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@crankyliberal You will want to fill out the app @ http://j.mp/9mxnj4 I’ll fix the site so that the application process is less confusing.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Saturday, November 14, 2009 @ 10:55 CST by Daniel Andrlik
Google has released their own programming language, appropriately named Go.
I haven’t had time to dig deeply into this yet, but I’m seeing some interesting stuff that I like such as fast compilation, garbage collection, easy to read syntax, built in support for multicore machines and of course an open source BSD-style license. I’m looking forward to playing around with this when I can free up some time to do so.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 @ 08:02 CST by Daniel Andrlik
This is a sweet search application for Django.
When I first wrote my site, I had to patch the model code to have it utilize the native full text search available in PostgreSQL, and then some truly ugly search code for searching all the models in my applications. Haystack, combined with a true search backend like Solr or Xapian is a much better approach. Looks like a great way to implement robust search on your Django site.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, October 2, 2009 @ 08:06 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
Scientists have found a way to prolong the youth of mice in a laboratory setting by genetically manipulating them to block production of the S6 Kinase protein, which mimics a reduction of calorie intake without actually having to limit the amount of food consumed.
From the article:
“The mice lived longer and were leaner, more active and generally healthier than the control group. We added ‘life to their years’ as well as ‘years to their lives.’”
The genetically altered female mice lived 20 percent longer — living a total of 950 days — or over 160 days more than their normal counterparts.
At age 600 days, the equivalent of middle age in humans, the altered female mice were leaner, had stronger bones, were protected from type 2 diabetes, performed better at motor tasks and demonstrated better senses and cognition, according to the study.
Their T-cells, a key component of the immune system also seemed more “youthful,” the researchers said, which points to a slowing of the declining immunity that usually accompanies aging.
Male mice showed little difference in lifespan although they also demonstrated some of the health benefits, including less resistance to insulin and healthier T-cells. Researchers said reasons for the differences between the two sexes were unclear.
Very interesting research, I’m curious if the ratios for extended youth would also hold true in humans. If so, extended youth: check. Now where’s that brain/internet hookup I’ve been waiting for?
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 @ 12:11 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This is an enormous win for OpenID, but it is also a huge risk if anything goes wrong with such a high-profile project. Obviously, it will all depend on the implementation, and if all goes well it will give OpenID the push it needs to increase the number of consumers as opposed to providers, which is a ratio that is sorely lopsided at the moment.
I’m a little sad to see that my preferred OpenID provider, myOpenID from JanRain, Inc., was not included in the approved list of providers for the pilot program. Hopefully, that will be rectified soon, although even if it does not, one of the great things about the OpenID protocol is that delegation means that I can change providers on a whim. 
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, August 28, 2009 @ 14:32 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
By masses, of course, they mean companies that can afford the hardware, but this is still a pretty huge development in pushing quantum computing out of the lab and into the real world. The Dutch will get it first, but hopefully it will begin to become common in developed countries with high broadband penetration.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Thursday, August 27, 2009 @ 08:54 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This Wired article documents an interesting experiment to test the effect of zero gravity on embryo fertilization and development, but the methodology seems flawed to me, primarily because they are testing it on Earth:
To test these effects, the researchers artificially fertilized mouse eggs with sperm that had been stored inside a three-dimensional clinostat, a machine that mimics weightlessness by rotating objects in such a way that the effects of gravity are spread in every direction.
The same results may hold true in space, but we really need to be doing these experiments in orbit before drawing a conclusion.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 @ 09:26 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
Last year, his bodyguard was arrested for the murders of five men, whom he claimed Souza had ordered him to kill so that they could “discover” them on [his] show. Souza and his son were arrested, though Souza’s status as a politician prevents him from being held in jail. Now the chief prosecutor of Amazonas, Brazil, has brought Souza up on drug trafficking charges too. It seems that he was also running a drug ring along with several other ex-police officers, and that the killings he ordered helped eliminate his competition in the world of drug selling, as well as on television.
The other producers doing reality TV are just annoyed they didn’t think of it first.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, July 3, 2009 @ 17:43 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This io9 article is reporting on research being conducted in Spain on a drug that enhances visual memory.
From the article:
Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.
[snip]
If this protein boosts visual memory in humans, the implications are staggering. In their paper, the researchers say that it could be used as a memory-enhancer…
It’s interesting that this drug only enhances visual memory, and I’m very curious about any potential parallels this research has with the memory editing/enhancement research that has been going on in Brooklyn.
It now seems almost a certainty that we’ll all be taking memory enhancing drugs at some point in the future, as well as utilizing technologies that make direct use and manipulation of our memories possible. This raises a number of ethical questions, of which I’m not confident we as a society will answer appropriately. That’s a larger subject that I am not prepared to address in this post, but definitely worth thinking about.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Saturday, May 16, 2009 @ 08:55 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
Quite simply, I think this is one of the greatest advances in library science and computing in recent memory. This isn’t just a toy or a search engine, this is a knowledge processor that makes any factual data in its system instantly computable.
If you are a teacher or scientist, you need to be paying attention to this. In fact, if you are a human being who is engaged with any sort of data, you need to be paying attention to this as well, because while Wolfram|Alpha may not live forever, this advance, as well as any of its inevitable successors, are the future of information computing.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, April 17, 2009 @ 11:02 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
Prepare for some serious escalation on both sides of the file sharing issue. This doesn’t end the debate, it just upgrades the weapons on both sides. It’s going to be ugly, and neither side is totally in the right. Try not to let yourself become a legal casualty.
Empty Shell by Cat Power
Clap Hands by Tom Waits
Who By Fire? by Leonard Cohen
Henry Lee by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Unknown Legend by Neil Young
