Gimmie gimmie shock treatment

Yesterday was my appointment to get an EMG and a nerve conduction study done to find out more about my twitchy legs. The technician’s name was Diane and she had me take off my shoes and socks and lie on the table. Diane asked if I was having twitches now and if they were visible. Unfortunately, none were active that I could point her to (though I noticed them again later on the way home).

She then attached a few electrodes to my ankle area and used what is essentially a cattle prod device to run electric shocks into my muscle while a computer charted the responses.

“This is a little more active than I expected,” I told her, not expecting shocks. “I was thinking this would be more passive.”

“Well, we’ve got to check your muscles’ responses to the electricity,” she responded without looking up.
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BBC News – Caesium: A brief history of timekeeping

This is a fascinating account of the modern tools we use to keep track of time, and the growing problems we face as our drive towards time accuracy conflicts increasingly with the imperfections of our terrestrial and celestrial home.

The frequency of the transition of strontium, for example, is 444,779,044,095,486.71 Hz. A strontium clock developed in the US would only have lost a second since the earth began: it is accurate to a second in five billion years.

The scientists at NPL reckon optical clocks that keep time to within one second in 14 billion years are on the horizon – that’s longer than the universe has been around.

via BBC News – Caesium: A brief history of timekeeping.

Your Ancestors Didn’t Sleep Like You – Are We Doing It Wrong? | Collective-Evolution

Very interesting. I’d like to try a segmented sleep pattern for a while to see how it makes me feel.

It makes one wonder what lighting up the night has cost us from an evolutionary perspective.

Evidence continues to emerge, both scientific and historical, suggesting that the way in which the majority of us currently sleep may not actually be good for us.

In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a paper that included over 15 years of research. It revealed an overwhelming amount of historical evidence that humans used to in fact sleep in two different chunks.

via Your Ancestors Didn’t Sleep Like You – Are We Doing It Wrong? | Collective-Evolution.

A room with a 115,000 volt view

Update 14 Oct: Duke Energy Progress tells me this line is 115,000 volts, not 140,000. Post updated to show the true voltage.

401 Oberlin residents never have to charge their cellphones

401 Oberlin residents never have to charge their cellphones

As I’ve occasionally driven by the new 401 Oberlin apartments at the corner of Oberlin Road and Clark Avenue, I’ve begun to notice just how frighteningly close the building is to a high-voltage transmission line paralleling it on Clark Avenue. High voltage lines pulsing with electricity in the neighborhood of 115,000 volts are less than two dozen feet away from the top floor of this building. Scary thought. It’s something that is conspicuously absent from their fancy building renderings, I’ve noticed.

Twenty years ago I rented an apartment with my brother and friend on Thea Lane in southwest Raleigh that was located about 50 feet under the 115Kv transmission lines that run alongside the Beltline. I never thought much about it until the day I was adjusting my tape deck (remember those?), getting ready to record a CD. When I bumped up the gain slightly on my tape recorder, I was surprised to hear an unexpectedly loud hum coming through the tape heads! Yikes! I wasn’t going to wait around for science’s definitive answer on the possible dangers of electrical field exposure, I was ready to get out of there!

Now look at 401 Oberlin, which is twice as close to power lines as I used to be. Electrical field strengths become twice as strong at half the distance, so 401 Oberlin residents are almost certainly swamped in a very strong electrical field.

Bottom line? No way in hell I would ever live there!

I’ve got an inquiry in with Duke Energy Progress to determine how much juice is actually flowing through that transmission line. I’ll update this post if/when I hear back from them.

Twitches continue

My muscle twitches have continued constantly since I first noted my left knee twitching. Now I get twitches in my upper left quadricep, right quadricep, right foot, both hamstrings, buttocks, left calf muscle, and elsewhere. It seems that at any one point in time there is something twitching. It’s as if someone is tickling me, 24 hours a day. It frequently wakes me up hours before my usual waking time. I’m really starting to wish this would go away but so far it has only gotten worse.

