McBlawg

California considers legalising cannabis

2010-08-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

SOURCE - Channel 4 News 26th Aug 2010

Only heard about this this afternoon at work from a comment from someone.

The Cannabis in California wiki page is pretty detailed.

Hhmm "....The same is not true of marijuana. It is cheap and easy to grow your own and any change in the law would allow individuals to grow as much as 25 square feet of marijuana for personal use. Will people really pay VAT on homegrown"?

The Cost of Open Access ?

2010-07-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

++All of the information that follows is already in the public domain other than a few anecdotes from myself today++

(Sourced from Flickr)

The last time I visited the University of Glasgow, I was 16/17 years of age when my first band played their first 'proper' gig there in the Student's Union Bar during freshers week.

(May I throw in this pic of my brother, Richard from with the 'Biotechies' in TBS (Technology and Business Studies) year of '88 at Strathclyde University? I think I can) !!

(Unrelatedly uploaded and sourced from Flickr)

My second visit was today at the Sir Charles Wilson Building which is directly opposite the above (building, not photos). !!

The reason for returning was to attend the first of four UK workshops organised by the Centre for Research Communications (CRC), University of Nottingham and Alma Swan of Key Perspectives. I enquired from the onset (of today) if it would be OK to tweeet during the event. Given that these events will be collating brand new unpublished data, the answer was no. Fair enough.

(Sourced from Flickr)

At the end, I asked if it would be OK to blog about it, no problem although for the reason mentioned, those present won't be able to go into finite detail.

---

Great information pack I have to say. Loads of good stuff in there that I haven't had a chance to properly read, but from a 'scan over' this is goooood.

EG How to build a case for university policies and practices in support of Open Access - JISC 2010

The format for this one was intense but informal/relaxed, which was nice.

A brief Welcome/Introduction by Bill Hubbard, Director of the CRC.

Next up was a really excellent PPT talk/presentation by Susan Ashworth, Library Assistant Director, University of Glasgow entitled:- "Implementing Open Access". (note, must contact Susan to see if this one can be archived on the web).

Took some notes though ;-)

Now it was time to get ours brains really into gear with Alma's "the economic model: introduction and practical session".

The primer to all of this was The Houghton Report (2007) published in January 2009.

From the blurb here:-

"The cost of open access?

Disseminating the results of scholarly research through open access may benefit your institution - but what would it cost?

We'd like to invite you to an event that will help you find out.

Your VC or PVC for Research may be planning to attend an event on June 15 at Woburn House in London organised by Universities UK and JISC, where evidence will be presented on the business case for open access publishing and repositories. The Houghton Report last year identified significant sectoral savings (over £200M pa) possible from the adoption of Open Access, but it was not clear of the implications for individual institutions. What is the balance of cost and benefit for research-led institutions? does the size of an institution alter the projections? Consultant Alma Swan, from Key Perspectives Ltd, will be introducing an economic model at this event to help individual institutions identify the costs and savings involved.

To discover how the figures work out for your own particular institution, you would be very welcome at one of our four regional follow-up events. These workshops are aimed at Research Support Offices and financial modellers, who are asked to collect certain data to bring with them to build their own customised models. All data used will be kept confidential to each institutional delegate".

At the event in Glasgow today, we split ourselves into three groups:-

University of Glasgow
University of Nottingham (plus muggins)
University of Edinburgh

Nice lunch was provided for all and before we knew it, back into the nitty gritty.

Cutting a two hour-ish story short, by the end, all three 'groups' came up with differing results as one might expect, but (I think) I am allowed to say that these were indicative that (and I'm watching what I'm saying) whilst I know it's a cliche, 'the times are a changin'.

During the whole process, we ironed out some wee minor niggles in the enhanced version of the model used in the Houghton Report which will make the next three events run even more smoothly than this one, great as it was.

Despite my layman status, this was a really worthwhile event to have attended and I think that I am allowed to say that this will cause a 'ripple effect' at least in Scotland so far. But this gig (three more) only started this afternoon !!!

So, to conclude. The CRC are holding/hosting three more of these events in the coming weeks in London, Birmingham and Leeds. If you are at all interested in any of this, please do make contact with the folks in charge and consider attending these free of charge events.

* Glasgow - 15th July - Booking & Programme >> (COMPLETED)
* London - 21st July - Booking & Programme >>
* Birmingham - 23rd July - Booking & Programme >>
* Leeds - 29th July - Booking & Programme >>

Contact

For further information on these events, please contact Mandy Hodgson (email: amanda.hodgson@nottingham.ac.uk, phone: 0115 84 68601).

Oh Paul, you seriously fucked up this time.

2010-07-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

Like a substantial number of folks in the UK, I was following the dramatic events as they unfolded during the eventual capture of man-on-the-run, Raoul Moat last night.

2010 Northumbria Police manhunt - Wikipedia

The stand-off between mister Mooot and Northumbria Police

continued way beyond midnight and other than those who continued to follow the mainstream media/Twitter coverage into the night, I awoke this morning and switched on teh interwebz for an update.

What didn't surprise me was that Mister Mooot had allegedly turned his gun on himself.

As armed Police and trained negotiators allegedly attempted to, well, negotiate the peaceful arrest of said Mr Moat, in an utterly bizarre twist (which I did not believe at first), it would appear that ex-England/Newcastle United/Glasgow Rangers/Lazio/Sunderland soccer legend, Mr Paul Gascgoine (now known even more for all the wrong reasons) appeared in person at the scene of the stand-off in an allegedly drunken state.

From The Sun:- Gazza brings Moat chicken.

"Gascoigne - who had apparently come by taxi from Newcastle - said he had brought the wanted man a "can of lager, some chicken, a mobile phone and something to keep warm".

"But Gazza's agent Kenny Shepherd reacted with disbelief on being told the troubled star had turned up in Rothbury, saying: "He's doing what? I am sitting having an evening meal in Majorca. I'm speechless."

How I long for the Paul Gascoigne et al at his best, but this is surely his worst to date - and that is saying something.

CURRENT GAZZA

THE BRILLIANT GAZZA

---

Unrelated (in part) Does Temporary Chief Constable Sue Sim need a make over?

I think so.

'The Daily Fail on Friday likens her to Alice from 'Vicar of Dibley' and Maggie Thatcher's spitting image puppet. I'm an ex senior detective of 30 years service and her and her partner make me cringe every time I see them ' Mister Mooot'. For goodness sake, send in the Ghurkas they'll find him'. says John.

People collect the weirdest things - Part 2.87

2010-06-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

Spotted on page 3 of today's Metro, is the somewhat bizzare case of 44 year old mother-of-three Patti Gaal-Holmes from Wales, UK who has spent the last 11 years "collecting" 32,000 used tea-bags.

WTF !!

Alas, it gets even worse:-

"She then numbers the bag and sometimes notes down who she drank the tea with and anything interesting they discussed".

OMFG !!

Oh noes, it gets beyond really weird:-

"She even fishes teabags out of the bin to put in a special box she carries if she is enjoying a cup with a friend who is unaware of her craving".

FAINTS.....

PLoS Moves Up (yet) Another Gear

2010-06-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

As of today, it has now been announced >> (in writing) << in the public domain that this year, PLoS ONE, is "soon to become the world's largest (STM - Ed) journal"

In part, here's the word on the webz from PLoS:-

"We need to move because we've simply outgrown our existing location. With the rapid growth of PLoS ONE (soon to become the word's largest journal) and the increasing volume of articles sent to PLoS following the NIH mandate (with hopefully more to come if the Federal Research Public Access Act becomes law), we need to get ready to expand even more".

As a layperson who is totally supportive of Open Science related issues, this is a most welcome development on many levels.

Song Level Metrics - An Introduction

2010-06-07T09:42:00.000-07:00

So, what does Song Level Metrics (SLM's) actually mean??

Let me try to explain.

Image from here on Flickr

Ive been interested in some of (what I consider to be) the cross-overs between music and scientific publishing since 2007.

In terms of scientific publishing, in an attempt to move away from the much criticised Journal "Impact Factor", in March 2009, The Public Library Of Science introduced Article Level Metrics (ALM's) on every article in all of their titles.

For some time, I've been meaning to blog something in detail about SLM's but I simply haven't got round to doing so. I did however recently (briefly) discuss ALM's and SLM's during an informal with PLoS ONE's Peter Binfield.

As such, let's kick things off (in terms of SLM's) with an introduction AND case in point from today.

--

Image sourced from here.

What prompted me to write this post was a conversation with someone at work today. Unbeknown to me, the individual is also a musician so we had a quick chat about our muso activities.

I was informed by this chap that he and his band had recently frequented the prestigious Abbey Road Studios in London to record a few tracks. Photographic evidence (from a PC) was supplied (of being there) but so far, mastering of the music is incomplete so he was unable to share what might be classed as unpublished data. As such, this was a "personal communication".

So without being privy to this unpublished (musical) material, do I (as he alluded to) judge this work based upon the "Impact Factor" of where it was recorded (let's compare this to where a scientific Manuscript was published) or do I judge the material in it's own right?

I really do look forward to listening to the material to make up my own mind. (16 mic's alone on his drum kit! Sounds good. Max I managed was 8).

