Bracing against the wind

Obama's Record

2010-07-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

"Economy near collapse? Less than a month after taking office, President Obama signed a record $787 billion stimulus package. Comprehensive health-care reform? Obama succeeded, after a grueling year-long legislative process, where predecessors going back decades had failed. Credit-card reform? Check. Student loan reform? Done. Financial regulatory reform? Close." (CSM, 7/13/10)

Free Legal Forms

2010-07-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

The web is filling up with spam and search engines are failing to keep up.

For example: in a search for "free legal forms", you'll find almost nothing of value on either Yahoo, Bing or Google. Or "apartment lease form", or any other legal form search... you'll get expensive paid subscriptions and sites filled with popup ads that have absolutely nothing of real value.

In "real life" you can go to a library, photocopy a few, and leave... for free and for real. I could host free legal forms for pennies a month, and make money from innocuous ads... and I'm sure someone (perhaps a nonprofit) just done that. But they are impossible to find... because there's too much money to gain by spamming search engines and suppressing more generous competitors.

The more generous the site, the less money they have to spend on promotion.... so you can't find them.

The problem is search engines. They are being "gamed". (And the problem with the engines is that they should, by now, be using a distributed trust network...)

The best site I've found so far is www.ilrg.com. If anyone knows a better one, let me know.

Airbender's Clumsy Vibe is its Charm

2010-07-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

After the film, over Sushi, I glanced at "MLB.com" on the big-screen TV and commented to my son, "too many highlights". My mom replied, "Yeah, everything's overproduced." That's something Airbender got right.

"The Last Airbender" is *not* a slick Hollywood movie. Not only that, it completely failed to capture either the campy-humor of the show, or the kung-fu fast-pased vibe of a proper anime-to-big screen remake.

So why, five minutes after the film, were we calling each other "sushi benders" and having so much fun? It was precisely because of the "old school" fantasy-flick vibe that we enjoyed it. The dialogue was stilted, good performances from Patel, Peltz, and Toub were wildly overshadowed by very, very bad performances and miscastings of the from minor characters. The "northern army" looked like a high-school marching band....

And yet, we all had a good time. It was a light, simple film ...with the production quality closer to a reality show than a blockbuster.... but I won't miss the next one.

Warning to M. Shyamalan. Don't do that again. Spend a nickel or 2 on a writer to help you with dialogue, better extras and minor characters, get some top coreogrpahy on the fight scenes, etc. Millions of cult-anime fans are willing to put up with a cute-but-clumsy first movie, but not a second.

Obama Bush

2010-06-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

I always thought they looked a bit alike, especially the eyebrows, ears, eye-shape.

Free Single-player RPG Games

2010-06-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Multiplayer RPG's have the "I was here first" problem that gamers are escaping reality to *avoid*. So here's some single-player RPG's that are free and fun:

World of Pain 3 - Anime-style combat. Concentrate on one stat or style of fighting... and you'll beat the game in a day. It's nice to have a game with the right balance of puzzle, fight, and a clean win just before you get bored of it. (Online/Flash)

Arcuz - Run around, gain exp and level up. Be careful how you use your gems, they don't come easy and you'll kick yourself if you mess them up. Don't try to save-reload a mistake... it doesn't work. I stopped playing after I lost my sword doing that. (Online/Flash)

Shadowreign - Top down, semi-real-time combat style... like diablo, nice tutorial. Almost too fun to play for a free game. The skill tree is fun to explore. Also has a winnable conclusion. (Online/Flash)

Heros Arms - Zelda-style adventure. Very fun - quick start and good balance.

Castaway - slash & level anime-like RPG with a fairly linear story. Save very often. The game starts easy, but quickly can lead to big setbacks if you forget to save. An autosave when resting would be a nice feature.

Chibi Knight - Real time combat. Very cute, but not RPG-enough for me! (Online/Flash)

Dink Smallwood - Snarky puzzle-solving RPG. Fun storyline. Old-school. (Download/Windows)

How to Fix Medical Research in One Law

2010-05-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

The #1 reason why companies won't research or develop a drug or treatment - even if it works or has proven mechanism - is if they don't think a patent will hold.

If the drug is a pre-existing compound, or was published in research literature by a University... this will often preclude development.

This problem was illustrated quite nicely in a recent Newsweek article, but the author came to a rather backward conclusion.

The right solution is simple. The company that pays for the clinical trials and gets FDA clearance for a drug or treatment should receive an exclusive right to develop or license that precise treatment for several years - even if it is not patentable.

