Making minor deities disappear in a puff of logic since 1972
Sun, 31 Aug 2008
New Project: ImageGetter
I put together a little project that attempts to gather the "zeitgeist" image from a particular web site, and returns it.
Here's how it might work... Imagine a message boards application, like PHPBB, for example. As you type in a URL to share, a little bit of javascript gets executed which loads an image from a remote page for you to include with the link.
Here's a Web 1.0 way of illustrating it (I need to get a nice AJAX library installed on my blog, so the 2.0 version is forthcoming). Just type in a URL into the box and click "Go". A new window will open with the "zeitgeist image", if there is an image that seems suitable. Works on sites like flickr, but not so much on google, although I suspect I could tweak it to work.
Palin Will Either Resign or Sabotage McCain's Campaign
From time to time, I'm known to make some kind of outrageous prediction, and the one for today is Palin's resignation. Here are the top reasons I think that she'll either sink the McCain presidency, or have to step down:
Scandal Already the blogosphere is buzzing about a conflict of interest in her dismissal of a public safety commissioner, and the potential that her teenage daughter is the real mother of her latest child (mark that one up as top ten material for story of the decade if it's true)
UPDATE: Google News is reporting that Bristol Palin, 17 and unwed, is pregnant. So the scandals have already started. Sarah Palin portrays herself as a "tough as nails" conservative who can both run a governorship and raise a family, but apparently not well enough to reflect conservative social values like abstinence, and certainly not smart enough to use birth control. Of course, the hypocritical social conservatives will likely just give her a pass, but the onslaught has begun.
She's older than McCain Well not physically, there aren't many politicians alive that are older than John McCain, but philosophically, she's in the 19th century. She clings to the Republican dogma that global warming isn't caused by human factors (note to Palin: "An Inconvenient Truth" is out on DVD, even if you missed it on one of Juneau's 8 screens), and opposes abortion even in cases of incest and rape (Cue music: "Every sperm is sacred").
She's a major Flip-Flopper, not a "Maverick" Take her supposedly principled stand against the Senator Ted Stevens memorial bridge, aka "the bridge to nowhere". McCain's website claims, " She put a stop to the 'bridge to nowhere' that would have cost taxpayers $400 million dollars." Really? It turns out she was for it before she was against it.
She's not a principled fiscal conservative But, at least she cut $400 million in pork out of the federal budget, right? While it's true that as governor she nixed plans for the bridge that Palin's friend and supporter Ted Stevens petitioned congress for, what actually happened to the $400 million dollars that came out of your and my pocket? Was it returned to the Federal Government to help pay for Iraq, or to provide funding for No Child Left Behind, or to bury news from the EPA about global warming?
No, although that would have been yet another quaint use of our tax dollars... Instead, they used the funds for other transportation projects "because the money would otherwise have to be returned to the federal government." There goes the image of the principled fiscal conservative.
I've got more foreign policy experience than she does Seriously. Her spokeswoman states that she's been out of the US twice. Once on a trip to Ireland, and once to Germany and Kuwait. She supposedly got her first passport last year. It's so bad, the republicans are resorting to using the fact that right across the Bering Strait is Russia!
Russia, eh? The closest this could get to being "foreign policy experience" would be if a wayward Eskimo resident of Little Diomede Island (population 170) had wandered over to Russian territory on Big Diomede Island, and the Russians end up calling the Alaska Governor's office, if they hadn't called the State Department first. (read more about the Diomede Islands).
The largest two population centers over 10,000 residents in the vicinity are the Russian town of Anadyr (population 11K) and Fairbanks (population 31K). These two towns are over a thousand miles away. By equivalent logic, Barack Obama has foreign policy experience with Cuba since Marion, Illinois, a city of 27K residents and within his constituency, is about 1000 miles away from Havana, Cuba.
Experience Matters Here Barack Obama would be the second youngest President ever. McCain would be the oldest President ever, beating Reagan by 3 years. Actuarial tables show that Obama has less than one percent probability of death (by age) by the end of his second term. Compare this to McCain, who has a 6.8% probability of death. Mathematically, McCain is 8.5 times more likely to leave Palin as commander in chief than Obama is likely to leave Biden in the same position... Not to mention that Biden's foreign policy advantage over Palin will likely become evident during the vice presidential debates...
