2010 January 7

For 30 years, Donald Tashkin has studied the effects of marijuana on lung function. His work has been funded by the vehemently anti-marijuana National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has long sought to demonstrate that marijuana causes lung cancer. After 3 decades of anti-drug research, here’s what Tashkin has to say about marijuana laws:

“Early on, when our research appeared as if there would be a negative impact on lung health, I was opposed to legalization because I thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects,” Tashkin says. “But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization.

UCLA’s Tashkin studied heavy marijuana smokers to determine whether the use led to increased risk of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. He hypothesized that there would be a definitive link between cancer and marijuana smoking, but the results proved otherwise.

“What we found instead was no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect,” says Tashkin, whose research was the largest case-control study ever conducted.

Prejudice against marijuana and smoking in general runs so deep for many people that it just seems inconceivable that marijuana could actually reduce the risk of lung cancer.

But that’s what the data shows and it not only demolishes a major tenet of popular anti-pot propaganda, but also points towards a potentially groundbreaking opportunity to develop cancer cures through marijuana research.

Over and over again, all the bad things we’ve been told about marijuana are revealed to be not only false, but often the precise opposite of the truth. (Source)

~

Tashkin is discussing the results of his pulmonary research involving marijuana for the first time:



Even heavy, long-term marijuana smokers had no lung impairment after many years of smoking, and in fact tested slightly more healthy than those who didn’t smoke marijuana -
“protective effect”

November 12 2009

This post continues the discussion on setting up your own video studio. Meant for all those budding directors out there who find themselves setting up the same shots over and over again. An easy to follow guide on what you will need to set up and run your own studio, and make movies like the pro’s.

So last time we covered the space, the cameras, the switcher and the cut-scene players. This time round we’ll start with audio.

Sound is handled exactly the same way as the special effects or graphics. All of the microphones and sound effects generators will be connected to the mixing desk, which in turn will be connected to the switcher. The audio engineer will man the desk and mix all the audio for the production from there. The audio will be added to the feed that the director sees.

The switcher outputs to whatever device you are using to record the show. This can be a computer or dedicated recording machine. Whatever it is, it will need to get the feed from the switcher.

You will also need at least three monitors, one for each camera. The director needs to know what each shot looks like before switching to it. It isn’t so bad when recording material, but live broadcasts need to be spot on, so the director needs to see the whole picture before making their decision.

Lighting is also critical in any studio. It is one of the most important aspects of movie making, and no less so here. More often than not, the lights surround the shot. There are lights on the ceiling on a grid, then some either site of the camera, pointing in towards the shot. Lighting is very important, and one much time and research should be put into to get right.

Each member of the crew is going to need to communicate during the shoot without interfering with it. This means headsets and a communication loop. Then the director can call shot changes, angle changes or whatever else they need to make the shoot. Doing all that without making noise is essential. Having a pre-planned script is all very well, but changes happen, and they will need to be communicated.

If space allows, there should be a control room, or area separate from the studio floor. This is where the director can sit and make the calls. If it can’t be separate, then a curtain or something needs to be between the room and the set. The director needs to be able to control and direct without being heard in the studio.

So there are the basics of how to set up your own studio. Just about everything you would need in order to get things working. The recording systems and specific equipment choices are too open for personal preference to be discussed here, so a high level view is all you need. Hope it helps.

The proposal would trade labs seen as benefiting white students for resources to help struggling minority students.

Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.

The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.

Paul Gibson, an alternate parent representative on the School Governance Council, said that information presented at council meetings suggests that the science labs were largely classes for white students. He said the decision to consider cutting the labs in order to redirect resources to underperforming students was virtually unanimous.

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing," said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.

Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at its January 13 meeting. Generally, such agenda items are passed without debate, but if the school board chooses to play a more direct role in the High School Redesign, it could bring the item back as an action item at a future meeting.

School district spokesman Mark Coplan directed inquiries about the redesign to Richard Ng, the principal's assistant at Berkeley High and member of the School Governance Council. Ng did not return repeated calls for comment.

source

Are you a Stargate Atlantis fan? Please sign the petition...


Stargate Atlantis needs our help! Sign the petition!

I’m such a fan of Stargate Atlantis. I watch it religiously and I know all the scenes! It’s in my system and I just can’t imagine life without this show on TV. Have you heard? MGM has already announced that they are going to end the show after their 5th season. Why? It’s probably the best sci-fi show on TV to date! Why cancel a show that has a very solid audience that watches it religiously the same as I do?

