Rotundus.com

One thing that I've always found ridiculous about heading down into the U.S. is the complete stupidity of airline security - even the TSA admits that its procedures have little or nothing to do with actual safety, rather than being security theater. Of all countries that I've been to, I think that crossing its border is the most annoying - and I've been in parts of the world with very tight security (at least in the Middle East the security is somewhat understandable).

I find it interesting that a New York Times blog is speculating that airport security measures are perhaps the key as to why Chicago lost the 2016 Olympic bid:

"It’s clear the United States still has a lot of work to do to restore its place as a premier travel destination," Roger Dow, U.S. Travel’s president, said in the statement released today. "When IOC members are commenting to our President that foreign visitors find traveling to the United States a 'pretty harrowing experience,' we need to take seriously the challenge of reforming our entry process to ensure there is a welcome mat to our friends around the world, even as we ensure a secure system."

And now it seems that there's the plan for exit eye scans / fingerprinting for all (which seems even less sensible than entry scans ... why would you want to filter out illegal immigrants who are departing the country, for example?)

It would be nice to ditch border control almost entirely (yay for the European Union's progress in that regard), but I don't see that happening on a much larger scale anytime soon.

I do, of course, hate to post anything that suggests that Darren might only be mildly crazy rather than completely insane, but this seems like a good follow-up to the recent post on sleep habits:

About 1 in 10 of us is like Dilbert's Adams. The scientific literature calls such people larks (more palatable than the proper term, early chronotype"). In general, larks report being most alert around noon and feel most productive a few hours before they eat lunch. They don't need an alarm clock, because they invariably get up before the alarm rings - often before 6 a.m. Larks cheerfully report their favorite mealtime as breakfast and generally consume much less coffee than non-larks. Getting increasingly drowsy in the early evening, most larks go to bed (or want to go to bed) around 9 p.m.

Larks are the mortal enemy of the 2 in 10 humans who lie at the other extreme of the sleep spectrum: "late chronotypes," or owls. In general, owls report being most alert around 6 p.m., experiencing their most productive work times in the late evening. Owls invariably need an alarm clock to get them up in the morning, with extreme owls requiring multiple alarms to ensure arousal. Indeed, if owls had their druthers, most would not wake up much before 10 a.m. Not surprisingly, late chronotypes report their favorite mealtime as dinner, and they would drink gallons of coffee all day long to prop themselves up at work if given the opportunity. If it sounds to you as though owls do not sleep as well as larks in our society, you are right on the money. Indeed, late chronotypes usually accumulate a massive "sleep debt" as they go through life.

Source: Brain Rules, p. 157

I found this rather interesting passage in a book that I was recently reading (p. 272-3), and am wondering whether or not the "faith" of this person's mother is representative of much of the faith that you find in the Western world:

One day, around age 14, I declared to my mother that I was an atheist. She was a devoutly religious person, and I thought that this announcement would crush her. Instead, she said something like "That's nice, dear," as if I had just declared I no longer liked nachos. The next day, she sat me down by the kitchen table, a wrapped package in her lap. She said calmly, "So, I hear you are now an atheist. Is that true?" I nodded yes, and she smiled. She placed the package in my hands. "The man's name is Friedrich Nietzsche, and the booked is called Twilight of the Idols," she said. "If you are going to be an atheist, be the best one out there. Bon appetit!

The book doesn't say whether or not his mother was a "Christian", but given the demographics of North America I suspect that she probably fell into that category. For a large portion, the attitude that most seem to take to matters of belief can be seen as roughly that found in one exchange on an episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine - basically a consumeristic approach:

					EZRI
				(to Kira)
			Would it bother you if Odo became
			a believer in...
				(picking something)
			-- Klingon religion?

					KIRA
			Not as long as he gets something
			out of it.

Eating a diet high in processed food increases the risk of depression, research suggests. What is more, people who ate plenty of vegetables, fruit and fish actually had a lower risk of depression, the University College London team found.

... Those who ate the most whole foods had a 26% lower risk of future depression than those who at the least whole foods. By contrast people with a diet high in processed food had a 58% higher risk of depression than those who ate very few processed foods.

Excerpted from: BBC News

I'm a little unsure on this one; correlation != causation. Is there a correlation between current depression and future depression? Do people get depressed because they eat junk food and fast food, or do they eat junk food because they're depressed, and fast food because they're too busy / overwhelmed?