Who Comes Up With Brand Name's For Prescription Drugs?

(text taken from http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-10-07-drug-names_N.htm

It's the job of drug consultants to create a name that's not already taken, won't lead to medical mix-ups and can help cut through the marketing clutter.
What makes a good name?
"A lot of it is more art than science," said William Trombetta, professor of pharmaceutical marketing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. "There are certain letters that express power and control, like Z, M or P. Other letters, like S, are more passive. Depending on what the drug does, you want to give the name certain features."
Want to sound high-tech? Go for lots of Z's and X's, such as Xanax, Xalatan, Zyban and Zostrix.
Want to sound poetic? Try Lyrica, Truvada and Femara.
Want to suggest what it does? Flonase is an allergy medicine that aims to stop nasal flow. Lunesta, a sleeping drug, implies "luna," the Latin word for moon — a full night's sleep.
Then there's Viagra, the erectile-dysfunction drug made by Pfizer. It uses the prefix "vi" to suggest vigor and vitality. The word rhymes with Niagara, suggesting a mighty flow.
"You know exactly what Pfizer (PFE) was trying to say with that," said Andy Valvur, senior brand strategist at Igor, a San Francisco branding company.
Drug names can suggest, but under FDA rules they can't come right out and make medical claims. That's why you won't see TumorBeGone or CureAll.
read more

Year 2038 Problem

The year 2038 problem (also known as Unix Millennium bug, or Y2K38 by analogy to the Y2K problem, known as the millennium bug) may cause some computer software to fail before or in the year 2038. The problem affects all software and systems that store system time as a signed 32-bit integer, and interpret this number as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 January 1, 1970.[1] The latest time that can be represented this way is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038. Times beyond this moment will "wrap around" and be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as a date in 1901 rather than 2038. This will likely cause problems for users of these systems due to erroneous calculations.

Because most 32-bit Unix-like systems store and manipulate time in this format it's usually called Unix time, and so the year 2038 problem is often referred to as the Unix Millennium Bug. However, any other non-Unix operating systems and software that store and manipulate time this way will be just as vulnerable.

PS - unless you've written your own operating system code, then you're running an OS that was built on basic unix framework. this includes windows pcs, apple computers, linux, your phone, atm machines etc.

Evil vs. Stupid

A lot of people are angry are angry with Wall St. execs and bankers who have screwed up badly enough to put the world's economy on the brink of collapse. They are angry because they assume that these execs are in some ways EVIL people.
the problem with that stance is that they're not really evil.
they're just stupid.
Yes, maybe their jobs are ridiculously complicated and difficult to understand. perhaps you (the reader) and I could not reasonably do their jobs, etc etc.
but we're not being paid millions of dollars a year to understand economics and high finance. THEY are!
and that's the difference.

The Best Theory On ABC's LOST

Since I began watching the show (between season 1 and 2) I've tried to come up with theories as to what's really going on. Most of them have been proven incorrect by now, and some of my theories have mutated to incorporate newly revealed bits of the story so far. Eventually I just gave up and figured I'd let the show develop on it's own without trying so hard to "figure it out".
I've read other people's theories online, and this guy Jason Hunter on the site http://www.timelooptheory.com/ has the most comprehensive and logical theory.
visit the site to read about it
http://www.timelooptheory.com/
and here's a link to an illustrated timeline.
http://www.timelooptheory.com/lost_timeline.jpg

Kanizsa Triangle

The bright white triangle isn't bright,
it's not even really there at all.

The Definition of a First World Country

Until recently I didn't know the real definition of the terms: "first world country", "second world country", or "third world country".
I had a rough idea of that they meant, and generally thought it had to do with income, standard of living, and freedom.
a mental shorthand i kept in my head was Europe= 1st world, South America= 3rd world.
the ideas i had were generally true, but only by coincidence.

the REAL meaning of the terms are:
1st world = Capitalist/Democratic countries
2nd world = Communist countries
3rd world = neutral/undeclared/underdeveloped

here's a map.
1st world = Blue
2nd world = Red
3rd world = Green

(The only part that seems somewhat inaccurate is that for all intents and purposes India should be blue at this point.)

