I'm Doing Okay

Every once in a while, I get random emails from Verizon that tell me how I'm doing with regard to my monthly data limit:

My initial reaction is slight annoyance, because why do I need an email if I'm doing okay on data? But ok, at least they're trying to give me some information so I'll accept it. Even though (oddly) they sent it at 4:20am.

However, there's a terrible problem with this email. See if you can figure it out before reading on.

The email doesn't say what day the month ends! The email is dated March 4th. If the month ends on March 31, then I most certainly am not doing okay on data. So when does my data reset for the next month? I honestly have no idea.

Remember to Use Your Garage

Check out this patronizing item from our HOA community newsletter: 

I'm imagining my neighbors reading this and then thinking to themselves "Holy Toledo, it never occurred to me to park my cars in my completely empty garage and my driveway. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to start parking my primary car in the garage and my secondary car in the driveway so there can be more available parking spaces for everyone else."

AirBnB Bait and Switch

I used to be a big fan of AirBnB. I mean, what's better than sticking it to the hotel industry by staying in a spare room in someone's house for $25?

Sadly, like most things, AirBnB was too good to last. Nowadays, I find that a decent AirBnB may run me as much or more than the local hotel. But I still like to use it when I can. It's still more interesting than staying in the same stuffy hotels all the time.

What I really find annoying is the bait and switch you get when trying to find the cost of a reservation. For example, here is a typical search that I did recently:

Notice that in the map on the right they (supposedly) show you the prices of available units. Then when you click one it shows up on the left. But the real price is usually much more than what it says on the map. Here I clicked on the "$65" item shown on the map. But if you look on the left, the actual price of that unit is "$131 total" (more than double what I expected!). This is ridiculous. The $65 on the map is meaningless. It should say $131 on the map. You can see the same issue with the other two units shown.

Finally - A Truly Unlimited Data Plan

Like most Americans, I'm tired of my limited data plan that always has me scrambling to look for Wi-Fi hotspots in mortal fear that I exceed my monthly data limit. I've been waiting years to find an affordable service that gives me unlimited data.

So of course I was thrilled to see this ad for T-Mobile's new "Truly Unlimited" plan:

Wait, what's this I see in the fourth bullet? "If congested, customers may notice reduced speeds that may be further reduced for a small number of customers who use >40GB".

So apparently the real name of this plan should be "Truly Limited to 40 GB". I guess the marketing folks didn't like that as much.

Facebook Ads

 I feel like the ads in Facebook are getting increasingly sketchy recently.

First off, I used to scroll through Facebook and see mostly posts from friends with a few ads mixed in. Nowadays, when I scroll through, about 50% of the posts are from groups I’m a member of. I don’t enjoy most of these posts because people have strong opinions and argue with each other. Another 40% of the posts are either ads or inspirational videos from things that I never signed up for. Finally, maybe about 10% of posts are from friends (mostly the same 5-10 friends who regularly post on Facebook).

Today I saw this ad which I was very troubled about:

 

The whole thing is dubious. The fact that they are selling stamps at that steep of a discount. The “U. S Postal Service” at the top. The URL “USPSSTAMAPS.COM” (why STAMAPS and not STAMPS?). The “ONLY $39.9!” price. I googled the site and it said the domain USPSSTAMAPS.COM was just purchased a few days ago! But there were many comments on the post with “people” saying they received their stamps and they were great. No way I’m ordering from these clowns.

Then a minute later I see this:

 

Same concept, completely different trashy URL. “TODAYIS LIMITED TIME”. Yikes.

I’ve heard that Facebook is really suffering because Apple and Android are both implementing policies that block Facebook from getting everyone’s data by default. Apparently their ad revenues are plummeting. I don’t know if this is related, but after seeing this I am extremely leery about ordering anything I see advertised on Facebook.

I think it’s sad what happened to Facebook because many people have all of their contacts in Facebook and nowhere else. Even if another site came along that was not evil like Facebook, I doubt most people would be willing to go through that exercise again to connect to all their friends.

  

Two Most Annoying Recent Internet Trends

 Pushy and intrusive interactions that could be avoided using opt-in or other approaches instead...

