PORTLAND, OR - Aug 12, 2008. Researchers at the Fabbri Baby Institute today released the results of their week-long study of input and output behavior of newborn infants. The scientists made a surprising discovery when one of their test subjects, baby Adria, produced some mass in her test diaper while simultaneously consuming test milk.
We've discovered that infants, in general, are often born with the amazing ability to consume food, and at the same time expell waste. This was determined by our elite supercomputers, when their algorithms detected simultaneous "slurp" and "poot-ra-toot-poot" sound patterns in a recording of the test subject.
Researchers explained that this phenonoma of being able to input and output at the same time is known as being "full duplex".
We've known about this behavior in the past, but only in the context of computer networks, where having the ability to input and output at the same time is known as "full duplex".
Identify Full Duplex Infants
Scientists are urging parents of full-duplex babies to appropriately label their children by purchasing and using official "full duplex" baby clothes, available below.
Anyone who has gotten into brewing beer at home has probably read the bible on the subject The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian.
In the book, Charlie introduces a new phrase "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew". He even has a bumpersticker on his glass carboy (used to ferment the beer):
I've recreated this now-retro bumper sticker and you can buy one here.
Today I was trying to find out which compact refrigerators are the most energy efficient. After some searching, I ended up at the Energy Star site, where they have a spreadsheet listing Energy Star fridges along with how much power they use and how big they are.
I took this spreadsheet and sorted it by kilowatt-hours (kWh), so the fridges at the top use the least energy. Surprisingly, the most efficient fridge listed is not a compact fridge but a decent sized model by Sun Frost. The two most efficient compact fridges were the Samsung SKR1373* and the MicroFridge MHRA-4E.
You can download my sorted spreadsheet as a PDF here.
Not only have these people made a video about rescuing poor abandonded shopping carts like they are majestic wild beasts, but they've made a whole website about it, and bought online advertising to promote it. What pointless sillyness. Bravo.
This fake George Carlin chain email serves as a popular example of false information that is passed in chain emails for years. I even see people quoting it in their blogs.
I find my self continually hitting Reply All to chain emails people forward to me. I do this to explain that the story people are passing around is a lie, a con, a chain letter.
Today, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP announced that it is filing a class action suit against Isilon Systems. The suit is filed on behalf of an investor who bought Isilon stock at hyped-up IPO prices, and then lost money when Isilon subsequently missed quarter expectations.
As we'll see below, while some of the complaints may have merit, some of the claims are BS (in my humble opinion).
The press-lead rush to widen a freeway into Portland fails to make incentive for more scalable and sustainable transportation and lifestyle choices. In fact, it subsidizes the opposite. More single occupant cars honking into the city, slurping oil (ah, the expensive teat of Iraq).
On two recent mornings, I've woken up to read articles posted on the Oregonian online which tell us of the urgency in widening the Interstate 5 freeway in North Portland.
There is a choke-point here, we are told. Commuters' nerves are at stake! What will happen to the economy if trucks can't get through!? (Maybe they'll travel at night when the commuters have gone to bed in Vancouver?)
A new remote storage and offline backup site, adrive.com, recently launched and is offering 50 GB of free online storage. From the site:
ADrive ... leads the free online data storage community, offering the largest amount of free storage on the Internet. We provide our users with secure solutions for storing, backing up, and accessing files from virtually anywhere, at any time. ADrive serves as an online, centralized vault for all file types including: music, videos, photos, documents, and more.
This site is currently in the beta phase, so we can expect them to be rolling out new features in the future.
In case anyone else signed up for Paperless Billing on their American Express card gets a late fee this month, there is a problem with their servers which is causing alert enrollments to fail.
Image One. I select payment due alerts, and click Enroll.
Image Two. A window pops up but fails to load properly (server reset). Going back to alerts page shows that enrolling for the email alerts failed. I tried multiple times (I'm using Firefox v1.5.0.3).
Mohini (id 79480) with American Express Online Services, confirmed that there is a server issue and I should retry in 24 hours. I did get a late fee as I did not pay on time (didn't get the usual email that reminds me to), but American Express was very courteous in reversing that fee.
In Layman's Terms
At Cisco I developed this software called the Datagram Acceleration Layer (DAL) which improves the performance of market data computing clusters. These clusters of computers are used for many purposes, from executing trades on Wall Street, to running algorithmic trading programs. To understand why the financial institutions need cutting-edge technology, just consider how markets are implemented.