Let's face it, McCain's pick of Palin is the best evidence to question the fitness of his judgement, and her lack of experience given his age puts a fine point on it.
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Tony C. -- writes:
John W. Dean, former White House Counsel under President Nixon, has his own take on Palin's lack of qualifications, this time based on her inability to meet implicit constitutional and statutory requirements for the office of VP: http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/dean/20080905.html
Khan -- writes:
Cool article, thanks for sharing.
Thu, 21 Aug 2008
Grocery Store Hawkers
On my way into the local Safeway, I was accosted by a man, standing by what was presumably his pre-teen son, with a bunch of candy bars.
"Help us raise money for football helmets by buying a candy bar," he offered.
"No thanks", I said over my shoulder as I walked into the store.
Then it occurred to me that this man was selling what Safeway was selling. Except inside a reputable store with a physical storefront and a clear customer/vendor relationship, I'd pay $1, and outside I'd pay some stranger $5 for what supposedly would be spent on football gear...
At least with the girl scouts, they're selling something that Safeway doesn't carry!
Some would say that I'm missing the point-- the point is this is a fundraiser, not that you can find the sold goods for cheaper elsewhere... But at least community supported TV and radio stations offer either unique items, or take the time to silkscreen their logo onto a $15 flash drive before they try to sell it to you for $75... And it's tax-deductible, and you have a reasonable expectation that it'll be spent on something worthwhile.
Of all the charities Christine and I patronize, do I really want to spend $4 on this (and in the process get a $1 candy bar which I not only didn't want to buy not to mention eat)?
Even if the money was truly going to be spent for football gear, maybe your son's team should focus on basketball or soccer which has a much cheaper price of entry if standing outside a grocery store is going to determine whether you can suit the team up or not.
Curiously, the man and his son were both gone when I came out five minutes later. They weren't sitting at a table, and in fact, when I walked in they were obscured (hiding?) behind a column... Makes me wonder if he was truly raising money for football helmets or for something else... (before he was possibly asked to leave)
My charitable giving is done thoughtfully, periodically, by direct deposit, and is fully tax deductible. If you're going to hawk something, don't try to sell me some kind of sob story that the inflated price is because you need to make outrageous profits on ordinary items to support something that has the semblance of being worth supporting.
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vaitkadamas -- writes:
Damn grandpa, why didnt you just tell the kid to "get a job!"? Or explain that your football team was so poor, you had to play without helmets... or uniforms... in the snow... I dont know much about charities but the very state of being needy kind of implies they dont have a lot of resources. Direct deposit seems like a lot of overhead for a few kids. Personally Im a little turned off by the way United Way has turned charity into a major corporate business. I've had employers that forced us to donate so that the department met its charity goals. Save this post and look back at it in 12 years when you and your son are in front of Safeway :)
Khan -- writes: You had to be there...
I sincerely don't think this guy was fundraising. I guess my "scam detector" is set on high, and if I were to sit outside a grocery store in 12 years, I'd bring a table, a chair, make a sign, and have some pictures of the team, not just stand there with some candy bars in my hands.
Sat, 16 Aug 2008
1.977 centimeters
Type the following query into google: "(100 m) / (50.58 s) * 0.01 seconds in centimeters" (or you can just click)...
The answer you get back will look like this:
 | ((100 m) / (50.58 s)) * (0.01 seconds) = 1.97706603 centimeters |
What does this equation tell us?
Michael Phelps swam the 100m butterfly in 50.58 seconds, at an average rate of 1.97 meters per second (or roughly 6 feet every second).
He won this race by 1/100th of a second.
That means that he won this race by approximately 1.97706603 centimeters. For those of you not quite sure how far that is, (just ask Google "1.97706603 centimeters in inches") it's basically 3/4". This is remarkable for two reasons.