#2) Micro-Feedback

The constant requests for ratings and feedback are becoming ridiculous.    Why do I need to get an email or pop-up from every online vendor for every single transaction asking for feedback?  I appreciate striving for quality and improvement, but somewhat fewer prompts and requests would be appreciated.  

I should try this approach at work and constantly barrage my boss for feedback. "How would you rate my participation at that meeting yesterday, on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?  Was satisfied were you with my on-time delivery of that report [picture of me delivering report attached]?"

#1) First Visit Interruptus 

Who decided that every first visit to a new website (or first visit on a new browser) should be interrupted by a pop-up requiring you to declare your cookie preferences?  Your options is to accept everything (which invariable involves accepting highly intrusive tracking cookies) or take the time to read and interpret a list of frequently non-informative options.  

This should most definitely be an opt-in feature that defaults to all cookies off and you can click a button to activate the selection pop-up if you want to activate the cookies.

Dell Support Assist

UPDATE:  It has been a month since I deleted Dell Support Assist from my computer, only to find it reinstalled complete with new icon on my desktop.  Grr, this is harder to get rid of then I expected.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dell may have good intentions in providing Support Assist on their Windows PCs, but I have found this application to be a nuisance.  Let me provide examples of why this app is problematic.

It started when my computer was acting very unresponsive, taking minutes to open a browser window, delays in registering mouse clicks and typing.   So I open the task manager (which also takes a while to open) and it says a process called PC-Doctor Module is slowing down my CPU and eating up a ton of RAM.  

PROBLEM #1 - Why is the process called PC-Doctor when the App is called SupportAssist?

I had to search the internet to figure out that this process is tied to Dell's Support Assist program.  Also why doesn't Dell call it Dell Support Assist?  Searching my local machine for Dell or Assist or Doctor would not find it.  I had to search for Support.

PROBLEM #2 - This App was running on auto-schedule at 2pm

This is a time when I might be (was) actively using my computer.  Why did it pick that time for the auto-schedule.  I most certainly didn't pick it.

PROBLEM #3 - This App does not sufficiently warn you of problems

Once I tracked down that this app was my problem and opened it up, it reported a failed diagnostic test. Other than giving an esoteric failure statement, there were no details or suggestions on how to fix the problem. Also, why didn't it notify me of the issue?  I didn't even know it was running and would have never opened it up if it wasn't causing general issues with the PC.  There is a checkbox for notifications (which was enabled).  Perhaps there is something else blocking notifications that I haven't realized, but if I never know that it found an issue, then I don't need it running and slowing down my computer.

 

Mandatory Opt-In

I came across this "opt-in" checkbox recently when filling out a registration form to download some technical software for evaluation.  Apparently the vendor does not know the meaning of the term "opt-in".

 

Rank Choice Voting - Follow Maine's lead

It is about time that Americans demand a better voting system, rank choice voting.  But it will only happen if people speak out and demand it.  As of today, Maine is the only state that uses rank choice voting in the presidential general election.

In rank choice voting, you rank the order of the candidates, picking your first choice, second choice and so-on.  This is mathematically superior method of voting when there are more than two candidates to chose from, because it provides a method to determine a candidate that has the vote of the majority of the population.  This is not unlike holding a run-off if nobody wins the clear majority, but the second choice voting is done simultaneously during the first vote instead of holding a second vote. 

The U.S. Presidential Election is a good example of a system that could benefit from rank choice voting.  You often hear people say that they don't like either the Republican or Democratic choices, but also that they don't want to "waste" their vote for an independent or smaller party candidate.  Often, an independent candidate may have a platform very similar to one of the primary candidates and can have an impact by splitting votes with the primary candidate.  In a close election, this could sway the outcome to the less popular choice.  

Rank choice voting enables a voter to use their 1st choice for the candidat

e they truly want rather than strategically voting for the "lesser of two evils" and still know that if their favorite doesn't win, then their 2nd choice vote will still be applied to pick from the best of the r

emaining candidates.

For more information on how rank choice voting works, or what you can do to support rank choice voting, visit  a site like FairVote.org.

