Reader's Digest's auto care tips
Seventy-five of 'em.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Chris Hedges, author of American Fascists
His father was a Presbyterian minister and he graduated from Harvard Div. Has some insight on how a segment of the religious right is twisting scripture to fit imported secular values.
Human study showing reversal of Alzheimer's symptoms within minutes
... improvement within minutes following delivery of perispinal etanercept, which is etanercept given by injection in the spine. Etanercept (trade name Enbrel) binds and inactivates excess TNF [tumor necrosis factor-alpha].Again here.
Tyrannical bosses worse than yours
In 1892, a labor strike impacted the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company. Frick was staunchly anti-union and thought he would thwart picketing workers by having Pinkerton agents access the grounds via the river. When the agents got close enough, they fired into the crowd which was enough to start a full-blown riot. By the time the chaos was broken up by the state militia, several men were killed and many were wounded.
Sherwin Nuland and his story of electroshock therapy
Meant to recommend his book, How We Die, a while back after finishing it. It's a summary from a doctor's perspective of the more common ways we die. A bit of pathophysiology; the graphic descriptions were illuminating. For the med crowd, there's a consideration of the psychology of life extension on both the patient and care staff side.
Allow me to take this moment to recommend Wit, starring Emma Thompson, about an English prof being assailed by cancer and chemo. Lots of talking to the camera as she shares each step.
It's amazing to hear this surgeon's account of mental illness which did not come out in his personal anecdotes in the book. This important video helps to dispel some of the stigma surrounding ECT and depression in general for those who think that it's just people complaining.
The Turks haven't learned the British way of denying past atrocities
Had heard of Kenya in the 1950s. A bit of detail here.
Controlling that customer service rep
Fairly step-by-step in controlling yourself and not getting wagged.
Super Soaker inventor plans to cut solar costs in half
Johnson, a nuclear engineer who holds more than 100 patents, calls his invention the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion System, or JTEC for short. This is not PV technology, in which semiconducting silicon converts light into electricity. And unlike a Stirling engine, in which pistons are powered by the expansion and compression of a contained gas, there are no moving parts in the JTEC. It’s sort of like a fuel cell: JTEC circulates hydrogen between two membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). Unlike a fuel cell, however, JTEC is a closed system. No external hydrogen source. No oxygen input. No wastewater output. Other than a jolt of electricity that acts like the ignition spark in an internal-combustion engine, the only input is heat.
Using sunlight to make fuel from CO2
The prototype will be about the size and shape of a beer keg. It will contain 14 cobalt ferrite rings, each about one foot in diameter and turning at one revolution per minute. An 88-square meter solar furnace will blast sunlight into the unit, heating the rings to about 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, cobalt ferrite releases oxygen. When the rings cool to about 2,000 degrees, they're exposed to CO2.
Since the cobalt ferrite is now missing oxygen, it snatches some from the CO2, leaving behind just carbon monoxide -- a building block for making hydrocarbons -- that can then be used to make methanol or gasoline. And with the cobalt ferrite restored to its original state, the device is ready for another cycle.
VideoTrace -- trace a couple of frames and it interpolates a form
The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model.
Link between genetic flaws and autism
The team found a segment of 25 genes on chromosome 16 that was missing in some of the children in the study. None of their parents possessed the flaw, which suggests - as Wigler has argued all along - that autism can occur as a spontaneous mutation. However, in other children whose DNA was analyzed, there was a duplication of chromosome 16 that also occurred in at least one parent.
More here.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Hyplet -- embeddable business cards and flyers
Don't want to bother with html or Photoshop? This might be for you.
Multi-outlet Powramid -- whack on those adapters
No more awkwardness with AC adapters on conventional power bars/strips.
Dapper -- get feeds from sites without RSS
Dapper offers a lot more customization, letting you choose which sections of a site should be delivered to your reader, a custom iCalendar or iGoogle page, and many more options.
Boron nanotubes could outperform carbon, especially in electronic applications
But how readily accessible is the stuff?
Some Zoroastrianism history -- how idolatry became a problem
Predates, thus helps mold, many religions with ideas of overcoming nature.
The real story behind the ephedrine ban?
Now that isn't a whole lot of money. But Tucker argues that lobbying by Boehringer-Ingelheim went up dramatically at about the same time the pseudoephedrine ban -- also known as the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 -- was placed as a rider in the Patriot Act reauthorization. Coincidence?
Argument for leaving immigration completely open
This controversy, like the debate over slavery, like the debate over abortion, and like all other controversies over simple moral issues, is and should be a debate between extremists, not a case for middle-of-the-roader rhetoric or halfway-house solutions... It is inexcusable that even one undocumented worker should have to live in fear of emergency workers, neighbors, or her boss, simply because she failed to get a signed permission slip from the federal government before she set out to make a living.
