The Clever Shark

Rules for being a Republican! (via Metafilter) You’ve always wondered, well, now you know.

CleverShark.com photo site now greatly improved! Now with bookmarkable, more friendly URLs and 90% better navigation!

It’s official: the feds will spend untold amounts to investigate Janet’s boobie. From all the brouhaha around here you’d think Americans have never seen a breast before.

A whole day later, America continues freaking out about seeing Janet Jackson’s partially-covered boobie. Reaction from most of the rest of the world: “It’s a tit. Haven’t you ever seen one of those before? Chill out!”

There are some who may wonder if I’ve forgotten about these articles. Let me assure you that I have not. In fact there are two good reasons why I haven’t written in the past couple of days:

1. I’ve been ill! I was busy being miserable at home all weekend with a sore throat and sinus congestion. Constant intake of decongestants made me unable to maintain a train of thought for more than a few minutes. I therefore watched TV all weekend.
2. Despite my enduring with the cigarette trial, there has been precious little to report.

Seriously, I have very few further observations to make aside from what I have put forward already.

Lung irritation

I have smoked for 18 years, with very few days being excepted from that period of time, so there have been many a day when I have smoked despite being taken by illness. I definitely know how it feels to wake up with a congested head as well as having some wheezing due to smoking cigarettes while the illness was in effect.

I have to say, in support of previous observation, that I continue feeling very little in the way of additional irritation and chest congestion since beginning the Eclipse trial. Seriously, it’s like day and night. I hate sounding like a cheerleader (especially for the optimal “large faceless corporations”) but this cigarette is a marked improvement over the ordinary ones. Well done on that score.

Having the odd regular smoke

On Friday I did bum two regular cigarettes from a friend when I had run out of mine. I can’t really report scientifically on whether those two were markedly different in terms of taste or effect as I was also drinking at the time. However I decided to repeat that episode on Sunday when sober (although I had only a single Marlboro red at that time).

First, I was struck by the taste. It was not unlike the taste of one’s first cigarette after having quit for some time. However that sensation goes away after the second puff.

Second, I did notice that the smoke itself was markedly harsher than what I am now used to. This was in keeping with my expectations.

Third, I also noticed that the taste and smell of the regular cigarette lingered around, almost like I was no longer used to that. I expected that effect as well.

What did surprise me was that I did not get a “head rush”, despite the Marlboro being markedly stronger in terms of both tar and nicotine. I’m not sure why that is — usually when you “switch up” from one cigarette to a stronger one some effect can be felt, but not in this case.

In any case I didn’t personally feel much inclination to go back to the stronger cigarette. Apparently this happens fairly often in scientific tests. I do see a potential for switching in the fact that Eclipse isn’t available in nearly as many shops as ordinary cigarettes, but since I live in an area with many retailers I doubt that I will be unable to obtain more.

Preliminary (?) conclusions

So far so good, I guess. As you can see this trial is pretty uneventful, and I have taken the decision, for now at least, to stick with the new brand, which is something unusual for us smokers, who tend to be a pretty fiercely loyal bunch. I just think that this brand is, overall, worth making an adjustment not because it’s a lot like my old brand, but much to the contrary, because it’s very different. I’ll be making at least one more entry on the subject, probably Thursday, which will be after the 7-day self-imposed trial.

US Sacrificing liberty for make-believe security? As a non-citizen but legal (temporary) resident I find this more than a little scary. If I don’t update my site for more than 2 weeks you can put me down as “vacationing in Gitmo” I guess.

You know those sites that turn a long URL into a short one? This one does the opposite! From the Institute of Useless Technologies.

It’s now been about a day and a half since I decided to make myself a guinea pig in order to evaluate the new Eclipse cigarette from RJR. As mentioned before this study is not funded by anyone but myself, so you’ll get the real deal on this site.

If you haven’t seen part 1 yet you can find it here.

What smell?

I thought today that I’d go some more about the smell, or lack thereof, of the Eclipse. I am completely impressed. RJR is on the ball with this one, the cigarette simply doesn’t leave a smell behind when you’re done with it. A lot of it has to do with it not producing ashes, of course; what little carbon burns is purified to start with. For the first time in a long time I went to bed last night without the usual tobacco stench in my apartment.

Less irritation… perhaps

Another important aspect is that RJR’s claim that the cigarette produces less lung irritation seems to be on the ball, at least so far. When I got up this morning I did not feel like coughing and there was nary a wheeze to be heard. I would just take it for granted previously, but that I should see so much improvement in one day is pretty remarkable. Remember though that this is just one day, so the results are very preliminary indeed.

Sore throat 🙁

I must report that my throat is a bit sore. I have no idea whether this is related to the new cigs; it’s been chilly in the northeast recently, so it wouldn’t be too surprising to find that the sore throat is related more to that. At the same time it is also possible that the cigarette’s construction may be a little more conducive to throat irritation, at least in the beginning. This could be related to the “harsher smoke” you get by puffing a little too vigorously, which is likely to happen in the early adoption stage.

Further observations

The taste, or lack thereof really, is something I’m getting used to really quickly. In fact I practically enjoy that. Cigarettes do not taste or smell particularly good to me, even after smoking for, what, 18 years now. I do not particularly suffer from “smoker’s smell” either, in the sense that the smell of smoking does not seem to stick to me as much as to other people, but there’s a bit of a kick about smoking an “undetectable” cigarette.

In fact I think I will try and smoke in a place where I am not supposed to smoke sometime this week, as a sort of “real-world test” of this cigarette. As I am next door to Bloomberg’s New York there is really no shortage of places where I could do this. Strictly in the interests of science of course.

I also find myself getting a bit of a kick from other smokers’ reactions to the Eclipse; most often they look at it and ask me if I’m sure it’s lit. Also, let’s face it, as a tech geek I get a bit of an ego boost out of being able to say that I’m doing a mundane task in a more high-tech way than most people, and that’s another item to add to the Eclipse’s positives.

By and large this trial is proving almost disappointingly uneventful, so I guess it’ll be quite easy to keep it up for another 5 days, at which point I’ll decide either to switch back to my old brand or continue with these semi-smokeless ones.

I’ll keep posting further observations on this site.

Microsoft gives up on offering a secure browser, advises users to type in URLs rather than click on links. Next thing you know they’ll advise you to securize your Windows servers by unplugging them from the network.

SCO puts bounty on author of crippling myDoom worm. Of course the bounty will be paid in SCO stock options, so it’s clearly not as good a deal as it sounds.