First, if they had touched closer to 3/8" apart, 1/200ths of a second would have elapsed between the touches, and the calibration of the timers would not have been able to tell the times apart-- that is, Cavic's time would likely have been the same as Phelps if they had touched any closer than 3/8ths of an inch because at the (average) speed they were swimming, such distance would represent a quantum of time less than 1/100th of a second.
Second, the irony is that the only reason he won by that much is that he thought he lost:
As soon as I took that last half stroke, to be honest, I thought I'd lost the race. I guess that was the difference because if I had glided then I would have came up short.If he didn't think he had lost, he wouldn't have taken another stroke, and wouldn't have beaten Cavic.
Amazing.
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Fri, 15 Aug 2008
Olympic Swimming - A Bit Much?
Variety is the spice of life, as they say, but Olympic swimming is a little overboard.
I guess I'm an olympic "purist". While I appreciate many olympic sports, I don't think the olympics is the right venue for them.
<rant>
The original motto of the Olympics is "Citius, Altius, Fortius" ("Faster, Stronger, Higher"), so my unconventional opinion is that the olympics ought to consist purely of events that you can set world records in (by the way, these tend to be measures of faster, stronger higher...).
What does that leave in the olympics? Cycling, Rowing, Swimming, Track & Field, Triathlon, and Weightlifting. Everything else, in my wonderfully simplified world, would be cut.
</rant>
I did admit it was an unconventional opinion, no?
Further, I think each of these remaining sports ought to be distilled down to "faster, stronger, higher", which means they ought to eliminate the butterfly, backstroke and the breaststroke in swimming. They're simply concocted forms that cripple swimmers from swimming faster. (Track and Field could also benefit from killing events like the hurdles, speedwalking, and steeplechase, but at least you don't see stuff like the "100m crabwalk" and the "200m wheelbarrow" or the "400m bearwalk"... And weightlifting would lose the snatch, since all lifters can generally lift more using the clean and jerk-- but if you can do better with a snatch, more power to you.)
Anyway, olympic swimming would be a little less... obese... if it consisted of just 16 events-- 8 for women, 8 for men, six each of individual races of varying length from 50m to 1500m, and 2 each of relays. If you swim one of the other strokes faster than the freestyle, you're welcome to use it. The idea is to get from start to finish as fast as possible, in the water, and again, you ought to be able to do it any way you want, whether that's underwater, dolphin kicking all the way, or doing the doggy paddle.
Some of the events I would evict can either focus on existing annual or quadrannual events which attract the stars as much as or more than the olympics, and those that don't have such events could either create them, if there are enough viewers/fans to sustain it, or go on and sulk back into obscurity (rhythmic gymnastics, I'm talking about you).
Meanwhile, any of the existing sports wanting to change their format to faster/stronger/higher could come back. For example, in Gymnastics, the vault could become a distance event... "Nastia Lukin vaulted 34 feet!" or "Yang Wei held the iron cross for 17 seconds on the rings!" or "Kerry Walsh spiked a ball with the net at 2.25m" would work for me... Go ahead, call me crazy. :)
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Jeff Lechtanski -http://www.lechtanski.net- writes: Olympic Sympathizer
Following a strict constructionist model, confining the games to only timed events is too stringent. The ancient games included boxing and wrestling. And once you open the gates to competitions where your only goal is to take out the competitor, it is a slippery slope. You end up with beach volleyball.
Khan -- writes: Exactly...
That's why I didn't bother starting down the slope... I was tempted to keep boxing and wrestling for precisely the reason you stated, but it foiled my plan. Last thing we need is olympic golf, polo, arm wrestling, thumb wrestling (hey, why not?), and kickball.
Thu, 14 Aug 2008
Wasn't Ronald Reagan A Celebrity?
