My Tropical Fish Aquarium - Part V

It's a bit fuzzy, not least because my zebras haven't been keeping up with the algae, but here's my latest effort at planting. I don't know how the cryptocoryne is going to get on - it's really a low-light plant, and all the others get on better with >2WPG, but still...

That's Tom, front and centre.

My Tropical Fish Aquarium - Part IV

Just to give you the "big" picture... Fear not! I know I'm overstocked, and I know that received wisdom says that one shouldn't keep cories in an 8g tank. All things being equal, I'll be getting myself a 20g, at some point in the not too distant future.

In the meantime, this is what I'm working with. I'm going to plant my plants properly, the next time I do a water change (they're currently still in their pots). I want my Brazilian Microsword to grow into a carpet, and it's not going to do that, if I keep disturbing it with a deep gravel clean.

I've been trying to get some decent pictures of my cories, but they're challenging my skills (ie, lack of patience), as a wildlife photographer. Actually, they're not "challenging" them, at all - that would suggest a contest of equals!

Matt

My Tropical Fish Aquarium - Part III

A small fanfare is in order



My camera works! But I need to find my tripod - because they're so small, and I have to be close, it took me ten really fuzzy attempts to get this picture of my neons.

By the way, that brown lump, nestled in to the left of the lilaeopsis brasiliensis, is one of my zebra snails.

Addendum:
LOL! It was so well-camouflaged that I didn't notice it, but in the bottom righthand corner, you can see my panda cory (a new acquisition - one of my juliis died, just as it was about to enter the "safe zone" of one month's residency).

Adverse psychiatric side effects of medicines: what's your responsibility?

APRIL's third conference is on 6 November, in London:

Adverse psychiatric side effects of medicines: what's your responsibility?

and will look to heighten awareness of the side effects of medications, and what health professionals could/ought to be doing to minimize this. Regrettably, it's necessary to put this in financial terms, for the hard of heart: it costs the country £2.5billion, each year, in unnecessary prescriptions, and then treating those who have adverse reactions.

Matt

Genius: there's no other word for it - Part XXXI

I haven't done one of these, in a while...

Some critic in The Times said of the album that this track is taken from, White Ladder, that "it's an album that makes your life seem better by its mere existence," which sounds like a grandiose statement. Until you listen to it.

Arte y Pico

Stan, of Is Something Not Quite Right With Stan (see my blogroll), has seen fit to nominate me for the Arte y Pico award. As far as I can establish, given the criteria (below), it's because I'm fucking cool!

1. You have to pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award in terms of creativity, design, interesting material, and general contributions to the blogger community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each winner has to show the award and give the name and link to the blog that has given him or her the award itself.

4. Each winner and each giver of the prize has to show the link of “Arte y pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. To show these rules.

I'm going to do my "usual" and find some blogs, at random, that I like, and spread the silverware around. I'll post the details within the next couple of days.


Later:
OK, here we go... I'm going to preamble my selections by making a comment about the way blogs are being used, out there. There's a helluva lot of marketing/advertisements (who the fuck wants to buy antiques and knock-off Gucci handbags, online?), masquerading as blogs. And there's also a lot of blogs with just one post, written in garbled english, which just leaves me asking "huh? What on earth is this about?" Yeah, there's a lot of crap. Anyway:

1. Rachel - Writing My Novel - A new blog, the title of which speaks for itself. Why do I like it? Because it's an insight into the intellectual process, maybe. Who knows - if her book becomes a bestseller, she may be able to repackage her blog, and sell that as a guide to aspiring writers?!

2. Black Holes and Barbies - Tracy Wilson-Tucker is the blog author. I dunno - I liked the title, and the artwork.

Intermission:
This is fucking hard work! I've been at this for well over an hour, now, and the ratio of white noise relative to the interesting stuff (my perception), is very high.