The Technological Arms Race in Financial Markets
Financial markets live in a virtual world of networks of networks of computers. At a basic level, the computers do processing (crunching numbers, etc.), and the networks allow them to communicate with each other and other networks.
Modern financial markets consist of many players and many instruments. This creates much opportunity, but also a lot of competition.
For a large investor, being able to process and react to very large amounts of information, very quickly, is key for being able to compete. If the market presents an opportunity, whoever is able to act first will profit, and others will miss out. This means that the computers and their programs have to make a decision quickly, and that the network used for communication has to be very fast.
Communication Latency: Measured in Millionths of Seconds
The DAL software I developed at Cisco addresses the speed of the communication network. DAL gives the software used for market data a shortcut to the network. This allows a machine to send messages more often (throughput) as well as reducing the amount of time it takes a message to get from one machine to another (latency). For example, in this press release, we see that DAL reduces the message latency seen by Wombat financial software from 250 to 40 microseconds. To put in into perspective, in 40 microseconds light travels about 7 miles.
In summary, light is still faster, travelling seven miles in the time we make it across the room. I'd better get back to work.
Pops Naple sent us a newspaper clipping with this story about front yard food gardens. There is a trend where people grow a vegetable garden in their front yard in the city.
We recently did this, but we removed an extra car-width of concrete (which was poorly built anyhow), and used it to build a retaining wall to hold soil for a garden. The spot we chose was the sunniest part of our yard, and our vegetables have been loving it.
We also have a couple of urban chickens which roam around the backyard.
All of this means that we can generate a good portion of our food without driving to the store and spending money. Seeds are cheap, and they turn into all the carrots, beets, tomatoes, and squash you can eat.
The story talks about how some neighbors, and even some local laws, were against vegetables in front yards. This is hard to believe living in Portland, Oregon, where many people have not only front yard gardens, but some chickens strolling around as well. Here is the original story from AP:
Front-yard gardens make food, friends; annoy some Monday, August 13, 2007 By ELLEN SIMON Associated Press, NEW YORK
A dedicated group of vegetable gardeners is ripping out their front lawns and planting dinner.
Their front-yard kitchen gardens, with everything from vegetables to herbs and salad greens, are a source of food, a topic of conversation with the neighbors and a political statement.
Leigh Anders, who tore up about half her front lawn four years ago and planted vegetables, said her garden sends a message that anyone can grow at least some of their food. That task should shift from agribusiness back to individuals and their communities, said Anders, of Viroqua, Wisc.
"This movement can start with simply one tomato plant growing in one's yard," she said.
While people have been growing food in their backyards forever, front-yard vegetable gardens are a growing outlet for people whose back yards are too shady or too small, as well as those who want to spread their beliefs one tomato at a time.
Many hope their gardens will revive the notion of victory gardens, which by some estimates provided 40 percent of America's vegetables during World War II.
Here's a silly story, hot off the wire, of a woman who assaulted a man during his karoke performance of a Coldplay song. I'd like to know, why would you go to a karoke bar if you couldn't tolerate a bad performance or two?
Woman attacks karaoke singer during Coldplay song
Posted by The Associated Press August 10, 2007 14:37PM
SEATTLE -- Perhaps it was the lyric "I jumped across for you, oh what a thing to do," that inspired a Seattle woman to attack a man belting out Coldplay's song "Yellow" in a bar.
Employees at Changes Bar and Grill in the city's Wallingford neighborhood said the woman leaped at the karaoke singer when she heard the song Thursday night, telling the man that he "sucked" before she pushed and punched him to make him stop singing.
"It took three or four of us to hold her down," bartender Robert Willmette told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
When she was escorted outside, the 21-year-old woman "went crazy" Willmette said, throwing punches at him and others, including an off-duty police officer.
Patrol officers and Gang Unit detectives then arrived at the neighborhood bar and blocked off the street, which inflamed the woman's rage even more, a police report said. Before police could handcuff the woman she headbutted the off-duty officer at least two times.
The off-duty officer was treated for several cuts, scrapes and bruises.
After treatment for injuries, the woman was booked into the King County Jail for investigation of assault. She was also held on a warrant issued for a previous theft charge.
According to bartender notes, she only had a single shot of Jagermeister.
early in 2008 and it has been rocking me since. I can't say enough good things about this album.
