A rural virologist

What is the past participle of bullshit?

I read the word "bullshitted" today and it got me thinking about whether or not it's a transitive verb, and what the correct past participle would be. UK English has the past tense and past participle of shit as shat, but in Americanese it's shit in the past tense/participle as well. Bullshit as past tense and past participle just doesn't sound good, so Americanese is out. Bullshat ... doesn't sound good either. But, as far as I can recall, there are no, or few, English words ending with "t" that have their past tense ending in "ed", so I think this needs to be made a formal exception to the rule, and bullshitted recognised as the correct spelling.

Actually it seems to be - see the Wiktionary entries for bullshitted and bullshit. However, Google also lists 86000 hits for bullshat, and only 34000 for bullshitted, indicating that the former is more popular. Quite possibly because the Internet may have more sites written in or influenced by Americanese.

The King over the water

This doesn't translate well into my blog:

Stephen Korsman is a fan of

Francis, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland

Create your Fan Badge

Extreme rudeness made acceptable

If you and your boss were talking, and I marched into the room and, in the middle of a sentence, I told you both to keep quiet because I wanted to talk, would that sort of interruption be rude?

Most people would say it was.

What if I didn't march into the room, but held a megaphone outside the room you were in, and summoned you that way?

What if I had issued you with a device that shouted that you must keep quiet, stop what you're doing, and come and talk to me? Would that be any different?

And what if you have a device that does the same, except it just plays a nice song? Is that any different?

It's called a cell phone.

If you're busy talking and I want to speak to you without waiting, I go somewhere else and phone you.

Is it rude to phone someone?

Why do people rush to get off the toilet to come and talk if the phone is ringing, but they tell you to wait if you stand outside the door and yell persistently for them to come out?

I choose not to submit to the electronic leash. I will answer it if and only if it suits me.

Extreme rudeness made acceptable

If you and your boss were talking, and I marched into the room and, in the middle of a sentence, I told you both to keep quiet because I wanted to talk, would that be rude?

Most people would say it was.

What if I didn't march into the room, but held a megaphone outside the room you were in, and summoned you that way?

What if I had issued you with a device that shouted that you must keep quiet, stop what you're doing, and come and talk to me? Would that be any different?

And what if you have a device that does the same, except it just plays a nice song? Is that any different?

It's called a cell phone.

If you're busy talking and I want to speak to you without waiting, I go somewhere else and phone you.

Is it rude to phone someone?

Why do people rush to get off the toilet to come and talk if the phone is ringing, but they tell you to wait if you stand outside the door and yell persistently for them to come out?

I choose not to submit to the electronic leash. I will answer it if and only if it suits me.

Quality assurance vs quality control

What is the difference between "quality assurance" and "quality control"?

Good question.

The answer is, in English, nothing. The two are synonymous phrases. They have, however, been appropriated by bureaucrats to mean two different things in bureaucrat jargon that has infected countless poor individuals around the world for decades.

The terms also lack an important element - a real adjective. Good quality? Bad quality? There are plenty of organisations who do their best to maintain bad quality in their services.

See http://tinyurl.com/Quality-crapspeak for more on the bureaucrat usage.

Milwaukee Rabies Protocol

The latest ProMed reports a case of a Brazilian boy who survived rabies. Like all previous survivors except one, he received vaccine as prophylaxis, but prophylaxis was incompletely administered (no immunoglobulin.) Apparently unlike the previous survivors, the virus was isolated from the patient. He was treated with the Milwaukee protocol first tried on the non-vaccinated girl in Wisconsin who survived. To what extent this is a result of the protocol is unclear - rabies after failed prophylaxis appears to have a higher survival rate, especially for bat rabies.

The ProMed report [22 Nov 2008] - Rabies, human survival, bat - Brazil (02)

Milwaukee Protocol 2.1 with its checklist can be obtained at the Children's Hospital of Milwaukee Rabies Registry page.