When I asked if he/they would be uploading this stuff to the web, I was met bit a rather blank face. Anyway....

--

"MacJams is an online studio where musicians congregate, collaborate and critique each other for the betterment of their music and skills as musicians". Join us today, for FREE.

One then rapidly proceeded to show this guy where anyone could access all of the material that I have produced/co-produced. It then re-occured to me that since SLM's are also built into that platform that this conversation was a good grass roots example (in musical terms) of "Impact Factor" v's SLM's.

I should add that MacJams is simply one "Repository". Most people these days upload their stuff to web using a multitude of parking sites, also for free.

To be continued.....

My point I guess is simple. Get your material out there to the masses as widely and openly as possible and let them judge/comment/share/annotate etc. etc.

And now, a not completely unrelated video.

On how to sneak in a BioMed Central Open Access turtle into 'The Gherkin' - London - Part One

2010-05-28T11:41:00.000-07:00

As a follow on from this recent post on FriendFeed, my Gulliver Turtle clone has been training even harder after it's rigorous week long training session at BMC's HO (you can now, on request, get you own by emailing Gulliver directly) and I are training it down to London a week on Thursday for BioMed Central's turtely fantastic 10th Anniversary and 4th Annual Research Awards event being hosted in London's most prestigious St. Mary Axe, aka, The Gherkin.

Gulliver clone #536 inspects Mr G. S. of Glasgow's invite and shortly thereafter, fell of it's stool (Gulliver, not Mr G. S. of Glasgow and/or the invitation).

Providing clone #536 and I get through strict ID security checks upon arrival (and my dress code is deemed as being sufficiently 'smart'), we'll team up to bring y'all some neat footage (maybe even a tweet or three) once we're inside this turtely awesome structure.

--

SECRET PASSCODE looks like it's gonna be, "Does my turtle look big in this?".

Open Science Contact List

2010-05-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

(Image c/o Judy Breck - Flickr)

Back in March, I decided to place into the public domain a working document with contact details for many of the key folks I've connected with in the Open Access Community since late 2006.

-----------

Last weekend on FriendFeed, I came across the following video:-

Following my conversation yesterday with Josh Sommer, Executive Director of the Chordoma Foundation, it would be really useful to work on a similar document but this time, one containing contact details for people who are directly/indirectly affiliated and/or associated in Open Science. As matters stand, (correct me if I'm wrong), I do not think that such a list already exists. If it does, then I will happily scrap this project.

Unlike the previous list, rather than doing this on my own, it would seem much more appropriate to start this myself and then crowd source. As such, I've set up a new Google Doc in the public domain to which anyone can view/edit:-

Open Science Contact List

With my Patient Advocacy hat on, I am mainly thinking about the Life Sciences, but sense that this should also be extended to other areas such as Citizen Sciences.

I would be most grateful for your assistance in helping build a working document/resource which I hope will be of use to many many people/organizations across the world.

Thank you,

Graham

Razzle, Frazzle, Dazzle & Zazzle

2010-04-02T09:21:00.000-07:00

Last November, for McDawg's birthday, as the folks at PLoS over the years have very generously kitted me out with PLoS tshirts (and various other stuff), I thought it was time to give something back. So off I went to the new PLoS store and was dazzled at the fine array (page after page) of cool stuff in store.

Very hard to choose what to buy but since I've always wanted a 'Hamsters Love PLoS' item

(not to be confused with this)

and the fact that it was winter, I very quickly established that a hoodie would be ideal. It arrived through the post most speedily.

My bad however for not reading the label inside and as I discovered after this garments first visit to my washing machine, it was labelled 'cold wash only' and the damage was done:-

A few weeks later, during a fairly regular chat with PLoS, I was advised to flag up the issue so I did. What I certainly wasn't expecting was being given face value credit at the store for something to replace it !! As was pointed out to me, Zazzle.com have a 100% satisfaction guarantee which unfortunately I wasn't aware of at that time.

So then along came the replacement:-

Whilst partially on topic, as I found out recently,

"It’s worth knowing that there is only one official PLoS store and it contains images and logos that have been approved by the organization. However, if you search on Zazzle for PLoS you will find products bearing our name that have been created by other individuals because Zazzle allows anyone to start their own store and feature their own designs. You are welcome to shop where you wish but only the official PLoS store contains our approved merchandize".

Absolutely !!

Despite the above minor minor incident, I'll certainly be dropping by the PLoS store again soon.

"The plan is to introduce new designs as and when they become available, increase the product range (my son is waiting for the PLoS skateboard), load up cover images, introduce more user customization and make improvements based on your e-mail feedback.

Happy shopping!"

Feed your PLoS t-shirt obsession – announcing the new PLoS store!

ONE Size Fits All: Bumper Special

NHS eLibrary becomes The Knowledge Network‏

2010-01-30T09:48:00.000-08:00

(NHS = National Health Service)

But first, by means of some background to this. See this post on Open Access News and also this post on McBlawg.

--

Via email yesterday:-

From the end of January, all visits to the eLibrary will redirect to The Knowledge Network at www.knowledge.scot.nhs.uk. We hope you like our new website, which includes :

a new faster search;

quicker access to journals, articles and books ;

many customisation features, enabling you to locate resources you use regularly

a new area called My Resource Space, giving you a personal webspace to save and organise resources. (Ed - this, I particularly like the sound of !!)

To contact us, please email eLibrary@nes.scot.nhs.uk.

We apologise if you receive multiple copies of this email. ATHENS Administration Team NHS Education for Scotland Clifton House Clifton Place GLASGOW G3 7LD Tel: 0141 352 2892

Having access to the resources available via the NHS eLibrary has been an important part of my patient advocacy work over the last two years. I very much like the look and feel of The Knowledge Network website already. It's certainly an improvement for the old site good although as it was. I'll definately be keeping a close eye on the new one and must make contact with the people who maintain this really really useful information web portal.

From the new site, see the likes of:-

Why has the eLibrary changed?

IMO, more people should be aware of these resources and how lay-people like myself and not just NHS staff, can gain access to them, hence this post.

ScienceOnline 2010 #scio10 - Virtual Attendance Tips

2010-01-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

(Source: Science Online 2010 logo remix)

++UPDATE++ - All the linky links you might need are contained here. H/T Bora

How is it possible to really look forward to attending a cool science Conference - without actually being there for the event in person?

"ScienceOnline2010, the fourth annual conference on science and the Web, will be held on January 14-17th, 2010 at Sigma Xi in the Research Triangle Park".

Quite easily, actually.

But before going into the detail, let's spin the clock back two years.

Cue post How was it for you which I posted on the JoVE blog 20th January 2008. That was my first experience of virtually attending a conference and it was an awesome experience. Also see How was it for you? Interview with Graham Steel over at A Blog Around The Clock.

What held this one together (IMO) for those following virtually was a combination of the live video streams and chatrooms. It was also very useful to familiarise oneself (pre-event) with the online tools required to follow events in real-time.

--

Most unfortunately, I was unable to follow scienceonline09 as I was unable to connect to the interwebz that weekend (problem with local ISP connection). I did however still manage to fling together a photo montage of shots taken on the day before the main event:-

Science Online '09 - Friday Shots from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

I did catch up with events when I got my connection back thanks to the extensive blog and media coverage.

What I did miss out on was all the real-time coverage online.

Whilst one really wanted to attend this years event in person, I'll happily settle with virtual attendance based upon previous experiences.

Since I missed out on a large chunk of the last one I can only imagine that with the addition of Twitter and FriendFeed (these didn't exist in early 2008) on top of live-streaming etc. this is going to be quite an experience.

Walter Jessen has very recently uploaded a PDF version of the conference program which will come in handy to those attending in person or virtually. (Thanks, Walt).

The associated Flickr photo pool as below should start to fill up later in the coming week and am also looking forward to this:-

So, if you are interested in science and an annual science communication conference but can't get there in person, you now know some of the online places to check out next weekend.

Last and not least, don't forget the Blog and Media Coverage.

++UPDATE 1++ Also keep a check on the Official ScienceOnline2010 blog.

--

"Please join us for this active three-day event to explore science on the Web. Our goal is to bring together scientists, physicians, patients, educators, students, publishers, editors, bloggers, journalists, writers, web developers, programmers and others to discuss, demonstrate and debate online strategies and tools for doing science, publishing science, teaching science, and promoting the public understanding of science".

"This BlogTogether conference is organized by Anton Zuiker, Bora Zivkovic, Stephanie Willen Brown and David Kroll, with the help of many of you".

Slow cooked lamb with two stuffings

2009-12-27T09:01:00.000-08:00

Moving on from my last blog post about cooking, here's a new one from Christmas Day, 2009.

(NOTE: The basis for this recipe can be found here on the Channel4.com website.)

STAGE ONE

Ask your local butcher to prepare you a suitable boned-out piece of lamb. For this recipe, a 1.5kg chump gigot chop (of lamb) was used:-

STAGE TWO

Remove packaging and fat side facing down, open out the joint as far as possible before stuffing:-

Set meat aside.

STAGE THREE

The stuffing. In this case, I went for two quite different ones as I could not decide which one I preferred.