Wallet Security

I found this strange "sticker" in my new wallet, which is actually an RFID that I assume was put there for store security purposes.  I am puzzled that they would put it there, because of the features advertised for the wallet. Either this RFID is completely useless, or the wallet doesn't work as advertised.

Trader Joe's Serving Size Math

Trader Joe's Chicken Piccata comes with two skinless boneless chicken breasts and a serving size for three people.  Apparently everybody will get 2/3rds of a cutlet.

Why I Am Closing My Capital One Bank Account

I have a Capital One 360 Online Savings account.  I periodically review the interest rate to make sure that it is comparable to the market.  At this time, the interest rate is 1.7%.  However, when I look at my own personal account, it is only 0.6%.

Why is that?

Capital One offers a "Performance" Online Savings account at the new 1.7% interest rate.

The account I have is no longer offered and is at 0.6% rate.

Why did they not tell me about the new interest rate (I think the answer to that is obvious).

What is the difference between the new and old account?  Just the interest rate.

When I called them, they would not increase my interest rate.  They told me I could open a new "Performance"  account to get the new rate.  They don't do updates "automatically".

OK, so why did they recently update my checking account, forcing me to start using a new account# and routing number (making me have to change my direct deposit and checks)?

When I told the bank representative how disappointing this was, his answer was "OK".  He really didn't give a shit.

FUCK YOU Capital One.  You just permanently lost me as a customer.  You will lose more potential earnings from me than you gained by messing with  my interest rate and wasting my time.

I urge everyone to drop Capital One as they do not give a shit about their customers.

Favorite Podcasts

We are often asked what our favorite podcasts are.  Podcasts are a great way to learn something new when you are commuting to work, waiting in line at the post office, riding the metro, or walking the dog.

Here are Brian's top five podcasts as of August 2019.  All of these are available for free (some have special premium versions) and can be downloaded to your phone in your favorite podcast app. 

1)  Skeptics Guide to the Universe
2)  Radiolab
3)  Rationally Speaking
4)  Skeptoid
5)  Dan Carlin's Hardcore History

Maybe Mike will also post his?

Bad News: Fake News, the Game

In this day and age, it is important to be aware of the use of social medial to propagate fake news.  Check out this game, Bad News, where you can try your hand at creating fake news.  This website cleverly helps you be more aware of the techniques used to distort and twist the news to suit your evil needs.  Your goal is to get as many followers as you can to support your fake credibility.

In the very least, it is fun and doesn't take that long to play.  Click the link below to start playing.

Bad News

Guess Up Emoji

About two years ago, I was looking for a new game and installed an app called "Guess Up Emoji" on my phone. It was pretty mindless, but reasonably entertaining to play with the family while we were on a train or waiting for our food at a restaurant. You had to guess familiar phrases by looking at a few emojis that were provided.

Over a two year span, I was able to work my way up to about level 150 (each level required solving several puzzles to advance). I also had amassed thousands of "coins" by opening the app each day for a daily coin bonus. These coins can be used for hints and other in-game purchases.

Today I noticed that Guess Up Emoji had apparently updated itself. It is now called "Guess Up", with a new icon. The bigger issue is when I opened the app I am now back at level 1 and all of my thousands of coins are gone. I googled the app, and apparently this happened to other people also.

Looks like the appropriate emoji for today is this one:

Jeep Uconnect Incorrect Software Upgrade

Recently, my Jeep Grand Cherokee notified me that there was a software upgrade to my Uconnect® system, which is the in-dashboard interface to the radio, climate control, navigation, etc.  To put it in their words, its "the feature-packed navigation, entertainment and communication system that lets drivers live their lives, connected."

There are a few obviously annoying points about how this upgrade worked...

1.  The upgrade was mandatory - Pressing the later button only postponed this pop-up warning until the next time I drove the vehicle.  So, my options were to press later every time I drove the car, forever, or let the update happen.
2. The update could not happen while you drove the car - Jeep expected me to sit in park and let my car idle for 15-20 minutes while the software updated. What a waste of fuel.  Why did the engine need to be on?  For what it's worth, I had the brilliant idea of leaving it parked while I went inside for 20 minutes, only I got distracted and let it run for hours before I came back.
3. The Update couldn't be interrupted -  When you start the update, another screen pops up warning you that if you stop it, you will have to start all-over.