In other words...if you do a trial on Vitamin-C infusion as a cancer cure... and prove it, and get clearance to use that treatment.... then your company becomes the only company allowed to to advertise and sell Vitamin-C cancer treatments for 3 years.

Sure, lots of people will "off label" buy their own Vitamin-C and use it. But a good marketing team with an exclusive on a working treatment is worth its weight in gold.

A simple law like this would be extremely beneficial to the industry. Billions of dollars are wasted every week on developing new, less-effective drugs, when effective solutions already exist... merely because pre-existing drugs aren't patentable.

An incentive for innovative treatments - without needing to develop new drugs, would work wonders. Literally.

Why doesn't Cu/ZnSOD affect lifespan in mice?

2010-04-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Superoxide dismutase is a critical factor in reducing damage to cells. So why isn't more better?

Looking at the pathways, it's possible that overexpression of SOD in mice merely creates a bottleneck at the pathways for conversion of hydrogen peroxide. In other words, in accordance with Kascer's enzyme activity predictions, without overexpression of GSHPx (and others perhaps) no lifespan increase need be observed. This was proposed by Kurata, et al in 1993 (1)

This argument is sound, but there's more to it.

There are multiple pathways of aging. Just as a single enzyme's activity cannot predict the flux of a pathway, so too a single aging vector (mitochondrial damage) might not impact the overall lifespan of a complex organism. If the mitochondrial damage doesn't kill you the advanced glycation end-products will.

I would image that the more complex the organism, the more pathways of aging there are. Thus the more "multipath" an intervention would have to be in order to have an effect.

(1) HUANG et al. (2000) "Ubiquitous overexpression of CuZn superoxide dismutase does not extendlife span in mice"
(2) Kurata, Masatoshi Suzuki, et al (1993) "Antioxidant systems and erythrocyte life-span in mammals"

I completely love this site

2010-04-09T00:16:00.001-07:00

I mean...

1. A HOWTO for DNA extraction.

2. A step-by-step guide for building a gele electrophoresis chamber

3. Animated tours of DNA basics

How can you resist? I'm going through the whole thing with Noakai (he's 5). We both like it a lot.

Please Support Net Neutrality!

2010-04-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

Opponents of net neutrality say it will suppress "innovation". Since its inception, the internet has been neutral. Now, all of the sudden, companies are trying to give preferential access to their partners, friends and associates.

There is nothing "innovative" about big companies doing favors for other big companies in order to push out competition from small or new businesses.

I run a web site, I don't have political connections. On my website, I sell products that compete with the likes of WalMart and QVC. WalMart and QVC have negotiated with Comcast and Verizon so that my website is slower than theirs... even though I pay much more for bandwidth per gig of transfer - than they do. They are able to do this because of their political and social connections, and because there's no law to stop them.

This is "innovation"? No, it's abuse of power. And I'm surprised at how many people are on the clearly wrong (meaning morally) side of this debate.

Can a phone company in Chicago who owns a brokerage firm prevent or harrass you when you call a competing firm? No... it's illegal. And that's partly why the U.S. phone system works so well. The Internet should work that way too.

Will Work for Praise

2010-04-06T02:31:00.000-07:00

I'm involved in several open source projects and free services that people seem to use. The SMX web development language, a couple CPAN modules, some tools at google code, a captcha generator, etc.

Most of them I built because I needed them, and open sources because of shameless self-promotion. I've noticed that, after releasing code, I completely ignore it unless either a) someone (usually me) needs new feature/fix or b) someone emails me and says they like it.

Praise is, apparently, the bigger motivator. After someone emails me to ask for a patch/fix... I fix it, sure. But after I get praise... I find myself, usually within a few weeks, adding things like testing suites, transaction support, plugins.... or some other major overhaul. Not sure *why* I do that. But after 10 years, I've noticed a pattern.

Cure for Artery Hardening Killed by the "Free Market"

2010-03-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

Just one more example of why the free market and patented medicines don't mix.
Alagebrium was a drug with dramatic success in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. However, the company which produced it failed to raise cash for Phase III, eventually bankrupting the company.

Alagebrium is a small, easily produced molecule that, for technical reasons, may be difficult to defend as a patent. Without a patent - a drug has no future in the free market. As a result, one of the companies investors were advised to back out. Word spread, and the venture community backed away from Algaebrium.

Also, the effects of Algaebrium treatments are slow, cumulative and their significant apparently varies from patient to patient. They are not the kind of dramatic effects that investors look for in a drug.