Stuffing One:-

3-4 cloves garlic
6-8 fillets anchovies (not available so used 2 - 3 spring onions)
1 tbsp capers
flat-leaf parsley
olive oil
mustard
crushed black pepper

1. Crush and chop garlic, place anchovies on top of garlic and chop again.

2. Add capers and chop again, then plenty of flat-leafed parsley to the other ingredients and chop once more.

3. Place chopped mixture into a bowl, add a trickle of olive oil and mustard to bring it all together and pepper to taste.

Stuffing Two:-

one cupful of uncooked haggis
125g dried ready-to-eat apricots, chopped
75g fresh white breadcrumbs
leaves from 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
wee dram of fine single malt scotch whisky
olive oil

1. Mix the stuffing ingredients together in a bowl and season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

You should then have something resembling this:-

Stage FOUR

Bring back the already prepared joint and by the spoon and then the hand, it's time to get stuffing. Spread all over the inside (for this recipe, half and half) of the opened-out lamb, covering all cut surfaces and into any crevices.

One should now have something like this:-

Stage FIVE aka the difficult bit.

Roll up the gigot of lamb and tie it together with string to make a neat parcel.

Having never done anything like this before, this was a tad on tricky side. Two pairs of hands were required and this was the best we could manage under the circumstances:-

Stage SIX

Place on a roasting tray in a pre-heated oven at 220°C (gas mark 7) for 40 minutes, then turn the oven down to 150°C (gas mark 2) for approximately 2-2 ½ hours until tender.

(By twenty minutes in, I soon realised that I should have listened to my Mum and put a lid on it. Things were getting a tad smokey in the kitchen).

After the 40 minute mark and having reduced the heat as instructed, time to chillax. PHEW !

Stage SEVEN

With an hour to go, add some frozen seasonal veggies into the oven (e.g. roast potatoes and parsnips.)

Prepare some more veggies for the microwave (in this case, peas, mushy peas and broccoli):-

Also prepare some gravy, of course. Went for the easy method with a sachet of Colman's lamb gravy powder, and 1/2 a pint of water. Seasoned it with a dollop or two of blackcurrant jelly, (another) dram of whisky, chopped rosemary, most of the juices from the roasing tin and salt & pepper.

(Note the slight scortching from not using a lid as mentioned in Stage SIX).

Stage EIGHT

Time to get the carving knives (in this case, machine) out having rested the meat for 10 mins.

Stage NINE

Find somewhere appropriate to serve and eat. Oh, this looks nice:-

"Nom nom nom" time.....

We Have the Right to Open Access (video)

2009-12-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

"A short video promoting the Open Access Movement created by a Library and Information Science student". Posted by HeatherHaliday

OMG !!! - Ticket master at my local train station had a heart attack today when I was buying my ticket

2009-12-09T10:41:00.000-08:00

Well, a slight embellishment but I might have grabbed your attention !! He almost had a heart attack.

He (he has a name and that is Dennis) has been urging me for a wee while (read on) to purchase a monthly rail pass rather than daily tickets.

I was speaking with Dennis yesterday to ask about what appeared to be a new change of policy on purchasing daily return tickets onboard the train on my daily commute to work. During the discussion he brought up a "history lesson". Dennis said that 15 years ago, he first suggested going for the monthly travel pass thingy. I stated that it was actually 12 years and that I had a note of this in my diary. I was of course just kidding. Anyways, he said that all he needed from me was a passport photo.

Hhmm. So I gave this some reflictive thought over the next 24 hours.

Cutting a boring story short, on the way home from work tonight, I purchased these:-

Now the last time (circa 5 years ago) I calculated the cost of daily tickets v's travel pass, it was still cheaper to pay daily. I wondered if this had changed.

Armed with my hidden passport photos, I leapt into Queens Park Stattion and to my delight, Dennis was on the shift. This was gonna be fun. "Hey Dennis. How much is a monthly travel pass?" It was £9 a month cheaper than buying daily tickets. I promptly ripped up my daily return and played my next card. El photos.

And that is where, he must have thought to himself, OMFG.......

Thankfully, rather than Dennis having a heart attack, he actually took a photo of me. Photo not shown as he doesn't yet know how to upload stuff to teh interwebz :-(

Anyways, the upshot to all this "utter pish" is that I now can haz one of these:-

(As I told Dennis tonight, the reason that I didn't opt for the travel pass initially was that it was very easy to dodge paying for a ticket on the train back in the old days until they erected a human ticket barrier system to Glasgow Central Station a few years ago).

Scotrail 2.0

So, now that I haz my new pass thingy, will this mean having less banter with Scotrail staff ??? Only time will tell.

Cue this classic Glasgae sketch from Chewin' The Fat featuring "Gary & James" et al .....

"Wake Up Now"

2009-11-28T10:14:00.000-08:00

Since my last post (c/o a robot) mangled the layout of McBlawg, here is an air-freshener.

You can read how this song was re-mastered here.

(The re-mastered version of this track got lost in cyberspace, so I self-archived it into another repository)

It was great to get "the whole band" to sing on the Choruses and a recording I'm quite proud of.

An attempt to fathom out why Hamsters love PLoS...

2009-11-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

My package from Razzle, sorry Zazzle arrived at work this morning.

This post by Bora aka Coturnix on 17th Nov essentially set the scene.

Closely followed by this FriendFeed thread:-

And without any further ado, here is my cool PLoS hoodie:-

FAB !!!

Excellent quality material and online print on demand/shipping time from CA, USA to Scotland took only 7 working days. Nice one, Zazzle (plus they threw in a freebie white Zazzle t-shirt too).

--

Whilst I've wanted a "Hamsters love PLoS" garment for a while, I remain at a loss as to what the logo might actually mean. And even before wearing it, some peeps have been asking. I expect more to do so when I wear it to work tomorrow and down the pub afterwards.

So I searched teh interbebz and here's what I found.

1) The connection of the logo to PLoS.org Not surprisingly, the best resource was from PLoS via this blog post by Liz Allen, July 2007:- "We hope that you like our picture entitled "Hamsters love PLoS.org". It was drawn by one of our founders' kids and has even appeared on a tee-shirt."

OK, so there is the connection to PLoS.

2) But what about the hamster in the spherical object. Hhmm. During my search, I happened upon (again) the blog post, Impact Fauna January 2009 by a certain Dr Henry Gee, Senior Editor at Nature.com

"Gee Minor models ScienceOnline09 swag, earlier today"

On the "X" loves "Y" front, I created a few images of my own. And here they are again....

A) Chickens love Nature.com

B) Centaurs love Improbable Research

and C) Dolphins love Science

--

So, bearing mind the above and also, this

and that,

I've come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, Hamsters love PLoS. End of story. They just do.

If you support the likes of PLoS and Open Access, please do drop by the official PLoS store, have a good look around and happy shopping !!

Symptoms of being over 25

2009-11-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

Image c/o Moomettesgram, here on Flickr.

From a friend via email today....

1. You leave clubs before the end to "beat the rush".

2. You get more excited about having a roast on a Sunday than going clubbing.

3. You stop dreaming of becoming a professional footballer and start dreaming of having a son who might instead.

4. Before throwing the local paper away, you look through the property section.

5. You prefer Later with Jools Holland to Top of the Pops.

6. All of a sudden, Tony Blair is not 46, he's only 46.

7. Before going out anywhere, you ask what the parking is like.

8. Rather than throw a knackered pair of trainers out, you keep them because they'll be all right for the garden.

9. You buy your first ever T-shirt without anything written on it.

10. Instead of laughing at the innovations catalogue that falls out of the newspaper, you suddenly see both the benefit and money saving properties of a plastic winter cover for your garden bench and an electronic mole repellent for the lawn. Not to mention the plastic man for the car to deter would-be thieves.

11. You start to worry about your parents' health.

12. You complain that ecstasy's "not as pure as it used to be coz you know that if you have some it will take about 48 hours to recover and anyway,you might look a bit of an idiot.

13. Sure, you have more disposable income, but everything you want to buy costs between 200 and 500 quid.

14. You don't get funny looks when you buy a Disney video or a Wallace and Gromit bubble bath, as the sales assistant assumes they are for your child.

15. Pop music all starts to sound crap.

16. You opt for Pizza Express over Pizza Hut because they don't have any pictures on the menus and anyway, they do a really nice half-bottle of house white.

17. You become powerless to resist the lure of self-assembly furniture.

18. You always have enough milk in.

19. To compensate for the fact that you have little desire to go clubbing,you instead frequent really loud tapas restaurants and franchise pubs with wacky names in the mistaken belief that you have not turned into your parents.

20. While flicking through the TV channels, you happen upon C4's Time Team with Tony Robinson. You get drawn in.

21. The benefits of a pension scheme become clear.

22. You go out of your way to pick up a colour chart from B&Q.

23. You wish you had a shed.

24. You have a shed.

25. You actually find yourself saying "They don't make 'em like that anymore" and "I remember when there were only 3 TV channels" and "Of course, in my day...."

