Placebo Affect

Ted Kaptchuk’s first randomized clinical drug trial, All the patients had joined the study hoping to alleviate severe arm pain: carpal tunnel, tendinitis, chronic pain in the elbow, shoulder, and wrist.

In one part of the study, half the subjects received pain-reducing pills; the others were offered acupuncture treatments. The pills his team had given patients were actually made of cornstarch; the acupuncture needles were retractable shams that never pierced the skin. The study was designed to compare two fakes.

In both cases, people began to call in, saying they couldn't get out of bed. The pills were making them sluggish, the needles caused swelling and redness; some patients’ pain ballooned to nightmarish levels. Almost a third of his 270 subjects complained of bad side effects. The side effects were exactly what patients had been warned their treatment might produce. Most of the other patients reported real relief, and those who received acupuncture felt even better than those on the anti-pain pill.

Rum

It was originally called rumbullion. Richard Ligon in 1651 said, “Rumbullion alias Kill-Devill . . . is made of suggar cane distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor . . . will overpower the senses with a single whiff.” 

The world rumbullion formerly existed as either Royal Navy jargon for “an uproar” or Creole slang for “stem stew” It was shortened to rum years later, but its reviews did not get any better. In 1654 a General Court Order was issued in Connecticut to seize and destroy “whatsoever Barbados liquors, commonly called rum, Kill Devill, or the like.” Demon rum was first coined by Timothy Arthur in his 1854 temperance play “Ten Nights in a Barroom,” and it wasn't long before the phrase came to describe all forms of evil alcohol.

Wordology, Hair of the Dog

The expression, “hair of the dog that bit you” refers to an old method of treating a rabid dog bite by placing hair from the same dog on the wound. We now use it to acknowledge the practice of soothing a hangover (actually alcohol withdrawal) by ingesting the same substance that caused the problem. The earliest known reference to the phrase "hair of the dog" in connection with drunkenness is found in a text from ancient Ugarit dating from the mid to late second millennium.

This metaphor first surfaced in a 1546 collection of English colloquial sayings: “What how fellow, thou knave, I pray thee let me and my fellow have a haire of the dog that bit us last night. And bitten were we bothe to the braine aright.”

Applied to drinks, it means, if overnight you have indulged too freely, take a glass of the same drink to soothe the nerves. "If this dog do you bite, soon as out of your bed, take a hair of the tail the next day." Aristophanes used the Latin 'similia similibus curantur' (like cures like) and it exists today as the basic postulate of classical homeopathy.

During the 1930s, cocktails known as Corpse Revivers were served in hotels.

The Hungarian translation to English is, "(You may cure) the dog's bite with its fur," but has evolved into a short phrase "kutyaharapást szőrével" that is used frequently in other contexts when one is trying to express that the solution to a problem is more of the problem.

Among the Irish and Mexicans, the phrase "the cure, or "curarse la cruda" in Spanish is often used. In Costa Rica the same expression is used but it refers to a pig as in: hair of the same pig.

In some Slavic languages (Polish, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian and Russian) hair of the dog is called "a wedge" (klin), as in dislodging a stuck wedge with another one, which is used figuratively with regard to alcohol and in other contexts. The proper Russian term is – опохмелка "after being drunk", which indicates a process of drinking to decrease effects of drinking the night before.

In German, drinking alcohol the next morning to relieve the symptoms is sometimes described as ein Konterbier trinken "having a counter-beer." In Austria people have a reparatur-seidl "repair-beer." In Portuguese people speak of uma rebatida "a hit," meaning to strike away the hangover with more alcohol. There is a new Belgian beer called Snuffles and it is brewed exclusively for dogs. Maybe a new term, 'Hair of the Human' will come into vogue. 

Phone Spam

Finally a bit of help with the decreasing phone spam. Forward spam texts to 7726. Your carrier will respond and ask you what number it came from.

Good to Know Costco

You can go to Costco and buy alcohol without a membership. Also, you can fill prescriptions and get shots at their pharmacy, eat at the food court, get your eyes checked, and use a Costco gift card bought for you by a member.

Bums, Hobos, Tramps, Vagrants, and Vagabonds

Hobo, tramp, and bum are all terms for a person who is homeless and without a steady job. While most folks use these words interchangeably, there is a slight difference between the three. A hobo is someone who travels from place to place looking for work, a tramp is someone who travels, but avoids work whenever possible, and a bum does not care to work or travel.

While no one is quite sure how the word “hobo” developed, it seems to have originated in the American West after the US Civil War, when many discharged veterans were looking for employment. The hobo population also increased during the Great Depression, as unemployed men took to train-hopping with the hopes of finding better prospects on the road. Although “hobo” is a slang word, its meaning was well known by the late 19th century and Funk and Wagnall's even listed “hobo” in the 1893 edition of its dictionary. It was derived from the term hoe-boy meaning "farmhand", or a greeting such as "Ho, boy!". Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America, 1998 that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of homeward bound.

