Category Archives: Science and Engineering

The Neverending Battle Against Bloatware

Spent all of last night and early morning making revisions to my test installation of MT3.2. Made good progress. Going to see Superman Returns later today, which sort of suggested this entry’s title. This entry is really a test to … Continue reading

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So what's the hold up?

So I’m working transferring nearly all of my site pages into MT3.2 and abandoning GM and the Google search form entirely. Most of this migration is being done on my test server and it’s not ready for primetime yet. This … Continue reading

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Harnessing diatoms to build stuff for us.

I had posted something here about using diatoms in micromachines three or so years ago but, WorldChanging has pointed me to an update on using diatom shells as parts in microelectromechanical systems. Apparently empty diatom shells can be “doped” in … Continue reading

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I'm waiting for this shoe to drop

In the light of yesterday’s post, I wondered about progress in attempts to combine microelectromechanical systems and scanning probe microscopy. I looked in this direction because I had learned that it took the team at Rice eight years to figure … Continue reading

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Nanoscopic News

A team at Rice University builds a nanoscopic car chassis out of buckyballs and nanotubes. They claim the wheels roll but, some are skeptical. Over at the Georgia Institute of Technology, they hope to domesticate microbes and coax them into … Continue reading

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Shameless science fictional speculation

Maybe some of you have read “Dial F for Frankenstein?” In that short story Arthur C Clarke imagines the consequences of a minor technical improvement in the global communications network. Suddenly a new lifeform emerges out of the network and … Continue reading

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Bill and Ray call for security by obscurity

About a week or so ago Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy condemned the publication of the genome of the virus responsible for the flu epidemic of 1918. Kurzweil in particular called for the genome to be censored. I’m not an … Continue reading

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Useful stuff to know about XP and Linux

coLinux: and open source Linux emulator. Run Linux inside NT5+ without buying VMWare. There are other ways to emulate Linux inside NT5+ with other open source emulators. I really don’t know why I started exploring this, either I multiboot, use … Continue reading

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A few links and a rant about Web applications

First: Nice ways to style data tables. Nice ways to style forms and marginally improve their usability. Recently I’ve been reading much about AJAX, treating pages as applications, rich interactivity, and hype about the top ten tools of Web 2. … Continue reading

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Mice regenerate entire organs

Just read on Slashdot that Professor Ellen Heber-Katz and a team of scientists at the Wistar Institute (Within the University of Pennsylvania.) have engineered a mouse that appears to be able to fully regenerate damage to any organ in its … Continue reading

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