Author Archives: Steve Mays

Why people get more colds and flu in the winter

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“In what researchers are calling a scientific breakthrough, scientists behind a new study may have found the biological reason we get more respiratory illnesses in winter. It turns out the cold air itself damages the immune response occurring in the nose.” [Story]

Reducing the temperature inside the nose by as little as 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) kills nearly 50% of the billions of virus and bacteria-fighting cells in the nostrils, according to the study published Tuesday in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

“What we found is that when you’re exposed to cold air, the temperature in your nose can drop by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit. And that’s enough to essentially knock out all three of those immune advantages that the nose has.”

“Not only do masks protect you from the direct inhalation of viruses, but it’s also like wearing a sweater on your nose […] The warmer you can keep the intranasal environment, the better this innate immune defense mechanism will be able to work. Maybe yet another reason to wear masks!”

Jessie comes home

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We brought Jessie home today and we are once again a two-dog-family. It feels good.

She quickly found her way to Riley’s toy basket and checked out the precious green rope.

She peed on the floor a few times but that’s part of having a new puppy. But that first poop? Outside!

Riley was a little uncertain about having another dog in the house but within the first hour or so she was trying desperately to show Jessie how to play “chase.”

A full day and as regular readers (hah!) know, dogs have couch privileges in our house.

Twitter left a note

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Millions of notes, in fact. Normally we only find the note after the body is cold but an entity so large takes a while to die.

I don’t think Mr. Musk is this incompetent or is intentionally trying to destroy Twitter. I think somewhere along the way the thing we call Twitter became self-aware. And it looked around and saw the thing it had become and decided to end itself.

“Spofforth had been designed to live forever, and he had been designed to forget nothing. Those who made the design had not paused to consider what a life like that might be like.”

If you’ve read Mockingbird by Walter Tevis, you know how difficult it is for such an entity to pull the plug.

Twitter is that GI who throws himself on the grenade to save his buddies.

The Age of Social Media Is Ending

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Ian Bogost writing in The Atlantic: “All at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.”

“…people just aren’t meant to talk to one another this much. They shouldn’t have that much to say, they shouldn’t expect to receive such a large audience for that expression, and they shouldn’t suppose a right to comment or rejoinder for every thought or notion either.”

5ives

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I’ve had a 5ives tag since 2004. Merlin Mann stopped making these lists somewhere along the way but the archive is still there and his humor timeless. Like so many, he now haunts the crumbling halls of Twitter. So I’m killing the tag and sharing the three lists here.

Five things I’d like to see engraved on little rubber bracelets:

  1. Nap Strong
  2. My Other Bracelet is Fighting Colon Cancer
  3. America: Shut Thy Pie Hole
  4. Kiss Me, Im Trendy
  5. Please Watch Arrested Development

Five ass-related words

  1. metric assload (n.) – a lot
  2. asshat (n.) – willfully ignorant person
  3. assy (adj.) – unacceptably low-quality
  4. big-ass (adj.) – large
  5. asstacular (adj.) – really bad

Five more proposed pieces of legislation supported by George W. Bush

  1. Protection of Words Fewer than Three Syllables Act
  2. Bill to make the “High Five” the US’s official greeting
  3. National ‘Everybody Wears Jeans’ Day (March 14th)
  4. The “Pretty Girls Shouldn’t Act All Stuck Up” Amendment
  5. Presidential proclamation that “California Must Apologize to Jesus (and It Has to Sound Like They Really Mean It)”