Thursday links

“Exercise isn’t a cure-all, and antidepressants aren’t a scam.”

It might be, and they often are.

But it’s not only “active” exercise that helps depression – just walking, getting outside in fresh air, paying attention to your surroundings can help. Tuning in to the physical reality of Mother Nature often brings you down to earth and lifts your spirits at the same time, so you can focus better on the depression-causing problem rather than giving in to the mood you inherit from it.

The Hillary video – judging by the way her feet were sliding around while her attendants were surefooted, i”d guess that the only problem was that she was wearing silk slippers.

Not a day after the report of a dog that had died in an over head bin, United Airlines accidentally ships a dog to Japan. I’m starting to suspect United isn’t the most pet friendly airline around…

https://nypost.com/2018/03/14/united-airlines-mistakenly-sends-dog-to-japan-instead-of-kansas/

It sounds like Theranos got in a hole, and Holmes tried to dig her way out.

To be fair, United had the correct destinations, but switched dogs. That’s a lot easier to do than sending something to the wrong place. Heck, sometimes I called my daughters by each other’s names. And, yeah, they were as different as German Shepherds and Great Danes.

Math are hard! It reminds me of references to San Antonio’s “65% Hispanic minority.”

Personally, just getting outside helps, and I don’t do enough of it.

What do you mean, that doctors don’t prescribe exercise to treat depression? I do. I recommend it as a valuable adjunct to other things that I do.
I love math. It’s fun. So are physics and chemistry. Physiology is the best; the creme de la creme. I remember once figuring out the binding energy of all the nuclei in the water of a certain size swimming pool, just for yucks. I reread my general chemistry textbook from my premed years about 5 years ago, and I reread Guyton’s Textbook of Medical Physiology after that. I even bought the newer edition to do it. There were descriptions of some enormously complex biological systems, that reconfirm my belief that we were designed by a Creator, after which the authors said silly things like “it is fortuitous that this occurs,” or “we are fortunate to have …” when it is, to me, obvious that we could not have randomly evolved to these complex systems. All spontaneous reactions lead to an increase in entropy (disorder). That second law of thermodynamics is undisputed among chemists and physicists, as far as I know. So how could we have spontaneously evolved from random muck, or simple compounds like ammonia, methane, etc., into such incredibly organized systems? Even a single cell is enormously complex. The odds would have been far greater that you could put a bunch of monkeys into a room of musical instruments and they randomly produce Beethoven’s 5th Symphony. Physiology, to me, is spiritually uplifting. 40%, or a majority, of doctors feel the same way.

I have to wonder if “disparagingly and inaccurately” are one thing in two parts, or two separate things of which one may be true or both true or both untrue. Disparagingly seems to be a value judgement – but if her observations are correct, it’s not a negative thing it’s just Truth. If she’s inaccurate, then she’s wrong. But if she’s not wrong, then ‘disparagingly’ isn’t negative and should be thought of as a pointed-out opportunity to improve something – student selection or student attitudes for example.

Facts are facts. I want to see the stats for all students in the class, with both their race ID and their performance, by semester. THAT will determine who is trying and who is lying.