(no subject)

So, not only did my family get tickets for the papal mass in the lottery our church had, but we're on the field no more than fifty yards from the altar. Crazy. Like wow.

Reports of the end of the world exaggerated.

If I know my readers (and I don't really claim to), then you won't have
heard about This
article about a German schoolboy who corrected NASA's calculations on the
odds that a killer asteroid will hit the earth in the next 28 years or so.
NASA originially said that there was only a 1 in 450,00 chance that the
asteroid's orbit could be adjusted such that it would hit the earth, but the
Greman kid said that the possibility of said asteroid hitting a
geostationary satellite increases the odds 100 fold, to 1 in 450. The
article says NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) agreed with these
revised odds.

Since you haven't seen that article, I don't have to worry about
pointing you to This
article on The Register, which says not only that the German boy's math was
wrong, but that NASA and the ESA had never agreed to the odds. NASA notes
that while the asteroid WILL pass closer to the earth than the orbit of
geostationary satelites, it's path doesn't cross that orbit. So, as The
Register notes, there's no need to dust off the astroid-busting
space nukes just yet.

This wasn't supposed to be a sermon.

I'll readiliy admit that I'm biased against medicines and drugs and their
usefulness versus their risks. And though I'm sure dreamerdevie
and circuit_four would both present well-reasoned arguments based
on personal experiences to denounce my under-valuing of the effects of
chemistry on the human condition, I'll probably maintain my bias. With that
said, be mindful of the source when I point you toward This article which is
skeptical of the health benefits of vitamin supplements. The article takes
something of a sensationalist spin (an arggravatingly common trend I've
noted on the BBC site) and points out that the study says supplements may
increase the chances of illness and death, but I'm not sure I'd jump
on that too readily. (I'm an equal-opportunity skeptic.)

As an aside, I think the root cause of my skepticism is a reaction to the
blind faith people seem to put in doctors and the medical field. This is
also, I think, why I like House so much. People trust that doctors
know what they're doing, and while I'm sure they do I'm also sure they're
succeptible to making mistakes, jumping to conclusions, and being lazy on
Friday afternoons just like any of us. I don't think there's anything
magical about the medical field that makes it any more sound or sure than
any other scientific art, and those other arts have sometimes proven to be
inaccurate or ambiguous.

The end point, and I think Chris and Nick would agree with me here, is that
there's no blanket solution, what works for one person may not work for you,
and you ought to tailor your life (in all ways) to your specific needs.