A few articles referenced in the protocol or the ProMed article or discussing the protocol:

Jackson AC. Rabies: new insights into pathogenesis and treatment. Curr Opin Neurol 2006;19:267-70.
PubMed link | Journal link

Wilde H. Failures of post-exposure rabies prophylaxis. Vaccine 2007;25:7605-9. Epub 2007 Sep 14.
PubMed link | Journal link

Jackson AC, Warrell MJ, Rupprecht CE, et al. Management of rabies in humans. Clin Infect Dis 2003;36:60-3. Epub 2002 Dec 11.
PubMed link | Journal link

Willoughby RE Jr, Tieves KS, Hoffman GM, et al. Survival after treatment of rabies with induction of coma. N Engl J Med 2005;352:2508-14.
PubMed link | Journal link

Hemachudha T, Wilde H. Survival after treatment of rabies. N Engl J Med 2005;353:1068-9.
PubMed link | Journal link

Jackson AC. Recovery from rabies. N Engl J Med 2005;352:2549-50.
PubMed link | Journal link

Hu WT, Willoughby RE Jr, Dhonau H, Mack KJ. Long-term follow-up after treatment of rabies by induction of coma. N Engl J Med 2007;357:945-6.
PubMed link | Journal link

Wilde H, Hemachudha T, Jackson AC. Viewpoint: Management of human rabies. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 2008;102:979-82. Epub 2008 May 16.
PubMed link | Journal link

Human rabies--Indiana and California, 2006. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2007;56:361-5.
PubMed link | Journal link

cave canem? cave etiam vespertilionem!

Bullshit Bingo

These are a few of the crapspeak words/phrases that irritate me the most:

Learners - they are really pupils
Strategic - my arse (for Americans who don't speak English, "ass" refers to a donkey)
Value-added - like a tax
Quality - is a "quality item" of good or bad quality???
Service delivery - an excuse for bad service
Niche market - a market in a corner
Drill down - for oil???
Comprehensive - full of it
Project manager - he manages projects
Fixed-dose - I have never prescribed a variable-dose tablet!
Grass roots - where we find garbage, snails, and other crap
Culture - the culture of crapspeak is a niche market that adds value to strategic learners

Useful items to include in a game of Bullshit Bingo in your next meeting.

For those who don't know what Bullshit Bingo is, it's a form of Bingo where you have a card with words or phrases instead of numbers, and then wait for those words/phrases to be used in meetings or speeches. When you hear them, you cross them off. Once you have a full line (across, down, or diagonal) crossed off, you shout "Bullshit!" and you've won.

Here's an example of a Bullshit Bingo card:

You can make such cards (each person should get a slightly different card, so not everyone has the exact same words in the same positions) and distribute them at your next meeting.

Kitten with chicken jelly?

Friskies is one of the things my babies love. They don't know what's in it. Nor do I.

Tuna mayo sandwich expiry date

HIV prevalence drop - fact or fiction?

A few problems with the recently released 2007 National HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey [PDF] aka Antenatal Survey.

It appears that the new stats have been produced using a new method~~ology~~ to work out its conclusions.

Two people who know what they're talking about when it comes to these stats wrote a letter to the SAMJ, which can be found here [PDF].

The new weighting gives rise to some absurd results. For example, the prevalence in the Western Cape, which previously had the most rapidly growing epidemic, albeit from a low base, apparently fell from 15.1% in 2006 to 12.6% in 2007. This while, apparently, prevalence fell in only two districts, and in both cases by less than 1%, and in the presence of a significant roll-out of life-preserving treatment which would, other things being equal, lead to an increase in the numbers of infected women in the province.

Rob Dorrington, David Bourne. Has HIV prevalence peaked in South Africa? – Can the report on the latest antenatal survey be trusted to answer this question? SAMJ October 2008, Vol. 98, No. 10

Reported here by IRIN:

After recalculating the 2007 figures, using the same method applied to the 2006 data, the authors estimated HIV prevalence among pregnant women at 29.4 percent. Antenatal prevalence figures are used in combination with other surveys and mathematical models to determine HIV prevalence in the overall population, but the revised figure suggests that the number of South Africans living with HIV has probably not declined. ...

Dorrington and Bourne conclude that "analysis of these data appears to be becoming increasingly beyond the skills of the Department of Health" and recommend that the government enlist the help of the broader scientific community to help interpret future figures on prevalence.

Reported here by the Treatment Action Campaign.

