23andMe Part II

I've spent more time digging into the information provided by 23andMe from my DNA analysis.  In the time since I've gotten the initial report, some of these have been updated demonstrating 23andMe's commitment to providing information which is as relevant as it can be.  I'm not sure if I'm surprised or not that most of these updates have changed to being more correct versus my perception.
Among the things 23andMe is suggesting is:
I can smell asparagus pee:  True.
Likely detatched ear lobes:  Well - I'm sort of in between.
Eye color likely blue or green:  Yep (and recently corrected report)
Early hair loss:  I guess, but compared to many of my relatives, I'm on the low end of this.
Unibrow unlikely:  True, but ugly close...
Predisposed to be more corpulent:  Yeah!  It isn't my fault!
Likely lactose intolerant:  Ya know - I might be to a degree?  It would explain some things I won't go into here.
Likely to be a similar weight based on calories consumed regardless of saturated fat intake:  Yeah for ice cream (see above) and bacon!

It should be noted that many of these things are more directional than strong predictions by 23andMe.  As an example, I'm likely to have light hair, but of 23andMe participants like me, over 35% have dark brown or black hair.  Some of the traits are predicted by only a few percentage points.

But by far the most interesting thing I've found is 23andMe's "DNA Relatives."  After agreeing to share limited information, 23andMe comes up with a list of people who share enough DNA to be considered relatives - it found nearly 1200 matches just within people who have been tested by 23andMe.  At first glance, this seems like a lot, but back of the envelope calculations suggest otherwise.  Assuming 5 births per couple/generation:
50 first cousins
300 second cousins
1500 third cousins
7800 fourth cousins
40,000 fifth cousins
200,000 sixth cousins
etc. (Note, this is a slightly-simplified, inclusive model)
While 5 births may be high based on present day birth rates, I come from some obnoxiously large families and these numbers will be skewed higher by larger families further back in time - so these estimates are likely low.  With a few known families that are into the double digits for children, the numbers may be very low.
Browsing through the list of DNA Relatives has been fascinating - I keep seeing a few key surnames and even a few that are consistent with the little I know about my family tree.  Perhaps more telling, looking through the locations some people have shared reveals a who's where for what I know about past family.
23andMe allows the option to contact these people which I haven't done.  At this point, pawing through the list of people is interesting, but it feels a little creepy at the same time.  I would love to find out if the actual relations could be teased out for some of the closer matches, but I'm really not sure what I would do with that information, or even what I'd do if someone contacted me for that.
But I definitely want to do some more browsing here to see if I can find matches between surnames and location that clearly look non-coincidental.

After going through much of the data provided by 23andMe I sent my siblings an email telling them about my boring genetic make-up.  I was kind of hoping one of them might be interested in this as well (or had already been tested out of curiosity like me), but there were no bites.  I can't blame them - it took me a long time to do this.

But it did start a conversation on what is known about our ancestry.  Apparently a fairly comprehensive family tree was created at one time for my mom's side.  And I found out that there was a book written about some the history of my dad's family.

Whhhhaaaaat?

How come I didn't know about this book?  Actually, I may have at one point, but it slipped through the memory cracks.
Proving that absolutely everything is available on Amazon, a quick search showed this book was available used through a seller with good ratings - a signed copy no less.  Add to Cart!

The book is written by my great uncle about my great grandfather and great grandmother's immigration to the United States through their deaths.  It isn't a page-turning thriller, but it is far more interesting than I expected.  Some of it is hard to follow since many of the European names are similar and with very large families, there are a lot of them.  But the book details the immigration, life's challenges and victories, belief structures and daily life of the immigrant family.
In a way, the book is a document of European post-industrial immigration.  The struggle between maintaining old world language, customs and religion in the melting pot experiment that was, and is, North America.  It is the story of coming to America with almost nothing, and building a far more successful life than would have been likely in Western Europe.
My great grandfather was essentially an orphan with little prospects - his marriage to a woman from a prominent family was a bit of a scandal - their combined future would have been that of his - a common laborer likely to live a life of poverty.  Moving to North America was a risk that resulted in a difficult life that, combined with hard work, resulted in a life far more successful that would have been possible for either of them.
If I add what I know about the immigration of my mom's side of the family shortly after WWII, I realize how close in time I really am to Europe, even though I'm about as "American" as it gets.  I would love to find a way to do a similar documentation of that story, but it would be all-encompassing for a year or more to do it right.

Some of the pictures in my Great Uncle's book are also fascinating.  Seeing my grandfather as a young child and young man.  Seeing where my dad's family lived.  Seeing pictures of early family reunions (138 people, which was not inclusive of everyone).
Before he died, my dad had given me a painting, done by a cousin, of my dad's grandfather's barn.  It was painted on wood that was taken from that barn during a repair (or possibly when it was torn down).  That barn features in the book, and a picture shows how close the painting is.  That painting which has hung in the garage for a few years, feels a little more like a relic now; at the time I got it, I didn't realize the significance.
Several times I had to pause while reading the book and think that these aren't anonymous people I'm reading about in a history book, but people I'm related to.  More than that, just a minor tweak to events could have resulted in me being very different from what I am - or even me not existing at all.  I am statistically very unlikely.