Obviously, the producers know how popular Stargate Atlantis is and thought that it’s just too good for TV and should be made into a movie. Great! Who wouldn’t want to watch a movie version of their favorite sci-fi TV series? But why would they cancel the show just to pave the way for its movie series? There’s too much politics here and the purpose is not to benefit the fans but so they could fatten their pockets even more! Come on now! Why hurt us after we supported your show? It is just not fair!

I am so happy to see many fans who decided to start a petition. It’s a great idea! It’s time for us to save our favorite TV show. Let us save Atlantis! It’s our time to be a part of the show’s story. Now is our time to save Atlantis, Of course it’s not like we have to pack our bags and train to be one of these futuristic scientists but it’s time for us to unite and save the show! These petitions are calling for all the Stargate Atlantis fans and supporters to sign their names so our voices would be heard by SGA’s executive producers. It’s not fair! We have to show them that what they plan on doing is really not fair!

Friday nights would no longer be fun. I usually prepare myself after dinner and find a comfortable place in front of the TV in anticipation of this show. I look forward to Friday nights all the time! Without SGA, what’s there to look forward to? It’s sad… tragic! Looking forward for the next movie is like waiting for your birthday each year!

I’m just one of the many disappointed fans of SGA. These executive producers should reconsider. Should we boycott and show them our disappointment? But then we’d be missing more of their awesome shows. We should all support the circulating of the online petition asking for these executive producers to change their mind and start thinking about the 6th season. The 5th season of Stargate Atlantis is a lot better than the previous seasons and we are expecting for the 6th. It can’t just end here. It’s just too good to end.

SciFi will have nothing to boast about after their station won’t have Stargate Atlantis for their audience. Come on now, what’s left to watch in that channel after SGA?

Would it have been different if they have used a different channel to show Stargate Atlantis? SG1 was a great show and it was canceled prematurely as well. I was a die-hard fanatic of SG1 also and I was so disappointed when they announced that my favorite show on TV was about to say it’s goodbye. I was sad but I thank God for Stargate Atlantis. At least, SG1 had 10 seasons so I was able to enjoy watching it for years! Stargate Atlantis only had 5 episodes and it’s even better than SG1 but why only 5 episodes? Can the executive producers answer this question for us?

Why the sudden death for our favorite sci-fi shows? They can cancel all those other boring shows on Sci-Fi if they want to, but why cancel the most popular one? It doesn’t really make sense to me. I will miss the characters whom I already grown to love. What will happen to them after this? Will they be on the movie version of Stargate Atlantis? I hope so. But, still that’s just not right. They deserve to be on Air every Friday! I am not saying that they don’t deserve to be on the silver screen. Heck, I’d die to watch the movie version of SGA but I just can’t stand the fact that they are canceling the show.

I’m sure many would agree that there’s not much on TV right now that is worth watching. I don’t watch TV on most days except for the news and some sports shows but that’s just about it. No new shows interest me that much anymore except for Stargate Atlantis. I’m a sucker for sci-fi shows but I am very choosy as well. Sci-fi shows can be really boring when the storyline is boring. SGA has an awesome storyline that caught me right from the first time I watched it. I even have DVDs of the shows so I could watch them over and over again. I’m a die hard fan and I am here, asking all of you die hard SGA fans out there, to support the online petition. Please, please, let’s support our favorite show.

I’m done voicing out my opinion but I’m still not through with my disappointment and I will continue to fight for my favorite show. Its one great show that we just have to keep on air. Whether or not we’d be successful, at least we can say that we did our part in keeping it on air. If the executive producers won’t listen to our plight, I bet it’s time for us to start looking for other shows that may interest us and just wait for the movie series then. It’s unfair and disappointing but I will never say never. I will sign as many online petitions and start a petition asking my fellow fans to support our loved team of scientists led by Major John Sheppard.

You gave us a great show SCI-Fi, please don’t just take it away from us. It will break many hearts and will disappoint even more. Hope you’ll make the right decision and keep the show on air!

Well it has been a while since my last post.... (feels like a confession). Been busy with 'doing the do', juggling work, annual leave over Christmas and not to mention renovating a house, that my blogging has slipped.

Well we finally got to finish our Wiki, I helped Canan create Project Plans in MS project for the implemention plan. That was nightmare in itself in trying to PDF them so that eveyone could access them.... That is the only thing with posting native files on to the Wiki as anyone reading them must have the software application loaded on their machine. So where possible we have tried to PDF or use Word, as most people with have these.

It was quite tasking toward the end trying to co-ordinate everyone for meetings over the Christmas break and annual leave committments, but we got there!

Over all I am happy with the way that it all looks. I would have loved to have done more, but with work committments it didn't leave much time to 'pretty' things up.