I am set to visit a neurologist tomorrow who can hopefully give me some answers. As I pondered my upcoming visit, I realized I had been assuming the doctor could provide some sort of medicine that might still my twitching enough that it wouldn’t disturb my sleep. Tonight I considered the very unpleasant possibility that the doctor can’t do anything to calm my muscles. Never mind whether this is a symptom of a more serious condition – nevermind the underlying cause – what if I was simply stuck with being invisibly goosed for the forseeable future? This alone would suck.

In the darkest corners of my mind is the fear that the mysterious health issues that have occasionally plagued me for decades have now fully latched onto me, having chewed through my body’s defenses. Pessimistic, I know, and premature since I haven’t seen the neurologist yet, but I admit that whatever is affecting me now has my full attention.

Facebook took my fake-account-spotting ability away

I was disappointed tonight when I discovered that Facebook has taken away my ability to spot fake Facebook accounts. Occasionally, the Facebook groups I administer get requests from suspicious-looking accounts. Often the spammers have recently joined Facebook and have appropriated the photo of another person for their profile photo. Usually the photo is for a hot-looking girl but not always.

When a request to join a group comes in from one of these questionable accounts, the first thing I do it to cut and paste the URL of their profile photo into Google Image Search (GIS). If the account’s fake, GIS will almost always pop up the name of the real person pictured in the photograph. Or there will be multiple hits, showing the same photograph is associated with multiple names. Either way, a Google Image Search has proven a quick way to sniff out fakes.
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People’s Climate March

We attended the People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday. Over 400,000 people marched two miles through the streets of New York to show their support for action on climate change. It was one of the most fun demonstrations I’ve attended, mainly because there was no stage. I don’t like it when 100 different groups get invited to the stage to pitch their pet causes when I might not be inclined to support them all. This one made no demands other than to show up and march. Easy.

It was quite a thrill to stand in the middle of New York City, feel the growing roar of the crowd as it approached, and then add my full-throated yell, too. There was real power there.

I’ll probably post more on this soon but I’m going through a very busy week with bond stuff and other distractions.
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This New Card Skimmer Is Almost As Thin As A Credit Card | TechCrunch

Credit card fraudsters are winning.

Good old Brian Krebs has the scoop on a new card skimmer found in Europe. How is it different? It literally fits right into the card slot of any ATM, essentially allowing unfettered access to cards as they slide through. Add in a tiny camera and you’ve got a complete card cloning system.

via This New Card Skimmer Is Almost As Thin As A Credit Card | TechCrunch.

Little fraud — but reason to worry — after major credit card hacks – Business – The Boston Globe

Credit card fraud news story.

For American consumers, some specialists say data breaches are the new normal. More than 500 data breaches — not just of financial information, but of passwords, e-mail addresses, and personal information — occurred in the United States in the first half of 2014 alone, roughly on par with 2013 and 2012, according to Risk Based Security, a Virginia consulting firm. Worldwide, there were 76 breaches that exposed credit card numbers over that same period.

via Little fraud — but reason to worry — after major credit card hacks – Business – The Boston Globe.

Dis-credit-ed

This afternoon, Kelly showed me what she thought was a realistic looking phishing email she received. Upon further examination, however, we realized it was a legitimate fraud alert sent from our credit card company.

I quickly called the customer service number on the back of my card and learned of a fraudulent charge put in today to Xoom Corporation, a wire transfer company of some sort based in San Francisco. Within minutes, a new credit card was being sent out and the fraud charges declined. This was the card we were sent only in February as a replacement for the Target credit card breach, so it lasted all of 7 months before being compromised. Nice.

With all the news about Home Depot’s recent, massive credit card breach, I first wondered if the company was to blame for my fraud instance. In actuality, I almost never shop at Home Depot. The last time I did was February 1st and that was using my previous credit card. Continue reading →