Monthly Archive November, 2007
Pyssla toy from Ikea, Perler beads
This is my new favorite craft - melting tiny polyethylene beads to make little shapes and pictures. My daughter turned this one into a Christmas tree ornament with a paper clip. You can find the Pyssla at Ikea. This is also called Perler beads. You can get them in big buckets at Joann fabrics.
Most disturbing image of the day: network diagram of the biology of aging
Right now my wife is undergoing treatment for cancer. As if this were not enough of a freak-out, this article discusses multiple, parallel mechanisms of body deterioration that result in aging. These various mechanisms have a variety of interactions amongst themselves, hence, a network diagram. The diagram is fascinating, but the accompanying text reminds me of all the ways I contribute to my own death every day though poor living habits.
I was sitting here eating lunch and drinking a soda when I read this:
Mitochondria function to convert the chemical energy from food into ATP, which cellular enzymes use to do work. As a by-product of energy conversion, ROS are produced. Mitochondria are also involved in sensing when a cell is sick enough to initiate programmed cell death (apoptosis or necrosis). Mutated mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) can impair energy conversion and increase ROS production. Increased amounts of mutated mtDNA have been associated with progeriatric syndromes (premature symptoms of aging), Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, deafness, heart failure, optic nerve degeneration, cancer, and several progressive muscle diseases, as well as with the aging process itself. [Wallace, Lodish, Stryer, de Grey, Fliss] Conversely, less than usual accumulated mtDNA damage has been found in animals who live longer and healthier as a result of calorie restricted diets.
In other words, soda is bad on a microbiological level. Yikes!
Newest release of Gmail has hooks for Greasemonkey baked in.
Wow.
Greasemonkey is an integral part of the web experience for many experienced users. Google acknowledges that some people are going to change their own experience of our web applications regardless of what we do. Resistance, as they say, is futile. It would also be somewhat hypocritical. After all, a Google employee wrote Greasemonkey in the first place, another wrote these scripts to add functionality to Gmail, and a third wrote two books on the subject (and these docs).
I’m really looking forward to a day when I can write GM-powered macros for Reader and Docs as well.
GmailGreasemonkey10API - gmail-greasemonkey - Google Code (via)
Duck Mouse
duck mouse by canida
Normally taxidermy gives me the creeps, but this duckmouse is just so cute and weird.
Duck Mouse - Instructibles - The World’s Biggest Show & Tell - art, craft, diy
Documentary: Crazy Rulers of the World
Imagine my surprise when I see a post on Boingboing that includes a picture of the unit where I used to work in the Army! The post was about a documentary on paranormal experiments conducted within the military to do weird things. Why the hell would my old unit be related to this? The most paranormal thing I ever saw in that place was my first sergeant’s explosive bowel movements. I watched the show. It was the same old story where the loudspeakers got used to blast music at some guys in Iraq in an attempt to pry information out of them. Psyops only real involvement was equipment rental.
They show a clip in the second episode where Lynndie England says that she was ordered to pose for pictures by psyops personnel. That might be true, but they certainly weren’t loudspeaker operators from my old unit.
The documentary is pretty interesting on the whole. Dude, First Earth Battalion!