I must admit, that I found the Wiki ok, but as I have said before I think it would be better to have a 'collaborative tool suite' in which to work. Something where you an blog, wiki etc all in the same place. It is hard trying to keep track of things over so many applications.

I did enjoy the experience, although I found it confusing at times exactly what we needed to get done. However it was good to get back into doing the learning instead of creating it!

Well there has been a flurry of activity from all of us since my last entry, Canan and I did a quick review while she was in Sydney and found a few gaps – it has been great working with this group - I feel it has been truly collaborative- everyone has giving their time and commitment to activities and I think we are all proud of the results. The frustrations with the technology and moments of ‘what are we meant to do’ have long been forgotten and been replaced with a warmish glow (we haven't passed yet). I value the working relationships that have been established throughout this (and other) module

One of my projects for early 2007 is to imbed a Blended Learning Strategy across CGU that will set the standards for the future – this wiki is a fabulous resource and example for me to use.
A fantastic wrap up to the e-diploma courses!

Three weeks sick leave later! I’m back on board – I suspect I have been a contributing factor to us not completing all our tasks by now although I spoke to Canan about a few things while I was on leave but otherwise my tasks were static.

I reviewed all the pages to date – we have some great stuff in threre – No, I’m not really surprised – but although I had my doubts at times about how effective this kind of collaboration forum could work - I can really see it coming together – and feel part of even the bits I haven’t done!

Onward and upward!

After some dramas to actually obtain the materials …Did some reminiscing – no I mean testing with the Restaurant content and the travel content – there were some dramas with the links on the travel CD but the restaurant stuff was available through the LMS so that went more smoothly. Both materials worked well.

I love getting together face to face! The day was fairly laid back in terms of pace but the value in terms of having ABB to chat with and ask questions is always great. Anne really helped us get back on track in terms of ticking off what we had done – where we are heading and what needs to be done. I think one of the dangers with online collaboration is always going to be picking up on the points where activity has become more aimless than productive – and quantity outstrips quality… how long is a piece of string?. Our course has been structured to safeguard against that - which I am grateful for.

I enjoyed debriefing the presentation we attended at lunchtime- it made me realise just how far we have come and the advantages we have over a lot of other L&D professionals.

Anne has given us some direction to expand on bullets point and to move away from the general stuff and start being more specific about our audience, business needs and business drivers. A helpful push in the right direction!

We had another video conference meeting today and we really feel we are tracking well. We reviewed progress so far and confirmed we were all ok with our commitments for the next part.

A wiki win!
I am very proud of myself for having a play around with the wiki (reading some of the screen instructions helped) and figured out how to put attachment pictures in!

Mark has done a bloody great job at the look and feel I love it!

I’m feeling a certain level of frustration trying to navigate the wiki – not enough to be defeated. I somehow managed to lose a page altogether – maybe it will turn up. Fortunately it wasn’t too much drama to re type as I realised straight away.

Karla and I met as started to tackle our tasks, I like that our group naturally chose to collaborate on most of the tasks, we have an easy working style and are doing a good job of supporting each our with ad hoc phone calls. Karla and I easily reached agreement of how we would present our information

We had our first planning meeting today; we managed to score video conference and were able to be online as well. It meant that we could all see the same screen as we explore the wiki-world together. Until today I have to admit to some confusion around the whole wiki thing – I just hadn’t focussed my mind on it.
Now I can see the way forward to some degree. We talked about the tasks we need to complete and allocated responsibility across the group. I cheered when Mark said he would enjoy plating around with the “skin” and setting up the look and feel for the group.

I was pleased to see that all the entries alluded to the possibility of continuance with information about the next movie they wanted to see leaving the door open just a crack for Movies that Move You 2 (the sequel coming to a VC near you!)

Engagement in the interactions seems high with people commenting on their levels of enjoyment throughout the activities. I think one reason for this is that the topic was very accessible and didn’t require any research or additional information just past experience and opinion. This community could be moved forward into a book club type forum with the virtual commuters reviewing set movies and them discussing the same one. it's a bit like a series of water cooler conversations... maybe that can be my next one...

I think this activity would have really developed well if there had been more time before the next e-Tivity was posted. I think we may have found some trends as to the attributes of big screen movies as opposed to DVD.

We had another technical hitch with Megan logging into my page and not noticing that she needed to change her name – the result of a dodgy link methinks.

I'm starting to really be able to see the value in this kind of forum for generating and documenting ideas - the downfalls are that some people contribute more actively than others - but then i guess that's life!