The Minister of Health has touted the drop in HIV prevalence as a success. Her claims must be treated with scepticism. Nevertheless, a slight increase in prevalence would not indicate a worsening HIV epidemic. Prevalence measures the total number of HIV positive people at a specific time. A decrease in prevalence for the whole population can only occur if more people with HIV die than become infected ...

At this point in the HIV epidemic, the key measure of HIV prevention success is incidence, i.e. the rate of new infections. ...

TAC calls upon the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) to assist the Department of Health with the analysis and interpretation of the results of the antenatal survey.

TAC calls upon the Department of Health to release the details and rationale for the methodologies used to calculate provincial and national prevalence from district data for its 2007, 2006 and 2005 antenatal prevalence studies.

A note on the correct use of the terms "method" and "methodology" which do NOT mean the same thing:

A fondness for big words isn't always accompanied by the knowledge of their proper use. Methodology is about the methods of doing something; it is not the methods themselves. It is both pretentious and erroneous to write "The architect is trying to determine a methodology for reinforcing the foundation now that the hotel on top of it has begun to sink."

Source: Common Errors in English

Politix.

Chinese weapons shipment to Zimbabwe - documentation

As most people know, Zimbabwe is run by an illegal government.

The Guardian in the UK has published a video showing how civil servants voted - under the watchful eye of a supervisor!

It also reveals that those who didn't vote would be hunted down and killed in the event Mugabe had lost. Although with a rigged election, how could he lose?

Some time ago we heard about Chinese weapons being sent to Zimbabwe to help Mugabe assist his subjects to vote. Well, here are scanned documents of various shipping lists etc:
Zimbabwe Chinese weapons shipment documentation [2008]

As the WikiLeaks site explains:

The ZIP file contains 4 scanned documents in PDF form, presenting information on a recent chinese weapons shipment to Zimbabwe. The documents are dated between January 21st and 10th of March 2008.

Document 1 holds an arrival notification for the Ministry of Defence in Zimbabwe related to 77 tons of Arms shipped in 3080 cases from a shipper Poly Technologies (INC). Document 2 presents the commercial invoice from Poly Technologies related to that shipment, detailing a purchase of 3,004,755 rounds of different ammunition, from 7.62 shells to mortar bombs. Document 3 holds the Packing List for this shipment. Document 4, while being in very bad quality holds another confirmation of the shipment in form of the Bill Of Lading.

And then for those interested in Telkom, there is Telkom South Africa contracts and filings [2008] - "A collection of contracts and corporate filings from South Africa's "Telkom" telecommunications corporation, which reveal, among other matters, how Telkom aggressively protects its monopoly status."

Ah, Telkom, aggressively providing a ~~service~~. [What to replace that with???]

How to kill better

Over at PLoS Medicine, there is an article entitled "Ethical Implications of Modifying Lethal Injection Protocols"

Courts in the United States have historically judged execution methods against "evolving standards of decency," and have prohibited punishments that involve "the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain," or more recently the "substantial risk of serious harm".

Harm? Isn't death "serious harm"?

"The intravenous delivery of an anesthetic, a paralytic, and potassium chloride in lethal injection protocols is intended to cause a painless death, which likely accounts for its use in 930 of the 1,100 executions in the United States from the re-establishment of the death penalty in 1976 to May 6, 2008 ..."

We no longer have the death penalty in South Africa. And when we did, it was never the electric chair. Imagine load shedding during an execution?

Under all accepted ethical guidelines, including the Common Rule, participation of research subjects must be free and not subjected to undue influence or coercion. Finally, while some lethal injection studies could be considered minimal or no risk (electrocardiogram monitoring, post-mortem sample collection) others, including the addition or omission of drugs and altering of drug doses and sequences, seem to present substantial risk. Indeed, the risk of extreme pain and suffering is at the heart of the current lethal injection debate.

BTW, the myth that if someone fails to die during an execution he/she gets freed is just that - a myth.

Hellkom graphic

Looking at the post on my blog prior to the one on crappies, I really like Hellkom's image I got from their site. I think I'll post it again.

It looks very professional.

Crappies, anyone?

A few months back, smut was killing the sugarcane in Australia. Now bacteria are killing the crappies near Ashby, MN, USA.

Most crappies were small, "but 10- to 15-inch crappie were also observed."