26. Radio 2 play more songs you know than Radio 1 - and Jimmy Young had some really interesting guests on.

27. Instead of tutting at old people who take ages to get off the bus, you tut at school children whose diction is poor.

28. When sitting outside a pub you become envious of their hanging baskets.

29. You make an effort to be in and out of the curry house by 11.

30. You come face to face with your own mortality for the first time

31. You find yourself saying "is it cold in here or is it just me?"

'The Seduction of Claude Debussy'

2009-11-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

As a close follower of the workings of Producer, Trevor Horn, I was most attracted to this CD back in 1999. It inspired several tracks that I produced myself over the following years.

--

Cue this wiki page about Claude Debussy.

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With the web 'n all that, in this case thanks largely to last.fm.com, you can now listen to this album in it's entirety for free, or purchase the CD.

Track listing

1. "Il Pleure (At the Turn of the Century)"
2. "Born on a Sunday"
3. "Dreaming in Colour"
4. "On Being Blue"
5. "Continued in Colour"
6. "Rapt: In the Evening Air"
7. "Metaforce"
8. "Holy Egoism of Genius"
9. "La Flûte de Pan"
10. "Metaphor on the Floor"
11. "Approximate Mood Swing No. 2"
12. "Pause"
13. "Out of This World [Version 138]"

"GOLD" - 1994 by Symbol aka Prince

2009-11-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

This one has been on my mind all day and eventually found a version previously posted online.

Welcome to Open Access Week 2009, from SPARC

2009-10-18T12:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Open Access Week 2009, from SPARC from Jennifer McLennan on Vimeo.

SPARC is a proud co-organizer of Open Access Week 2009 and is pleased to offer this welcome to the global celebrations, to be held October 19 - 23, 2009. See openaccessweek.org for details. In addition to a welcome and thanks to organizers, partners, and participants, SPARC principals cast the Week in the context of the international movement toward free, open, online, and immediate access to the results of scholarly research. Ideal way to open your week or your session, or to spread the word by email.

(c) Subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

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A short, but informative introduction by Heather Joseph and Jennifer McLennan from SPARC.

Ways to keep up with Open Access Week 2009

1) Follow events via the Official Open Access Week website
2) Page, Events celebrating Open Access Week wiki on the Open Access Directory
3) Open Access News Website and also OATP via Twitter
4) Twitter, via the official hashtag #oaw09
5) Friendfeed, via the Open Access Week Room

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Spinning back, some previous related McBlawg posts:-

1) Open Access Day on FriendFeed Oct 4th '08

2) 'Open Access Week': Some Posts from the Blogosphere April 13th '08

The Isle of Lewis and The Birth & Death of an Oil Industry

2009-10-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

As a follow on from "It's All About Steam", this one is about Oil.

Just there on BBC2, was a fascinating 10 min "time-filler" as the previous programme (snooker) finished earlier than scheduled. They chose a segment from the 2007 series of Coast on the Outer Hebrides.

"This rugged remote coast is a wonderland of stacks, secret inlets and wind swept secluded beaches. The dramatic coastline is rich with culture and traditions which are deeply rooted across the 120 islands that make up the Outer Hebrides".

The main focus of this segment was specifically in terms of the Isle of Lewis.

Plain sailing so far, but what's the historical connection between the Isle of Lewis and oil??? Follows a semantically enhanced version of a link above.

Isle of Lewis - Birth of an Oil Industry

Stornoway is the largest town on Lewis and the commercial hub for the islands. Over 150 years ago it saw the surprising birth of an oil industry.

In 1844 the island was bought (£190,000) by James Matheson who helped build the area for the community.

Ed- He also had a wee Castle built for him. Lews Castle to be precise.

"Lews Castle is a Victorian era castle located west of the town of Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland. It was built in the years 1847-57 as a country house for Sir James Matheson who had bought the whole island a few years previously with his fortune from the Chinese Opium trade". Hhmm.

Although Matheson had retired he was forever the entrepreneur, and it was more than the natural beauty of the island that caught his eye - it was the islands vast resource of peat.

For years peat had been used as a domestic fuel. Matheson wanted to take it one step further and use the peat to make hydrocarbon oil. At the time paraffin oil was used for lighting and it came from fish and whales. But how did Matheson make oil from peat?

Armed with a bag of peat and a metal drum, Mike Bullivant from the Open University illustrates the magical properties of peat. By burning the peat, tar is extracted and distilled further, extracting paraffin oil.

Originally, Matheson set up his works at his castle, but the process poisoned the fish in his pond so he moved the process outside. But when all the fish were poisoned in the nearby river, Matheson called in chemist Dr Benjamin Paul (Ed - can't find anything abot him on teh webz) to take charge of the distillation.

The process also gave of a flammable gas - which the night watchman discovered when doing his rounds with a candle, resulting in the chimney catching fire. Forever efficient, Dr Paul used the excess gas to burn the peat, which was used to make paraffin lamp oil, candles, and the excess tar was sold as lubricant and sheep dip.

Alice Roberts joins Ali Whiteford and discovers how this area of peat land was transformed into a full blown chemical works.

The Lewis Chemical Works was the first company to be a commercial success of converting peat into oil. But Dr Paul left and his successor cooked the books, lining his own pockets.

Twenty two years later the site closed and all that's visible today is the track of the Works.

SOURCE

Model sues Mexican plastic surgeon for not making her nipples "even" after a breast implant !!!

2009-10-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

'Would You Believe It' (WYBI) - Part two

As a follow on from 'Would You Believe It' (WYBI)- Part one, here is, err, part two.

Fresh in email box is the following.

Being a public domain blog, McDawg has placed what appears to look like a plaster (strategically angled) over part of the following image (nipples not shown). Other than that, you'll get the picture/story.

Saturday night is.......Balti Night

2009-09-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

Suggested listening material.

Inspired in part by @cromercrox who recently livetweeted a cookery sketch about chutney making, I post herewith the following.

When McDawg gets home from a hard days work, the last thing they want to do is to slave over a hot stove preparing dinner for the night. As such, usually once a month now, I spend a Saturday afternoon/evening preparing and cooking a large batch of meals for future enjoyment. Here's what happened last night.

Ingredients

8 chicken breasts
3 beef fillets

4 large onions
1 bunch of spring onions
one bunch of fresh coriander
2 bulbs of garlic
2 medium sized stems of fresh ginger
3/4 carton of passata
vegetable ghee
vegetable oil
sesame oil
12-14 chillis
2 limes
5 - 6 mixed peppers
roasted cashew nuts
1.5 packets of chinese curry sauce mix
3 pints of water
balti curry paste
yogurt
balti cooking sauce
2 other chinese cooking sauces
light & dark soya sauce
2 egg whites
cornflour
salt and freshly ground pepper

In rough order.

Dice and slice the meat. Marinate and chill according to dishes being prepared.

Whisk together the water and chinese curry mix, bring to boil and set aside for later.

Slice and dice all vegetables other than garlic and ginger.

During the above process, take some of these:

and roast them in sesame oil and a pinch of salt for about 20 mins, turning from time to time.

Finally, finely chop the garlic and ginger. Personally, I tend to go for a 40% ginger/60% garlic mix:

Right. That's all the prep done so time for a break and a beer.

For Indian dishes, a Karahi works miles better than a wok.

For the Balti dishes, after you've sealed the marinated chicken and added all of the (required) ingredients, you want to seal and simmer for about 30 mins. At the very end, add the juice of 1 - 2 limes and garnish with freshly chopped coriander:

That's 4 dishes prepared, 10 still to go !!

Time for another beer break.

With the chinese curry sauce already prepared, it doesn't take long to make half a dozen or so chicken and beef dishes. The methodology in the following video is slightly different from what I do but produces the same end result:

You've guessed it, another beer break.

Almost all done. There should be sufficient ingredients left to make a further 3 - 4 dishes. With variety being the spice of life, time to whip up a few different dishes using the yet to be used sauces.

Since I cook at a leisurely pace, after about 5 hours, one reaches the finishing line:

Allow to cool completely (I usually leave overnight) before freezing:

Oh, I guess these will come in handy laters....

Freedom of Information: what's in it for researchers? (and Daleks). Workshop, Glasgow, UK, 14th September 2009

2009-09-15T05:47:00.001-07:00

BACKGROUND

A few months ago, either through reading the Research Information Network’s (RIN) website here or this post on Nature Network I was alerted to a free Workshop here in Glasgow which seemed of interest, and it was. I signed up right away as an attendee.

Two weekends ago however, I was alerted to this post on the BBC in that the venue in question for the event had been placed into administration. Utter bummer. I set about contacting the event organisers by email for clarification on the event and hat’s off to Event Logistics Ltd for their prompt responses. This resulted in this tweet I posted on Sept 1st. Yay, the gig was still going ahead as planned. Additional tweet the next day.

McDawg only became aware of the RIN about 4-5 months ago but very much likes what they do/are involved in. About RIN Since I also have an interest in the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) and the fact that this workshop was right on my doorstep (well, six minutes by train), McDawg simply had to attend.

The night before, I pulled together some of my Open Access (OA) swag which I have been known before to stick in my rucky when attending events of interest. The RIN are certainly fully supportive of OA Indeed, one of the sessions (Session 3: Open access, empty archives? A word of warning) of this event mentioned OA although alas, it was not directly related to OA (as I know OA) in the end, per se.

