Yes, it's real

Perfect example of "too many lawyers"

Bank of America has an "Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy" on their "Contact Us" page:

Bank of America and its associates do not accept or consider unsolicited ideas, including ideas for new or improved products, processes or technologies, product enhancements, advertising and marketing campaigns, promotions or new product names. Please do not send any original materials, suggestions or other items. The sole purpose of this policy is to avoid potential misunderstandings or disputes when Bank of America’s products or marketing efforts might seem similar to ideas submitted to the Bank. If, despite our request not to send us your ideas, you still do, then regardless of what your communication states, the following terms shall apply to your idea submission.
TERMS OF IDEA SUBMISSIONYou agree that: (a) your ideas will automatically become the property of Bank of America, without compensation to you, (b) Bank of America can use the ideas for any purpose and in any way, and (c) any information you provide will be considered non-confidential.

Because this probably happens all the time, right? Somebody sends them an idea on how to construct a new credit default swap. This is what caused the financial crisis - user submitted ideas.

Pearls

A teacher once told me that the challenge in seeing the patient with bloating was to tell her that it's fat, not bloating without offending them. Seven years ago when he told me that I thought he was horribly misogynistic and cynical. Now I realize that he's a genius.

Passengers urged to fart

This isn't news to me, but I found it to be heartwarming that other professionals are advocating what I've been doing for years:

Passengers urged to fart | News24:

'via Blog this'

Power out at the Super bowl.

Entergy NOLA says game postponed until it's restored - next week.

No, but you'll still look like an idiot: Google testing heads-up display glasses in public, won't make you look like Robocop

Note how they're worn by an attractive young lady and not a dweeb...

Google testing heads-up display glasses in public, won't make you look like Robocop:

The good news: Google has started testing those augmented reality glasses we heard about earlier in the year. The bad news: if the artsy shots of the test units are to be believed, they won't make you look like some '80s cinematic anti-hero. In fact, the things wouldn't look too out of place in a New York Times style story. The software giant let it be known that, while it hasn't quite got a sale date on the wearables, it's ready to test ProjectGlass amongst the non-augmented public. The company is also looking for feedback on the project, writing in a post today, "we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input." Want some idea of what ProjectGlass might offer the public? Sure, it's not quite as good as strapping a pair on your own eyes, but interested parties can check out a video of Google's vision after the break.

Continue reading Google testing heads-up display glasses in public, won't make you look like Robocop

Google testing heads-up display glasses in public, won't make you look like Robocop originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The New York Times  |  Project Glass  | Email this | Comments

Sports: Saints figure out how to turn the ball over while on defense

Exploiting a little-known NFL rule, they hope to increase future turnovers by focusing on all 3 phases of the game.

Idiots

Nothing I appreciate more than the fact that any low-grade idiot with a keyboard can post whatever they want on the internet. My latest find comes from "Anne F" and the Mannsfield-Storrs Patch (of idiots, one would assume). The article covers brining turkeys. I was looking for a decent brine recipe for Thankspigging.


To wit:
"In an era of health consciousness, high blood pressure and many out of shape, it seems lunacy for someone to recommend, and a responsible news service to report, a recipe that soaks a healthful food (turkey) in pure salt. Why not just take a syringe with the brine water and mainline it into a vein? Nutso!"


Yes, "Anne F", yes! The overwhelming evidence that salt is so terrible for you (please note my sarcasm). Dietary sodium intake has much contradictory evidence as to whether it worsens blood pressure. I'm also unaware of any evidence linking sodium intake with "out of shape". Further, when brining not all of the salt is absorbed into the meat.


Let's also not forget about evidence that turkey isn't really a "healthful food", oh and what about this, too? Let's also remember that cooking meat is also bad for you.


So let's all just gnaw on some bark! Congrats "Anne F" you are my idiot of the month (and in front running for idiot of the year).

Russia Classifies Beer as Alcoholic

Russia Classifies Beer as Alcoholic: "

BBC News:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a bill that
officially classifies beer as alcoholic.

Until now anything containing less than 10% alcohol in Russia has
been considered a foodstuff.

"

I'm aghast.

Renaming illegally named files in Windows

I tried and tried and google'd the hell out of it. The only reasonable way seems to be to burn a live CD of Linux. Shame nobody makes such a utility.

In which it is revealed that too many blog posts start with "In which it is..."

There. Now go write something more creative.

Re: Expert help on Lifehacker (or why not to volunteer to be an expert)

Hey [name removed to protect the innocent] -

Sorry for taking a while to get back to you.

I'm afraid there's no correct answer. Particularly for men - men can wipe however they want without any consequences other than social ill will from smelling bad. It's alleged that women should wipe front-to-back to avoid urinary tract infection. This certainly seems reasonable as it makes sense that keeping feces away from the female urethra would keep the area sterile (urine itself is sterile, after all). Unfortunately, there are no randomized, placebo-controlled studies looking into this that I am aware of.