No matter what you think of Ronald Reagan, it's clear that John McCain adores him. The best part of this two minute video I found was this quote:
"I am confident that the reason why I hold a lot of the philosophical views that I have are an inspiration of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, there's no doubt about it."See it for yourself:
Yet, if you watch John McCain's "Celebrity" ad, where McCain displays Obama next to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, calls him a "celebrity" and questions his ability to lead, McCain's criticism is clear:
"Higher taxes, more foreign oil, that's the real Obama."See it for yourself:
Of course, the irony is that Paris Hilton's parents are contributors to John McCain's campaign, and called the ads "a total waste". Then the McCain camp put out another "celebrity" video, with a slightly different criticism:
Higher taxes, more government spending, so, fewer jobs.See it for yourself:
But how does John McCain's hero, Ronald Reagan, compare on these accounts?
- Higher taxes? Check.
- "Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives--and probably cost Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection--Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84." (source)
- More foreign oil? Check.
- During Reagan's term, between 1981 and 1989, oil imports increased on average of nearly 4% year over year. (source)
- More government spending? Check.
- "[In 1983] Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients--new federal workers--into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits, and did so in the most liberal way: only those of upper-income recipients. (As an added affront to conservatives, the tax wasn't indexed to inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it over time.)" (source)
- Fewer jobs? Check.
- "Unemployment swelled to more than 10 percent of the workforce. Over the eight years of the Reagan administration unemployment averaged more than 7.5 percent - a full percentage point above the average of the previous administration." (source)
The simple answer is that John McCain is pandering to a conservative base who has a selectively positive memory of Reagan's term. But it bears pointing out that the doubts he is casting upon an Obama presidency are no worse than the reality of what was the Reagan presidency.
Note to the McCain campaign: Next time you throw stones, make sure you're not lobbing them from the glass house of your ideological hero.
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vaitkadamas -www.keithvaitkus.com- writes:
Everyone has a selective memory. That appears to be the way human memory actually works. But your larger point is that facts have no place in elections because elections are largely emotional decisions. I suspect most decisions in American life are emotional rather than fact-based. What is surprising is how little this has changed despite the great increase of available information. The Internets and The Google allow us to get access to more information and facts than humans ever in history - yet the abundance of data has not had any measurable impact on the quality of our decisions. Global warming, mass transit, the civilian forces in Iraq, foreign oil, taxes, government spending, even personal finances. Take almost any major issue and I suspect you will find people have strong opinions and almost no facts at all. Even in the Information Age, emotion rules the political debate and anyone who tries to have a rational, data-based discussion will be quickly sabotaged by emotional arguments. Fox has proven this emotion over fact style can make a ton of money.
Khan -- writes:
Of course, you're right. Even those of us who tend to make decisions in a computer-like fashion are susceptible to emotional (and other) bias. However, making arguments, having debates and using the art of persuasion (including advertising, political or not) are able to sway the closed-minded, the weak-minded, the open-minded, and intellectual alike. While any particular technique may or may not work with all of the groups above, my hope is that the readers of this blog tend to fall into the latter half, and that my arguments either resonate, are insightful, or are at least thought provoking. :)
Tue, 12 Aug 2008
New Blog Layout
I've widened the layout of my blog in anticipation of highlighting more of my photography. The previous layout favored more whitespace, but the wider format will play nicer not only for landscape photography, but allow for larger feature images.
Stay tuned for more!
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Mon, 11 Aug 2008
Carson Update 8/11/2008
Today we took Carson in for his "barium swallow" session where they confirmed that food tends to stay in his esophagus, and that there is a bit of reflux. Now that we know it, we can just keep him in a vertical orientation after feedings which should reduce his fussiness, and continue to give him the Prevacid which will keep whatever reflux that comes up from irritating his throat (since it will contain less stomach acid).
The session wasn't without drama, however. First, to administer the barium (which is administered specifically because it's a heavy metal, liquid at room temperature and insoluble in water) we had to strap Carson down. This, naturally, distresses babies, so Christine and I continued to try to comfort him while they took the x-rays to see the swallowing action (the dense barium comes across as less luminous) so you can see how "food" enters the stomach.
So, what's left at this point is fine tweaking of his diet. Since it's looking less likely that he had a reaction to the cow's milk, we can change his formula from the relatively viscous soy formula to a rice starch, or RS formula. This stuff is a little bit thicker, and Christine and I figure that thicker stuff will stay down better, particularly if we're careful to keep him upright after feedings, and continue to use Prevacid to reduce the amount of stomach acid.