That said, as I was about to find out when I rummaged through my Delegates Pack, it did indeed contain several OA related RIN Brochures:-

THE WORKSHOP

Yesterday morning, I arrived at The LightHouse at around 10:00 as planned. The programme for the Workshop can be found here.

First to speak was Stéphane Goldstein, Head of Programmes, RIN. Stéphane provided some background about the RIN during his opening remarks. From my notes, the RIN “chanced upon” FoI about two years ago. Mention was made of the prelude to this workshop which was the first one in London, Sept 2008. Full details here. ++UPDATE++ As pointed out in the comment thread, there's also a podcast with highlights of the Sept 08 workshop here. I've just created a streaming version of the podcast to save folks having to download the MP3.

Observation. From the Summary Report, "One interesting issue raised at the meeting was the potential impact of blogging on the scale of FoI requests. At the moment in the UK, there are 1000,000 FoI requests a year. Might this not increase hugely if bloggers start to become aware of the potential represented by FoI". Food for thought !!

Next to speak was David Goldberg, former Co-Convener Campaign for Freedom of Information in Scotland who Chaired the Workshop. David discussed the “complex mosaic of FOI Law” in the UK and the differences between the Scottish and UK FOI Acts. He also touched upon one of the main reasons that I attended. See the blog post entitled “Open Access redacted” by Heather Etchevers on Nature Network. As I explained to David during the morning coffee break, there is concern amongst the scientific community about usage of the FoI. He mentioned during his talk that under Section 27/2 of the FoI (Scotland) Act (FOISA), that researchers can refuse access for information (under an FoI request) for example if their work is “part of an ongoing piece of research”. The actual wording is:-

S.27(2) Where the information is “obtained in the course of, or derived from, a programme of research”.

Source

The next speaker was Prof Duncan Tanner, Director, Welsh Institute for Social and Cultural Affairs, Bangor University. David mentioned that “FoI is not an easy thing to use” and that “you need to work closely with records managers”. He then gave a broad discussion about FoI in terms of Devolution issues. He also mentioned “a researchers guide to using FoI” and there was a link to this on the RIN website. I haven’t managed to find it yet though. ++UPDDATE++ I think this is it Innovative Uses of the Freedom of Information Act (2000) for Research

Duncan's presentation can be found here.

Next to take the podium was Sarah Hutchison, Head of Policy and Information, Scottish Information Commissioner. Sarah mentioned that over 80 countries now have FoI in place and the UK is still catching up on the likes of the USA, Canada and Australia that have had FoI in place since around 1980. Scotland however was the first country in the world to release data (under FoI) on surgical mortality rates in hospitals for example. Mention was made of website whatdotheyknow.com Her “slides will be online” so will post a link when I find it. The link is here.

COFFEE BREAK

A fine duo of speakers next in terms of Bruno Longmore and Hugh Hagan from the National Archives of Scotland (NAS). Their positions, respectively, Head of Government Records and Senior Inspecting Officer Government Records Branch, NAS. Hugh informed those present that the Thirty Year Rule did not and does not apply in Scotland. The FOISA was started in 2002 and came into force on 01/01/2005. One of the key concepts of the FoI is to balance “individual privacy and public need”. Hugh then took to the floor to talk about records management at the NAS.

Bruno and Hugh's presentation can be found here.

Prior to a most meaty/wholesome luncheon, there were three short case study presentations from Amy Gibbons, Dr Sarah Glynn and Martin Jones. Amy's presentation can be found here and the one from Martin, here.

LUNCHTIME

A most excellent spread I have to say – 10/10 !!!! Nom nom nom

Time to set up a wee Open Access stall and quite a few folks took away some of the swag. NICE.

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Very brief Dr Who Segment appears if you are still reading, a hint follows, in a bit.

---

Freelance Historian, Harriet Jones (not be confused with this Harriet Jones) was the next speaker. Limited notes but she mentioned that Sweden adopted FOI as early as 1766 but that these days, the Swedish Government no longer record notes of their meetings !!

Parallel workshops time next before we reconvened for a Plenary Session led by David Goldberg. Nice wrap up and planning ahead for future RIN workshops. David thanked the three RIN staff for having this one “outwith London” and suggested the likes of Newcastle or Liverpool for the next one.

Final words by Stéphane who mentioned that all the PPT’s will be posted up on the RIN website shortly. During end of day refreshments, I mentioned to Stéphane that I was the only person who had taken photographs of the event and that I would get them uploaded to Flickr and provide a link. Thanks to Twitter though, RIN’s Branwen Hide despite the fact that she’s currently in Sweden at the 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing has already placed a link to the photos here.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later - Remix

2009-09-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Still catching up with teh webz, but getting there.

Earlier today, I stumbled upon an excellent slideshow all about Social Media. A cracker, but IMO, it lacked something.

I've only uploaded 2 slideshows to SlideShare, both were PPT format.

I love remix.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later was uploaded a month ago, has had >145,000 views and 130 comments, so far. COOL =)

Apparently, you're not allowed to add MP3 music files to SlideShare, related audio speaking files only. That's not strictly true, though. Coughs

So, here is the same Slideshow with an embedded MP3 file I created 2 weekends ago. I have no idea yet as to how this will work as I've only just created this, with robot assistance.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later - music mash-up

View more documents from Graham Steel.

8tracks

2009-09-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

Online music experiment 12.5

8tracks is a simple way for people to create or listen to a mix, a short
playlist containing at least 30 minutes — roughly 8 tracks — of music.

What is 8tracks?

PLoS & Mendeley live on the Web! Science Hour with Leo Laporte & Dr. Kiki

2009-08-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks (again) to FriendFeed,

I was pointed in the general direction of something right up my street. In this case, a blog post from Mendeley alerting readers about Science Hour with Leo Laporte & Dr. Kiki featuring Jason Hoyt from Mendeley and Pete Binfield from PLoS ONE.

As the show went out at 11:00PM UK time on August 27, 2009, Sadly, I missed it in real time, but thanks to the benefits of self archiving, they made the entire show, warts and all, freely available.

This is an excellent free flowing discussion about Open Access, the future of academic publishing, science on the Web, the list goes on. The actual show starts at 05:30 so skip to there if you want to jump straight in....

PLoS & Mendeley live on the Web! Science Hour with Leo Laporte & Dr. Kiki from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

FHM - #fail c/o Robert Downey JR

2009-08-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, McDawg purchased two packets of sandwiches, a Grande tea, a copy of New Scientist and FHM before alighting the Virgin Express train from Glasgow to Euston, London ahead of Science Online London 2009 and also indeed, the World Gala Premiere of Darwin's Lost Weekend, the latter marking my entry after 20 years of wanting to do so into the land of film-scoring.

Having only bought one previous copy of the "lad's mag" FHM before, I thought I had correctly picked up and purchased the latest edition of the mag. Terrific

Oops. Wrong mag, but a darn fine one actually which was quite appropriate under the circumstances and came into discussion several times during my travels.

PLoS's HQ in the UK is a house?? Surely some mistake.

2009-08-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

McDawg had three scheduled meetings yesterday whilst still in London after attending Science Online London 2009.

For my final meeting, as planned, I took the express train from King's Cross Station to Cambridge and then took a cab to the offices of the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

I was rather perplexed however at what I saw:-

View Larger Map

In the centre of the above street view photo, you will see two blue doors. The one on the left is number 7. PLoS are based at number 7 Portugal Place. According to the Google map of that area that I printed off a week ago, I was indeed standing in Portugal Place:-

View Larger Map

So, I was left thinking that PLoS HQ (UK) is not an office, but instead, a small terraced residential house ???? Confused? I sure as hell was. For a nano-second, I was tempted to ring the bell of number 7 but my brain told me, "there's something not right here".

Placed a short call to PLoS. Essentially, I was extremely close to where I was meant to be, "stay where you are and I'll come out and get you". "I'm wearing a PLoS ONE t-shirt", I said. The above map is slightly misleading in that I was standing in Portugal STREET not Portugal Place.

--

Whilst sitting in a meeting room (within PLoS), I couldn't help but notice a stack of colourful, in-print copies of PLoS Journals. I had no idea that PLoS used to publish in paper format several years ago. Interesting.

Very much enjoyed the discussions I had with Ginny Barbour and Theo Bloom. Thank you both kindly for taking the time out to speak with The International Man Of Mystery and Patient Advocate

Before I left, I asked if it would be OK to take a couple of photos inside PLoS HQ (UK). Since there were no objections from PLoS staff......

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Making the Web Work for Science

2009-08-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

'Making the Web Work for Science July 28th 2009. A panel discussion on bringing digital tools to the world of science with panelists Stephen Friend, Jimmy Wales and John Wilbanks moderated by Tim O'Reilly'.

Making the Web Work for Science - Full from Jordan Mendelson on Vimeo.

Click here to the original source to view individual Chapters.

Major H/T to Lisa Green for putting this one together.

Summary

Digital technologies have greatly enhanced our ability to communicate and share information, but the scientific community remains largely untouched by these advances.

Why doesn't the web work for science the way it works for culture and for commerce? What will it take to make science digital?

