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gregladen | January 11, 2012Don't like Gnome 3.0 or Unity? Linux Mint 12 offers Gnome 2 like option.
The latest version of Mint channels Gnome 2.0 goodness via two different approaches: Firstly, Mint Gnome Shell Extensions add Gnome 2.0 features to the Gnome 3.0 shell. Secondly, Mint now ships with Mate, a maintenance fork of Gnome 2.0 that can co-exist with a Gnome 3.0 installation.
Details here.
gregladen | January 11, 2012My analysis of the New Hampshire Primary results is here. I summarize another interesting study regarding gun deaths and violence in the US. And you might be interested in this billboard campaign.
drorzel | January 11, 2012I'm running a little short on blogging inspiration lately. This is partly just a function of being busy-- most of my time is spent frantically working on class prep or child maintenance, and another piece is the result of an inconvenient policy change. But I do feel like I've gotten into a bit of a rut.
So, I will fall back on the time-honored (for smallish values of "time" and "honor") blogger technique of appealing to the audience:
Ask me about something you'd like to see me talk about on the blog.
I can't promise that I'll respond to every question-- see above about being busy-- but with…
gregladen | January 10, 2012Sebastian Wernicke thinks every TEDTalk can be summarized in six words. At TEDxZurich, he shows how to do just that -- and less.
gregladen | January 10, 2012Those who support unfettered ownership and sales of guns say no, but they are just making that up. A recent study says yes. Check it out.
kbonham | January 9, 2012The latest issue of the Science in the News "Flash" is out now about the connections between atopic disorders - namely allergies, asthma and eczema.
Itchy, watery eyes, and a drippy nose. Constricted, swollen airways secreting thick mucus. Itchy, red, dry, cracked skin. These symptoms describe three conditions -- allergies, asthma, and eczema, respectively -- that are commonly found together in the same people. Yet, what causes these symptoms and why they are so closely associated with each other is still poorly understood.
The Flash is written and edited by graduate students, an all-…
gregladen | January 7, 2012I have two items for you. First, I'd like you to inspect this brilliant computer game and come up with a bash equivilant (or something that will run from the Linux Command Line). The current version of the program is 32 megabytes of some kind of DOS based source code. I'm sure we can do this in perl or awk as a couple of one liners kobbed together.
Second assignment. This could get you the prize in the now-getting-stale Land of Lisp Book Giveaway. Here's what I want. I keep snippets of code and stuff in text files. For instance, I have a standardized org-mode header that sets a lot of…
gregladen | January 7, 2012There is a new kind of guitar. It is the electronic version of a guitar in the same way that a MIDI keyboard is an electronic version of a piano. And, it runs on Linux and is OpenSource!
The Misa Kitara consists of three main components: a full fretboard, a multi-touch screen and an onboard polyphonic synthesizer with sounds and effects.
The kitara's neck has 24 frets, but instead of strings each fret contains buttons.
You play notes by touching on the screen. The position and movement of your touch determine how the sound is generated and processed.
...
You can assign one sound to all six…
gregladen | January 7, 2012Skeptically Speaking # 146
This week, we're looking at some of nature's most accomplished materials scientists, and the amazing substance they produce. We're joined by Leslie Brunetta, co-author of Spider Silk: Evolution and 400 Million Years of Spinning, Waiting, Snagging, and Mating. We'll discuss the form, function and uses of the sticky wonder material, and the ways that its study can help us understand evolution. And on the podcast, science writer Ed Yong tells us about silkworms with spider genes and the hybrid silk they spin.
We record live with Leslie Brunetta on Sunday, January 8 at…
gregladen | January 7, 2012Within this generation, an extra 30 years have been added to our life expectancy -- and these years aren't just a footnote or a pathology. At TEDxWomen, Jane Fonda asks how we can think about this new phase of our lives.
See also:
Falsehood: "If this was the Stone Age, I'd be dead by now"
A History of Childbirth (Commentary on common misconceptions about life expectancy.)
gregladen | January 7, 2012... Well, it could happen ...
Intelligent Life Detected by SETI: A radio signal which is too narrow to be natural, changes frequency in an interesting way, and changes amplitude in an interesting way was detected by SETI while gazing at Kepler-discovered planets a great distance away. When SETI pointed the same radiotelesope in a different direction, however, the signal was still there, indicating that it came not from a distant galaxy but rather, from earth or an earth-launched satellite. ET is home. Phil Plait has an excellent discussion of what happened.
In a related story, a secret…
gregladen | January 7, 2012Iran is cracking down on Internet Freedom:
In the most sweeping move, Iran issued regulations giving Internet cafes 15 days to install security cameras, start collecting detailed personal information on customers and document users' online footprints.
Spain passes new Internet "Piracy Law"
United States Ambassador Alan Solomont put pressure on Spain's outgoing president, José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, to pass a tough new internet piracy law, according to the Guardian.
In a letter obtained by the Spanish newspaper El Pais and quoted by the Guardian, Solomont threatened "retaliation action" if…
pronald | January 6, 2012UC Davis unified in condemning use of pepper spray on students. Support for Chancellor Katehi grows.
denialism | January 5, 2012This week's think like a doctor column in the NYT is great. It asks the question, if a woman goes to a chiropractor, gets her neck manipulated, and within hours and for the succeeding four years she's had symptoms of severe headaches and a pulsatile sound in her ears, what is the diagnosis?
You can guess what mine is...
Quackery!
It's a great case because it comes with an excellent set of images and reports on this woman's case. But what I can't get over is that the most obvious problem here is that the woman was seeing a chiropractor. The most obvious conclusion of the piece is that this…
gregladen | January 5, 2012I had never heard of The Chaos before today. I suppose that makes me unkulterd, and I'm afraid that I can't use the excuse that it came out in the 1980s when I was either in a trench underneath Boston or deep in the Jungles of Zaire, or doing double duty taking classes and teaching and writing a thesis. Chaos is a poem by Gerard Nolst Trenité that demonstrates the lockstep association between English words as we say them, and English words as we write (spel) them. In other words, Chaos, using the non-mathematical meaning of the word.
The poem exists in many forms. I found what is…
gregladen | January 4, 2012As you certainly know, Jean Baret was a famous botanical explorer of the 18th century, travelling on Louis Antoine de Bougainville's expedition and circumnavigating the world collecting and discovering new plants. But Jean was Jeanne, a female, who at first pretended to be a man, then later changed her story slightly to being a Eunuch, to stay on board after others had become suspicious of her gender identity. She was actually married to her boss, who presumably knew her secret.
Very recently, Glynis Ridley wrote a biography of her life (The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science,…
gregladen | January 4, 2012NO SOPA is a google chrome extension that warns you when you browse to a web site of an entity that supports SOPA. Go here to get the extension. Then, go to the Mosion Picture Association of America (fer instance) to test it. Seems to work fine.
gregladen | January 4, 2012The sun heats the earth, but unevenly. The excess heat around the equator moves towards the poles, via a number of different mechanisms, the most noticeable for us humans being via air masses. That's what much of our weather is about. Heat also moves towards the poles, in the ongoing evening-out of energy distribution on the planet's surface, via ocean currents.
One of the interesting things that happens with ocean currents is this: Warm water tends to move from equator towards polar regions across the surface, then cools down and drops to the deep sea, where it moves back south again,…
gregladen | January 4, 2012... in the Republican Party.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has canceled the climate change chapter in his upcoming book of environmental essays after Rush Limbaugh and other commentators targeted its author, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
Read the rest here.