There are no other known treatments for reducing glycosic cross-links, and it's unlikely a Phase III trial will ever begin on this drug.

Stroller Injuries Just as Bad as Sling

2010-03-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

For the 10 year time period between 1995-2005, there were 22 stroller-related deaths for children under the age of 5 reported to CPSC. ^ref

There were an estimated 64,373 stroller-related injuries to children 3 years old and younger treated in hospital emergency departments in the United States during a 5-year study from 1993-1998. Most injuries involved the head (44%) or face (43%). (^ref. I would assume that hundreds (out of 64K hospitalizations!) of those cases were severer and life altering incidents with permanent damage to the child.

But regardless of the system you use... just paying attention is the best recipe for safety. Of the several recent cases of children dying in slings and strollers that were investigated the majority were ruled to be child abuse and neglect. (Sorry, I can't find the reference for this, it was on Elsevier).

Perhaps CPSC has stepped way out of line with their recent "sling warning", ignored the evidence and sided with a powerful and profitable industry lobby? Some research into the people who made this decision is definitely warranted.

Speak Blast

2010-03-25T16:35:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a project called SpeakBlast.com. If anyone is interested in trying it out (it's still alpha), you can sign up, add a bunch of phone numbers to a "channel" or "calling group". Then, you can call a number any time, and record a message that gets sent to everyone in that group.

It's good for sports teams, playgroups, etc. It works fine, but we're still getting the kinks out of the code, redoing the user interface, etc.

There are a number of other "use cases" for the core technology, but that's the most basic one.

Please feel free to try it at let me know what you think, what features you want, etc.

The Ultimate Loan Scenario Comparison Tool

2010-03-24T03:58:00.000-07:00

Totally unrelated, but this is the first time I've seen a web page dedicated to loans, that's useful, smart and isn't smothered in spam:

The Ultimate Loan Scenario Comparison Tool

I like it.

Overexpression of "Klotho" Cures Age-Related Diseases and Extends Lifespan

2010-03-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Overexpression of the Klotho gene has repeatedly been shown to prevent, delay and even cure (1) osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's (4), muscle loss and heart dysfunction. This has been investigated repeatedly for over 20 years. What research is currently being done on viral/ZFN vector delivery to overexpress this gene in primate models, or in human safety trials? From what I can tell, very little, or none at all.

I noticed that nearly every research article, directly following pronouncement that klotho extends health and life, follows that statement with "but we don't know why" (1,2,3,4).

Researchers are obsessed with understanding why. Researcher want to know why this hormone apparently cures everything. But there are no studies into whether it can be used today... on people who are dying today. FAIL: intellectual curiosity is trumping the needs of the terminally ill.

(1) "In Vivo klotho Gene Delivery Protects against Endothelial Dysfunction in Multiple Risk Factor Syndrome" (2000) Yuichiro Saito, et al.
(2) "Suppression of Aging in Mice by the Hormone Klotho" (2005) Hiroshi Kurosu, et al. doi:10.1126/science.1112766
(3) "Klotho as a regulator of oxidative stress and senescence" (2008) Makoto Kuro-o doi: 10.1515/BC.2008.028
(4) P4-186: Modulating Klotho expression to protect against age-induced neurodegeneration" (2008) Gwendalyn D. King

Saccharin's Turbulent History

2010-03-15T15:56:00.001-07:00

Saccharin, first synthesized in 1879 by fellows at JHU, eventually became a popular sugar substitute.

Superficially, saccharin resembles sucrose in that it is composed of 2 organic rings.

Although the "sweetness triangle" theory is too simple to fully explain sweet-tasting molecules, it does provide a model that explains many, including saccharin - with its three hydrogen bonding oxygens and a hydrophobic base. (1)

In 1968 two studies linked cyclamate, a related sweetener, to bladder cancer. (2) Cyclamate was banned shortly afterward. (3) It remains banned in the United States, possibly because it has been found to have a broader range of toxic effects than saccharin (4, 5), but more probably, in my opinion, because there are enough acceptable alternatives.

Saccharin was, then, the only sweetener left on the market, and, in the wake of the ban, it was a highly suspicious substance - especially considering it's chemical and structural similarity. Implication in bladder cancer was repeatedly found, however, the dosage levels were so high that application to humans seemed unlikely (6, 7, 8). There was an attempt to ban saccharin in 1972 that failed. At that point there had been several studies that seemed to clear saccharin as a carcinogen, and that the mechanisms of it's action in mouse bladder cancer are not applicable to humans. (9, 10, 11).