Join the Commonwealth Club of California for a fascinating discussion on the movement to bring digital methods to the world of science.

BIO

Stephen Friend - Dr. Friend is currently a Senior Vice President at Merck & Co., Inc. where he has had scientific leadership of Merck's Basic Cancer Research efforts since September 2002. In 2005, he led the Advanced Technologies and Oncology groups to firmly establish molecular profiling activities throughout Merck's laboratories around the world, as well as to coordinate oncology programs from Basic Research through phase IIA clinical trials. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Friend was recruited by Dr. Leland Hartwell to join the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's Seattle Project, an advanced institute for drug discovery. While there Drs. Friend and Hartwell developed a method for examining large patterns of genes that led them to co-found Rosetta Inpharmatics in 2001. Dr. Friend has also held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School from 1987 to 1995 and at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1990 to 1995. He received his B.A. in philosophy, his Ph.D. in biochemistry and his M.D. from Indiana University.

Tim O'Reilly - Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O'Reilly Media also publishes online through the O'Reilly Network and hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and the Web 2.0 Conference. O'Reilly's blog, the O'Reilly Radar "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. O'Reilly is on the boards of MySQL, CollabNet, Safari Books Online, Wesabe, and ValuesOfN, and is a partner in O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

Jimmy Wales - Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (born August 7, 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama) is the founder, board member and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit corporation that operates the Wikipedia project, and several other wiki projects, including Wiktionary and Wikinews. He is also the co-founder, along with Angela Beesley, of the for-profit company Wikia, Inc.

John Wilbanks - As VP of Science, John Wilbanks runs the Science Commons project at Creative Commons. He came to Creative Commons from a Fellowship at the World Wide Web Consortium in Semantic Web for Life Sciences. Previously, he founded and led to acquisition Incellico, a bioinformatics company that built semantic graph networks for use in pharmaceutical research & development. Previously, John was the first Assistant Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and also worked in US politics as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Fortney (Pete) Stark. John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tulane University and studied modern letters at the Universite de Paris IV (La Sorbonne). He is a research affiliate at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the project on Mathematics and Computation. John also serves on the Advisory Boards of the U.S. National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central, the Open Knowledge Foundation, the Open Knowledge Definition, and the International Advisory Board of the Prix Ars Electronica's Digital Communities awards. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Fedora Commons digital repository organization.

JISC - "Libraries of the Future"

2009-08-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Original Source here.

Don't know about JISC?

JISC Homepage

JISC = (the) Joint Information Systems Committee

McDawg says - "go look around the JISC website, it's brilliant".

H/T Tony Hirst via YouTube via FriendFeed

The Crew of STS 125 visits NASA Headuarters for a Tweetup

2009-07-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

What goes up must come down.

Image (from) above: From the left are astronauts Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, both mission specialists; Gregory C. Johnson, pilot; Scott D. Altman, commander; K. Megan McArthur, John M. Grunsfeld and Andrew J. Feustel, all mission specialists. Image credit: NASA

Follows an excellent video on YouTube in which the crew of STS 125 discuss the mission in detail and take loads of questions from the floor and teh interwebz. Being one of the gazillions of folks who followed this mission online in real-time, it was a most interesting watch.

The vid is 1:23:35 in length. If you don't have the time to watch it in full, McDawg recommends watching the section featuring the video of the mission from the team, section 0:22:00 to 0:43:00.

H/T Karen James on FriendFeed

Walkman 'v' i-Player - A Case Report

2009-07-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

Since McDawg's daily commute to work only takes ~ 10 minutes, unlike ~ 46.7% of fellow rail users, McDawg has not been that interested in succumbing to owning an i-pod, etc.

During 2001 - 2005 whilst flying and training it around the UK, for musical entertainment, having ditched ye olde Sony Walkman Cassette Player by then, one had moved onto a Portable CD Player and for the latter two years, had access to a Sony Vaio Laptop (albeit with an utterly shite battery life) thanks to my work in the voluntary sector.
--

Two new gadgets I bought myself over the duration were my first ever digital camera and latterly, a portable mini-disc recorder/stereo mic. The former namely used when a fellow Trustee and I travelled across the pond for the first time in 2002 for a Conference and the latter for recording digital audio of various meetings.

I've since replaced the former with a much better model (with 2-Gig memory) in 2008. I thought I had left the latter in Wash. DC in 2004 but to my surprise, I found out a few weeks ago that it had been refound by my Dad in a travel case that I borrowed from him for that trip. I'll collect it shortly (he's currently on vacation, so arrangements in place for a pick-up from friends) as I intend to record some funky stuff next month in London.

--

What I found most attractive about this gadget was that it apparently allowed rapid transfer of data from gadget to computing device (my case, a PC) via firewire. What was extremely irritating however was that due to DRM (Digital Rights Management) issues, there was no connectivity between devices. This was more than frustrating bearing in mind the fact that I was a) harvesting original (not Copyrighted) material and b) was doing so for a Registered UK Charity. In the end, I sussed out how to slow-transfer data via an analogue connection, but this defeated the purpose of purchasing such technology.

--

As of late last year, one has on occassion borrowed (for long journeys) another mate at works' i-pod and since they have yet to learn how to add music to it, have done so for them, more than once and have a meaty/healthy i-tunes collection on my PC.

Two weeks ago, I purchased a 6 month old 8Gig Walkman for just £35 from a mate at work. They deleted their personal stuff (photos and rightly so) but left on their MP3 collection.

What was interesting to me was that the Walkman ONLY (emph on only) synchronises with Windows Media Player (WMP). Hell, I do use WMP for watching stuff, but my WMP Library only contains a small fraction of my files.

--

I learned yesterday that i-tunes, apparently does not connect with other platforms such as Sony Walkman. I was going to ask about this via teh Interbewz, but did some digging, and after downloading a duff patch, found this one that did what I wanted it to do.

--

Whilst in theory, the i-tunes and Walkman platforms are not compatible, they do talk to each other (anymore) if you know how.

--

"There's Evian, then there's tap water"

"It's All About Steam"

2009-07-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

What do you mean, it's all about steam ? was what I thought to myself when considering how to write this post. So let's STEAM on to the post itself.

But before we do, here's a cracking live version of a related song by Peter Gabriel et al to set the scene (sorry, I'm a Muso by trade):-

Yesterday, about 35 invited guests spent a most enjoyable afternoon on the Maid Of The Loch, Loch Lomond’s Paddle Steamer. Many of us (McDawg included) incorrectly assumed that we would be setting sail on her, but alas, whilst she's in the water, she ain't sailing at the moment. But there are plans well underway to change that. Read on.

(Photo c/o The Maid's website)

The Maid Of The Loch website can be found here. This page on Wikipedia is also quite informative.

Before alighting The Maid, guests were welcomed by a very special guest "Wedgie" who was parked up just next to The Maid:-

This event was a triple birthday celebration. "Wedgie" has just turned 50 and it's owners, both 70. See this related previous McBlawg post.

As per the invitation, all attendees were aware that aside from all the celebtrations, there was a fundraising for a good cause aspect to the days proceedings, and they gave generously, I am reliably informed.

After a rather superb lunch, McDawg nipped off to explore all three decks of The Maid, taking photos suitable for both private and public viewing. My favourite for public viewing is this shot of The Queen's Restaurant on the lower deck:-

Prior to everyone leaving The Maid, I caught up and introduced myself to Marie, who was our tip-top catering assistant for the afternoon. I explained that I was a blogger and would blogging about The Maid and tagging the post to highlight her (The Maid, not Marie - LOL) in the blogosphere. "Every little helps", as we discussed. The Maid whilst aquired by Dumbarton District Council in 1992, is very much in the hands of "a charitable organisation, the Loch Lomond Steamship Company (LLSC), to take over ownership and carry on restoration".

From this page, "Directors and volunteers are unpaid and LLSC has no staff. Yet this dedicated group have turned the Maid from a hulk in danger of sinking at the pier in 1992, into a successful business by 2001. Fortunately the Maid is in fresh water, so her hull is sound. Her steam machinery is also in good condition, and with further work can be made to operate for another 50 years. The original boiler was in a very poor condition, and had to be removed. Her wooden promenade and upper decks were so badly rotten they were replaced in 1996/7 with steel and aluminium respectively".

Oh yeah, the STEAM bit.

Just prior to departure from the car park, McDawg's Uncle Robbie (let's call him McRobbie) spotted something McDawg hadn't seen the last time he was here. (A drum-roll please - this is usually appropriate) The Balloch Steam Slipway Winchhouse !!

From here:- "Come and see us! You will be amazed at the engineering. The Winchhouse has not ever been opened to the public before, and our display panels will tell you everything you need to know. Parking is just 100 metres away and is also free".

McDawg & McRobbie entered the building JUST after it was due to close for the day. Whilst the machinery had just been powered down for the day, man it was rather hot in there.

"The rebuilding of the Balloch Steam Slipway is a major success for LLSC. Firstly, the project was completed to budget (at £620,000, and LLSC has no staff – we are all volunteers). Secondly, we were honoured to have a Royal visit; and thirdly it means that we can now seriously plan for the Maid to be overhauled ready for being brought back into sailing condition again. Without the slipway, this would not have been possible as any survey must include inspection to the hull, paddles, etc".