A much smarter update protocol would have been if the update was downloaded to the car in the background, any time the car was on, and then the software update could be installed quickly after the download was completed.

I also read online, afterwards, that I could have downloaded the update from the Jeep website onto a flash drive and installed it manually.  It would have been nice if that option were mentioned in the pop-up instructions. 

Escape Room Review: Escape the Room PA – Pittsburgh, PA

This is part of our series of Escape Room reviews.

Ratings

• Room Name: The Newsroom
• Room Size:  (6-8)/11/12 people ( our recommendation/as played/max)
• Time: 60 minutes
• Overall:  3.0/5.0
• Theme:     4.0/5.0
• Puzzles:    3.0/5.0
• Difficulty: 3.0/5.0

Looking for an activity with a group of 11 friends, we chose this escape room since it had larger rooms that could accommodate our full group and was in a decent location.

The Good

• In a trendy part of town ("South Side")
• Clues communicated via monitor were helpful, but not overly so
• We always had something to work on
• Nice craftsmanship on the newsroom / skyline
• Room was not full of distracting red herrings. Easy to focus on the correct items
• The three keypads were a nice feature - didn't have to mess as much with locks as in other rooms
• There were two separate threads 
• We were able to finish it just in time (difficulty level was about right)

The Bad 

• Parking was on-street, and pretty difficult to find on a Wednesday evening. We squeezed into a tight spot several blocks away. Note: neighborhood is not particularly kid-friendly.
• There was a dreadful puzzle with some charts that was frustrating and disappointing. One of the pie charts had a mistake in it, and the answer was not at all satisfying. Thank goodness we are experienced with escape rooms and brought pencil and paper in with us. Also, you had to read the answer to this puzzle out loud which was cheesy since it broke the fourth wall concept. (Although perhaps the idea was that you were being a real newscaster; ok I'll give them a pass on this one)
• Building is narrow and waiting area is a bit cramped
• It was too linear; everyone in the group pretty much had to work on the same puzzles at the same time
• There was a video camera that wasn't supposed to move but it got moved somehow and this messed up one of the puzzles but we managed to get past it anyhow
• They took several of our e-mail addresses but then never e-mailed the group photo to us!

Overall this room was pretty good and we would recommend it if you have a large group, since it is one of the few rooms in town that could accommodate it. I hope they replace the charts puzzle, as it would be trivial to do so and everything else would still work.

Domain Renewal

I received the above e-mail dated November 14. It says my domain name "will expire soon!". Notice that it doesn't say when it will expire. That is because they don't really care.

So I logged in to the domain name registration site. It said that my registration was expiring on April 12. This is not soon. This is in 5 months.



What I've figured out is that these companies just spam out a "renewal notice" email to me every 2 months, since it's easier than actually bothering to check when my domain really expires. Of course, they want me to keep renewing when I get the notice, pushing out my extension further and further. I used to get the same thing when I had magazine subscriptions.

Hey Register.com - can you just send me a warning about 30 days before my domain will expire?

Influx in Sex Offenders

Mercy Jalango posted the above warning to my neighborhood forum. She is making us aware of the "influx in sex offenders" moving into our county. Webster's dictionary defines influx as "an arrival of large numbers of people".

Ms. Jalango notes "sad news" of 18 sex offenders moving into the area over the past 6 years. I ran some advanced statistics on that figure and the computer spit out something like 3 per year. I'm not sure 3 is a "large number of people". If I had a birthday party and 3 people showed up, I would not say to myself "gee, I'm pleased that a large number of people turned out to my party". And keep in mind, this influx includes sex offenders committing crimes such as indecent exposure, or a 19 year old having consensual relations with a 17 year old.

But wait, there's one more thing that Ms. Jalango didn't mention. How many sex offenders moved out of the county during the past 6 years? With the increasingly high cost of living in Loudoun County, I'll bet it's probably at least 19. An outflux!

Thank you Ms. Jalango for taking the time of everyone on this mailing list to remind us to "be aware of our surroundings and be safe".