It's not all bad news:

"Assuming good numbers of adult crappie remain, they'll be very successful in producing lots of young crappie in 2008 to fill the void ..." - ProMED-mail, 15 Sept 2007

Telkom - Free at last!

As of this morning, I am free of Telkom. Good riddance. Maybe in a new town. Here the people are not able to communicate and not able to get my line working.

Just so I don't lose them, the work orders from Telkom:
7CEZ260707
121CEZ020807
ARS129288
677CEZ280807
Finally, the disconnection: 637427/53

I don't need it ... I've got internet via Vodacom's 3G, and my cell for talking, and I'm very happy with both. Even in Umtata, I've found the quality of service to be excellent, on a par with Vodacom elsewhere in the country.

It doesn't look like 5.5 weeks is an abnormal amount of time to wait for service from Telkom. Hellkom describes many such cases.

Very useful stuff on the Hellkom page - price comparisons, good advice, links to suppliers and detailed info on the telecommunications industry.

Well, I hope the people responsible are reprimanded for their uselessness ... but I doubt it.

Latest Telkom joke

I just wrote the following letter of complaint to Telkom on their submission page.

My telephone has been out of order for more than 5 weeks, and Telkom in Umtata is wasting my time. I now have 3 work orders, two of which have been "completed" without any success. The latest fault number is 677CEZ280807. That was given 5 weeks after the original report from me.

Somebody arrived at my house on Wednesday 29 August, and I was not informed that they were coming. Nobody was home - which is why I specifically asked, when reporting the fault, that I be contacted when they want to come out - each time. The work order was then closed.

Apparently, when someone is meant to contact me to ask me to come out to the house, and they don't, and they arrive and nobody is home, this gets listed on their work list as "access was denied" and it seems as if that is sufficient to close a work order - that happened with the first two work orders.

Denial of access?? More like denial of service!

The same happened on Thursday, after I re-reported the problem. After a meeting, I saw there was a missed call. Usually the local Telkom office doesn't answer their calls, and the one other time they did, the person claimed she was unable to spell her own name for me to keep as a reference. This time, on the 3rd number I tried for Telkom in Umtata, I got an answer, and was referred to the person who seems to be the manager in charge of the section dealing with my complaint. His name is Joseph, and his cell number is 0828217555.

Joseph referred me to Zanozuko, who was the technician who went to my house without bothering to ensure that I would be there to let him in. Zanozuko's cell number is 0824134436. Zanozuko agreed that someone would attend to my problem this morning (1 September) at 9am. At midday I phoned him because nobody had pitched up. He was in East London, and referred me back to Joseph. Joseph said somebody would be there at 2pm. Nobody came at 2pm - I was waiting. At 6:20pm I phoned him again, and asked him to send someone out immediately - I am sick and tired of waiting. Nobody has come. Now he is not taking my calls.

If the local Telkom people cannot keep their promises, and cannot provide a service, I would like to know so that I can have my line disconnected and stop paying rent for a service you're unable to provide.

I really do not know why they need access to my house. Two technicians (on the first work order and on the second) determined that the problem was an underground cable. It was only when I complained to Johannesburg after 4 weeks that this problem was addressed. Now I am told that they have fixed the cable - but only got that info after repeated attempts to find out why my line is not working. They tell me something else is wrong.

If I am on Candid Camera, please let me know, because this sort of mess would only be funny on such a TV show. If I am not on Candid Camera, please could you address the incompetence of the local Telkom staff, and have a talk with Joseph and Zanozuko and the others that are recorded as being involved. I would like feedback on whether or not any disciplinary action has been taken.

I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt, and think that the next call will eventually provide some service. It's like gambling - the next gamble might win you a million rand. But it's clear that the odds of getting service here are similar to the odds of winning that million rand - which is why I want out of their game.

I am giving a deadline for the local Telkom people - the LAST of several. If my line is not working by Monday 3 September, 8am, I will cancel my line and then leave for work. I have a busy week ahead, and I don't have time for more games from the local Telkom.

Now I wait. Not for long.

Telkom - denial of service

Telkom staff in Umtata expect you to remain at home waiting for them, if they choose to pitch up to check your line.

If you specify that you're not at home and need to be called when their technician comes out, surely they should call when their technician comes out?

