The cure for a cough and a fever

It's simple really...
1. Take a fever reducer (ibuprofen or acetaminophen works) for the fever
2. Take Dayquil for the cough
3. Drink lots of water, preferably honey water, to ease your throat
4. Suck on lozenges to ease your throat
5. When you cough, don't swallow your phlegm! Spit it out!
6. Sleep, sleep A LOT

Between those steps, it took me only slightly more than 24 hours to recover from my fever. Honorary mentions go to Bruce and Cristine for thoughtfully donating that cough/fever to me.

The Spirit of Learning

Alwyn wrote in his blog that he felt like he didn't learn anything that day. I absolutely disagree, and this was my response to him.

Who says you didn't learn anything today?! If nothing else, you put into writing a profound quote "Creativity begins with the generation of alternatives" that I personally found very powerful. Simple, almost obvious, but it reminds you that without creativity, there are no alternatives. On the other hand, just because there are no alternatives doesn't mean an absence of creativity (eg a practical impossibility). And then again, if you don't see any alternatives, that doesn't really mean there aren't any. Rather, your level of creative intuition doesn't permit you to grasp beyond what yourself.

Conclusion: What you learn every day does not have to be new knowledge. A simple revisiting of universal truth resulting in a deeper understand of said truism is, in my book at least, learning of the highest order.

Woah... I'm feeling philosophical today...

Therein, I think, lies the spirit of learning. Learning isn't just memorizing a fun fact every day, or picking up a new skill. All those are indeed examples of learning, but I think true learning happens when you feel that you have expanded your horizons in some way, shape or form. I think it's a good thing for us to keep in mind what is the true spirit of learning, for learning for the sake of learning is not learning at all.

Number 1 reason not to get rid of Internet Explorer

I have been using Firefox for a while already, and I love it! Firefox is a pretty darned good browser for any number of reasons. However, there are still a few sites out there that don't look quite right when viewed with Firefox that still look perfect in IE. It's times like that I'm glad I still have access to IE for all it's suckiness.

And today, I found the biggest reason not junk IE completely:
Microsoft Windows Update must, by design, be run in Windows using only Internet Explorer. However, you can find updates manually on Microsoft's download site.

Bye bye cancer?

Maybe it's a little early to bring out the champagne, but this appeared in today's news:

Using a high tech process to modify an ancient drug called artemisinin, researchers have created a compound that is highly lethal to cancer cells, but causes little harm to normal cells, according to a report in the journal Life Sciences.

Artemisinin, a substance derived from wormwood that is used to treat malaria in China, reacts with iron to produce "free radicals" -- toxic compounds that can destroy cells.

Because cancer cells take up more iron than do normal cells, they should be more susceptible to the toxic effects of artemisinin, Dr. Henry Lai from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues reasoned. In an earlier study, Lai's team showed that, in fact, this was true.

In the current study, the researchers hypothesized that they could improve the anti-cancer potency of artemisinin further by attaching or "tagging" it to transferrin, a protein that picks up iron in the blood and then is transported into cells, especially cancerous ones. Once in the cell, transferrin releases the iron, leaving it free to interact with artemisinin and cause the deadly reaction.

The investigators tested the "artemisinin-tagged transferrin" on human leukemia cells and on normal human immune cells. As hoped for, the compound destroyed the leukemia cells, but had little effect on the normal cells.

"By itself, artemisinin is about 100 times more selective in killing cancer cells as opposed to normal cells," Lai said in a statement. By contrast, "the new artemisinin compound was 34,000 times more potent in killing cancer cells as opposed to their normal cousins. So the tagging process appears to have greatly increased the potency."

The next step will be to evaluate the new compound in animal studies, the researchers note.

Think anti-cancer homing missiles... Awesome!

Gray

I just found out that the gray is the SI unit for the energy absorbed from ionizing radiation, equal to one joule per kilogram. It was named after Louis HaroldGray, a British radiobiologist.

Canon Strikes Back!

For those of you who follow digital SLRs, the big show in town has always been about Canon vs. Nikon. Both are great names in legacy SLRs, and both have extended their brandshares into DSLRs, although others are now in the mix as well.

Of course, DSLRs had always been über-expensive, and not the sort of thing that a young man could really afford if he had to pay for rent and a car note as well. But the ability to have such fine control over the subject was very appealing, so two and a half years ago I bought myself a Canon Powershot G2. Because it contained so many functions and was such a hoot to use, I've never felt the need to upgrade. (The desire, on the other hand ... )

Not long after that, Canon introduced an entry-level DSLR, the EOS 300D/Digital Rebel. It had 6 megapixels at a time when such a thing was considered well above average but not bleeding edge. It was very functional. And, more importantly, it was inexpensive! For $1000, you could get your hands on something that was basically a detuned EOS 10D!

Nikon joined in the fray last year, though, with the introduction of the very capable D70, which for the same price as the Digital Rebel gave a lot more performance. This move caught Canon off-guard, as it was whacking Nikon on the higher end with the EOS 20D. Several magazines proclaimed the D70 to be the "Digital Rebel Killer", giving Canon a backhanded compliment.

