Vulture journalism

I hate to even call it journalism, really...

Check this article out... Diet guru Atkins qualified as obese

Wow. Shocker, huh? Juicy! Ironic! Guess that shows him, huh!?

Dr. Robert Atkins, whose popular diet stresses protein-rich meat and cheese over carbohydrates, weighed 258 pounds at his death and had a history of heart disease, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Wow, I guess his weight and heart disease must have been due to the diet, huh? Heh. You can feel the irony dripping like fat off a grilled cheeseburger, I'm tellin' ya.

Atkins died last April at age 72 after being injured in a fall on an icy street.

Oh, you mean he didn't die from being obese, or his heart condition? Oh well, he was *still* fat, and you just *know* his arteries were clogged solid, the old quack.

Before his death, he had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a report by the city medical examiner.

See? Heart problems! Gotta be that diet. What an idiot.

At 258 pounds, the 6-foot-tall Atkins would have qualified as obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's body-mass index calculator.

*258*?? Jesus, the guy was a walking fat globule! *snicker snicker snicker*

Diet is one potential factor in heart disease, but infections also can contribute to it.

Hunh? What's that got to do with anything? The guy was *huge*, the guy ate *fat*!

Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council in New York, told the Journal that Atkins' heart disease stemmed from cardiomyopathy, a condition thought to result from a viral infection.

So... his heart condition wasn't due to his diet, but due to an infection???

Oh well, the guy was still a tubbo. What a maroon! Ha!

Atkins' weight was due to bloating associated with his condition, and he had been much slimmer during most of his life, Trager said.

Wait... now you're saying that his weight likely due to *water*, and *not* fat, and had nothing to do with his diet? Well, that's just...

But he died of heart disease, right? No, wait, that was a fall on the ice.

But he was fat, right? No, he had water retention.

But he had massive heart disease, that's gotta be from the diet, right? No, an infection.

Then why on earth is this supposed to be news? Who could benefit from this?

The medical examiner's report was given to the Journal by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates vegetarianism. The medical examiner's office told the Journal that the report had been sent to the group in error.



So what's the headline got to do with anything again?

Slimy.



My grandfather bloated like that in his last years - he was mortified by it. May 2002 I flew back home for a 'last visit' because death was imminent. They tried a new medication as a last ditch effort, and he lost *60 lbs of water in 36 hrs*. That's a lot of catheter bags, folks. Sixty pounds. All water. All due to the congestive heart disease. From an infection. (Scarlet fever as a child, actually.)

Not diet.

There is no irony here, just a sad tale of an old man slipping on the ice and dying.

But that doesn't sell papers, or webclicks.



Slimy.

This isn't journalism, it's tabloid muckraking for the hell of it.

Vulture journalism

I hate to even call it journalism, really...

Check this article out... Diet guru Atkins qualified as obese

Wow. Shocker, huh? Juicy! Ironic! Guess that shows him, huh!?

Dr. Robert Atkins, whose popular diet stresses protein-rich meat and cheese over carbohydrates, weighed 258 pounds at his death and had a history of heart disease, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Wow, I guess his weight and heart disease must have been due to the diet, huh? Heh. You can feel the irony dripping like fat off a grilled cheeseburger, I'm tellin' ya.

Atkins died last April at age 72 after being injured in a fall on an icy street.

Oh, you mean he didn't die from being obese, or his heart condition? Oh well, he was *still* fat, and you just *know* his arteries were clogged solid, the old quack.

Before his death, he had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a report by the city medical examiner.

See? Heart problems! Gotta be that diet. What an idiot.

At 258 pounds, the 6-foot-tall Atkins would have qualified as obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's body-mass index calculator.

*258*?? Jesus, the guy was a walking fat globule! *snicker snicker snicker*

Diet is one potential factor in heart disease, but infections also can contribute to it.

Hunh? What's that got to do with anything? The guy was *huge*, the guy ate *fat*!

Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council in New York, told the Journal that Atkins' heart disease stemmed from cardiomyopathy, a condition thought to result from a viral infection.

So... his heart condition wasn't due to his diet, but due to an infection???

Oh well, the guy was still a tubbo. What a maroon! Ha!

Atkins' weight was due to bloating associated with his condition, and he had been much slimmer during most of his life, Trager said.

Wait... now you're saying that his weight likely due to *water*, and *not* fat, and had nothing to do with his diet? Well, that's just...

But he died of heart disease, right? No, wait, that was a fall on the ice.

But he was fat, right? No, he had water retention.

But he had massive heart disease, that's gotta be from the diet, right? No, an infection.

Then why on earth is this supposed to be news? Who could benefit from this?

The medical examiner's report was given to the Journal by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates vegetarianism. The medical examiner's office told the Journal that the report had been sent to the group in error.



So what's the headline got to do with anything again?

Slimy.



My grandfather bloated like that in his last years - he was mortified by it. May 2002 I flew back home for a 'last visit' because death was imminent. They tried a new medication as a last ditch effort, and he lost *60 lbs of water in 36 hrs*. That's a lot of catheter bags, folks. Sixty pounds. All water. All due to the congestive heart disease. From an infection. (Scarlet fever as a child, actually.)

Not diet.

There is no irony here, just a sad tale of an old man slipping on the ice and dying.

But that doesn't sell papers, or webclicks.



Slimy.

This isn't journalism, it's tabloid muckraking for the hell of it.

Alright, that does it.

I'm going to throw humility to the wind.

I rock.

No, I *FUCKING* rock.



I just unified Mealy-Moore/infinite transducer machines into object-oriented theory as a freakin' side-effect of my research.

"Okay, so if I concentrate on the similarity intent on *this* side of the equation's parameters, I get..." *blink* "Wait. That looks... familiar..."



*bounce bounce bounce*



I now have a formal basis not only for every goddamned software metric I've ever seen, but a new way of looking at OO in general... Mealy-Moore machines became the basis for modern electrical engineering. They gave the foundation for allowing incremental analysis of systems in a meaningful way - something software doesn't have.

ITMs were a 1956 creation that went nowhere - but on reading the original paper, it struck me how similar they were in feel to OO. I made some notes, left it alone.

I just came full-circle.

ITMs and Mealy-Moore machines are fundamentally the same thing. Which means that there is now a formal basis for incremental analysis of software systems at a design level for things that have been passed over as not only too difficult, but probably impossible to actually do.

See, ITMs are an offshoot of Turing's c-machine idea... oh, my head is swimming.

Off to see where this stream takes me. :D

Alright, that does it.

I'm going to throw humility to the wind.

I rock.

No, I *FUCKING* rock.



I just unified Mealy-Moore/infinite transducer machines into object-oriented theory as a freakin' side-effect of my research.

"Okay, so if I concentrate on the similarity intent on *this* side of the equation's parameters, I get..." *blink* "Wait. That looks... familiar..."



*bounce bounce bounce*



I now have a formal basis not only for every goddamned software metric I've ever seen, but a new way of looking at OO in general... Mealy-Moore machines became the basis for modern electrical engineering. They gave the foundation for allowing incremental analysis of systems in a meaningful way - something software doesn't have.

ITMs were a 1956 creation that went nowhere - but on reading the original paper, it struck me how similar they were in feel to OO. I made some notes, left it alone.

I just came full-circle.

ITMs and Mealy-Moore machines are fundamentally the same thing. Which means that there is now a formal basis for incremental analysis of software systems at a design level for things that have been passed over as not only too difficult, but probably impossible to actually do.

See, ITMs are an offshoot of Turing's c-machine idea... oh, my head is swimming.

Off to see where this stream takes me. :D