3. meee today - funny turn of phrase, and a slightly (but only slightly), leftfield way of looking at things. The author's a barrister, apparently - I always used to find the ridiculous situations that people got themselves into amusing (ie, when I was reading law, and writing case notes), and it looks like this guy does, too.

4. Paco's Adventures - What can I tell you? The idea of a small pig writing a blog just amused me! And what were the chances of Paco being english-speaking, too?

5. The fifth one is going to have to wait, because Google has decided that my "activity" (clicking on and off links), looks dubious!..

Later:
Ellen Giamportone - Great photography - must be nice to be able to shoot exactly what you want to illustrate your blog, rather than search Google Images!

Joseph Biederman is a wanker (although that's just my personal opinion)

I was just reading this piece - not because I'm particularly interested in bipolar, harvard, psychiatry, or the quality of the Globe's coverage, but rather because I'm fascinated by the myth of Joseph Biederman.

"I think a pharma person would not dare to tell Joe what to say," wrote Dr. Jerrold Rosenbaum , chief of psychiatry at Mass. General, in an e-mail. "And if they made that mistake, it would be only once. . . . For Joe, it is his ideas and mission that drive him, not the fees."

Well, thank goodness for that! This is Rosenbaum's perspective, of course, not Biederman's, but let's assume it's accurate.

Which begs the question, I think, as to what ideas Biederman has, and what his mission is. He perceives that "these children... are in a desperate state," and he assumes that the reason for this is that they are mentally ill, in some sense. However, as the piece points out, rightly, I think, assuming that the issue lies with the individual allows Biederman to ignore the environment in which that individual operates.

I'm skeptical about what Rosenbaum says, mind you: if one is included in a club (and pharma has surely included Biederman in its club), then one is inclined, generally-speaking, not to act against the interests of that club, especially if one is receiving a benefit, by dint of membership. I wonder what Biederman's stance would be, if pharma were prevented from giving him money? Would he start to see the solution to childhood bipolar (assuming it exists - there appears to be some doubt about that), as lying somewhere else? Is Biederman that superficial? Are we all that superficial?

Who knows? And who cares? Well, I'll tell you who cares, actually. The people who care are the ones for whom Biederman's solutions don't work, and who are left bearing all responsibility for the fact that they don't work.

You're a charlatan, Biederman. Your piddling little ideas have never fixed anybody, and the idea that you should be paid millions of dollars for failing is a fucking travesty. But only in my opinion, obviously.

Matt

Addendum:
Jesus, this is one secretive bunch! This is Biederman's official homepage, in which he's only mentioned as one of the 650 faculty members. Nothing about his ideas, nor his "mission" (am I the only person to find that word disturbing, although I'm not quite sure why?).

My Tropical Fish Aquarium - Part II

I haven't got round to even looking at the state of my camera, let alone taking picture... Here are a couple of images that I nicked off the web:


Julii Cory


Bronze Cory


Neon Tetra


I lost another neon (the third), to a fungal infection, yesterday - the first for a week. So I bought a cardinal, just to be different...

My Tropical Fish Aquarium

...is up-and-running.

I've got a little shoal of neon tetras, with four little cories (two bronze, two julii), for company. I had a bit of an issue with nitrates and I lost the guppies that I was keeping prior to the neons, but that seems to be sorted. Fucking brilliant!

I've got it planted, and I've got a couple of zebra snails to keep the algae down, although I've committed to a gravel clean/water change, every Friday, to combat the extra waste from the zebras.

Brilliant Blogger Award

Stephany, at Soulful Sepulcher, has very kindly awarded me a Brilliant Blogger (see right). It's a completely subjective thing: one nominates according to any criteria, just as long as the blog in question has attracted one's attention, in one way, or another.

It's a pyramid thing, too. And rather than pay it on to a bunch of mates, I went to the Blogger logon page, and clicked pretty randomly on a series of blogs, the names of which attracted me, as much as anything else. When I found one I liked, for some reason, I gave it the Award. Seven in all, as is the way with these things.

Angry 365 Days a Year was the only exception to my system!