No.

If you specify that you need to be called, and
    they come out without calling you first, and
    they find nobody at home ...
       this is called denial of access, and the job can be closed as completed.

It is now more than 5 weeks since I reported my dead line for the first time. I've had to report it several times. The first time the job was "completed" I explained to the technician, who had not pitched up, on the phone that the previous technicians had already been and said the fault was an underground cable. So the work order was closed. The second time they pitched up and I wasn't home. They phoned to complain, and I was in a meeting and couldn't take the call. Leave a number to get back to them? No. Call again? No. Close the job and call it "completed" - yes.

I am now on my third request in 5 weeks to have someone attend to my line. After getting in touch with their office in Johannesburg, they apparently did fix the underground cable, then closed the job as "complete" ... but they still need to set up some other connection to that. Or at least that is their excuse for needing to come today. And they haven't pitched up.

What am I to do?

Can Telkom officials read?

This afternoon, it will be 28 days ago that I reported my phone being out of order.

This morning I tried to phone the local Telkom office. 047 535 1133, if anyone else wants to try and see if they can find a literate person on the other end. Usually the number is never answered - this time it was. Or you can always try OFaultB@telkom.co.za

I asked about the status of my phone line, and was told by the woman who answered that I had to report the number to Telkom's fault line. I told her I had. She said I should report it again. I told her I'd reported it several times - with weekly enquiries. She said I still had to report it again.

The problem is that each time I report it, they are perhaps unable to read the report here in Umtata.

I asked if I could speak to her manager. She said no, he was out. I asked for his name, and she refused to give it. I asked for her name, and she refused to give that too. After a while, she did mumble a name, and when I asked her to repeat it, she mumbled it again.

When I asked her to spell it, she refused, saying she couldn't. On clarification, she said she was unable to spell her name.

Was she just hiding her identity to avoid reprimand if I got hold of her superiors?

Or was she really illiterate? Was she really incapable of spelling her own name?

If the local Telkom people here in Umtata can truly not spell their own names, the following scenario would explain the mess Telkom has made:

2 technicians figured out the problem, but the first couldn't communicate that in any sort of record, and neither was able to use a telephone to communicate with me
1 technician was unable to find my place because he can't read street names
1 technician could not read a watch, and perhaps judges time by the temperature, arriving well after 10am when she said she'd be there at 8:30am.
Weekly e-mails can't be understood if they can't be read, and phone calls don't get responded to because they get logged in a central place by literate people, and the local Telkom people can't read the logs

Is that really the state of Telkom in Umtata?

Judging by their actions, and by their telephone skills, maybe it is. Or maybe they're just too incompetent to do their work.

Warning - headless snakes can bite

Headless Snake Bites Hapless Man

In fact, "decapitated snake heads are dangerous for between 20 and 60 minutes after removal from the body of the snake," Jeffrey Suchard of the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Phoenix told SciAm's own Steve Mirsky earlier that year. So remember: wait an hour before handling a dead snake.

So says Scientific American, which also refers to the NEJM article:

Dead rattlesnakes can bite? Mayo Clin Health Lett 1999;17:4.
PubMed

Suchard JR, LoVecchio F. Envenomations by rattlesnakes thought to be dead. N Engl J Med 1999;340:1930.
PubMed
Excerpt at NEJM

So be careful. Don't be bitis.

Puff the Magic Adder

Skillie might have a new friend, if I can persuade Wolfgang to adopt.

Yesterday, a baby puff adder was found in Jeevs' garden. Very cute, and about 25cm long (an estimate - he didn't stretch himself out for us.) Species name: Bitis arietans - you have to be careful because they bitis! Apparently quite common in Mthatha.

He was very cold, and hiding under a box, safely stowed away in the back of a bakkie. We put him in a smaller box, and took him inside. He took a liking to one of the pieces of the box he could hide in - maybe just because we were inspecting him and he didn't like that.

Luckily he wasn't in the mood for biting, although we didn't touch him while he was able to get a nip in.

Here is is getting into his little corner:

A close up:

Even more:

All the way in:

People here are terrified of snakes ... this one is sweet, though, and well behaved. He's quite safe to look at if you're careful - snakes don't carry viruses that can transmit to humans.