Nevertheless, in 1977 the "Saccharin Study and Labeling Act" required a mandatory warning label. The response to this labelling was, paradoxically, highly increased usage. (3)

Saccharin has been found to inhibit digestive enzymes (12), cause ulcers (13), and cause some blood abnormalities (14). In at least two studies, saccharin use has been correlated with weight gain and, in 2008, a causative behavioral model was shown in rats. (15, 16)

Despite industry sponsorship of the molecule, it has never been shown that saccharin reduced mortality, obesity or weight gain among diabetics. One can only imagine, given the magnitude of the industry, how many unpublished studies there must be failing to conclude this relationship. The few published studies that there are seem to find the opposite.

Given that the benefits (unproven, possibly inverse) don't outweigh the risks (many), I would not recommend the use of saccharin to a diabetic. It is my opinion that, given the research, it is highly unlikely that saccharin is a carcinogen, however.

(1) "Computer Simulation of Chemical and Biological Properties of Saccharides" (1995) Dr. S. Immel
(2) "Production of Mouse Urinary Bladder Carcinomas by Sodium Cyclamate" (1970) George T. Bryan and Erdogan Ertürk
(3) "The Pursuit of Sweet: A History of Saccharin"
(4) Long-Term Toxicity and Carcinogenicity Study of Cyclamate in Nonhuman Primates (2000) S. Takayama, A. G. Renwick, S. L. Johansso
(5) "Effects of Sodium Cyclamate on the Rat Placenta: A Morphometric Study" (2006) Marcelo Alexandre de Matos; Alex Tadeu Martins & Reinaldo Azoubel, DOI: 10.4067/S0717-95022006000300001
(6) "Production of Urinary Bladder Carcinomas in Mice by Sodium Saccharin" (1970) George T. Bryan, Erdogbrevean Ertürk, and Osamu Yoshida
(7) "Evaluation of a new model to detect bladder carcinogens or co-carcinogens" (1975) Hicks RM, Wakefield J, Chowaniec J.
(8) "Response of the rat to saccharin with particular reference to the urinary bladder." J. Chowaniec and R. M. Hicks
(9) "Cancer Mortality and saccharin consumptionin diabetics" (1976) Bruce Armstrong
(10) "Feeding studies on sodium cyclamate, saccharin and sucrose for carcinogenic and tumour-promoting activity " (1970) F.J.C. Roe, L.S. Levy and R.L. Carter
(11) "A chronic study of artificial sweeteners in Syrian golden hamsters" (1975) J. Althoff, A. Cardesa, P. Pour and P. Shubik
(12) "The inhibition of urease and proteases by sodium saccharin." (1982) Lok E, Iverson F, Clayson DB.
(13) "Glandular stomach hemorrhage induced by high dose saccharin in young rodents" T. Okamura, E.M. Garlanda and S.M. Cohen
(14) "Haematological abnormalities induced by feeding a common artificial sweetener, saccharin, in ICR swiss mice" Om Prasada and Gulshan Raia
(15) "Artificial sweetener use and one-year weight change among women" (1986) Steven D. Stellman Ph.D. and Lawrence Garfinkel M.A.
(16) "A role for sweet taste: Calorie predictive relations in energy regulation by rats."(2008) Swithers, Davidson

Carbon Change and Ocean Acidification

2010-03-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Man-made CO2 may not be warming the whole world, in fact there's even more evidence just in, that an anthropocene CO2 warmed arctic might induce an ice-age via a thermohaline slowdown.

But there's no contest that man-made CO2 is causing ocean acidification. And the creepy thing about acidification (as anyone who's done a titration experiment can tell you), it's loaded with "tipping points". These are points in which chemical reactions, which, at one pH, are favorable, suddenly stop or go in reverse.

Some recent articles in the CS Monitor and NY Times point to legal trends in this area.

I wondered how climate deniers would deal with this. In my email to the "Global Warming Hoax" website, he replied that he "didn't know anything about it", but that "it was probably another hoax", and that I should "check my sources". It seems they're gearing up already, a casual search for "acidification hoax" turns up lots of results from creepy sites with lots of pop-up ads.

How to Fix Blogger's FTP Bug

2010-03-06T07:30:00.001-08:00

Google is canceling support for FTP in blogger. Fortunately, there's an easy fix and you get to keep your domain, and keep everything working the way it was.

1. Switch to hosting your blog on blahblah.blogspot.com ... but don't finish the migration (read step 2).

2. DONT LET GOOGLE FILL YOUR OLD BLOG WITH REDIRECTS. This will ruin your site's ranking and be, in general, a bad user experience.