The responses to this e-Tivity indicated to me that movies are a publicly personal thing. Mel refers to her choices as ‘Daggy’ or ‘sad’. A poor turnout this time can be attributed to
A) Me sending a link that didn’t work - one of the community emailed me to tell me but then never found the time to contribute a post. Therein lies a lesson about being competent with the technology you are using and how easily people can become disengages or demoralised when lost in cyberspace.
B) I think way that the discussion revealed things about your “at home self” may have produced a lurker – someone who reads the posts but doesn’t contribute to the discussion
As for the responses that did make it to air – I have to say I LOL at some of them. I think the quality of the responses has increased and I tried to encourage more two way communication between the group with the prompt - what does everyone else think – with some success.

This e-Tivity was great for me as I knew all the people and really enjoyed their responses. I was interested to detect an element of an on-line personality creeping in for some. I think this reflects what happened in the more public forums of this nature. I tried to encourage further responses by the answers I gave – with some success. I provided the netiquette links and an invitation to consider these – I chose links with telling title because I knew my audience would have come across this stuff before but wanted to reinforce the courtesy aspects in case people got carried away in the informal environment. Movies have the potential to be fairly emotive.

I was surprised to find that based on his movie choices my husband appears to be aspiring to a fantastic dancer or a raging serial killer - or perhaps a raging dancer and fantasising about a serial killer?

It was great that everyone respondsed so prompotly with such insightful commnets. I think I have benefited form hte frustrations they felt trying cto keep the momentum going when they were the moderator

I invited people whom I thought would generate some differing opinions and have different movie tastes

Now I have sent my first message! I have deliberately not posted instructions on how to post a reply as I believe my group are fairly savvy. My plan is to contact each participant if they haven’t responded in 2 days to understand whether is because of a technical difficulty or a lack of motivation! Thus I will know straight up whether to recruit some new members! Although I have to say that I am fairly encouraged by the speed of my first respondent, Canan (God love ‘er!)

I have started by virtual comunity. I have to say I was somewhat daunted by the task before starting but once I did I was surprised how easy it was. Not to say that I didn't face the usual handful of technical frustrations and mystifications that these new adventureds usually bring

Wow! I can't believe it's been over a month or so of my last entry. Well, with the craziness around the Xmas and New Year, no doubt it was an intense time in the office.

However, in the quiter time in January, I'm pleased to say the Pilot testing has been successful. At the same time, out of the 5 pilot testers we only got 3 feedback forms back. Oh well, 3 out of 5 is not too bad, it's still the majority.

I think the evaluation sheet threw some of the testers simply because of the length of it, it's 11 pages long. Maybe next time we do a short one or two pager that doesn't take much time to complete! We could also do it using Survey Monkey and this way we can collate all the data and get better outcomes.

Ok, time to go back and check how the wiki's going. I'd also like to see what the others have been doing with their task. It's great to see everything coming together!

Hello and well done!

Yesterday I finalised parts of the wiki that were incomplete and today the final final bits, and all is done now. I like it when things fall into place!

Reflecting back to when we started I was a bit confused about the whole wiki thing! But not anymore! I have really enjoyed working with the 'sustainers' everyone put in the amount of work they said they would and I feel I really learnt how to use a wiki page and work with a group online. The best thing about working in a group is making sure you finalise your tasks because so many people depend on you. Also I did note towards the second half of the project I found that we all worked even better together. I also like the project we worked on it was a good topic and I found I learnt quite a bit in the process. I also enjoyed the two workshops we had with ABB its always good to get together every now and then in a f2f environment to discuss the tasks and the course. Its also good that we get to seee each other because we are in different States. I find these sessions fun as we also get to have a laugh and socialise together where as when we are all online it is all serious information exchange.

All up we had 8 meetings either via teleconfernce or video conference. The rest of the communication was simply emailing each other when there was a question or picking up the phone and dialing! As for us Melbournians there was quite alot of discussion and private meetings as the three of us work within a 1.5metre radius of each other.

I hope all the members of the 'sustainers' felt the same as I did.

I look forward to working with you all again in the future.

OK we had one of our final meetings this Tuesday gone to work out as a group whether we had anything outstanding. There are a few bits and pieces that needs a little work. But we have decided all changes or additions will nee to be done by the end of this week as ABB will have the completed version by the 15th of Janyary as promised. All things aside I think we have done OK considering we have had illnesses, holidays, pregnancies, home renovationsnand general life and work committments etc going on and have found it hard at times to congregate. We are at the very last stage so thats great and then Liz and I go on holidays with clear minds and can focus on having a good time and not worry about not having completed our Wiki!

Hi All

Just wanted to say good job on the wiki it looks really good. I also love the song, i think i will make that my new ring tone to my mobile. Had some time and thought i would check out the wiki. Hope everyone is well and have a great new year.

Glen
(former Member of the schmiki wiki club)