I'm really not sure where I go from here.  Part of me would love to run with the information I have and see what else can fall out of the family tree.  But a more rational part of me knows that ancestral research can be an all-consuming obsession - taking time, money and energy resources that I'm not sure I want to (or can) devote to that.
What I can say for sure, is that decision to spit in a tube and send it to 23andMe pointed to toward an extremely fascinating fractal.

My Experience (so far) with 23andMe

It was partially due to my background in science, partially due to wondering what it would tell me, and just a whole lot of insatiable curiosity.  I felt compelled to have my DNA tested for some time.  But I resisted since it isn't a critical need and the cost is not negligible.  But I would occasionally read up on the various companies that do this and look to see if there were any deals out there.  There were really only two companies I even considered:  ancestry.com and 23andme.com.  From what I've read, both of these companies provide similar data from similar state of the art technology as far as ancestry is concerned.  And both also work from relatively comprehensive databases.  Some of the other companies have much smaller learning databases, with one little more than smoke and mirrors.  23andMe was the clear favorite since it also provides data on some known health markers - for an additional fee.  There was an FDA crackdown on 23andMe about health claims and how this characterized their service, but some clarification of language that is used has allowed this to resume.
23andMe has another advantage in that it is pay-once, lifetime-data.  As I understand it, ancestry.com requires annual subscriptions to continue to get updates as the technology progresses and new data is available.
Towards the end of November, I finally bit when I saw that there was a sale on Ancestry+Health kit from 23andMe.  It was still more than I wanted to pay but close enough to pull the trigger.  A "sale" on DNA analysis sounds a bit weird though - some kind of an amalgamation of a KMart Blue Light Special with 21st Century technology.

Within a few days my kit arrived.  It came with clear instructions and return postage is prepaid.  Before actually submitting the sample, I had to register on 23andMe.  There are many disclaimers and agreements to terms and conditions to get through on registering.  Although there is a lot of paranoia about how these companies are going to do evil things with DNA or the data collected, or that it will be stolen and used by anybody from the Federal Government to racial purity groups to rogue states, I didn't see anything in there to scare me away.  They do go out of their way to make it clear that it is possible to find out information which may be disturbing.
I didn't think too much about this aspect at first, since I was mostly doing this to appease some curiosity.  But as I reflected on it later, I started wondering how I would react if 23andMe showed a genetic marker for some terrible disease, or if my ancestry showed something very different from family lore.  To be honest though, this really didn't feel like a roll of the dice.  I was just curious.  Perhaps part of me was hoping for something unexpectedly interesting.
And as far as the government or racial purity groups, if they want someone's DNA, it is not terribly difficult to get.  Yes Chicken Little, the sky is falling.

The instructions with the kit warn not to eat or drink anything for at least 30 minutes prior to sampling.  So on a Friday that I didn't have to work I waited for almost two hours just for good measure.  No need to contaminate my results with DNA from cornbread pecan waffles.  The mailing tube doesn't look very big, but it took more spitting than I would have thought to fill it to the requisite level.  Not the bubbles!  Then, it was all sealed up and sent off to North Carolina.

I got an email saying it was received, then a few weeks later I got another email saying my reports are ready.  I immediately put down my phone and walked over to the computer that is always on at the house and logged in to 23andme.com.
And the results are...









wait for it...












disappointing.

I am absolutely and profoundly boring.

My ancestry mirrors what I've been led to believe my whole life.  I am 100% European and even more boringly over 98% Northwestern European.  Yes, there is more British Isles in me than I would have expected and even some Scandinavian (I knew I was part Viking!), but I'm just a slightly mixed Northern European.  No Mayan.  No Zulu.  No lineage which can be traced back to the vicious tribes from the Steppes of Russia.  No evidence of even ancient Roman conquests.
Similarly, my health results showed nothing too surprising.  And even most of the physical traits were as expected.
The only thing even slightly interesting about me is that I have more than ample evidence of Neanderthal DNA.  So I guess I am part knuckle dragger.

Some of the predicted physical traits don't match up with reality.  I don't see this as a failure of 23andMe, but just an acknowledgement that the science behind some of these things is still in a learning phase and may be for a long time - 23andMe does say many times that not all genes are identified and how they interact is often unclear in the current state of the art.  The additional information about the science behind this provided by 23andMe is fascinating as well.

There are lots of other information that I'm still going through, and if anything, this has increased my curiosity about my ancestry - even if it is boring at first glance.  So was it time and money well spent?  If the goal was to quell the curiosity, it failed.  If the goal was to learn a little in order to think more and likely investigate more - it was definitely worth it.

Did You Know The Song "Whatever Lola Wants" Was In The Movie Platoon?