3. Use a script to synchronize the blogspot domain pages with your real custom domain blog. Here's the script I'm using, it works well and uses ETags so is remarkably efficient. I'm running 12 blogs from a cron job now, 5 of my own.

4. Turn OFF any indexing services for the new blogspot domain (Allow search engines to find this site? NO). You don't want two sets of content out there. Many search engines, not just Google, will punish your site's ranking for having multiple versions.

5. (Rant: I don't believe, for a minute, that the engineers at Google couldn't figure out how to run FTP affordably. I do over a terabyte of FTP crap every month for free at memebot.com ... and I never even look at it.... paid for twice over with cheap ads. They're either liars or they are incompetent.)

6. ADD this script to the HEAD section of your template... so people won't use your blogspot domain:

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">
<!--
var str=location.href; 
if (str.indexOf('blogspot.com') > 0) {
  var newStr = str.replace('http://YOURBLOGSPOTNAME.blogspot.com','').replace('http://www.blogger.com/blog-preview.g','');
  window.location='http://www.YOURDOMAINHERE'+newStr;
}
//-->
</SCRIPT>

7. I made a form so people could sign up to have their blog sync'ed if they don't know what a cron job is. If you use rsync, I don't need your password. (Why didn't Google use rsync?). I have a bunch of dedicated servers for other reasons, so it's no problem for me for now (not too many people so far):

Catalytic Antibodies Simply Explained

2010-03-06T01:17:00.000-08:00

Catalysis is the process of speeding up a chemical reaction by lowering its activation energy - the energy hump a reaction has to go over before it can roll downhill. Efficient catalysts of chemical reactions are extremely commercially valuable and widely researched.

Enzyme Catalysis Basics: Biological enzymes are known to catalyze (speed up) chemical reactions, in part, by stabilizing the transition state (halfway point at the top of the hump) of an otherwise energetically-favorable (downhill) reaction. Some catalysts work by moving chemicals next to each other that would otherwise not randomly meet that often. (1) Some enzymes are known to change their shape (conformation) after binding and during the reaction - driving catalysis (2).

The immune system can be stimulated to respond to a incredibly diverse range of molecules by producing antibodies which bind (cling, stick) to these molecules. The theory of "catalytic antibodies" was that if an antibody was purified that bound to the transition state of a reaction, it would, in the same manner as an enzyme (above), stabilize that state (drag it up the hill) and accelerate the reaction. In order to generate such an antibody, a "transitions state analog" (TSA) - molecule that looks like the known transition state of a reaction - is used. Antibodies that are generated (usually by injection into a mouse) to bind to that TSA are then screened until one is found that catalyzes the reaction. Surprisingly, to me, this works very well. (3)

However, these "abzyme" catalysts are never as efficient as enzymes for many reasons. The abzyme may strongly bind to the product of the reaction (not letting go when it's done), greatly inhibiting its effectiveness. Also there is the difficulty of creating a TSA - they may differ in bond angles or polarity, etc. Many enzymes form strong (covalent) bonds during their catalysis mechanism, but this is not known to be possible with abzymes. Enzymes also employ conformational changes, metals and other cofactors to accelerate catalysis.

Abzymes are being aggressively researched, however. For example, it may be possible to engineer abzymes which bind to prosthetic groups to be used in metal-catalyzed reactions. Abzyme reactions which employ several cofactors have already been demonstrated. (4,5)

(1) "Chemical basis for enzyme catalysis", 2000, TC Bruice, SJ Benkovic
(2) "Catalysis by Enzyme Conformational Change", 2004 Jiali Gao1, Kyoungrim Lee Byun, and Ronald Kluger
(3) "Catalytic antibodies" (Biochem. J.), 1989, G. Michael BLACKBURN,t Angray S. KANG
(4) "Pyridoxal 5?-Phosphate-dependent Catalytic Antibody" (1996) Svetlana I. Gramatikova, Philipp Christen
(5) "A cofactor approach to copper-dependent catalytic antibodies" Kenneth M. Nicholas, Paul Wentworth, Jr

Nofollow, Viagra, Google & I told You So

2010-03-03T08:05:00.000-08:00

When someone links to a website, Google and other search engines have, in the past, considered that a "vote" of confidence for the site linked to. The higher reputation a site has, the more it's vote counts... (sort of, there's lots of other factors).