Please Delete

I received the above e-mail today, which includes the wonderful finishing line:

"Please delete this e-mail if you have no idea what this is about."

This phrase needs to be added to about 90% of e-mails that I receive. It would make life so much better!

Of course this e-mail, regarding an obscure service that I never signed up for, likely makes sense to almost no one. I love that they have not only given me permission to delete the e-mail - they are imploring me to do so! You have to wonder what kind of confusion and complaints they must have been deluged with to cause that line to get added in to the e-mail.

Automatic Magazine Renewals

As I was renewing my subscription to Popular Science, I initially opted to use my credit card on the renewal form.  That is when I noticed this statement:

"Automatic Renew Benefits:  When paying with a credit card, your subscription will be conveniently renewed automatically at the end of each term at the low rate then in effect..."

This is absolute bullshit.  There needs to be an opt-in box on the form that allows me to select automatic renewal if I want it.  Even an opt-out check box would have been better than nothing.  There was simply no way to pay by credit card without automatic renewal being applied. 

Shame on you Popular Science.

When they say that it will be "conveniently" renewed, they mean convenient for Popular Science, not for the customer.

This is an unpopular billing practice, Popular Science.

 

Light Magenta

My HP Photosmart printer has been pretty reliable over the years, but refilling the ink cartridges is more maddening than it needs to be.

Notice in the picture above that there are 6 colors of ink. These are the names that HP selected for these colors (I am not making this up):

1. 02 Black
2. 02 Cyan
3. 02 Light Cyan
4. 02 Magenta
5. 02 Light Magenta
6. 02 Yellow

So out of the millions of color names, they had to repeat the names Cyan and Magenta. Why? I guess to make it as confusing as possible for the consumer.

The inks all run out at vastly different rates, so when my printouts start to look horrible I look at the ink levels to see which ones I need to replace. After several minutes of study today, I determined that the two cartridges that I need to refill are "Magenta" (not light Magenta!) and "Cyan". Of course, in my spare ink drawer I have 4 Light Magenta cartridges. I know this only because they have a microscopic LM on them. And of course I have zero Magenta cartridges, since the Magenta seems to be the one that always runs out. This reminds me of the Neopolitan ice cream container that always has only Strawberry when I look inside. So now I have to order three Magenta cartridges and wait another week before I can print something legible again.

Also, notice how all of the cartridges have the 02 number designation. Thanks HP - that is wonderfully helpful also!

Why the hell can't they give unique names to these print cartridges?

Escape Room Review: Escape Room Loudoun – Sterling, VA

This is part of our series of Escape Room reviews.

Ratings

• Room Size:  (4-6)/8/8 people ( our recommendation/as played/max)
• Overall:  2.0/5.0
• Theme:     3.0/5.0
• Puzzles:    2.0/5.0
• Difficulty: 4.0/5.0

We were excited to see that a new escape room place opened up close to home – so we signed up right away. They currently have two room options.  We did the “Five Fingered Discount” room. Unfortunately we found it to be a disappointment compared to other rooms we have done. This is a brief review of our stay in the room. There are not really any spoilers in the notes below.

The Good

• There were two rooms, with a fun transition to get into the second room.
• There was a decent theme with some nice props, including a bank vaults and security gates.
• There was one unique puzzle; a free-standing item that has some good craftsmanship to it.
• There was a nice TV display that showed you how much time you had left.

The Bad

• There were tons of worthless items that never got used and we found it very difficult to separate the noise from the actual clues.  A few red herrings makes it interesting, but too many proves to be frustrating and makes you feel like your efforts were futile.
• There was only one puzzle that you had to put some thought into, but it was so cryptic you couldn’t figure it out without them sliding multiple clues under the door.
• The attendant had to come in twice – once when an item irretrievably fell off of something, and another time to tell us exactly where to look for something (and we still couldn’t see it). We’ve never had attendants come in at other escape rooms (that I can recall).
• The puzzles were solved in a mostly linear order, so you couldn’t work on one thing until you finished all the previous ones. This also meant that having one person in the room would have been almost as effective as the 8 of us. There was a lot of standing around and watching.
• Apparently there was a cool laser thing and a bunch of other stuff that we didn’t even get up to. The guy told us that we had almost escaped, but we later learned that was not true and there was a lot we didn't see.
• They said the room had a 20-30% success rate. That is too low in our opinion. We generally enjoy these rooms more when we are able to escape. I think some of these places also miss the point that people are more likely to post on social media when they escape, which is critical for a new business.