A few years ago I kvetched about how complicated and outdated copyright law is in an era of YouTube.
It gets even worse when the automated tools used to "help" don't work.  The lesson here isn't about copyrights and artist's legitimate need to be paid, but more about how automated processes fail.  (and) "When the Machine breaks down, we break down." -Staff Sergeant Barnes. 

In the time lapse movie of my back yard for 2017, I used "Adagio for Strings" as background music.  I can't say this style of music is to my normal tastes, but it seemed to fit well with the video and I had (relatively) recently watched Oliver Stone's movie Platoon which uses the song extensively.
Once uploaded to YouTube, my back yard time lapse was flagged for copyright content.  Fair enough - I originally thought the origin of "Adagio for Strings" was much older than it was.  But "Adagio for Strings" was arranged by Samuel Barber in 1936.  While Copyright Law has a lot of twists and turns, work from between 1923 and 1977 are generally protected for 95 years after they were published.  So by any measure, my time lapse video does contain copyrighted content.  Mea Culpa.
But when I looked closer at the YouTube flag, they said it had the song "WHATEVER LOLA WANTS LOLA GETS" - well that isn't right...  If YouTube is going to flag me and allow others to monetize my video, the least they can do is make sure their data is right and the right people subsequently get paid.

I disputed YouTube Copyright Content designation - in the dispute, there are several options, but there is not an option in the automated dispute process for "YouTube is a dumb-ass."

And then there is a list of 16 Claimants, but this list does not match anything close to what YouTube's search function shows as to who owns the rights to either "Adagio for Strings" or "Whatever Lola Wants."  And is the list of Claimants the owners of "Adagio for Strings?"  Or "Whatever Lola Wants?"  Or something else entirely?

Not unsurprisingly, my dispute was rejected.  No reason is given, but I suspect the rejection is just as automated as everything else.  Or at best, some flunky is paid to go through all the disputes that come in and serially reject all of them.
It is, quite frankly, not worth anyone's time (including mine) to correct this, but it demonstrates that the issue of copyright protection by YouTube and those who own the rights is a farce (especially for video's that will at best get a few hits in their lifetime).

The only conclusion to all of this is that I am wrong.  The system works.  Oliver Stone must have used "Whatever Lola Wants" in the movie Platoon and I've missed it all the times I've watched it.

So please sit back and listen to what YouTube says is Samuel Barber's and Richard Adler's collective work of "How do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" performed by Iron Maiden.

And somewhere around 2031, "Adagio for Strings" will no longer be copyright protected and YouTube will remove the content flag.  Right?
Or, since it is actually "Whatever Lola Wants" written by Richard Adler, it may be available around 2050.

Happy Another Year

Let's get one thing out there right now:  I've spent somewhere north of 125,700 minutes working in 2017 year.  Give or take...  I find this depressing, but there is no end in sight.  And while not all the time is unpleasant, I do really enjoy the paycheck most of all.
I've spent around 153,000 minutes sleeping (or laying in bed wishing I could sleep).  I guess this is needed.
I'm embarrassed to admit I've probably spent 89,000 minutes watching TV.  In my defense, some of that was just background noise.
I probably spent 54,000 minutes cooking and eating.  Sadly, I ended the year 4.2 pounds heavier than last year, but any of that which was due to smoked ribs is worth it.
I've spent 20,900 minutes commuting - although some of that has been on the motorcycle and only a comparitively small amount of that time was stuck in wretched traffic.
I spent around 3500 minutes mowing the lawn, with another likely 3000 minutes doing other house maintenance.
I probably spent 2800 minutes just grocery shopping.
I might have spent 1200 minutes doing maintenance and repair on motor vehicles.  The MGB being rear ended in 2016 was the major contributor to that.
I can definitely look back at 2017 and see highlights of the year - more good than bad even.  It would even be hard to say 2017 wasn't a good year.  I spent somewhere around 38,900 minutes on vacation; that is the time that matters most.  Still more time than commuting.  And I know that places me in the lucky-SOB category.  Two minutes and 37 seconds of that was watching a total solar eclipse.
I spent somewhere around 18200 minutes walking the dog - the older one is sadly too old to go on walks anymore.  I pedaled my bicycle around 10,000 minutes.  This is offset by the time spent eating ice cream (maybe 2000 minutes).  Is the ice cream worth it?  Maybe, but maybe not.
It was a good outdoors year where around 4700 minutes were spent hunting or fishing.
About 11,700 minutes were spent riding my motorcycles - it should have been more.
I spent somewhere around 1700 minutes reading books.  This could be added to 4300 minutes spent reading magazines.
I spent 2200 minutes in the shower and around 600 minutes shaving.  It would be hard to justify even this amount of time based on my appearance.

As I look forward to 2018, it would be nice to think the mundanity of all the 2017 minutes would not be repeated, but I suspect 2018 will look a lot like 2017.  So Happy New Year is inaccurate, and maybe overly optimistic. 
Happy Another Year.