The idea behind "nofollow" is that you can link to a site, but also mark it as "I'm not voting for it". That way someone who has, for example, a list of comments on their blog, won't simply "vote" for everyone who posts a comment. Presumably that would prevent spammers from posting a million comments in the hopes of getting their discount Viagra ad's search ranking up.

It's a solid concept, but in practice it has backfired because it was coupled with a "punishment" system for linking to spam sites.

This punishment system has led sites like Wikipedia, which are, for the most part, extremely reputable, to put "nofollow" on every single link in an attempt to prevent spam. These links are, usually, extremely well-vetted votes of confidence for the site in question. Wikipedia, despite its problems, remains one of the foremost authorities on "link quality".

Other quality sites that have adopted "nofollow" on every link include Digg and Twitter.

You see where this is going. Rather than rely on top authorities with quality information, like Wikipedia, Digg, etc. Google now has to rely only on links originating from people who don't know or care about their link voting/ranking, etc. In other words, generally less knowledgeable or lower quality votes are the only votes used for ranking.

This ultimately harms Google's page ranking system. What Google needs to learn is that "open" is not the right way to go for search rankings. Heavy use of personalized and regional results is the only thing they've done to halt this trend. Here's the next step: allow someone to mark another Google user as "trusted" for search results. In other words, I should be able to mark friends of mine as "trusted" (on a scale of 1 to 5 maybe), for personalized search results.

That way personalization will dominate the results, be highly relevant, and impossible to game.

Google, the last time I emailed told you to track clicks you listened...and it helped. But you never thanked me! Get back to me when this multilevel personalized trust system is done.

Myoglobin Pov-Ray

2010-03-01T09:34:00.001-08:00

One of my assignments from biochem class was to play around with VMD and Pov-Ray. It was fun. The red sphere is supposed to be an oxygen.... (I know it's not that big, or shiny, or red and there's no heme prosthetic to bind it with.)

You can click on the image to zoom in.

Google Code Scripted Upload

2010-02-25T21:43:00.000-08:00

When you want to upload a file to google code in a script there are several options. IMO, send2goog is the best one. In addition to command-line args, it has an interactive mode that auto-saves your config info in ~/.send2goof.conf on both a global-default level and per-file-name level... so you don't have to remember pesky labels, retype usernames, etc. Much nicer than using google's web UI.

Reminder to self as much as anyone else.

Apple Says Killing People is OK, Bikini's are NOT!

2010-02-22T10:11:00.001-08:00

Apples new move kicks 5000 apps off its system, rather than merely rating or categorizing them.

Conspicuously they are leaving on apps which depict graphic beheading, allow kids to play the role of a terrorist sniper, and one that encourages adultery through social networking.

Welcome to the Apple morality lesson. Boobs are really bad. Everything else is fine. I wonder if they'd kick a nursing mother out of one of their stores?

Gnu Programs on Win32

2010-02-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

Because I keep forgetting, I'm posting this as a reminder to myself that you can get nearly all the best GNU tools running on Windows. I use MinGW, G++, and gdb as my compiler suite of choice... but there's also programs like "calc", which I go rooting around looking for on Windows.

But this list is more than comprehensive, continins full binaries and works on every old, wonky and new, fancy version of Windows out there.

Stop Calling it Global Warming

2010-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

I wish pundits and politicians would cease, as of this minute, to refer to the human-caused exhaust poured into our atmosphere as "global warming".

It's not an accurate description of the problem. Increased carbon in the atmosphere might result in "cooling" in some models. Everyone agrees CO2 levels are lowering the PH of the ocean. And CO2 isn't the worst of our problems. Levels of hundreds of industrial pollutants are skyrocketing globally.

We could be headed for a mini ice age because of a carbon-induced thermohaline cycle change. "Warming" is a derivative term that may, very soon, prove wildly inaccurate and set the politics of this issue back for many years.

Responsible management of the millions of tons of industrial gas byproducts and car exhaust that we pour into our atmosphere has nothing, at all, to do with "warming".

Our atmosphere is a globally shared resource and must be globally managed. There can be no sovereign exceptions to the rules, or those countries will be able to spew their industrial filth upon the rest of us.

Is it socialist to manage shared resources in this manner? Not at all. Feeding and educating people is a social agenda that may be relevant indirectly (after all, if you're family is starving, why should you care about climate models), but for some reason is often "tied" to atmospheric pollution issues by deniers.

Protecting the Earth's atmosphere is an issue of survival, not socialism.

New Blogspot Site:
FTP Host (aka custom domain):
FTP Path (for example /blog/):
FTP Username:
FTP Pass (optional):
Use Rsync*: