- It’s a little late but there’s still time to see it: Tonight will be the full Moon, and also a partial lunar eclipse. 7:45 PM makes it about ideal for the Pacific and Arizona time zone, with all the usual adjustments for Mountain, Central and Eastern.
- Scott Pinsker posted an article on PJMedia back on September 9th, about dogs allowing humans to out-compete Neanderthals. I wrote about that back in 2010: Dogs were alarm systems that made dawn raids ineffective. Lacking dogs, Neanderthals may have simply dawn-raided themselves into extinction.
- I’m looking for a book that defines terms and instruments used in classical music. Andante, allegro non troppo, adagio, the viola, the celesta, and that instrument consisting of a series of pieces of metal tubing hung from strings under a bar, whose name I just cannot recall. A lot of that stuff can be found online, but, well, I’m just partial to books. If you have one that you like, please mention it in a comment.
- The blinking cursor on our computer screens is now 54 years old. Here’s a short history of how it came about.
- It’s been a pretty sparse hurricane season, with the single exception of Beryl. Right now on NOAA’s hurricane map there is a dying hurricane in Arkansas, one named tropical storm, Gordon, and two disturbances with less than 40% chance of becoming cyclonic. We’re halfway through hurricane season, and not much has been happening. My take: predicting a hurricane season’s severity is a fool’s model. Too much chaos and butterfly effect. It could get worse any time. Or it might not. We won’t know until we get there.
- Who had this on their 2024 bingo cards? Good ‘ol Yellow #5 dye, in large quantities, makes living tissue temporarily transparent. Scientists have created temporarily transparent mice. No human trials have happened as yet. So go easy on those Cheetos, ok?
- This is boggling but perhaps inevitable, assuming it’s true—and I’m skeptical: A chemhacker group is creating software and desktop labware allowing people to synthesize expensive prescription medications at home. An $800 pill becomes a $1 pill. Yes, there are risks, but if you’re dying for lack of an expensive drug, well…
- Over on City Journal Michael Totten has a long-form meditation on Liu Cixin’s SF trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past that bears on the Fermi Paradox and the question of whether we should actively seek out alien life–or hide from it. A little outside what I see in City Journal, but well-worth reading.
September, 2024:
Odd Lots
One Weird Greek Ritual
I had some dead time today, but not enough to start writing on the novel. So I went to my spam bin and pulled out a message that came in earlier this morning, offering me that canonical “one weird trick” to get rock-solid sleep. Do this 20 minutes before bedtime and you’ll be a new man!
You’ve seen that sort of thing in your spam bin. These days it’s hard not to see it.
The spammer was bloodsugarfit.com, which sells all sorts of natural remedies. I didn’t click their link but went to the web site, which looked reasonably legit. As best I could tell, they had an affiliate relationship with an outfit called Fisico, which makes a sleep aid supplement called PhysioSleep. The site says Fisico was founded in 2009 by a Greek MD named Dr. George Karanastasis. Good grief! It was one weird Greek ritual! (I get spam pitches for those almost every other day.)
They have a video about PhysioSleep. I said wotthehell and started it. Dr. Karanastasis introduced himself, and he talked…and talked…and talked…
…and talked…and talked. He repeated himself a lot, told us his life story, and mentioned that he was a bad sleeper and grouchy to the point his wife almost left him. I sympathize, though lack of sleep in the wake of the Coriolis collapse did not make me grouchy but depressed and lethargic. He mentioned a conspiracy by the Ivies to prevent natural remedies from being taken seriously. I’ve not seen anything about that, though I could certainly believe it. And he talked…and talked…and talked…
The video window had a run/pause button, but no progress bar. I had no idea how long the video was. So I just let it run. While it ran, I opened another tab and looked up whatever might be out there on PhysioSleep. Turns out it’s an OTC sleep aid with two active ingredients: melatonin and zylaria, which is an extract from some fungus or another. I get pitches all the time for supplements containing Turkey Tail extract and several other fungal extracts. Haven’t tried that one and probably won’t.
Every minute or so I looked back at the tab running the video.
It was still running. He talked, and he talked, and he talked…
I didn’t find anything crisp on Dr. Karanastasis. There is a Dr. Georgios Karanastasis, an internist in Tinley Park, Illinois, who mostly treats headaches and joint pain. No mention of Fisico or PhysioSleep. I looked for product reviews, and found none. Amazon does not sell it.
Glanced back at the video. He was still talking. It was going on twenty minutes by then, and still hadn’t mentioned the product itself. I finally said to hell with it, this is a total waste of my time.
For me, the big puzzle is this: Why did somebody think that a long monotonous video would sell a sleep supplement similar to (if not identical to) stuff they sell on Amazon? Is it due to the sunk cost effect? Are people who watch until its end (whenever that might be) figure, “Well, I sat through half an hour, so to keep it from being a total loss, maybe I should buy some?”
Note well that I didn’t buy any and have no opinion on PhysioSleep or Dr. Karanastasis. I tried melatonin back in 2001 and it didn’t help me sleep. Mostly it messed up my biological clock. Zylaria, well some people who use it in other formulations from other companies think it works, judging by reviews on Amazon. Maybe it does. If so, I wish him well and hope he sells a bunch.
But boy, for busy people like me, that video would be a total showstopper.
