Super Volatile

Radcliffe, who is a diabetic with a wireless, always-attached insulin pump, was slightly worried that someone might hack his pump, meddle with its settings, and kill him — and so, in true hacker fashion, he has spent the last two years trying to hack it himself. Unfortunately, he was very successful. He managed to intercept the wireless control signals, reverse them, inject some fake data, and then send it back to the pump. He could increase the amount of insulin injected by the pump, or reduce it. In both cases the pump showed no signs of being tampered with, and it did not generate a warning that he was probably about to die.

On one hand, it's scary. On the other hand, but will this experiment really make the world a safer place? Or will it rather introduce a new fear and encourage some idiots to really try to repeat the exercise? If it took the guy two years to hack the pump, it probably wasn't a threat that would invite serious black hat hackers. Especially since there are more effective ways to kill people.

The conventional wisdom, though, is that if you watch your diet and get aerobic exercise at least a few times a week, you’ll effectively offset your sedentary time. A growing body of inactivity research, however, suggests that this advice makes scarcely more sense than the notion that you could counter a pack-a-day smoking habit by jogging. “Exercise is not a perfect antidote for sitting,” says Marc Hamilton, an inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

After having some first health problems resulting from sedentary lifestyle, suddenly I started to pay more attention to the global conspiracy of chairs, plotting to kill humans. If you're reading this, probably you should pay attention too.

Still, while it’s tempting to believe we can train ourselves to be among the five-hour group — we can’t, Dinges says — or that we are naturally those five-hour sleepers, consider a key finding from Van Dongen and Dinges’s study: after just a few days, the four- and six-hour group reported that, yes, they were slightly sleepy. But they insisted they had adjusted to their new state. Even 14 days into the study, they said sleepiness was not affecting them. In fact, their performance had tanked. In other words, the sleep-deprived among us are lousy judges of our own sleep needs. We are not nearly as sharp as we think we are.

Findings from the research showing how much sleep do we actually need.

This is because brand packaging continues to peddle these lies. A street-interception survey from 2009 of 300 smokers and 300 non-smokers found that people think packages with “smooth” and “silver” in the names are safer, and that cigarettes in packaging with lighter colour, and a picture of a filter, were also safer.

Of course tobacco companies know this. As Philip Morris said in their internal document “Marketing New Products in a Restrictive Environment”: “Lower delivery products tend to be featured in blue packs. Indeed, as one moves down the delivery sector, then the closer to white a pack tends to become. This is because white is generally held to convey a clean healthy association.”

How easy is to cheat us, people, all of whom claim to be immune to cheap marketing tricks.

Hagerman has been drinking for 39 years. He drinks despite decades of lectures, prayers and punishment. He drinks despite two years of homelessness, six DWI convictions, six treatments for alcoholism and 13 months in jail.

What's ahead for Hagerman? The 54-year-old can see only one thing in his future — more drinking.

That's why he feels lucky to live in a hospice for alcoholics — St. Anthony Residence in St. Paul. There, 60 men can — and often do — drink until they die.

A report from a hospice for alcoholics, where drinking is allowed.

In view of the serious health consequences of insomnia in software engineers who are at high risk, suitable awareness programs should be developed as a preventative measure. Sleep assessment should be included as part of routine medical check-ups so that management of the problem is easier in the early stages. Lifestyle management programs which include sleep hygiene and care should be incorporated as a policy matter in the IT industry.

Breaking news: geeks have sleep deficits. Yay.

What I do want to cover are a set of particular problems programmers have from their daily profession. These are just simple really obvious things that for some reason programmers don't realize aren't supposed to be happening:

• Pain in your wrists from Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
• Problems with your eyes from staring at moving print for extended periods.
• Back problems from poor posture, especially in the lower back and upper shoulders.
• Bowel and urinary issues from not crapping and pissing when you should.
• Dehydration from drinking too much caffeine and not enough water.
• Problems with hemorrhoids and the prostate for guys from sitting too much. Yep, I'm gonna go there.
• Vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunshine.
• Sleeping disorders from staying up late and drinking too much coffee.
• General stiffness and soreness from a lack of stretching in general.

If you are a programmer, just read it. It will be well spent 15 minutes.

Regular workout sessions do not appear to fully undo the effects of prolonged sitting.

In other words, if you sit too much, even working out won't help your heart.

We forget how difficult it is to meet, greet and deal with another human being. It’s hard on our brains and good for them.

An interview with the author of “The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain” on aging of the brain.

As mentioned previously on my blog, I had a rare type of cancer for which there is still no cure. I was treated surgically to remove the macro-tumor, but microscopic remnants undoubtedly remain and, after enough doubling, it will reassert a claim on my health. Things are not likely to end well. Given this, I arrived at my dating conundrum.

A man diagnosed with cancer shares his dilemmas about dating.