Quotulatiousness

March 12, 2011

Drinking is good for you, but we still don’t know why it’s good for you

Filed under: Health, Science, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:17

Moderate drinking (defined as 2-3 drinks per day) is proven to be healthy for most people, but the jury is still out on why it’s good for you:

Scientists say that more research needs to be done to understand why alcohol may be beneficial in small doses. Most commonly, evidence shows that alcohol is associated with increased cardiovascular health. Researchers at the University of Calgary recently analyzed data on alcohol consumption and heart disease and determined that those who drink one to two glasses of alcohol per day are up to 25% less likely to develop heart disease.

The team, lead by Dr. William Ghali, found that moderate drinking led to higher levels of “good” cholesterol and a decrease of a chemical responsible for blood clotting. It doesn’t matter if the booze is from Chateau Mouton-Rothschild or Labatt’s; “it does appear to be alcohol itself that is causing these favourable outcomes,” Dr. Ghali, a professor of medicine at the university, said.

Len Pasquarelli calls for a new leader for the NFL player negotiations

Filed under: Football, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 14:09

You’d have to say that Len Pasquarelli really isn’t a fan of the current leader of the players’ negotiation efforts:

As the NFL and the group formerly known as the union continue to point fingers, it appears one man was focused on celebrity status more than negotiating. DeMaurice Smith’s predecessor knew how to cut a deal, something Smith could have learned from.

Paraphrasing the old joke about how one might characterize a thousand attorneys buried at the bottom of the ocean floor: What do you call a fast-talkin’ lawyer with a decertified union, no pulpit from which to preach to a congregation and technically no association to executively direct?

A good start.

At the risk of alienating the rank-and-file — and less important, since I wasn’t on the Twitter or fax accounts of assistant executive director/minister of propaganda George Attallah, the NFLPA brass — the Friday afternoon decertification maneuver by the players’ association was the move DeMaurice Smith has had in mind for a long time. And now the fait has met the accompli, and it’s time for the NFLPA to turn to someone who knows how to cut a deal.

We’re not smart enough, or well enough versed in labor law, to have prepared any suggestions. But there has got to be, somewhere, anywhere, a viable alternative to Smith, essentially Elmer Gantry in a business suit and goofy hat. Smith exponentially raised the ante with his incendiary rhetoric, demonizing the league and its owners and their financial statements, declaring the negotiations a war.

Well, on Friday afternoon, he may have won a battle. But in egotistically rejecting a treaty that would have ended the war for another half-dozen years or so, and made his constituents a lot of money, he may have led his mesmerized charges to the brink of football hell.

NFL Players’ union moves to decertify

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:06

The negotiations between the NFL and the players’ union went down to the wire and then past it:

A week of extended negotiations between the National Football League and the NFL Players Association have failed to produce a new labor contract.

The team owners have threatened to lock out the players — a move that could affect the scheduled start of the season this coming fall. There is even a chance that the entire season could be lost. Although most experts see that as unlikely, rating agency Standard & Poor’s has said it believes the owners have the financial wherewithal to go a full year without games being played.

With the failure of the talks, the union immediately moved to decertify itself Friday afternoon. That opened the door for a antitrust lawsuit against the league by some of the union’s star players, including quarterbacks Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

The players hope to win their arguments in court rather than at the negotiating table. But now that there is no longer a union to negotiate with the owners, resuming talks and reaching a new agreement are much more problematic.

Earthquake, tsunami, and worse

Filed under: Environment, Japan, Pacific — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:04

The earthquake by itself was one of the biggest ever recorded, and then the tsunami compounded the quake damage and will make relief and rescue efforts that much harder. Kevin Voigt has more:

The powerful earthquake that unleashed a devastating tsunami Friday appears to have moved the main island of Japan by 8 feet (2.4 meters) and shifted the Earth on its axis.

“At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about that much shift of the land mass,” said Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Reports from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy estimated the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4 inches (10 centimeters).

The temblor, which struck Friday afternoon near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan’s east coast.

Another major concern is the ongoing struggle to regain control of one of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant:

An explosion at an earthquake-struck nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor’s temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday.

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have begun flooding the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor’s temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days.

Radiation levels have fallen since the explosion and there is no immediate danger, Edano said. But authorities were nevertheless expanding the evacuation to include a radius of 20 kilometers (about 12.5 miles) around the plant. The evacuation previously reached out to 10 kilometers.

H/T to Chris Taylor for the link.

This week in Guild Wars 2 news

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:06

I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community.

Part 1: Discussion of previous news

Part 2: Guild Wars news

  • One of the minor irritations about the big Guild Wars update last week was that all UI customizations got reset (this was probably caused by adding all the extra hero slots on your Inventory). Then, to compound the problem, they had to reset the UI again to fix a problem with the Mercenary Hero secondary profession.

Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news

  • PC Gamer has a 10 minute clip of combat in Guild Wars 2.
  • Guild Wars 2 “Behind the Scenes” interview with Daniel Dociu, Martin Kerstein, Isaiah Cartwright and Ree Soesbee. (35 minutes)
  • INC Gamers picks their favourite clips from the GDC sessions.
  • The folks at GuildMag lay out their plans for the PAX East show this weekend.
  • Flameseeker Chronicles: Feast or Famine. “Wow! I’ve joked to other Massively staffers that some weeks I really struggle to find content for Flameseeker Chronicles, while other weeks I struggle simply to stay ahead of the information avalanche. That has never held truer than it has this weekend.”
  • ArenaNet’s plans for PAX East, including the new bells and whistles for each of the revealed character classes so far.
  • Isaiah Cartwright with (almost) everything you want to know about Attributes and Iteration. “We often mention iteration in interviews, at trade shows, and here on the blog. But what does it mean when we talk about the iterative process? I’d like to walk you through some changes we’ve made to the Guild Wars 2 attribute system to give you a better idea of our design philosophy.”
  • Crafting in Guild Wars 2, by Andrew McLeod. “Characters can be proficient in up to two crafting disciplines at a time. We feel that this allows players to have a good variety in the items that they can craft, but still maintains player interaction and exchange. It also gives a stronger focus on the specifics of what you can craft- especially with the depth and size of each of our crafting professions.”
  • A bit more on the new crafting system from Massively.
  • Catch a glimpse of the thief.
  • ArenaNet staff provide more details on the Thief. “The interview with Eric Flannum, Jon Peters, and Isaiah Cartwright builds on much of what we already know: dual pistols, stealth skills, stealing, and so on.”
  • The updated official Thief page at the Guild Wars 2 website.
  • The “ultimate” PAX-East forum thread.
  • Livestream of this morning’s session with lots of interesting combat footage, featuring the Thief and the Guardian teaming up for a few dynamic events. Skip ahead about 10 minutes to the start of the actual presentation.
  • (So late breaking, it missed the actual email newsletter) Thick as Thieves — a more in-depth look at the Thief class, including this insight (which, based on viewing the videos, I rather agree with) “Despite the intention of making the class as easy-to-understand as possible, the team believes that many first-time Thieves will find themselves dying horribly. Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”

Powered by WordPress