We have another appointment at Children's tomorrow with the lactation consultant, to help us determine next steps as far as feedings go.
Before he was born, I had the anxiety of a parent-to-be that presumed that there would be times when the baby would be inconsolable. And there are those times, but it's those times when we're forcing barium down his throat or having him circumcised. I wish I could say that these moments don't bug me, but they do, and the only thing that helps get through it is the knowledge that we're doing it with his best interest in mind.
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Exif Feature Added
I've added an exif feature, as you can see from the previous blog entry.
What this means for readers is that I can automagically include EXIF data (data that cameras encode into a jpg about how it was taken) for specific images by using a custom tag when I'm creating blog entries.
What this means for blosxom users who read my blog (just Rus, I presume) is that if you want to take advantage of this, I have a plugin for you, called add_exif.
If you don't use blosxom, and want a similar feature for your blog, and are reasonably comfortable with perl scripts, go ahead and take a look at the plugin... It wouldn't be hard to make an SSI out of it.
To see it in action, scroll down and observe what the image looks like below without a mouseover, and what happens when you mouse over it.
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rus -http://rus.berrett.org/blog/- writes: oooo... very nice!
great work, nicely done!
Testing New Blog Feature
I'm testing a new feature I'm building that will automatically add EXIF data to images I load into my blog.
This is a test:
File name : blog_images/4th.jpg File size : 87351 bytes File date : 2008:07:04 23:18:46 Camera make : Canon Camera model : Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XTi Date/Time : 2008:07:04 22:19:44 Resolution : 470 x 706 Flash used : No Focal length : 67.0mm Exposure time: 5.000 s Aperture : f/10.0 ISO equiv. : 100 Exposure : Manual
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Sun, 10 Aug 2008
Photo of Lake Washington
Taken July 4th, 2008
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Christine -- writes: Wow
You have become an amazing photographer!!
Thu, 07 Aug 2008
Mac vs. PC - $78 to $355 difference!
I've covered the topic of the Mac vs. PC price myth before, but a couple of recent developments led me to redo the comparison.
First, on a mailing list I'm on, one reader remarked, "[I] can't find a way to justify the ultra premium price which I find to be approximately 4x what I can build a Linux box for".
Second, Tom's Hardware recently published an article on "The Apple Mac Cost Misconception", where they compared a $2000 laptop from Dell and Apple, and a $2780 Mac Pro vs. a comparable home-built PC. The results, unsurprising to me, is that the Mac Pro is about a latte's difference ($5.87) away from the PC, which you have to take the time to put together yourself and doesn't come with an integrated warranty.
The problem with Tom's comparison, however, is that they didn't look at the low end of the scale. Now, all comparisons can be assailed in some fashion, including mine. What's important to state first and foremost is the thesis of the comparison. Namely, what could you get for your money if you were thinking about spending $599 for an entry-level Mac Mini from Apple? To make the comparison as fair as possible, I tried to replicate the market segment of the Mac Mini, by selecting the mini-ATX PC form factor (17cm x 17cm), and as similar as possible hardware.
I long ago (in 1998) abandoned the PC market, so I don't claim to have used the cheapest PC components. Surely, some of these can be found cheaper, but I think it's still illustrative to the point of "is a Mac really more expensive?" Rather, I followed in Tom's footsteps, for better or worse, as much as I could, to get pricing for the components. (I, like them, used Newegg.com's pricing and chose the cheapest, but most comparable component they sold. If anyone is interested, I'll post the URLs of all the products separately.)
Without any further ado, here's the price comparison: (boldface indicates line item winner)
In summary, the Mac mini is hands down a winner in just about every conceivable category. The attractive chassis is designed for the computer, and offers a convenient slot drive, and ports on the back for all of the features of the computer. For example, the handbuilt model has on-board firewire, but no external firewire port. Sure, you can buy a simple Firewire PCI card for less than $15, but the motherboard, chassis, and design spec of a mini-computer doesn't have room for it.