on a slightly different note. it's also worth pointing out that these 3 "countries" would have made much better definitions of 3 constantly warring future nations than George Orwells "Oceana", "Eastasia", and "Eurasia". As his definitions in 1984 never made much sense to me.
compare

Natural Explanation For UFOs

Space.com

buying extended warranties is a huge waste of money according to consumer reports

When you take out an extended warranty, you're essentially making a sucker's bet. You're gambling on a series of events happening at precisely the right time under precisely the right circumstances. These include:

1. That a product will break exactly after the manufacturer's warranty has expired and precisely when the extended warranty is in effect. Sure, it's possible, but unlikely.
2. That the cost of the repair will exceed the cost of the warranty. Surveys of Consumer Reports subscribers reveal that the costs are fairly close most of the time.
3. That the product is likely to break in the first place. According to our data, most products are quite reliable and have not broken during the first three or four years of ownership.
4. That you're going to want to have the product fixed. Perhaps surprisingly, many readers surveyed said they didn't bother seeking repairs because they desired a replacement product that had either new features, more power, greater flexibility, more advanced technology, or improved energy efficiency.

here are some ways to protect yourself when making a major electronics purchase:
1) Pay with a major credit card that offers purchase protection and extended warranty protection.
2) Open the box before you leave the store and inspect the item.
3) Check to make sure the serial number on the item matches the serial number on your receipt.


*this was taken from The Consumerist

Kent - Ingenting

This band is from Sweden. For whatever reason I really enjoy a lot of bands from Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

The Formula That Killed Wall Street

The new Wired cover story is interesting, since it's the most important current event.
It's about the Wired on the Gaussian Copula function, which made it easy to calculate risk on Wall Street. Take a big bunch of financial instruments, each with their own risks, through them into the Copula function, and presto: you get the net risk.
It never took into account several important game changing factors.
Two quick examples found in the article:
1. a girl in elementary school has a 5% chance of winning the spelling bee. Once girl A wins it then girl Bs chance goes from 5% to 0%.
2. a girl in elementary school has a 5% chance of getting lice. A 5% chance that skyrockets after her twin sister who sits next to her in class gets lice.

these are the sort of things that the equation doesn't account for.
you may have a 5% chance of defaulting on your home loan, and you may have a 5% chance of losing your job, but AFTER you lose your job the probability of losing your house goes up, it doesn't remain at 5%

The Formula That Killed Wall St.

chinese typewriter

full article

Coraline 3D

I was given free movie passes and I went with my girlfriend to watch Coraline 3D. It was a pretty cool looking movie. It had been a long time since I'd seen a movie in 3D so that was pretty neat.
It's not really a kids movie, it's more like a dark take on the alice in wonderland theme.
It's also not a cartoon movie. none of it was animated. there is a pretty cool article that describes how the movie was made
here

Barack Obama before he had a stylist!

President Obama's $500,000.00 salary cap for bailout Execs is a mistake

These guys are used to getting paid WAY more than that.
Do you think anybody is going to want to stick around in those jobs, when they can go somewhere else and do an easier job for more money?
Isn't somebody that can turn around a failing bank worth more than $500,000.00?
They'd save us way more tax payer money in the long run.
This is a ridiculous mistake.
salary cap

Demetri Martin makes me laugh

"I have never crossed every item off a to-do list. I'd like to think it's because I make ambitious lists. But it's not. I'm unfocused. With things like "Figure out one-man show" and "Fix Web site" on my list, I'm kind of set up for incompletion. Sometimes I cross out something and put "1/2" next to it—because I almost did it. Other times I remember something I completed earlier, so I write it down, just to be able to cross it off."
read more

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero vs Fox News

Virg Bernero is the mayor of Lansing, and he is angry.
GM used to build a lot of cars in Lansing, the jobs are disappearing.
While Wall St. seems to get bailouts without question, a lot of people are questioning whether the Detroit automakers deserve bailouts as well, even though they produce tangible goods.

GM is going to axe every division except Cadillac and Chevrolet

GM currently has 8 divisions:
Cadillac
Buick
Pontiac
Chevrolet
GMC
Hummer
Saturn
Saab


Their ultimate goal is to cut this down to 2:
Cadillac
Chevrolet


They are either going to sell the other divisions off, or shut them down like they did with Oldsmobile.
read more

Is Best Buy going bankrupt?