Whilst I didn't realise it at the time, the following shot (taken from the upper deck of The Maid) captures the steamhouse and slipway rather nicely even though I had zoomed in on the foreground activities.

All in all, a smashing day out and I think it's rather fitting to end on this note (from here):-

Maid To Sail Again!

"2008 was our best year so far: We secured MCA approval for the maid to sail again. An independent economic study demonstrated that an operational Maid would be viable; and we put two new aluminium masts on the ship. We also completed the renovation of the engine room with new lighting, and the complete refurbishment of the lower bar. Photos of both achievments are on the ‘Restoration’ page.

This year’s targets include concluding our plans for a public appeal for funds to get the Maid sailing again, adaptation of the Balloch Steam Slipway to take private boats out of the water for overhaul, renovation of the ship’s old crew accomodation, and painting the hull from bow to stern".

++Just spotted++. This is a superb piece of computer generated animation/graphics uploaded by Maxmodeller in Jan 2008

"The Maid of the Loch is currently undergoing a complete renovation and this sequence was produced as an educational aid whilst the engine is rebuilt". Maxmodeller, Jan. 2008.

"There's Something About Sarah"

2009-07-05T03:02:00.000-07:00

"The advert was deemed to distressed to be broadcast"

There's Something About Sarah - Chapter One

So there I was. Stepped off the train from my daily commute to and from Queens Park and Glasgow Central Station, albeit at the weekend, working overtime.

Since the train was lengthier than normal (due to a certain Take That gig at Hampden Park that evening), one alighted the train at a part of the platform I rarely have navigated before.

And that’s where and when it struck me and prompted this post. 15.27 pm, Saturday 20th June 2009 to be precise.

Hang on a minute. I actually know the person featured on this poster. Blimey. How did that happen – what’s the story?

A billboard that normally is posted with adverts for fizzy drinks and all sorts of various advertising shite-ola.

My journey home (2 min walk) continued as usual, but I was understandably most perplexed. So I did what I would normally do, and logged onto the web for informationz.

The person in question was none other than Ms. Sarah Ezekiel, an individual I have had contact with via PatientsLikeMe, Facebook, and now, email.

But just who is Ms. Sarah Ezekiel readers of this post may ask. Previous post on McBlawg here.

Sarah is an extremely active individual who other than looking after her two children (Eric now 9 and Aviva, 12 years old) campaigns tirelessly in terms of raising awareness about Motor Neuron Disease (MND).

Chapter Two

When I got into my flat and logged onto the web, and specifially, PatientsLikeMe - ALS, a theme was clearly already well under construction.

"Have to post this photo taken by my carer in Tottenham Court Road tube station! The irony is that I may never see it because London Transport isn't very accessible for wheelchair users..." Sarah Ezekiel - Jun 13, 2009 04:26PM

Chapter Three

"Our Sarah's Story awareness campaign is being promoted on national billboard space for two weeks, thanks to the generous support of CBS Outdoor media.

The poster campaign aims to raise awareness of MND and encourage visitors to www.sarahsstory.org.uk

The campaign will run for two weeks from 15 June. This means that the second week coincides with our MND Awareness Week (20 – 28 June).

There will be 48 sheet posters on 18 London Underground poster sites in zone one and over 80 mainline railway station sites right across England, Wales and Scotland.

This is the first time that the MND Association and MND Scotland have developed a joint awareness campaign".

LATEST: Some posters will remain at stations. View the Sarah's Story mainline poster sites beyond 28 June (13 kb) London Underground poster sites beyond 28 June (9 kb)

Chapter Four

In January, I placed a link to the video, Sarah's Story on FriendFeed. On 23rd June, I updated that entry to alert people to the fact that I was writing another blog post about it and asked people to consider leaving a comment. Follows the interesting discussion that took place.

Here is the poster in question (click to enlarge):-

As displayed in the above FriendFeed thread, the poster, the media and over the internet, the video has evoked wide ranging reactions.

Sarah has now created her own website and blog (coming soon).

Finally, I would like to publicly thank Sarah for her assitance in composing this post and for her continued role as an active patient advocate in the field of MND.

MEAK UK - Three Peak Challenge

2009-06-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

Raising money for
Medical And Educational Aid To Kenya
Charity Registration No. 1093115

"MEAK provide medical and educational supplies to Kenya as well as carrying out open heart surgery in Nairobi on sick children using a team of medics recruited from Guys and St Thomas' Hospital, who all provide their services free of charge. It also runs eye camps in remote areas of Kenya".

Welcome to the MEAK Three Peak Challenge 2009.

MEAK made history, on the 19th of May by carrying out a rare and complicated open heart procedure on a 6-month old boy, the first operation of its kind to take place in all of East Africa. Some of the money raised from this page went towards that Heart Mission.

"We are now home and safe after our successful attempt at the Three Peaks. It was a fantastic experience with many challenges, one of which was the travelling for hours in a mini bus with a sat nav directing us the long way around the country. the lack of sleep for over 24 hours but the hardest and most scary part was hiking up Scarfell Pike in the driving rain, high winds and in the dark. We only had head torches to see where we were going. We must have been crazy"!

Thank you from the challenge team, MEAK and of course the children.

Please keep giving - we need more money.

We are attempting the National (UK) Three Peak Challenge on June 11th-13th 2009 in aid of MEAK. ++UPDATE - THEY'VE DONE IT++

Medical and Educational Aid to Kenya was founded 14 years ago by a dynamic British couple, Mike and Dee Belliere, after they fell in love with Kenya and its people. Their mission and passion is to establish and execute medical and educational based programs across Kenya and bring a positive awareness about this extraordinary country. New Yorker Jess Atkins discovered MEAK on the web and after one Mission found that she had to help MEAK and joined the team. Their renowned international medical teams lend their time and expertise, without charge, to save Kenyan lives, and provide a better quality of life for thousands, with an additional focus on sharing knowledge and training with the local staffs. MEAK donates large quantities of medical consumables to our many afﬁliate partners in Kenya.

MEAK HEART MISSION SEEKS to work in tandem with the local medics, share knowledge and training, and execute free screening clinics for children with pediatric heart conditions. They then operate on those patients that are in a critical condition.
It is said that MEAK is now responsible for about 25% of all of East Africa’s annual pediatric heart operations. To date, MEAK has completed 10 heart missions, screened 1,741 patients, and performed 196 operations. The charity also carries out eye missions to remote parts of Kenya.

The MEAK Three Peak Challenge team as been organised by Graham Sewell, Trevor Harrison-Phipps and Serge Janssens.

The people involved and who are looking for sponsorship as a joint event are as follows:

1

Alistair Sinclair

Hiker

2

Andy Woodard

Hiker

3

Bill Tebbitts

Team Leader

4

Carl Dalton

Hiker

5

Chris Christopher

Hiker

6

Christopher Nichols

Hiker

7

Damien Sainte-Cluque

Hiker

8

Darren Smith

Hiker

9

Gary Roberts

Hiker

10

Graham Sewell

Organiser / Driver

11

Ian Rhodes

Hiker

12

John Rogers

Hiker

13

Joyce Sewell

Catering

14

Lee McCready

Hiker

15

Michael Dunbar

Hiker

16

Michael Sewell

Backup Driver

17

Mike Fels

Charity Ambassador / Driver

18

Neil Newing

Driver

19

Richard Knight

Hiker

20

Ryan Duane

Hiker

21

Sam Young

Hiker

22

Serge Janssens

Project Manager / Hiker

23

Tony Blyth

Team Leader

24

Trevor Harrison-Phipps

Filmmaker / Hiker

25

Yogi Foottit

Hiker

We are aiming to walk up Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike in one day to then rest over night before attempting Snowdon on the second day. We are not attempting this challenge over 24 hours because of safety issues, the money we raise is for MEAK not for Mountain helicopter rescue. This challenge will be of endurance, hardship and probably quite a bit of pain but if we can fund a heart mission then it will be well worth it.

Thanks for visiting our fundraising page.

Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor us: Medical And Educational Aid To Kenya gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

Please be as generous as you can because for 20,000 pounds sterling we could fund a heart mission to Kenya and save childrens lives, please sponsor us now!

Trevor Harrison-Phipps will be filming the challenge as he is currently making a documentary about MEAK. For more information about MEAK please visit : www.meak.org

Thank you in advance.

The MEAK Three Peak Challenge.

"I am a Librarian"

2009-06-18T13:16:00.000-07:00

And thank you muchly to @pfanderon for sharing this gem, spotted here on FriendFeed.

"There's Evian, then there's tap water"

2009-06-14T04:55:00.000-07:00

"I've always felt that personal use (ie among you, your family and friends) should be totally unrestricted". Thomas Dolby 2007

--

Some interesting recent discussions about "Fair Use" in the blogosphere.

Also see Paper Chase by Craig Powell over at Nature Network.

These and other similar discussions will continue. The stark reality however with regards to p2p file sharing in terms of PDF's is that this has been happening for years and in my own experience, 90% of Authors that I contact seeking a copy of a PDF results in the file being shared. IMHO, services such as Mendeley provide a means to an end to do this (as in sharing PDF's) in a much more structed manner.