In researching your question, I did come across some interesting facts about the history of toilet paper (there's a Wikipedia entry). Also, I enjoyed the humorous website http://howtowipeyourbutt.com/ in researching this piece. It almost looks like something from http://theoatmeal.com/, but it's not.

Anyway, hope this helps. As a gastroenterologist, believe it or not, it's a question that no patient has ever, ever asked me.

Best,

commander flatus

On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 6:49 PM, [removed] <[removed]@lifehacker.com> wrote:

Hi [commander flatus],

Thanks for emailing in to volunteer your expertise. We're starting up a section next week called "Am I Doing This Right" (title not yet finalized), that takes basic stuff that you and I and everyone else does on a daily basis, and asks an expert if we are, in fact, doing it correctly.

Here's the question/activity I'm concentrating on first: wiping your butt. Silly topic, but one that's pretty interesting. How many people are doing it the "wrong" way? We'll find out.

So my question to you, as a medical professional, what is the "correct" way of wiping? Front to back, or back to front? And what are the medical reasons why and why not?

Feel free to write as much as you like, giving opinions, examples or even previous cases where you've encountered this. (No names necessary.)

Thanks for helping out Lifehacker! Don't forget to include any websites or links or info you'd like us to credit you under.

--
[removed contact info]

Abbott's HUMIRA® (Adalimumab) Meets Primary Endpoints In Phase III Ulcerative Colitis Study

Abbott's HUMIRA® (Adalimumab) Meets Primary Endpoints In Phase III Ulcerative Colitis Study

There are a couple of things that strike me about this study:

• Their placebo response rate is really, really low compared to other UC (and IBD) studies.
• Their aggregate response rate of 16-17% is really pathetic, even compared to other studies of anti-TNF drugs.
• I ain't writing adalimumab for UC based on this data.

Disclosure: I'm on their speaker's bureau and have given promotional talks for them. It's a good drug for Crohn's disease, but these data (which I suspect will lead to an FDA approved indication for ulcerative colitis) are very underwhelming. If I were the FDA, I would request another Phase III study.

Why I quit Wordpress

I used to run my blog on Wordpress and hosted my site at Dreamhost (I would recommend Dreamhost without reservation, BTW). But I found I was spending lots of time doing updates and I really don't have time for that. I also frequently noticed that my posts would get spam inserted into them to manipulate search engines via SQL injection hacks. Annoying.

So I closed up my Wordpress install over there and came to Blogger (who I can bitch about, but they're free). I've also used Google Webmaster Tools (also free) and I have used the webmaster tools since back in the Wordpress days. I liked Wordpress, it was fun. Learned some CSS skills. I liked Gallery for sharing images too (but now I use Picasa).

Anyway, upon setting up my blog on blogger, I noticed that my traffic logs had some strange guests (Ukraine and Russia? see below - click to zoom):

Weird, right? So doing some digging I checked the webmaster tools site for evidence of stupidity and there it was under my crawl errors (again, click to zoom):

Some script kiddie website had figured out a way to insert their serialz in my Gallery. WTF?

I love free software, I've licensed stuff under the GPL that I've written. The problems are: difficulty of necessary upgrades being performed regularly by casual users and the lack of commercial impetus to make a proper product.

I'm sticking with big names and commercial software for the foreseeable future.

commander flatus' laws of internal medicine

commander flatus' laws of internal medicine:

1. beer (and sometimes steroids) makes everything better
2. when faced with a consultation that you don't know what to do about, blame another organ/subspecialty with which you're not involved/responsible for
3. nausea and vomiting is (almost) never a good reason to call a gastroenterologist
4. some people just can't handle a tummy ache
5. (dr.) commander flatus' sign: a patient who presents with magic marker drawing on their body parts to illustrate where their pain is may need a psychiatry consultation in addition to a workup for their pain
6. when commander flatus leaves town, his patients will simultaneously crump. the likelihood of this occuring increases logarithmically as the purpose of the trip increases from cme to vacation.

(and now google's adsense will populate my blog with ads for medical malpractice attorneys)

The Great Blogger Outage of 2011

Seems to have eaten two of my greatest posts ever. I am nagging them about getting me back up.

About the stupidest study ever

Staph Bacteria Found in Half of U.S. Meat

That's kind of like saying half of all children are below average. Staph is everywhere. Get over it. The world isn't sterile.

So the magazine business...

is going bankrupt right here in the midst of the ereader picking up steam. I can go out and subscribe to any number of magazines for $5.99 to $12 per year, yet these same magazines cost $2.99 a month for the ereader versions.
Makes no sense at all. I won't mind seeing more of them go away given their lack of any business sense at all. If they make money mailing me a color printed version for $10 a year, how about sharing the cost savings of the ereader version with the subscriber?

EDIT (5/22/2011): The Oxford American has it right. They get almost everything right, though. It's the South, ya'll.