Circuit City is closing stores.
Is Best Buy going to start closing stores?
Yesterday I went with someone to a local Best Buy store so they could buy a new DVD player.
The shelves were completely empty. They had approx. 12 models of DVD players on display but they were all out of all of them.
The DVD section as well as the laptop section were also looking empty.
The only thing they seemed to have in stock were dozens of boxes of "Guitar Hero" games.
Not a good sign. It indicates that they haven't got the money or credit to purchase more products.
Also there were about twice as many employees as customers inside the store.

Kara DioGuardi will replace Paula Abdul next year on American Idol

They kept the seemingly drugged up Paula Abdul for one final season in order to help her replacement (DioGuardi) transition smoothly.

I don't understand why everyone boos Simon when he's the only one who offers real constructive criticism. The rest of the judges just tell everyone how "great" they were.

edit: on second thought maybe they're planning on replacing Randy, when's the last time he said anything worth while? sample quote "yo, whoa, that was pitchy, dawg!" totally worthless.

The War On Terrorism, and The War On Drugs

All of our Wars on non Nation state nouns could be won if we lumped them all together under the umbrella of "The War On Poverty And Ignorance".
Poverty and ignorance are the root causes of these problems.

Constant Anxiety - The Modern Disorder

I recently read about a new disorder in which modern office workers become so used to multi-tasking that they can never feel calm. They can never relax. They feel like frauds because their work is so intangible. There is always a feeling that they should be doing something else, something additional. The only place they feel calm is while in the car in transit between point A and B.
I don't remember what they were calling this, but I found it interesting.

copy music from your iPod onto your computer

This is the easiest way to copy music off your ipod.
1. in properties, de-select the hidden folders option
2. connect your ipod to your computer
3. Click the "my computer" icon,
4. look for your ipod in the list of drives, click on it
5. then click the folder called "ipod_control",
6. inside "ipod_control" is a folder called "music".
7. copy the "music" folder to your hard-drive.

you can copy the entire folder to your computer's drive or open the "music" folder and pick which songs you want to copy. this gets a bit trickier since the database methodology the ipod uses changes all of your file names to something like this "ADAF.mp3", all the meta-data is the same though, so you can still easily see what the files are and put them back into any media player.

Let The Banks Fail - says economist Joseph Stiglitz

"The Government should allow every distressed bank to go bankrupt and set up a fresh banking system under temporary state control rather than cripple the country by propping up a corrupt edifice, according to Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist."
Read More
The discussion here centers on the UK banks, but I think it's a valid argument for any government to consider. The idea that we would want to spend our tax money to help banks that are failing is beyond the scope of my imagination. Free market capitalism is supposed to have companies that succeed and companies that fail, that's how Capitalism works.

Look For Good News

"If the media started reporting that the economy was turning around, people would start to unconsciously make it happen. Tensions would relax and consumer confidence would begin to increase because they would start to look for reasons to do so." - Chris Hardwick read more

the problem with cancer

A lot of money is being spent in trying to come up with some miraculous way to cure cancer, when instead that money should be spent preventing people from dying from cancer.
early diagnosis - chance of survival 90%.
late diagnosis - chance of survival 10%.
read more

Homo Sapien 2.0

When we have the ability to use chips to make deaf people hear again, and use small cameras inside of glass eyeballs to let blind people see, and we create advanced fake limbs, and learn to modify our DNA will we still be technically human?
read more

I am bored by Jews and Israel

Jews make up .23% of the world's population.
That's POINT twenty-three per cent!
.23% makes them fairly irrelevant.
There are ten times as many atheists!
I'm tired of all the news reports about what's going on in Israel.
In what way is this relevant to the interests of Americans?
I realize that terrorism is a hot topic nowadays,
but if they still can't get it together over there... well...
that's not really NEWS is it?

Christians, Sports Team Fans, and Punk Rockers...

What they have in common is that they are voluntary tribes.
As neighborhoods and schools become more diverse, marriages become more mixed and social hierarchies breakdown, old lines are getting blurry. Voluntary tribes are a way of re-creating a sense of community.
These are emotionally intense affinity groups based on shared aims, obsessions or political crusades, not on DNA.
Taken from Howard Fineman's Newsweek column.