Now, Canon strikes back, with the introduction of the EOS 350D/Digital Rebel XT. This brand new member of the lineup has an 0.2-second startup time (about one-tenth of that of its predecessor), an 8 megapixel CMOS sensor (draining less battery power), the DIGIC II image processor found in the bleeding edge offerings, and the ability to shoot at 3 frames per second for 14 frames.

Since I didn't get anything for Christmas, New Year, or my birthday, maybe someone can pick me up one of these? Here's what you'll be looking for:

Then I'll have a 350Z and a 350D! :OD

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]

Evidence of Life on Mars

At least that's what NASA scientists say:

What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.

Maybe they found Michael Jackson's real home there.

Google My World

Now that Google has become a word in the dictionary, there's more that it can do! Presenting Google Maps, just one of the new functionalities from Google. And, if you're in the mood for a little fun, there's always the unaffiliated Gizoogle!

[Cross posted at Between Worlds]

Using the net from behind a router?

Then you've probably wondered what is your "real" IP address. Wonder no more!

Spring trivia

You probably know that the first day of spring this year falls on March 20th.

The first day of spring is known as the spring or Vernal equinox. Literally, equinox means "equal night". From there, a smart person could guess that means that on that one day, there are an equal number of day and night hours. And if you're really smart, you may even deduce that this is only true at the equator.

But I'll bet you didn't know that the Persian new year (aka Norooz)begins on the spring equinox. That's right, those Iraqi dudes will be getting psyched up for a happy new year pretty soon!

Also, the Great Sphinx of Giza (that half man, half lion thingy) that guards the great pyramids, was said to have been built facing not only the sunrise of the vernal equinox, but also the rise that same day of the constellation Leo (the lion). That way he could gaze at both the sun, who he is honoring, and an image of himself as a lion.

And at sunset on the vernal equinox in Itza, Mexico, at the pyramid of Kulkulkan, also known as Quetzalcoatl to the Aztecs, the evening shadows form a giant snake gliding down the northern stairway. The snake signifies the descent of the serpent god, Kulkulkan from his temple. You can kinda see it in the photo below.

And here you thought the firsts day of spring merely meant a national holiday in Japan... What? You didn't already know that?? :)

Oversensitive python...

Python is case sensitive when it comes to importing modules. I found this out after running circles around my xbox for an hour.

I was trying to the get the web radio scripts (KMLbrowse.py and SimpleKML.py) to work with Xbox Media Center aka XBMC, and for the life I couldn't figure it out. I tried just about everything I found on the web - modified the scripts to point to an updated URL, reinstalled the python libs, updated my XBMC installation, got new skins for XBMC, got update scripts etc. Nothing worked.

Finally, I turned on XBMC debug logging (set loglevel to 0 in xboxmediacenter.xml) and noticed that it was failing to load the Image module. There was a file called image.py in the lib directory. When I renamed it to Image.py, that error message disappeared and was replaced with another error about another library.

I did a quick check on the files on my xbox vs the files in the installation RAR archive. Sure enough, the filenames were different case. Apparently, my FTP client was set to downcase filenames when uploading files, which resulted in all the python modules being downcased!

I fixed the FTP client setup, re-FTP'ed the python modules, and guess what? Everything worked...

Endo-what??

Endometriosis is a condition where endometrium (the lining of the uterus) is found in locations outside the uterus.

This misplaced tissue may be found on the ovaries, uterus, bowel, bladder utero-sacral ligaments (ligaments that hold the uterus in place), or peritoneum (covering lining of the pelvis and abdominal cavity). On rare occasions it can be found in other distant sites. The blue arrows below show the migration of the tissue from the uterus.


Image copyright 2000 by Nucleus Communications, Inc.

It is treated by use of hormonal adjustment drugs (eg birth control pills, Lupron) or by surgery (eg laparoscopy)

Posting a form through a CGI script

The problem:
I have a web page that needs to post a form. But the form needs to be processed by an intermediate CGI script before it is submitted to the final CGI script. So kinda like this:
WEB_PAGE ----> CGI_SCRIPT_1 ----> CGI_SCRIPT_2
The problem lies with the first script. How do you get that script to transmit data to the second script?

The solution:
Use Perl's LWP module like so:

use LWP;
  my $browser = LWP::UserAgent->new;
  my $url = 'http://something';
  my $response = $browser->post (
    "http://something.com",
    [
      'formkey1' => "value 1",
      'formkey2' => "value 2"
    ]
  );
  die "$url error: ", $response->status_line
    unless $response->is_success;
  die "Weird content type at $url -- ", $response->content_type
    unless $response->content_type eq 'text/html';
  print "Response from remote script:\n" . $response->content;

Code ripped shameless from somewhere on perl.com

Inaugration

Everyday, I have to learn something new.

And this is where I'm going to (try to) put into words the bits and pieces of wisdom that I accumulate as I plod along life's mysterious roads.

This is gonna be fun. I just know it!