In This Study, Prayers Aren’t The Answer
Margaret sent this to me. Interesting. Although I've also read research that claims to have found just the opposite. (Although I can't find it now...)
By Jeremy Manier
Tribune staff reporter
March 31, 2006
Praying for a sick cardiac patient may feel right to people of faith, but it doesn't appear to improve the patient's health, according to a new study that is the largest ever done on the healing powers of prayer.
In fact, the researchers from Harvard Medical School and five other U.S. medical centers found--to their bewilderment--that coronary bypass patients who knew strangers were praying for them fared significantly worse than people who got no prayers. The team speculated that telling the patients about the prayers may have caused "performance anxiety," or perhaps a fear that doctors expected the worst.
"Obviously, my colleagues were surprised by the unexpected and counterintuitive outcome," said Rev. Dean Marek, director of chaplain services at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a co-investigator for the project.
It was a strange end for the mammoth prayer study, which cost $2.4 million and enrolled 1,802 patients who had bypass surgery. The majority of funding came from the British-based John Templeton Foundation, which supports research at the intersection of science and religion.
Why Yes, Actually, I Would Like to Track That Package
Since my Powerbook is in the shop I've been using Gmail for again for a week or two and I was reminded again how much I actually like computers reading my email. Wish they could read it all for me and just tell me what to do.
It gave me a link straight to the tracking number mentioned in the email. Wonderful. I've noticed when people include their postal address in their corporate email signature Gmail includes a google map link to their location. The only thing I miss with Gmail is drag and drop. I bet they're working on it.
It's not very often that you can respond to your computer's requests with a heartfelt "well, yes, that's a great idea actually."
Microsoft Verification Email Blocked By Microsoft SPAM Filter
This should be appended to the definition of ridiculous.
I just signed up for some kind of webinar from Microsoft about Exchange Server. After entering all my information and pressing "Continue" only to have it predictably lose all my information and make me enter it all over again (so 1995), I press continue once more and it tells me it has sent a verification email to my Hotmail account.
So, I guess even though I am now fully logged in and harnessed to my Big Brother is Watching.NET account as it so coldly demanded after expunging all my previous information, it still needs to verify that it can send me spam?
So I wait. No email. Since they have so effectively broken the back button in their signup process, I am quite reluctant to go through it again. I choose to wait. Eventually I wander over to my Hotmail junk mail and look, there it is.
Huh? You send me an email to verify that you can send spam to the email account you created for me when signing up for your Big Brother.NET account that you required I sign up for, but then you helpfully block your own verification email as well as rendering the verification link in it unclickable? Microsoft can't manage to put their own mail servers on a Hotmail safe list?
Smaller Portions of the Daily News
I have found The Slate's email newsletter "Today's Papers" a nice low volume, low anger-producing way to get a somewhat balanced impression of what's going on in the world. I signed up for the daily email, so each morning Slate tells me what the nation's newpaper editors thought were the day's most important stories. USA Today 's editors seem to be the worst, never anything controversial. Anyway, I would recommend it, they're always really short and to the point. of all the bulk mail I get, it's the only one that I actually read before deleting.
How To Use Outlook to Send an HTML File as the Body of an Email
I create a lot of HTML email templates and one of the more frequent questions after sending the HTML file to the client is how do I actually send that HTML file as an email.
Here's instructions for how to get the HTML into Outlook so you can send it as an email.
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Save the HTML.
If you have recieved the HTML file via email, save the attached HTML out of the email you received it in using one of the following methods:
- right-click on the attachment and choose "Save Attachment"
- drag and drop the file to your desktop or local filesystem
- From the File Menu of the open message choose "File > Save Attachments."
DO NOT
double click on the attachment to open it and then choose "File > Save As." This causes the HTML file to be opened in your web browser, and choosing "File > Save As" from a browser may helpfully rewrite everything.
(I was suprised to learn that "save the attachment" means quite a few different things to different people.) -
Put it in the Stationery Directory.
Move the HTML file to:
C:\Documents and Settings\*userid*\Application Data\Microsoft\Stationery.
The Application Data folder is a hidden folder so you may not be able to see it by simply browsing to it. You can change your preferences to display hidden files and folders (Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder Options > View > Show hidden files and folders), or copy and past the above location into the Windows Explorer (double-click My Computer) address bar, replacing *userid* with the correct folder.
The Stationery folder is created by Outlook the first time you use the stationery feature. If you do not see the stationery folder, try creating a new message as below with any other stationery and the folder will be created in your user directory.
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Action > New message using > More stationery...
From the Action menu of the main Outlook window, choose Action > New mail message using > More stationery..., then choose your HTML file from the list. This will open a new email message with your HTML file as the body.
Outlook displays HTML differently when it's editing the HTML as opposed to simply displaying it. This can cause extra spacing to appear at the end of lines or around images. Sending the message to yourself will confirm that these types of display problems will not appear for the recipient.
The Donkey Raffle
My mom sent this to me.
A young hillbilly named Kenny moved to texas and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news. The donkey up and died."
Kenny replied, "Well, then, just give me my money back."
The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."
Kenny said, "Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey."
The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?"
Kenny said, "I'm going to raffle him off."
The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead donkey!"
Kenny said, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead."
A month later, the farmer met up with kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey?"
Kenny said, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $ 898.00."
The farmer said, "Didn't anyone complain?"
Kenny said, "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."
Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.
Mac OS X Supports Klingon
Since I signed up for my Arabic class I was just perusing through my system preferences to see how to enable Arabic input. I noticed that Klingon is a supported language. Cute. Doesn't seem to have a character set for it though. (Don't think Klingon is supported by UTF8).
Talk About Bad Luck
Abdur Sayed Rahman has been a prisoner in Guantanamo for the past four years. According to the NY Times article, he says he was a chicken farmer in Pakistan until he was arrested at his farm in 2002 and hauled off to Guantanamo where he is accused of being deputy foreign minister of the Taliban. He says the deputy foreign minister was Abdur Zahid Rahman, he is Abdur Sayed Rahman. Guess we better torture him just to be sure.
Lego Illustrations of Bible Stories
This is the best thing I've found on the internet in a while. If you never follow any links that I put in articles, follow these. I was laughing my ass off for a few hours.
At The Brick Testament you can see many famous stories from the Bible illustrated with Legos. Definitely worth checking out. He sets up little lego people sets and takes pictures of them, and he has some fucking cool Legos. The photos and illustrations are really well done, excellent use of photographic depth of field and lighting, real attention to details, lots of subtle elements in the background and other context.
My current favorites; When to Stone Your Children, Gang Rape and Dismemberment, Proof of Virginity and Why To Keep The Law.
God Kicks Pat Robertson Off The Board
Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, criticized by some evangelicals for comments about Venezuela's president and Israel's prime minister, lost a bid for re-election to the National Religious Broadcasters' board of directors. In the past few months, Robertson suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated and that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for pulling out of the Gaza Strip. Many speculate this is the cause of God's disfavor with Robertson and caused his removal from the Board.
(Photo from "Asshole," Film Strip International.)
Robertson believes that, in His role as Omniscient Real Estate Broker, the Creator of the Universe has selected a specific dry, desert area of His universe located on our planet's surface and promised that area to at least one specific race of humans. Robertson could not be reached for comment on wether in his view this included those of Asian decent with no direct lineage to Abraham, but had adopted the modernized version of the Jewish faith and chosen to live in Israel.