephrine, which is similar to the main chemical in ephedra. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned ephedra because it raises blood pressure and is linked to heart attacks and strokes; it is unclear whether bitter orange has similar effects. There is currently little evidence that bitter orange is safer to use than ephedra.

   There have been reports of fainting, heart attack, and stroke in healthy people after taking bitter orange supplements alone or combined with caffeine.

3. http://www.raysahelian.com/bitterorange.html
   

   Do not take bitter orange daily for many weeks or months without a break.

4. http://www.drugs.com/npp/bitter-orange.html
   

   There are numerous case reports of adverse cardiac reactions associated with C. aurantium extract use.

5. http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/expert.q.a/07/31/bitter.orange.extract.appetite.jampolis/
   

   As soon as they stop taking the pills, their appetite returns, and they regain weight.

6. http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/bitter_orange
   And you know there are issues once the lawyers get involved:

   On July 27, 2004, the FDA announced that it is going to start looking into the safety of alternatives to Ephedra. One product that has filled the market niche of Ephedra is Bitter Orange (generic name: Citrus Aurantium). It contains Synerphrine, which brings about stimulation similar to Ephedra and many believe that it is as dangerous as Ephedra.

7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_orange
   

   “While bitter orange has not undergone formal safety testing, it can cause the same spectrum of adverse events as ephedra.^[7] Case reports have linked bitter orange supplements to strokes,^[8][9] angina,^[10] and ischemic colitis.^[11] The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that “there is currently little evidence that bitter orange is safer to use than ephedra.”^[4] There is no evidence that bitter orange is effective in promoting weight loss.”

8. http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/7430
   

   A lot of people will die waiting to get it off the market, Woolsey says.

Saying “Luckily the only side affect that I experienced“, means you took a gamble, and thought you won. But the casinos win on average most of the time. And judging by the comments on hellopeter.com, the casino is winning again.

Using instructions from The Gang of Pour, Hot.Sour.Salty.Sweet. And Umami, pimpernels, The Earth Clinic and nature moms, I am attempting to make my own wine vinegar at home.

My starting assembly consists of a glass jar with cotton cloth cover held in place with rubber bands. Some people advise against rubber bands, as they will perish over time. Using three will mitigate somewhat against this, and if the process works, a more permanent solution will be found.

Above is the starter assembly. I do not have a vinegar mother, and is hoping that one will form de novo. If I can get hold of some raw vinegar, it will be added. From what I understand, using a mother will make the process start faster.

Inside has been added all the leftover wine in the cupboards and fridge. This has been used for cooking up till now.