The British Hobo Museum exhibits hobo history and lore. Initially just a "Hobo Convention" museum, in the late 1990s it evolved into the Hobo History Museum.

The word “tramp” comes from a Middle English verb meaning to “walk with heavy footsteps,” and, like “hobo,” it also became widely used after the Civil War. It initially referred to migrant workers searching for permanent work, but it was later used to designate those who “prefer the transient way of life.” In Britain the term was widely used to refer to vagrants in the early Victorian period. It is also used for a sexually promiscuous woman.

Lately, the word is experiencing a bit of resurgence as many wanderers have adopted the title to more clearly differentiate their way of life from hobos. Some, for example, intentionally avoid participating in the economic system and therefore take pride in their 'tramp' status and may even view themselves as superior to hobos.

A vagrant could be described as being "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging." Both "vagrant" and "vagabond" derive from Latin word vagari "wander." The term "vagabond" is derived from Latin vagabundus. In Middle English, "vagabond" originally denoted a criminal.

Panhandling is a solicitation made in person for immediate donation of money or other gratuity. Bottom line, most bums, tramps, and vagrants, but only some hobos panhandle. All politicians and some other groups and individuals engage in panhandling or public fundraising for many causes and charities.

Oxford University Press Guidelines

The news is that Oxford University Press has issued guidelines instructing authors of children’s books to avoid references to pigs, sausage, or anything else that might be construed as porcine for fear of offending Muslims. It has no specific policies issued instructing authors not to offend Christians.

Happy Friday

The journey of a thousand laughs begins with a single chuckle.

I plan to share a thousand laughs while enjoying a Happy Friday!

Free Friday Smile

Dalai Lama

“Man surprised me most about humanity, because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health and then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Gotta Go?

There is an app for that. When you really Gotta Go, Flush Toilet Finder is an app for smartphones that helps you find free public restrooms.

The app on Android and iOS is handy if you are in a strange city and you do not know where you can go or if you are shopping, and emergency hits.

Open the app and it searches the area around you. Its database covers over 100,000 public restrooms around the world and the database is constantly expanding. When you find the one you want, you can get directions via Google or Apple Maps. Flush also lists if a restroom has a fee, requires a key, or if it provides disabled access. LINK

Size Matters

The largest oil tanker ships displace about 520,000 tons when fully loaded, which is 10 times the 52,310 tons 883 feet length of the Titanic. The largest ship (and largest oil tanker) ever built was the Seawise Giant, 1,500 feet length and displacement 657,019 tonnes (724,239 tons).

Top Ten Tech Changes

1. Farming is quickly becoming a high-tech job. Farmers are using big-data analytics to better monitor, manage, and understand their outputs.
2. Energy utility companies are slow to adopt new technologies, and they have a set business model used for decades. Renewable energy, however, needs advanced battery technology and new storage and transmission systems, so this has to change. It is starting to with the development of microgrids and other smart grid technologies, which are a major part of the future for utilities. The market for smart grid IT will grow to more than $23 billion by 2023.
3. Electric vehicles are powered by high-tech batteries, but the technology for them is not yet fully developed. Data analysis is big with EVs too, as most cars are equipped with sensors that track the behavior of the driver so that companies can better understand and develop EV technologies.
4. As solar panel prices decrease and more individuals and companies adopt them, the renewable energy industry is finally heading toward the mainstream.
5. There is no industry transforming the future faster than 3D printing, but the technology is also infiltrating many other ones, like healthcare, manufacturing, and aerospace. It means new tech jobs that revolve around understanding, developing, and monitoring the printers and software development and management.
6. The healthcare industry is notorious for developing slowly, but all that is changing with the advent of bioprinting, telemedicine, and big data analytics. There will be IT jobs in hospitals and clinics, software companies, hardware companies, data science companies, and even big tech companies.
7. Technology is changing the way government processes work. Cities like Boston and New York are adding social media directors and Chief Digital Officers to promote campaigns, run social media, and get people to interact more with their government. Organizations revamping government websites to make them more efficient.
8. Technology and computer science education will be increasingly important as the world works to get more children prepare for the future. Nine out of ten schools in the US do not yet  offer computer programming classes.
9. Toys are getting smarter. People are building toys that serve a purpose and incorporate robotics, sensors, and computers.
10. Companies are using sensors and data analytics to identify and monitor leaks and water waste in the home so that people can better conserve the resource and their money.

WiFi Dilemma

Get the WiFi passwords at various places by checking the comments section of their FourSquare accounts. You are welcome.