I think we’ll probably go back to the escape rooms that we enjoyed more in Herndon, Fairfax, and Leesburg before returning to this one.

Gazelle

Having recently upgraded my phone, I decided to see what I could get for trading in my old one. After listening to about 500 commercials for Gazelle.com on This Week in Tech, I was excited to see what fortune I could collect for my Samsung Galaxy S3. The phone is less than 2 years old, a popular model, and still in great condition.

So I went to Gazelle and punched in my information. Looks like the yacht is going to have to wait, based on the following quote that I received:

Five dollars!
For "Flawless" condition.

That's not even remotely worth the effort it would take to wipe the phone, package it up, and ship it. I'm better off keeping it and using it as a mini Wi-fi tablet.

Since they clearly only give decent money for new phones in great condition, the logical conclusion is that they probably make most of their money by being a clearinghouse for stolen phones.

WebMD and Quack Treatments

WebMD is a website that many of my friends and family seem to trust as a source of health information. But I have recently found that they commit critical sins of omission when it comes to alternative treatments.

The first issue I noted was when I looked up acupuncture on the site. They talk about what acupuncture is, and whether it is safe (answer: yes). But they need to go a step further in my opinion. They need to talk about whether acupuncture actually works. At a minimum, they should say that the literature of good studies on acupuncture show that it does very little, at best. An even stronger statement would be to say that it essentially does nothing beyond vague placebo effects that are from giving a patient special attention. But WebMD don't say any of that. The site does not seem to take a position on whether any treatment actually works.

So I thought I would take my investigation a step further by looking at a treatment that there is no debate about - one which every legitimate professional agrees doesn't work and couldn't possibly work: Homeopathy. Even in their article about Homeopathy, WebMD does not take a stand regarding the fact that it doesn't work. This is a disservice to their customers, who may not have the experience to figure out these conclusions on their own. I suggest that they should add a section to each page called "Effectiveness".

I realize that WebMD may be trying to stay above the fray, and just provide basic information to their readers. However, they are implicitly "endorsing" these types of treatment by not mentioning that they don't work.

Philly Pretzel Factory Fail

Dear Philly Pretzel Factory,

Counting 1/2 pretzel as one serving is bullshit.  Man-up and increase the serving size to one pretzel.

Margin of Safety

I love the following Q&A that I found on a FAQ page for a vendor of homeopathic potions.

Question
My child just ate an entire bottle of tablets, what do I do?

Answer
Do not panic. Homeopathic medicines are very safe, non-toxic, and have a very large margin of safety. It is unlikely your child could overdose on any homeopathic medicine. You can call our 24 hour emergency number at 800/624-9659 (after business hours, it is a recording - just follow the directions), and a pharmacist or registered nurse will return your call promptly. Our products are also listed with Regional Poison Control Centers. Most are well informed on the margin of safety of homeopathic medicines if you have one to call in your area.


Here is the translation of a few sections of the above:

"non-toxic" - have no active ingredient whatsoever

"very large margin of safety" - these medicines contain absolutely nothing, and have the same safety margin as drinking water

"Regional Poison Control Centers are well informed on the margin of safety of homeopathic medicines if you have one to call in your area" - if you call them, they will tell you to do nothing and after hanging up the phone will have a hearty laugh

"It is unlikely your child could overdose on any homeopathic medicine" - Go ahead and have your child take the rest of the pills in the bottle. Then go to the store and purchase another bottle at your earliest opportunity.

ALERT

Some people claim that there is no place to get hard-hitting journalism anymore. That everything is just puff pieces and advertisements disguised as news.

Well wait no more!

As you can see in the above "ALERT" from the no-nonsense Ashburn Patch site, we offer the following breaking news: "Where to Pick Your Own Strawberries".

Sigh. I guess the term ALERT doesn't mean quite what it used to.