The one area the PC outpaces the Mac mini is in its 16X combo drive, compared to the mini's 8X drive. But this is more than made up for, in my mind, by the slot-loading drive which doesn't compete with other stuff on your desktop when the tray ejects.
Aside from this, the Mac mini runs up the score in every other category. Built-in bluetooth means no need to consume a USB slot with a clumsy dongle. The Mac mini has optical input and output via SPDIF mini jacks, which you'd have to buy a separate card for on the PC-- if you're willing to lose 802.11g. But even in that configuration, the price drops by $14 (lose 802.11g) and climbs by at least $25-30 or more dollars to get the optical SPDIF in/out ports via the PCI slot.
The gap widens a little more, or a lot more, depending on the software comparison. I compared the configuration to Ubuntu Linux, which isn't quite for everyone. However, the poster on the mailing list I'm on mentioned Linux, so I included the $1.75 media cost for Ubuntu. The price difference is dramatically different if you consider the comparison, as Tom's Hardware did it, with Windows Vista Ultimate, at another $277.49!
Finally, the Mac comes with all the hardware installed, a guarantee that the particular hardware configuration is going to work out of the box, no hardware or OS installation required, with no driver tweaks or OS support nightmares, a 1 year warranty, and the ability to take the box to an Apple store to have it serviced, if necessary.
Only those who already have (and discount the cost of) a spare wireless card, bluetooth dongle, DVD drive and spare 2.5" laptop drive could come close to the price of a Mac mini. More realistically, depending on the OS and specific options, the general public would be looking at a premium of anywhere between $78 to $355 more for a comparable PC than for a Mac mini.
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stiiky -- writes: International...?
Hi khan.org, I have been reading many, many of these fighting comparisons between folks, on which is the better option and one is more expensive than the other etc etc. What i find interesting is the narrow scope to which all of these comparisons adhere. I live in Australia, and i will say that the Mac price gap is far more extended here. The same spec'd mac mini here costs $849. Now, to my mind, the comparison becomes blurred at that point. I recently put together a system, on paper, comparable to the top end imac (from a hardware point of view) for under $1000 (including 24" samsumg monitor). When you start comparing things at a performance level ,where the niche factor of board size plays less role, it is more difficult to compare. I know that there is the argument, as ever, that the OS is what you pay for. But if you are the type of person to assemble your system yourself, you are likely to be able to manipulate your OS to get he most out of it. And even for the mac experience there are Linux flavours which offer (admittedly impersonated) features like the mac: eg dashboard and the windows/file manager layout/spotlight. I am not saying either way, i have both, just saying that it changes for individuals as well as for locations. Many wishes for your future Blogging. Stiiky
Khan -- writes: Response to stiiky
You make a good point, the price comparisons can vary from country to country, and product by product. I will say, however, that comparing to the "top end imac" which is an all in one form factor, may not be a fair comparison for some people... For those who care less if their CPU and display are separate units, your comparison will demonstrate the value of a PC. On the other hand, finding an enclosure that you can build a PC to the back of an LCD, well, that's custom work that will not be cost competitive to "build yourself"...
Stiiky -- writes: The points are never not valid
This will go back and forward forever. Of course, form factor will be a factor in it all, and the eye candy associated with things is the only feature to distinguish between anyone's "guns". If that was to be taken out of account, you could always set up a good, strong PC, hook it up to a decent projector and, for about the cost of the iMac, you have an ENORMOUS screen, form factor is not an issue and everything is hunky doory :p I don't often comment on these things, because there are so very many threads which do contest this exact point of view. I only chose to here, because i thought you presented a very well balanced and level headed argument. I want to say that, having read some of the other posts on here, i like the cut of your jib andi will concede that personal flavour and taste are the biggest factors between people. i look forward to reading many more posts in the future. regards, Stiiky PS a Vesa mounton the back of your lcd coul solve the form factor :p
Khan -- writes:
I think you made my point there, though. :) That is, if a PC costs the same as an iMac, you can hook the iMac up to the projector and voila... Enormous screen, and form factor is not an issue. In that case, then it simply comes down to user preference... If you ever want to run OS X (legally) you have to choose the Mac. If you want to run Windows or Linux, pick either the Mac or the PC, both will run either OS well enough.
stiiky -- writes:
just to clarify...i meant you could get the pc AND the projector(where i am at least) for the cost of the iMac. Bit of a difference there.