Matt

Addendum:
Seeing as I did a "proper job" on the Arte y Pico award, I thought I should retrospectively list the blogs that I awarded the Brilliant Blogger to, as well.

1. Angry 365 Days a Year - The self-styled Angry Aussie is a thing to behold, when he's in full flow! Some thoughtful pieces, and even when he's apparently "tearing a strip off," it's still well-structured. Given that he's a techie, I suppose his logical approach is not that surprising.

2. everyday gets a little bit harder - Carl Applequist, the author (I'm guessing from the url), is, I'm guessing, a kid in his mid to late teens. He's finding things tough, after a recent split from his gf. He did the right thing in setting his thoughts down, I reckon.

3. The Dog Park Book - Various authors; a blog about walking your dog. I dunno, it's a nice, feelgood thingy.

4. Going for a smoke - under construction!

Drug watchdog NICE 'spends more on 'spin' than tests on new treatments'

I just happened to notice this, down at my local corner shop. I thought it was funny, and ironic, and sad, and piss-poor journalism, and probably some other stuff in roughly equal measure.

Drug watchdog NICE 'spends more on 'spin' than tests on new treatments'

Let's see, I didn't bother reading past the second para, but let's see what I can pick fault with:

1. NICE isn't the drugs' watchdog, in the UK. The Nine Elms Massive is. Nor is it concerned with rationing; it has a budget. It has a method, for assessing whether drugs grant sufficient benefit (in terms of improving/extending life), such that they should consume taxpayers' cash (bearing in mind that the NHS, which will be ultimately footing the bill, will be doing so with public money). Some may disagree with the criteria, but the alternative is to deal with everything on a case-by-case basis, which would cost even more money, because of the need to employ additional assessors, presumably, or else to routinely pass everything for use on the NHS, which would presumably suit the Worshipful Company right down to the ground.

And let us not forget that assessing drugs for use on the NHS is not the only thing that NICE does. It also drafts best practice guidelines for clinicians. Which clinicians ignore, if my experience is anything to go by. It drafts guidance for the administration of medicines. And it also looks at promoting good health and preventing illness. Now, I wonder how much these additional "cost buckets" represent, and, if added to the figure for drug assessment, would dwarf the "spin" expenses?

Oh, and given that the Worshipful Company spends, what, twice as much on S&M as it does on R&D, I think we ought to have a better understanding of why it is necessary to assess the value of drugs to the NHS as closely as is done, and where the real scandal lies, as the Worshipful Company recoups its overheads at the taxpayer's expense. Incidentally, I seem to remember that the ABPI was lobbying (and probably still is), for public cash to be spent on funding trials, mark you, trials, for drugs as yet unlicensed by the MHRA. It's a different subject, but the issue of secrecy rears it's head, here: does the public get to see what it paid for, in the event that such a mind-fuckingly grotesque scheme is followed?

Potentially, then, we have a scenario whereby the public pays for the Worshipful Company's products to be trialled; it never gets to see the results of the those trials, owing to "trade secrecy;" a product gets licensed as safe and efficacious by the MHRA; and NICE declines to pass it for use on the NHS. The upshot being that the Worshipful Company has had a large slice of its R&D covered by the public, who don't get to use the drug, the value of which is presumably debateable, if NICE didn't pass it.

2. WTF does "widely criticized" mean? The ABPI sure as hell doesn't like NICE very much, and for very obvious reasons, given that the NHS gives the Worshipful Company more cash than everybody else put together, in the UK. Patient groups, representing patients with particular illnesses/conditions are likely to be clamouring for any new drug available, if they perceive a solution lies in the administration of drugs. And individual patients are going to complain, because they're desperate. That doesn't look like a particularly "wide," let alone all-encompassing, sample of criticism.

...Oh, bollox! It's a fucking boring newspaper, anyway, but there's no excuse for that kind of half-arsed propoganda.

Matt

You shouldn't have done that