About Orient Lodge
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 09/15/2010 - 09:55Orient Lodge is an eclectic news site focusing on Politics, Technology, Media, Social Networks, Marketing, The Arts, Connecticut News as well as stories missed by more traditional outlets.
The Hermeneutics of Political Gardening
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 02/11/2012 - 20:01Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
The words of David Mallett plays on Spotify as I read a section of Hans-Georg Gadamer's 'Truth and Method' about the circular structure of understanding. I started thinking about text criticism of the news stories Google presents to me. Yes, the great Internet filter bubble shapes what I see. 'In Maine, Ron Paul vies to extend Mitt Romney losing streak', 'General gunned down in Damascus', 'Funeral for Powell boys draws 1000-plus in Tacoma, Wash.', 'Romney wins straw poll of Republican conservatives', 'Weak housing has hurt consumer spending', and 'Obama and the birth control controversy'.
What is the context we understand these stories in? How might other people understand these stories, say a century from now as the study the early 21st century in a college history class. How might my ancestors, for example, those that farmed in New Brunswick, Canada after the revolutionary war, understand this.
Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones
We are made of dreams and bones
David Mallett's words drift back in. What is this circular structure of understanding? How does it relate to pullin' weeds and pickin' stones? People have often asked me who aspiring bloggers should read. I usually suggest starting with the essays of E. B. White. His ability to relate his experiences repairing a hen house roof on a saltwater farm in Maine to European politics at the beginning of World War II is remarkable.
Is there something about this circular structure of understanding that relates to current political discourse? It seems as if so much of the political discourse is based on fairly narrow circles of understanding.
For example, in the birth control controversy, Rick Santorum describes birth control as 'something that costs just a few dollars'. Now, if you are using condoms that you buy at a discount in bulk, or perhaps pick up from a free clinic, and only have sex a couple times a month, Santorum may be right, however, the most commonly prescribed birth control pill costs between $100 and $200, depending on where you get it.
Now for someone with a net worth of between $800,000 and $1.9 million, like Rick Santorum, a couple hundred bucks a month might not be a big deal. Yet there are communities here in Connecticut where the media household income is closer to $12,000 a year. A couple hundred bucks a month can be ten to twenty percent of the household income, and perhaps, these are the households that would benefit most from birth control.
Yet all of this brings me back to the filters or bubbles we all live in. We find our views shaped by the media we consume, whether it be the news that Google selects for us, the talking heads on cable news, the inside the beltway advisors, or even our view of what American life is like based on what we see in the backgrounds of sit-coms and police dramas on prime time television.
No wonder there is such divide and rancor in politics today. Maybe it is time to get back to the garden, whether it be the one that Mallett sings about or White writes about.
Personal Genomics
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/10/2012 - 21:03Recently, I've been running into lots of interesting discussions about genomics, and particularly personal genomics. One starting point was a discussion at work about DIY Genomics. They talk about "crowd-sourced clinical trials and personal genome apps". They work with data from sites like 23andMe, deCODEme and Navigenics.
I took a quick look at these different sites. For $99 dollars, 23andMe does a test of around a million single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs. Then, for $9 per month, they send you information about what your genetic makeup says about likelihood of having various health conditions, as well as providing ancestral information.
deCODEme calculates risks for 47 conditions and traits, not including ancestral analysis. It costs $1,100, but has other testing that can be reimbursable. As best as I can tell, Navigenics is only accessible through a physician, and probably isn't a good option for DIY genomics enthusiasts.
There are a few other genetic testing companies out there, such as Family Tree DNA, which, as you can guess by the name, is focused on genealogy. They have a wide range of different tests, for an assortment of prices, which you can then compare against their database.
Another site is Lumigenex. The seem to be focused on SNPs and seemed to be more expensive per SNP than some of the other sites.
Yet to me, the crowd sourcing of genomic information seems to be the most interesting, and besides DIYGenomics, there are some other very interesting sites. Genomes Unzipped seems to be one of the best sites out there. They link to DIYGenomics as well as to interesting sites like SNPedia and efforts to get people to release their personal genome information.
They also link to the Personal Genome Project. This project "hopes to make personal genome sequencing more affordable, accessible, and useful for humankind". They seek to get 100,000 to share their genetic information with them as part of the project. Kim has looked closely into this and has submitted her application. I will probably apply soon enough.
Another area where I stumbled into the genome was at the
International Essential Tremor Foundation website. Recent studies have show links between the LINGO-1 and LINGO-2 genes and essential tremors, and apparently also to Parkinson's disease. My mother has essential tremors. My maternal aunt and my maternal grandfather both had Parkinson's. There is a study listed on the IETF website about a Mayo Clinic research project, but I called, and the person listed on the IETF website appears to no longer be at Mayo, so I'm not sure what the status of the project is.
As I thought about it, it occurred to me that I had provided genetic information, by way of a cheek swap to another medical organization. Several years ago, I registered with the National Marrow Donor Program. They look at human leukocyte antigens (HLA). I sent an email to them asking if I could get my HLA information. Fairly quickly, they sent me the information.
I am: HLA-A*02:EHTT, HLA-A*02:EHTU, HLA-B*18:DUTG, HLA-B*44:DMNV, HLA-DRB1*04:01 and HLA-DRB1*07:01. It has been interesting reading more about these antigens.
What next? Well, I'll get around to registering with the personal genome project. I'll look at DIYgenome, and Genomes Unzipped to see if there are other ways of sharing genetic information, and I'll join the call for less expensive genetic analysis. Perhaps someone will come up with a barebones, submit your spit get a million SNPs in a file that could be used for DIY genome folks.
Oh, and if you haven't registered at the National Marrow Donor Program, please do. Who knows, you could 'Be The Match' that saves someone's life.
Wandering Autodidact
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 20:49I finally got a chance to watch the next lecture in the Yale Theory of Literature online course. During the lecture, Professor Fry makes a reference to an autodidact in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. The word jumped out at me since my viewing of these lectures is autodidactic. In fact, part of what has always drawn me to the Internet has been the great potential for autodidacticism. I always enjoyed searching out content that I could glean some new knowledge from. Perhaps it is part of an older form of autodidacticism, my love of wandering in libraries, randomly selecting articles in encyclopedias to read and similar pursuits.
Later, I started reading an essay by Hans-Georg Gadamer about hermeneutics. Yet between some undiagnosed ADD and simply being tired from a long day of work, I couldn't sink my teeth into the essay. So, I resumed my wandering autodidacticism. After all, how does hermeneutics relate to my work as a social media manager, blogger, father, husband activist or aspiring writer?
I briefly looked at some of the RSAnimate videos on YouTube, yet that was still a little too close to the thoughts about hermeneutics. Where could I learn new signifiers and gather new thoughts and ideas to weave together into something of my own.
I spent a little time thinking about mind-bending films, and perhaps I'll spend some more time watching some of them sometime soon. However, with the day almost over, I wanted something quicker to engross myself in. So, I found some Haim June Paik videos on YouTube. This led me to some Phillip Glass, and from there I was off into other experimental videos.
I'm not sure how where this leads to next or how it will all come together, but it did give me pause to think about my interactions on various social media sites. How are they feeding my autodidacticism? What do I really get out of the interactions? And what to the people that read me get out of it?
Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 02/08/2012 - 18:00
