Monthly Archives: October 2009

Some great Sunday reading.

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A number of items for you to read, starting with this at Effect Measure, a take down of a recent Atlantic anti-vax article: Journalists sink in The Atlantic article on vaccines

Excellent news for OpenSource: White House uses Open Source technology for its web site.

I’ve been waiting for them to figure out how to do this: Lasers used to write false memories onto the fruit fly brain

Everything can be explained by ERVs, at ERV: Some new virology: XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer: blink

Finally, it’s safe to go back into the email box…. Nigerian Spammers Canned

So, are you sure you want to beleieve that Apple Corporation is not fundamentally evil, like the rest of the corporations?

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Earlier today a pending non-provisional utility patent application assigned to Apple Computer published. This application, US Patent Application 20090265214, is titled Advertisement in Operating System, and covers exactly what the title implies; namely an operating system that is capable of displaying a variety of advertisements to users. You are likely to have heard of the first listed inventor, Steven Jobs, the CEO and co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc. While it is difficult to know the purpose and strategy behind a patent application, the attorneys at Fish & Richardson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who drafted and filed the patent application certainly did a very good job describing just about every conceivable feature and alternative that could coincide with the displaying of advertisements to users of an operating system. …

source

This could never happen in the OpenSource world.

UFO’s on Quiche Moraine

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Among a certain class of people, the term “Rumsfeldian” is used to describe a style of leadership that prizes bureaucratic turf-protecting, dissent-quashing through barely concealed intimidation, an inflated sense of self-importance, and the inability to incorporate possible long-term consequences into the decision making process. This class consists primarily of policy wonks, especially the left-leaning ones I interact with daily at the Humphrey Institute, and we are referring to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. There is, however, another context where you will hear “Rumsfeldian” being bandied about, and that is in conjunction with his famous quote during a press conference on Feb. 12th, 2002:


The Latest Guest Post on Quiche Moraine.

Happy Birthday Genie Scott!

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Today is Genie Scott’s birthday. Genie is loved by all in the community of biological scientists because of her central role, as director of the National Center for Science Education, in fighting the good fight against irrational efforts to teach creationism in our public schools and elsewhere. Genie is the author of several books, articles, and book chapters, including Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction and Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.

Crocs Afar

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One day, about six thousand years ago (or more like 15 thousand ? the timing of this is disputed) a volcano in the vicinity of Mwea, Uganda blasted a huge volume of stuff into the air, covering the surrounding landscape and choking off most of the life forms living in a nearby lake. (A very nearby lake ? the current configuration of the lake suggests that the volcano may have actually been beneath the lake at the time of the eruption).

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