Mon, 04 Aug 2008
Another Carson Update
Today we took Carson in to see a feeding specialist at Children's hospital to help us address the condition they diagnosed him with last week. Much less serious than laryngomalacia (which often requires surgical intervention to fix), Carson apparently suffers from gastroesophageal reflux or GERD (@wikipedia).
If you've heard of "acid reflux" on TV, it's basically the same thing, except in infants. Carson's symptoms are what appear to be painful feedings, particular breastfeeding which is typically done with the infant in horizontal orientation.
On Friday, we picked up a prescription for Zantac, a histamine blocker or "histamine-2 receptor antagonist" (@wikipedia) which prevents the release of gastric acid (for you chemistry geeks, that's HCl or hydrochloric acid-- pretty caustic stuff).
After a few doses, it seems to be making a difference, particularly with bottle feedings, which are easy to perform with Carson sitting upright (and with gravity's assistance to keep the acid where it needs to stay). Breastfeeding hasn't been any better, though, because that's typically performed with Carson in a horizontal (no gravity assist in keeping acids from reflux) orientation, which means he's still fussy when breastfeeding.
The purpose of today's visit was to get some tips for feeding, changing, and sleeping orientations for Carson to maintain the gravity-assisted prevention aspects of acid reflux. We now have some foam wedges to put on his changing table, to use during breastfeeding, and for his crib/basinette/moses bed replete with velcro straps to keep him inclined when he sleeps.
We hope that these wedges, plus the Zantac he's taking will help soothe his inflamed larynx, reduce the amount of acid (and hence the irritation) when he spits up (most babies do), and ultimately, reduce the fussiness of his breastfeedings which has confounded our ability to reduce not only bottle feeding, but the amount of formula as well. (It's a vicious circle-- fussiness when feeding horizontally at the breast means more bottle feeding is necessary. With less nursing at the breast, breast milk doesn't let down as much, or requires persistent pumping so we can avoid having to supplement with formula to meet his nutrition needs)
Today's session was great. No offense to the Overlake specialists, but the specialist at Children's gave us techniques that will not only help us help Carson, but help preserve our sanity as well... In a sentence, the difference of the approaches is "do two things at once" vs. "more pumpings/feedings!"...
Christine calculated the amount of time that "feedings" take. Here's a list of stuff we need to do at each feeding:
- Wake him up, every 2-3 hours (sometimes we let this go to 4-5 hours).
- Change his diaper, if it's required, and weigh him.
- Christine then breastfeeds for 20 minutes
- 15 minutes in, she dispatches me to warm up the refrigerated breastmilk from a previous pumping and/or formula
- We re-weigh to determine how much he nursed at the breast
- I feed him from one-two bottles for about 15 minutes to satiate him, meanwhile Christine begins pumping to store milk for a future feeding (he hasn't been taking enough at the breast due to his fussiness with GERD)
- Often I pause half way to burp him, otherwise we gets uncomfortable, or you allow the gas to be passed from the other opening-- less gas = happier baby, so add about 5 minutes of burping everytime he comes up for air.
- Then, I need to hold/comfort him for another 15 minutes in an inclined position to prevent reflux from irritating his throat.
- Then it's time to clean the bottles, run the dishwasher, refrigerate unused portions of formula, etc.
- Repeat every 2-3 hours.
So here's what's next: We're going to use the techniques we learned today (simultaneous feedings of pumped and breast feedings, using gravity assist techniques during sleep and feedings), and continue with the Zantac. If the situation markedly improves, we're in good shape. He should become less fussy, and we'll have broken the vicious circle I mentioned above.