Ways to avoid wasting heat while cooking
It turns out that the most time-consuming part of the process is not the movement of boiling heat to the center of each small bean or noodle, which takes only a few minutes, but the movement of moisture, which can take hours. Grains and dry legumes therefore cook much faster if they have been soaked. However heretical it may sound to soak dried pasta, doing so can cut its cooking time by two-thirds — and eliminates the problem of dry noodles getting stuck to each other as they slide into the pot.
Trulia Hindsight -- map of property development through time
The thing starts from 1868 and covers many parts of the U.S.
Male monkeys, like humans, need to pay for sex
Rather than flowers, dinner or (longer term) housing security, these macaques pay with grooming.
Accounting basics for a freelancer
I didn't know you weren't supposed to use personal bank accounts for business purchases.
How ID theft victim chased down the perp
The only other time Lodrick, a 41-year-old creative consultant, had seen that particular coat was on a security camera photo that her bank, Wells Fargo, showed her of the woman who had stolen her identity.
Racial mortality gaps
I show that quality of the clinics or doctors is not the underlying reason for racial differences in black and white mortality....Differences in patient self-management trigger a racial mortality gap even when access and treatment are equalized.
Cocaine vaccine
A very real treatment in the works to stop cocaine addiction: attach inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins -- the immune system is then primed.
How Denmark kicked its foreign oil habit
Being 99% dependent on foreign oil back in '73 forced them to change things around.
More stuff on Chinese discovering Americas first
I kind of thought this was old news, but I hadn't heard of some translations from Europeans encountering Chinese people in the Americas. Still controversial evidently.
L.A. homicide rate close to low set in 1970
Before we start believing any backpatting, we must consider lead levels.
BootVis for XP -- shorten your boot time
Analyze your boot or resume time from button press, start trimming.
Fog shower
Just a design, but 2L for a 5-minute shower, rather than the 26L for conventional showerheads.
The small community of the genetically rare
Too readily lumped into autism, technology is teasing out those with deletions or duplications in their DNA.
Few of these mutations were inherited in the traditional sense, and the affected children are typically the only family member with the disorder. So, many parents are searching out strangers struck by the same genetic lightning bolt... Sometimes what they find is unsettling. But in the emerging communities of the genetically rare, more often it is sustaining.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Anti-Americanism around before there was an America
Supposedly born in Paris among its intellectuals, it's an old world -- blood, tradition -- elitism, looking down at appreciation of the common. Coming into power, America is seen as the Beverly Hillbillies.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Gethuman -- get a human when dialing an 800 number
A database tabulating the appropriate response to a navigation menu to get a bloody human being to talk to.
PowerOff -- a PC shutdown utility
Scheduled and/or remote of various kinds of sleep/shutdown, even for wakeup.
Polynesians in the Americas before the Spaniards?
From the Archaeological Institute of America's top ten for 2007:
Scholars have long assumed the Spaniards first introduced chickens to the New World along with horses, pigs, and cattle. But now radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis of a chicken bone excavated from a site in Chile suggest Polynesians in oceangoing canoes brought chickens to the west coast of South America well before Europe's "Age of Discovery."There's also a story about historical cuneiform corroboration of a lower-ranked name found in the Bible.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Luxury tax not so good cuz...
A von Mises excerpt (they link to the original, long article):
When, in the Middle Ages, an aristocratic Byzantine lady who had married a Venetian doge made use of a golden implement, which could be called the forerunner of the fork as we know it today, instead of her fingers, in eating her meals, the Venetians looked on this as a godless luxury, and they thought it only just when the lady was stricken with a dreadful disease; this must be, they supposed, the well-merited punishment of God for such unnatural extravagance. Two or three generations ago even in England an indoor bathroom was considered a luxury; today the home of every English worker of the better type contains one. Thirty-five years ago there were no automobiles; twenty years ago the possession of such a vehicle was the sign of a particularly luxurious mode of living; today in the United States even the worker has his Ford. This is the course of economic history. The luxury of today is the necessity of tomorrow. Every advance first comes into being as the luxury of a few rich people, only to become, after a time, the indispensable necessity taken for granted by everyone.
Supply side Jesus
A shot at those in the religious right who like to mix in prosperity-friendly policies with their faith.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Resuscitation science gets a makeover
Biologists are still grappling with the implications of this new view of cell death—not passive extinguishment, like a candle flickering out when you cover it with a glass, but an active biochemical event triggered by "reperfusion," the resumption of oxygen supply.So, in the emergency room,
... we should aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion.
Fimoculous's best blogs of 2007 that you might not know
Haven't heard of most of these, but didn't really seem to need to. Linked in case you find something.
Second Rotation -- sell your old cell phone or other gadgets
Don't see anything on buying, though. Better for the environment than just trashing, I guess.
