June 6 Weight: 170.6 lbs

That's a nice surprise after my last weigh-in's slight disappointment. Of course, it should be noted that I am eating according to a 1.5 lb.-per-week weight-loss schedule. According to today's weight, I've lost 4 lbs. in the last week. I expect it's as much about hydration as anything else.

Today's weight: 172.4 lbs

I hopped on the scale after breakfast this time. It seems that shaving most of my beard off didn't really make much of a difference. :-)

De-beard-ification

Sometimes I just feel the urge for change. I'm lucky to have enough facial hair that I can claim to have a beard, because a beard is an easy thing to change. So, I recently decided to shave off my beard.

I've had it since, oh, I guess 2005. When I look back at pictures, I don't really like the way I looked. But, then again, I was somewhat heavier then and my clothing choices were uninspired (not that I'm a fashion-plate now, but I've improved). I ran the idea past Trish first, and she suggested that I stop at the goatee. So here we go....

Before

Going...

Finished

Chicken vs. Egg: finally settled

You've heard the question, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?"

I was listening to a podcast that I love to hate, Intelligent Design the Future, and was reminded of that age-old conundrum. In case you're not familiar, Intelligent Design (ID) is a world view that posits that life could NOT have evolved, but instead must have been designed by an intelligent agent (translation: ID is good ol' creationism gussied up with a new suit and a new name). ID proponents spend most of their time fighting off their inevitable hostile takeover by the amazing theory of evolution. Though they call their theory scientific, they offer little science; it's mostly about trying to punch tiny holes in evolution so that they can continue believing in their religion.

One particular argument they spout is that evolution has never been observed. Evolution, by its very nature, takes a long time. The reason it even had to be discovered in the first place (as opposed to being dismissively obvious) is because it takes so much longer than a human lifetime.

Oh, I'm sorry. ID proponents don't categorically denounce evolution; they DO concede that micro-evolution occurs. That is, they agree that selective breeding can lead to changes in gene frequencies in a population, and cause certain traits to become exaggerated. Dog breeding is a canonical example.

However, they draw the line at macro-evolution, the idea that small changes in a population's genome can accumulate over time and create a new species. The most compelling reason for this denial is a lack of imagination. They have difficulty imagining how a bird could evolve from a dinosaur, so instead they focus on silly distractions like, "Has anyone ever seen a dog give birth to a duck? Of course not, so evolution is a fraud!" The podcast was talking about how SARS, the bird flu, and swine flu all failed to cause a pandemic. Their argument is that since the viruses didn't evolve even that little bit further to cause a pandemic, then nothing ever evolved. To point out how wrong this is, let me apply the same logic to a different scenario: I didn't have a heart-attack today, therefor I will never have a heart-attack.

It seems inevitable that small alterations in the genome of species "A" will, over time, accumulate until it no longer seems appropriate to call it species "A" anymore. That's called speciation. In fact, it's actually more difficult to imagine speciation NOT occurring.

OK, back to the chicken and the egg. I expect that the ancient ancestors to chickens also laid eggs. So, every chicken must come from an egg. What's not so clear is that every egg has to yield a chicken. For a sexual-reproducing species like chickens, every offspring is different from its parents. At some point in history, a species of birds accumulated enough genetic changes from its ancestor species to warrant a new name. The first organism of that new species must have first been an egg. Hence, the egg came before the chicken.

This blog post is from

intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Weight update: 172.2 lbs.

Slowly but surely...

Financial advice, Las Vegas style

One of my ex-financial advisors sent me a chain e-mail today. One of those life-lessons messages with gems of wisdom like "When you lose, don't lose the lesson". OK, that one seems fine. But how about this one, "Say 'bless you' when you hear someone sneeze"? Many people follow that rule, but it seems utterly useless to me. I see no purpose for it, other than to satisfy someone's superstitious itch.

The message also claims that "It has been sent around the world ten times so far." Not sure what that means, since the internet makes such a task trivial.

And here comes the icing on the cake... the message ends with,

Send this to at least 5 people and your life will improve.

1-4 people: Your life will improve slightly

5-9 people: Your life will improve to your liking

9-14 people: You will have at least 5 surprises in the next 3 weeks

15 and above: Your life will improve drastically and everything you ever dreamed of will begin to take shape.

Thoughts: How can my life improve slightly, but not to my liking? What would happen if I forwarded the message to exactly 9 people?

I have a personal policy that I NEVER take part in e-mail chain letters. It doesn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out that if everyone sent it to 5 of their friends within 6 minutes (as the e-mail directs), it would take only 90 minutes to reach every living human being. Of course, not everyone has e-mail, so what it really means is that this silly chain letter will fill the internet (and your inbox) with superstitious dribble.

I can't help wondering if sending this message to more than 15 people is this particular financial advisor's best strategy for financial success. I think I made the right decision in making them my EX-financial advisor.

This blog post is from

intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Today's weight: 172.8 lbs

To be fair, I hadn't had breakfast yet.