Elevator Button

What could be simpler than designing a button for calling an elevator?

Look at the picture above. This was from the lobby of a building with lots of medical offices. There are 6 things on this panel that look like buttons. Four of them are not buttons. The bottom two are buttons. The eye-grabbing white button is the one that you should never press. I don't even know what that does. Maybe it sets off an alarm and alerts the fire department.

By the way, the silver button (if you can see it) is the one you are supposed to press. This is the button that is completely unlabeled. Yes, this panel is full of instructions for the fire department. The people who will use this once every 3 years and are already fully trained on its operation. For the people who will be using this panel 99.9999% of the time, there is no label whatsoever on our silver button. Why couldn't they put the fire operation on a separate panel?

I must confess that I actually was so intimidated by this interface that I decided to take the stairs.

Horrible Diagram of the Month

Above is a horrible diagram. The purpose of the diagram is to say that we should be able to spend more money researching Lyme, as compared to Zika.

I'm sure you have that one friend who is attuned to a specific disease, which may have stricken a friend or family member. About half of what they post on Facebook is somehow related to that disease. It is fine to draw attention to a cause that you care about, but please don't post graphics like this.

• On the left, they are showing that a lot more people have Lyme than Zika. The graph loses all credibility here, since the 388 bar appears to be about 10% the size of the 329,000 bar. Of course, neither axis is labeled so your guess is as good as mine.
• On the right, they are saying that $24 million is spent in research funding on Lyme and $1.9 billion on Zika. No sources are cited. Again the scale is way off. Is that figure per year? Past? Future? What country? Why are dollars being shown on the same axis as people? I find it hard to believe that there is 100 times the funding for Zika as for Lyme. I believe this chart came out right after the government announced that they would be spending $1.9 billion on Zika research. There is likely a lot of money that is spent by the CDC on Lyme and related diseases, that is not specifically earmarked for Lyme.
• Most importantly - shouldn't the experts decide how to allocate our spending on disease? It does not seem that number of cases is the best way to allocate research. There are a lot more cases of twisted ankles than there are of Cervical Cancer, for example. Although there are not that many Zika cases reported to date, unlike Lyme it can be spread by human contact. So I can see where we might want to do some research up front to prevent an outbreak that could dwarf the number of Lyme cases within just a few years. There is also legitimate debate as to whether Chronic Lyme Disease is even a real medical condition. It is not clear whether the graphic above includes the imaginary Chronic Lyme Disease, or just Lyme Disease (an actual condition).

NECSS 2016

Last week, we attended the eighth annual Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS) held in New York City sponsored by the  New York City Skeptics and the New England Skeptical Society.  We met interesting people and engaged in many conversations about science and critical thinking.

The meeting kicked-off with a day of talks about science-based medicine, including critical examination of functional medicine and chronic Lyme disease. Clay Jones showed a video of a baby getting a chiropractic adjustment that made us cringe.

Highlights of the conference included a live podcast of Skeptics Guide to the Universe, featuring guest rogue Bill Nye (the Science Guy), and an entertaining keynote speech by Richard Wiseman.  Wiseman ended the second day of talks at the meeting with an experimental "speaker-less" presentation that involved the audience self-performing magic tricks and other tomfoolery.  

The conference ended with a provocative speech by John Horgan, who declared himself an outsider skeptic, with a lowercase 's',  and proceeded to bash the audience and all-things Skeptical, with a capital 'S'.  While Horgan had a potentially useful point to make, that skeptics should put more effort in tackling more challenging topics, it was mostly lost in a sea of straw man arguments and contrarianism.  Other folks (Novella, Coyne, Gorski) have done a good job of deconstructing the talk, so we won't duplicate the effort here.

What's Wrong with Science Reporting, According to John Oliver

Many false scientific beliefs start with misrepresented scientific studies over-hyped to make them more interesting to the layperson.  John Oliver does a fantastic job of explaining this phenomenon in this YouTube video:




If you watch the entire 20 minutes, you'll get to hear this gem from Al Roker, "I think the way to live your life is you find the study that sounds best to you and you go with that."

Recent studies show that this really pisses us off!