Basic guide to offering sympathies following a bereavement
Some people are better writers than they are talkers - a heartfelt message (or a poem, perhaps) left inside a card may just be picked up an read a month or a year later, and offer powerful consolation when it is most needed.
CoolMon -- system stats on your desktop
It can also display stats from remote pc's and publish real-time stats on a webpage. The application can display CPU, RAM and page file usage, hard drive usage, MotherBoard Monitor temperatures and fan speeds, various network stats and much, much more.
Oil distribution map and Foreign Policy's under-the-radar picks
Why wouldn't I invade Iraq? (Maybe more a geopolitical control issue rather than a strict resource grab.) Click on map to go to bigger map.
The title link is to Foreign Policy's top ten underreported stories of 2007. Their number four story mentions how two terminals in Iraq can handle nearly 10% of the world's demands.
Also interesting is the number nine story of the further decline of moral support of the Israeli state from American Jews.
Startups to watch for in 2008
Here's one I haven't heard of:
Today, GPS is a one-way street, with a satellite beaming instructions to your device. You turn left because a chip inside your GPS device calculated that would the best route. In 2008, Dash will chart a new course with Dash Express, a GPS that learns from its users. If a Dash owner is moving 5 miles per hour in a 45 mph zone, Dash servers will realize he's in traffic and warn other Dash drivers to choose faster routes. Sure beats calling 5-1-1.
A drug that reverses liver damage
Further investigation revealed that as well as blocking the formation of scar tissue in the liver, the drug was also killing off the overactive liver cells, allowing the organ to heal. "Remarkably, the death of [overactive] hepatic stellate cells may also allow recovery from liver injury and reversal of liver fibrosis," said Buck. "Our latest finding proves we can actually reverse the damage."
Myths about torture
Actually, it's surprisingly hard to get anything under torture, true or false. For example, between 1500 and 1750, French prosecutors tried to torture confessions out of 785 individuals. Torture was legal back then, and the records document such practices as the bone-crushing use of splints, pumping stomachs with water until they swelled and pouring boiling oil on the feet. But the number of prisoners who said anything was low, from 3 percent in Paris to 14 percent in Toulouse (an exceptional high). Most of the time, the torturers were unable to get any statement whatsoever.Just a lot of screaming, I suppose.
A guy experimenting with waterboarding -- given all the recent controversy -- here. Excerpt performing the plastic wrap version:
At the time my lungs emptied and I began to draw water, I would have sold my children to escape. There was no choice, or chance, and willpower was not involved.Here's Christopher Hitchens' take, with the video here.
I never felt anything like it, and this was self-inflicted with a watering can, where I was in total control and never in any danger.
And I understood.
ClearType -- improve windows fonts
Unreal. For a cleaner look. There's something out there for everything it seems.
Pagan origins of Christmas and its celebrations
The video (first third of Zeitgeist) is more controversial in that it interprets the Jesus story in an astrological light.
For lighter fare on North American customs, click here (like the fir tree being a replacement for the Norse human sacrifice oak that a missionary chopped down).
For the European customs (mostly dealing with a sidekick for Santa doling out misfortune), click here.
Asbestos industry resistance to helping human life
Some history of more corporate irresponsibility. Lest we forget.
Sites savvy world travelers would know about
Pretty well known sites for the most part, but links to other lists.
Kenyan slum dweller who found UK university prospectus in a bin completes Masters degree
It seems he was already pulling out of bottom by the time he found the prospectus. So, at least according to the article, kudos need to be given to the Mathare Community Resource Centre for providing a space to engage and direct his attention to helping others -- that's infrastructure money going to work.
Startup Delayer -- to ease that long bootup
With Startup Delayer instead you can set a delay time beetween the launch of every program to avoid overloading the system.
You can choose how the program's window will appear (maximized, minized, hidden, normal) and set a different priority to the progam (low, below normal, normal, above normal, high, realtime).
Startup Delayer can also be used to load every programs you want when you want: Do you want to connect to the internet and open all the programs you'll need?
Brain irrelevance filter found
A noise informed subjects when an upcoming visual display would contain irrelevant distracters along with the targets.
When this cue occurred, neural activity increased in the basal ganglia and the prefrontal cortex before the visual display appeared, suggesting the brain was preparing to "filter out" the upcoming distracters.
Worry about the worst gas guzzlers
You save more fuel switching from a 15 to 18 mpg car than switching from a 50 to 100 mpg car, because of this relationship. Going for the fuel sipping higher end is less important than getting the hogs off the road, where the gains would be largest. Easier to assess properly with fuel used per unit distance.
How time changes in an emergency or when we get older
"In this way, frightening events are associated with richer and denser memories," Eagleman explained. "And the more memory you have of an event, the longer you believe it took."So in later age, being experienced, we gloss over and spend less time constructing sophisticated, deep memories, and life seems to fly by.
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