University of Rochester: One Species’ Genome Discovered Inside Another’s
via Slashdot: !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Scientists: Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years
via CNN.com (via Slashdot): but can you implant it inside another?
Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs
via TreeHugger: including a decent explanation on why CFLs contribute less to mercury-sourced pollution than traditional incandescent light bulbs.
Flash of Unstyled Content (FOUC) explained
via 456 Berea Street
via Mother Jones
Burlington people:
Clutch is playing tonight at Higher Ground.
As I’ve already said, they put on one hell of a great show. Don’t miss out.
See you there.
(Photo by AJ Fischler)
via ALA: “The best argument against web fonts, however, isn’t legalities—it’s aesthetics. Do we want to wade through web pages displayed in third-rate fonts put together by designers who once used the <blink> tag and created backgrounds with animated GIFs?
Sound bytes from William Gibson, or: How science fiction got under my skin.
“…[Gibson] tries to ‘make the first chapter hard, and get rid of all of the boring readers.’”
While leaving a movie, I am given a box of old writings by a stranger that date back to middle school. At first I am hesitant to open this box. How good could my middle school era writings possibly have been? And why would they be worth re-visiting now? The stranger informs me that there is an expiration on the ideas inside; like a statute of limitations, if I do not pursue any of the good ideas now, I will forever forfeit my rights to them. I crack open the box and start peering through the documents. Some of them are torn, faded, or hard to read. One of them is written on a 12″ x 18″ “job envelope” like you would find behind the counter at a Kinko’s. The prose has flashes of brilliance (at least as “brilliant” as a 13 year old could possibly write) before getting bogged down in frustrating, juvenile transitions. The story itself is about a cadre of young girls with apparent super-powers; none of the girls are mutants nor are any of them born of alien parents but each has some rigorous training that she endures. Most of the text focuses on the character with an uncanny marksmanship; her single dad drilled her in basketball free-throws night after night, ratcheting in the hoop millimeter and millimeter until it was far smaller than a standard hoop. And she could hit it every time. The hand-writing keeps changing and I have to wonder if the story is even all mine but when I look up to ask, the stranger is gone.
The Manager’s Cheat Sheet: 101 Common-Sense Rules for Leaders
via Inside CRM (via LifeHack.org)
Toronto’s master sewer-spelunker tells all
via B^2
via TUAW: slick geocoding for free
via 43f
“Hit a slowdown point on two jobs, where I can’t quite see where to go next. Mike Moorcock had a formula for that, when he was writing fast: descend into a minor character. But that doesn’t always work when you’re writing in 22-page units.”
Here we are, midday on a humid August Saturday. Restless seems to be the keyword for both of us here; perhaps everyone? It’s a weird interstitial moment, with some things winding down while others ramp up. The garden seems metaphor enough for that. Some of the plants have run their course and are done for the season, having given us their last fruit while others are just now emerging with promises for the fall. But all things on their way out deserve their due retirement and all things on their way in deserve some measure of coddling and attention.
Where to put the energy? Where to put the effort?
I suppose some of the restlessness is due to bouts of insomnia mixed in with increasingly intense, increasingly bizarre dreams. Meanwhile, my downtime (read: “not at work”) is spent catching up on work projects or otherwise trying to decide between one of about four writing projects (all competing for undivided attention) and the other various day-to-day chores.
currently playing: Junior Boys “Under The Sun (live)”
UPDATE: Wrote up a promo piece over on Synaptic Clog. Definitely going to this show. The opening acts sound pretty interesting, too. And damn but do I love me some Clutch.
For his 18th birthday, it seems my brother has decided to have me and my dad accompany him to get pierced. He won’t say where on his body but he does drag us along to the mall. This mall has two-stories but it’s preposterously tall, with an obscenely large escalator going from the very low first floor to the very high second floor. We ride the escalator up and he keeps quiet about the details. As we approach the tattoo/piercing studio itself, I back out. He doesn’t need me to stand by and watch. Instead, I wander the second floor of this mall, exploring department stores and other boutiques. After a long while, when they never emerge, I go looking for them. However, instead of my dad and brother, I find two friends (one male, one female) in a store that seems to specialize in clocks.
These friends look panicked and stammer their way through a story about how they’re being pursued. We slip out of the mall as quietly as we can, jumping into His truck, parked a few blocks away. I think I smell something for a moment but I can’t be sure. No sooner do we start the truck and begin to drive away however then She comments on the smell as well. We turn to look and see flames leaping up from the gas tank. He slams on the brakes and we all run for it. At least, I thought we all made it. I see Him running and He is gone before I can cry out to him. Police are on the scene immediately, evaluating the flipped, burning truck. I try to get close, to see if She made it. One of the officers tries to push me away; he tells me that I already know what I would see and over his shoulder, I see the sheet draped over that figure and the smoke sneaking out from underneath. He tries to calm me down, tries to get my to beg off, find some distraction. It seems like he’s taunting me.
“Fifteen cents per ruble,” he says with up-raised eyebrows. I swing my fist and knock him down. I pummel him until he’s limp; his partner never notices. And then I use the first officer as a cudgel with which to beat the other. Even with them out of the way now, I cannot bring myself to look under that smoking sheet.
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