Cow bones are now good for more then making beef stock. Surgeons are now using their bones in human operations.

Whereas formerly titanium pins would be used in these cases, specially cleaned and processed cow bones are now rising in popularity. The reason is that the human body seems to react to these bone fragments in the same way that the body reacts to human bone fragments - it gradually integrates these bone “Screws” into the existing skeletal structure.

Also, it makes it easier to get through metal detectors :P

All this just makes me wonder - why do we have an opt-in donor system in Canada? Obviously humans would be the preferred source for these and other medical products - but there just isn’t enough supply to meet demand. People die every day on waiting lists for organs. The cruel irony is that someone in need of an organ might be laying in the morgue right next to a body that has the organ they required.

So, why is it that we have so few people opting-in to our donation system?

I think that, in most cases, people don’t sign organ donor cards because they don’t want to face their own mortality. Also, I believe that in almost all cases, the decision to donate organs ultimately rests with the family - who may not have been informed of the deceased person’s wishes (it’s not really dinner table talk in most houses, what should be done with a loved one’s body parts after death). Unless someone is truly dedicated to the ideals of organ donation, loved ones probably have no idea how someone would feel about having their organs donated.

So, in the end, our lack of organs rests upon an unwillingness to contemplate our own mortality, and simple apathy.

An opt-out system, though, would shift responsibility - it would be up to the deceased person to have made sure that everyone knew he did NOT want his organs taken.

It’s not about forcing people to donate their organs, its about changing the norms present within society to a state that, ultimately, will save lives. Like anything; a lot of people don’t care one whit about this issue - if they don’t give a damn either way, they may as well be used to help people.

Hey, Happy Birthday Granite!

(Well, people can’t leave Birthday wishes on your blog. I’m clearly providing an essential service) :)

Man Over Radio: OK, you need to cut the GREEN wire

Bomb Tech: OK (snip)

Man Over Radio: But first, disable the timer. Otherwise it’ll blow up

Bomb Tech: FUUUUU (BOOM!!!)

Ugh. Earlier in the day I was over at DP. I had to get THREE reserves for a course’s assignment (each was about a chapter-long excerpt from another work). All three works were listed near the top of the assignment I had printed off of UWAce.

I get to question 4, on the second page: “Read Wellek’s article ‘Periods and Movements in Literary History’ and summarize its main points and arguments”.

Are you shitting me? It’s 9:30! I’ve got to change into real clothes now, and hike BACK to the library, because the prof was too lazy to let us know, “Oh, there are actually 4 reserves for this assignment” at the top of the page? How hard would that have been?

On the other hand, if I was living off campus, or it was after 11:00, I’d be much more pissed…

(NOTE: 11:00 is closing time tonight)

Gave blood today at the SLC.

As was the way the last time I gave in Stratford, the people who do the preliminary tests and questioning are shallow husks of human beings, devoid of any interest, getting along with the barest minimum of communication.

The actual people who take the blood, though, are friendly professionals. Part of that is probably because they keep talking to you to make sure you don’t pass out (I assume that that’s the real purpose behind the talking), but they seem to smile more and communicate much better as well. (for example, I had to fill in 20 stupidly small boxes twice because I skipped a station to fill it out in - instead of huddling in one of those voter-booth-type cardboardy things, I sat in a chair in front of the NEXT station while filling it out; thus filling my sheet out in pencil, as that is what I had handy. A near-mortal sin.)

Overall, this try was much more successful then last time - last time was the left arm, and from the sounds of things we (we, being me and the nurse. She was doing all the real work…) barely managed to get a “test kit”. This time, a whole shiny new unit was successfully extracted from my right arm.

The Highlights:

Creepiest part: Some of the “withdrawl tube” rests on your arm… it’s creepy when you realize that the tube feels warm because it is filled with your own blood.

Most time consuming part: All the reading and questions. The actual removal operation only took 9 minutes.

Most painful part: Removing the band-aid they put on your arm… it pulled on all the arm hairs. The donation part is remarkably un-painful.

Most Interesting part: Finally figured out my blood type - I am O+, which I think is the most prevalent blood type among Canadians. (You’ll have to prepare yourself for some, “I’m POSITIVE” puns in response to questions for the next while…)

Pro Tip: If you go on the Canadian Blood Services website, you can actually get a copy of the questions they’ll ask, which is a good way to know if you’ll be obviously disqualified before you even show up (eg. had sex with a man if you are a man, having sex for money or drugs, are HIV+, got a blood transfusion from a place that doesn’t have good safeguards on blood, etc.)

My blog was the first to go into maintainance mode… but I was the first to come up. Indeed, I was up and running before Danger’s even went down.

Liam’s gone dark too - surely your ISP’s managed to get you back online by now?

What’s the deali-o guys? Ever going to come back online?

Looks like Facebook’s actually beginning to pay attention to users. I guess they’ve realized that they’re not the only kid on the block right now.

In a news post saying what everyone else has been saying for months, Facebook announced that some users have complained that “friends’ profiles are getting too cluttered, and that people are having trouble finding the information they are looking for on their friends’ profiles.”

So, Facebook is announcing a new feature - the ability to put apps into an “extended profile”. From the sounds of things, people can tuck apps into a box called “extended profile” that will be loaded on request. If I had to guess, it would be very similar in form and function to the “Show Comments” link under posts on my homepage.

Unfortunately, such a process will not be automatic. People will have to choose what apps to tuck into the “extended profile box”

I think this is a good start… personally, I’d like to see three levels of profiles. I’d like to customize how I see other user’s pages (So, I could choose what apps and in what order I want displayed on all friend’s pages, assuming I have access to those apps). That allows me to decide how I want to view my friend’s information.

Then, I’d like to have a second option to view the profile - the view that my friend has figured that I should use on their page, where they have chosen to display apps that they think are important, in an order that they choose.

And then a third, the “extended profile” option.

So, on my own page, I have the Courses application, so I can lay out my schedule for anyone who’s interested. I’ve chosen to put it above my wall, because I think it’s neat and I think that, that way, people can know what I’m up to at any given time. However, that’s what I think is important - a friend of mine might think that viewing my schedule is completely irrelevant, and should have the option of displaying that information lower on the page or not at all, according to their own “custom view” settings.