Random Thoughts

More than a year ago, after yet another horrifying story about a parent killing her autistic child, I wrote a post on how scientific research shows that filicide is almost always accompanied by mental illness.  Parents kill, not a lot of them, but when they do, it makes national headlines. Friedman and Resnick note that "the US has the highest rates of child homicide (8.0/100,000 for infants, 2.5/100,000 for preschool-age children, and 1.5/100,000 for school-age children), [but] the problem of child homicide transcends national boundaries (6). These rates of child…

Huffington Post has a piece up on whether parents of obese children are in denial. Of course, the comments are typical for Huff; there are the usual close-minded asses who assume that all obesity is a result of fat parents "sharing the misery" (as one commentator wrote). Like most things in life, childhood obesity exists for multiple reasons, and judging these parents to be unloving or abusive misses the complex factors that combine to create obesity in individuals. I'm the first person to admit I'm obese. I'm not thrilled with that, but I'm absolutely not in denial about it. Unlike…

It's a wonder I haven't had these sorts of dreams sooner, when one thinks about it. I started volunteering with hospice in July, and I've had three patients that I volunteered with die in that time. I also call about a dozen different grieving families every week to check on them. I've been to more visitations and funerals in the last six months than I have in the last decade. I will, as a volunteer for hospice, deal with death regularly. And yet I know that I will still be insulated; the full-time staff of nurses, aides, chaplains, and social workers deal with it constantly. It is their…

BeautifulPeople.com, the dating community exclusively for good-looking people, is offering the chance to win a date with Joseph and the Virgin Mary - namely by spending a lot of money.  Well, not really the Virgin Mary, they don't want frogs raining on you or locusts infesting your kitchen this Christmas season.  Instead, they are shamelessly whoring themselves, and willing attention-whore members, out in a vaguely disconcerting publicity stunt.  They convinced their members Heather and Dorion, who also appear as the parents of Jesus in their website's Nativity scene, to take…

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is my 24 year old Nephew's favorite game.  In it Russians invade Manhattan.  When I was a kid, suffice it to say, the Russians were not to be played with...except in games featuring nuclear war.  People not that much younger than me are totally disconnected from that reality.  At the beginning of Call of Duty's story mode New York City has been invaded by Russian forces.   As my father and I watched him we could not help but comment at how unrealistic that was.  Far less provocation than that would have lead to us nuking Russia, not…

My younger kids each have a personal-sized dry erase white board and markers they use to draw things.  They make Transformers or cities or cities full of Transformers. Yesterday, my 8-year-old son drew a tetrahedron on his and the word 'tet' and I was intrigued by that. It was simple to be sure but it was a triangular-based period to me. Tetrahedra have a special place in my heart.  As a young guy in finite element analysis, for a brief time in the mechanical world and then in electrical, creating a mesh is vital. In mechanical engineering the maths were a little easier so tool…

Bethesda Softworks' "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" has enjoyed an enthusiastic reception by gamers across the globe. After shipping seven million units of Skyrim for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, Skyrim's launch units are expected to generate more than $450 million in global retail sales.  Skyrim continued to record strong sales following its release at midnight on 11/11/11. More than 50% of launch units were sold in the first 48 hours and Bethesda Softworks has been receiving large reorders from major retailers in North America, and across Europe and Australia. Online activity has…

So People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals doesn't like Super Mario.  Really, I don't either.  Wasn't he the bad guy in Donkey Kong?  Donkey Kong was the name of the game, after all, and the big primate only steals Pauline because Mario was a mean jerk to him. How did he suddenly become a good guy?  Oh, that was 30 years ago? I am trapped in the past, just like PETA.  Though they are trapped in the 17th century and I am only trapped in 1981, long after animal testing achieved pretty much every advance in medical science, that stuff the anti-science hippies at PETA…

"If we were not ignorant there would be no probability, there could only be certainty. But our ignorance cannot be absolute, for then there would be no longer any probability at all. Thus the problems of probability may be classed according to the greater or less depth of our ignorance. " Henry Poincaré

Chess is a lifetime passion, there's no doubt about that. In twentyseven years of practice I have often found myself temporarily losing contact with my chess club, with tournaments, and online blitz games, only to return to the game with a renovated interest and hunger for putting my neurons to the test. The fall of 2011 definitely classifies as one of my "coming back" moments. Here is a summary of the latest tournaments I played: - "Memorial Ongaro", 5 rounds swiss, 20' per player plus 30" increments - Venice July 2011, 50 players (okay not yet summer but it belongs to the series): 3/5 (…