Archive for the 'Beijing' Category

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Assorted Links

Saturday, January 14th, 2012
  • One of my Tsinghua American colleagues writes an op-ed: “China wants you. Job prospects are abundant.”
  • Robert Anton Wilson’s skepticism about skeptics. “Those people claim to be rationalists, but they’re governed by such a heavy body of taboos. They’re so fearful, and so hostile, and so narrow, and frightened, and uptight and dogmatic. . . . None of them ever says anything skeptical about the AMA, or about anything in establishment science or any entrenched dogma.” I agree. They should be called one-way skeptics.
  • Excellent Vanity Fair article about Occupy Wall Street. Better than The New Yorker‘s article covering similar stuff.
  • The many side effects of statins. I am impressed by the new way of learning about drug side effects.

Thanks to Ryan Holiday and Gary Wolf.

Posted in Assorted Links, Beijing, China, health care, magazines, Tsinghua University | 5 Comments »

More About The Willat Effect

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

The Willat Effect is the hedonic change produced by side-by-side comparisons of similar products — for example, two green teas. It happens in seconds: Suddenly the differences matter more. Some versions become more pleasant, other versions less pleasant.  I first noticed it with limoncello that my friend Carl Willat offered me. Here are some reactions to my recent post about it: (more…)

Posted in Beijing, connoisseurship, self-experimentation | 16 Comments »

Assorted Links

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Thanks to David Gerard.

Posted in Assorted Links, Beijing, China, self-experimentation, Shangri-La Diet | 5 Comments »

Beijing Talk by Me: The Value of Personal Science

Friday, April 15th, 2011

If you live in Beijing, it may interest you that on April 23 (Saturday) I will give a 30-minute talk at Tsinghua University (Weiqing Building, Room 507) titled “The Value of Personal Science”. The talk will start at 1:30 pm.

Posted in Beijing, self-experimentation, Tsinghua University | 2 Comments »

Beijing Smog: Good or Bad?

Monday, February 21st, 2011

I am in Beijing. The smog is bad. It is more humid than usual and the air is dirtier than usual. At his blog, James Fallows, who is also in Beijing, has posted  pictures and pollution measurements. (Incidentally, Eamonn Fingleton, an excellent writer, will be guest-blogging there. In Praise of Hard Industries is one of the best business/economics books I’ve read.)

The effect of smog on health isn’t obvious. Maybe you know about hormesis — the finding that a small dose of a poison, such as radioactivity, is beneficial. It has been observed in hundreds of experiments. It makes sense: the poisons activate repair systems. Even if you know about hormesis, you probably don’t know that one of the first studies of smoking and cancer found that inhaling cigarette smoke appeared beneficial: inhalers had less cancer than non-inhalers. R. A. Fisher, the great statistician, emphasized this (pp. 160-161):

There were fewer inhalers among the cancer patients than among the non-cancer patients. That, I think, is an exceedingly important finding.

This difference (a negative correlation) appeared in spite of two positive correlations: Heavy smokers get more cancer than light smokers; and heavy smokers are more likely to inhale than light smokers. It is far from the only fact suggesting the connection between smoking and health isn’t simple.

So I am not worried about Beijing smog. The real danger, I think, is not eating fermented foods. Which, thankfully, is infinitely more under my control.

Posted in Beijing, fermented food, self-experimentation, umami hypothesis | 13 Comments »

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