If the situation doesn't improve, we're already scheduled next week for a "barium swallow test" (@wikipedia) which will help provide insight on the dynamics and severity of the reflux... How much comes back up, what's the physiology at play, etc. From there we'll get a sense of whether the Zantac is doing the trick, or whether we need to "escalate" to what are called "proton pump inhibitor" (@wikipedia) drugs (aka PPIs like Prilosec, Nexium, etc.).
In any case, it looks like by next Monday, we'll have enough insight to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, unless the drugs/techniques we're putting in place this week will provide that clarity sooner.
A final thought on selecting the proper duration for paternity (or maternity) leave...
With feedings, diaper changes, travel time, appointments, research, shopping, burpings, etc. you can easily spend 10 hours a day caring for a newborn, with two people on the job.
Plus, it's taken us just 2.5 weeks to uncover, and begin to remediate the primary issues we've had with Carson. We've had a slew of pediatrician visits (a total of 4 so far), a follow up post-partum visit with a nurse, and a slew (4 so far) of lactation/feeding consultants, plus more appointments scheduled for next week.
Now, we fully realize that we have a very happy, healthy boy, who is just struggling with, let's face it, a relatively minor (in the scheme of all possible things) issue. Having said that, the severity doesn't reduce the effort we as parents are making to help relieve his symptoms and solve the underlying issues. Some parents may find an easier path, some might find a more arduous one, but you never know, particularly since you typically need to ask for paternity/maternity time in advance.
If the routine daily demands aren't substantial enough, you need several weeks to just get through the discovery, trial/error, and resolution phases, and having two parents around to handle the demands, for at least 3 weeks, will be key to handle a situation like ours. With every passing week, I'm more convinced that taking just short of five weeks was the proper thing to do.
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Blue Angels at Seafair 2008
On Sunday I took a couple hours to get out of the house and snap some pics of the Blue Angels from Mercer Island.
You can check out all of the pics by clicking on the image, which links to my photoset at Flickr.
Most pictures were taken with my 70-300mm 4-5.6IS/USM lens... However this outing really helped me see the shortcomings of the lens (warning: the remainder of this post consists of photo-geekery, safe to stop reading if this kind of stuff bores you :)...
Don't get me wrong, it is a quite excellent lens, particularly for the money. But here's where this lens, in my opinion, falls a bit short.
- The lens has a maximum aperture of f4 at 70mm, and 5.6 at 300mm. This means keeping the lens in manual mode requires you adjust the ISO or exposure constantly if you have to dynamically zoom in/out. As a result all of the pics were taken in auto mode, which means that on my XTI, no RAW images (for maximum flexibility in digital post-processing).
- The USM focus is really slow. If the autofocus happens to miss the object you're trying to focus on (like a fast flying jet), by the time it focuses close and goes back out far, the objective you're trying to shoot might be out of visual range.
- When you spend over $500 on a lens from Canon, they really should throw in the lens hood. Or, put another way, if you're buying a lens, and it doesn't come with a hood, you're either getting somewhat false economy (considering Canon's high end lenses come with them, price comparisons of cheaper lenses against an L series should include a hood to compare apples to apples)
- I didn't use a polarizing filter (I've yet to make a significant invest in any filters for my lenses) but I can see how it'd be frustrating to use one with this lens-- the front lens rotates as you zoom in/out, so adjusting the filter would be a pain during action photography.
I like the 70-300mm range that this lens provides as a "walk around" lens. Certainly the 70-300mm is no slouch for landscape or still photography, but for action shots, its no surprise that people opt for the faster L series lenses. I'm not frustrated enough that I'd consider replacing this lens with an L series lens (for one, most affordable lenses stop at 200mm, and I find the extra 100mm of zoom extremly useful)... but I might rent a lens for action photography in the future.
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Sun, 03 Aug 2008
What's your TravelIQ?
I was on tripadvisor, and found a neat flash app that test your world geography skills.
Post your scores in the comments!
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Sat, 02 Aug 2008
Carson's Ready for Bed (Take 2)
The video has now been fixed. It was set to private on YouTube, and it wasn't sufficient for me to just link to it, I had to make it public before I could embed it here.
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Fri, 01 Aug 2008
Carson's Ready for Bed
My first YouTube video...
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