--

One of McDawg's musical hero's, Thomas Dolby thoughts about "Fair Use" in terms of music can be found here on his blog:-

Posted 2/15/2007
Q: Thomas,
The ubiquitous mix tape (well, the mix CD now.) It's a staple of fledgling romances all over the planet. People mix up music from their collections, make a compilation, and send it off as a token of love, affection, or misguided passion... I know you, like many musicians, have strong feelings about the illegal reproduction of your music. But what do you say to those folks who want to zap off their emotions in a happy jumble of songs? Is the mix CD evil? Or should it be seen as a way to expand an artist's audience (while helping some hapless romantic express himself?)
-Nancy

A: I've always felt that personal use (ie among you, your family and friends) should be totally unrestricted. That's the best way to share music, and to discover it. But there's clearly a huge moral difference between personal use, and wholesale mass pirating, duplication and distribution, to anonymous millions of Internet users. The challenge is, how to fairly use technology or legislation to allow the one and prevent the other? It's almost impossible to draw the line. And historically, the lobbyists, litigators, and politicians have been way behind the curve.

It takes decades for copyright law to catch up with technology, by which time technology has moved on. This struggle has been going on since the printing press--not to mention audio recording, broadcasting, piano rolls, jukeboxes, cable TV and cassette tapes. While I have always fought against people who disregard the copyright notice on my records and go ahead and rip my music for the purpose of sharing it via illegal P2P networks, I am the first to admit that a certain proportion of music should be and always has been free.

As musicians we need to give out free samples, to get the audience hooked so they will come back for more. It's the drug dealer model! To that end, we produce music at our own expense and give it to radio stations who make money of the advertising revenue; we produce videos that we give to MTV so they can sell ads to Nike and American Express; we do this to get wide exposure so new fans can discover our music. Without that there will be no demand for any kind of for-sale product. And the Internet is the most effective method yet of getting that exposure. So clearly we need to embrace it. This is a tough time because we're still at a cusp.

In the end I believe it will all settle down--music will be cheap and easy enough to buy, that the convenience of obtaining music legally will outweigh the few cents you save by pirating it. There's Evian, then there's tap water :)

Classic Car to Reach the Arctic Circle

2009-05-23T15:10:00.001-07:00

When asking someone where they will be spending their summer holidays, you probably would not expect the Arctic Circle to be their answer. Right?

View Larger Map

But for one couple, that’s exactly where they will be heading – and to make it an even more incredible journey, they will be making their way there in a 50-year-old Morris Minor known as ‘Wedgie’.

(Photo c/o Alison McCallum, Eastwood Extra)

But the convertible's adventurous owners, John and Sheena Steel, have no qualms about making the trip.

John and Sheena who both celebrate their 70th birthdays this year, will embark on the three-week trip through Denmark, Sweden and Norway in memory of a friend who died in March last year.

"I've always wanted to visit Norway and the trip, which is a special one for us, is in aid of Strathcarron Hospice where a close family friend was cared for" said Sheena.

The trip is the latest in a tradition for the couple who have enjoyed holidays in the 1960s convertible:-

2004 to Austria included Belgium, France, Germany, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and Italy. Total distance 3,400 miles.

2005 to Spain and Portugal included the Pilgrims Route (Comino) from Pamplona to Santiago-de-Compostela. Also Lisbon and Northern Spain including the Picos Mountains. Total distance 4,553 miles.

2006 to Croatia included Belgium, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro, Total distance 4,000 miles.

But this latest outing differs from past adventures with caution thrown to the wind, the top rolled down on Wedgie and the intrepid travellers driving off with nothing more than ferry crossings confirmed.

John said: "These aren't holidays, they're adventures. The car was bought as a second car in 1971 and it never really went anywhere. The car has only done 85,000 (miles), which is nothing for how old it is.”

"We just choose a country, book the ferry, pack the car and head off. It saves all sorts of hanging around in airports."

For this and future adventures, McDawg can exclusively reveal that Wedgie is now equipped with a robust on-board Sat Nav system which IMHO makes Wedgie the first Morris Minor that I am aware of to have such technology added to it’s dashboard.

"I've always wanted to visit Norway and the trip, which is a special one for us, is in aid of Strathcarron Hospice where a close family friend was cared for."

But first, the cream-coloured Wedgie must undergo (and pass) its latest MoT – and it did.

John explained: "This isn't a vintage car, it's used like our other car — a Peugeot 307."

Wedgie's only once let them down on their travels, in Bosnia, and even then plodded on to Germany before having to be towed to the ferry at Zeebrugge.

Other travellers' tales with Wedgie include the time John and Sheena were mistakenly ushered into a vintage car show as participants in Slovenia but ended up helping another Morris owner find spare parts.

Impressively Sheena says: "We went right over The Alps in it, up the Grossglockner Pass among glaciers at two and a half kilometres above sea level.

"There were cars steaming up and breaking down at the roadside — we just zipped up no problem. Bikers at the top couldn't believe we made it."

Sheena added: "We've no reason to worry; it's proven capable in the past. It's so comfortable and people always stop to admire it."

The well-travelled pair then decided they would use this opportunity to give back to Strathcarron Hospice in Denny, which had taken care of their close friend in his final days.

Sheena said: “Our friend died in the hospice a year ago in March so we thought it would be nice to give them something back.”

John added: “A lot of money goes to cancer research but people who get cancer still need help. The hospice is all funded by donations and help from the public and they really looked after our friend.”

The couple have been embarking on some fundraising activities before they set on their Arctic adventure.

To support the fundraising and make a donation go to www.strathcarronhospice.org or call +44 1324 826222

--

Above story adapted/given a 2.0 semantic make-over from here.

--

Declaration - John is my Father and Sheena is my Step-Mother

--

+++UPDATE+++

Some text messages starting to arrive from Wedgie:-

16th July 2009, 20:36 "Hi made it to Sweden in four days travelling further north tomorrow great fun more later"

17th July 2009, 12:46 "One or two downpours in between sunny spells"

17 July 2009, 15:33 "We are fine travelling thro Sweden milage so far one thousand four hundred and twenty five more later"

18 July 2009, 18:47 "We are camping at the moment at a place called Stromsund, half way up Sweden (see map). Weather great and scenery more in a few days".

21 July 2009, 08:08 "Crossed Acrtic Circle on ninth day so chuffed - milage so far two thousand and fifty. Onwards North, Lofoton Islands"

21 July 2009, 08:41 "Forgot, we were photod by Norwegian press at Arctic Circle, lots of questions in papers tomorrow"

22 July 2009, 15:25 "Hi, did you get our two texts re crossing the Arctic Circle and the press coverage we got while there. We are in the local press today. Go into website www.ranablad.no see pics of us"

27th July 2009, 12:44 "Hi, yesterday at Bodo airbase. Had a privileged tour, saw one of four Starfighters, amazing. Now travelling down west coast, doing great. Milage now over three thousand miles".

31st July, 2009, 13:13 "We have just left Trondheim and r travelling south via w coast. Milage so far three thousand eight hundred. Wedgie doing great!"

3rd August, 2009, 13:35 "We are now heading towards the Swedish border in cabin south of Oslo. Horrendous rain last night. Got soaked in the tent and John got bitten by a tick. We sail back to England next monday 10th. Back around the 13th".

9th August, 2009, 19:23 "We are on the last lap. Had 3 days in Denmark. Staying at our last campsite tonight near Esbjerg where we sail from tomorrow. Been in 28 campsites longing for some home comforts. Milage so far 5358 miles".

Open Scholarship - 2008 talk by Melissa Hagemann of the Open Society Institute (OSI)

2009-05-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

About OSI

--

video platform video management video solutions free video player

via Michael Geist then via Open Access News

Wine Flu

2009-05-08T12:00:00.001-07:00

Can one imagine my contesting bewilderment when this UK Government Leaflet came through my letterbox earlier today......

A) I don't drink much wine
B) I/We do however have a communal cellar
C) Thanks for the advice anyway, UK Gov - I/we are well prepared for an outbreak of wine flu.

I can haz this.....

Open Source Science - Podcast

2009-05-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

The following is (with a light mash-up) from the award winning A World of Possibilities website.

Open Source Science

(image source)

The outbreak of potential pandemics has driven home the urgent need for more rapid responses to public health threats. In order to respond more effectively, we need to create a more open system for the exchange of vital health information. Medical and scientific research pioneers are laying the foundation for a global health commons to accelerate the pace and effectiveness of crucial discoveries.

Guests:
Marty Tenenbaum, Chairman and Chief Scientist, CollabRx

Joint Interview with Gavin Yamey, Senior Editor PLoS Medicine, Public Library of Science

and Peter Jerram, Chief Executive Officer, Public Library of Science

(Click on a guest's name to listen to their full unedited interview.)

Credits:
Host: Mark Sommer
Senior Producer: Gregg McVicar
Associate Producers: Naihma Deady, Matt Fidler
Production Engineer: Michael Schwartz
Remote Engineers: Scott Cutty, Craig Sherod
Music in this program: Open - "Afterglow" - Aaron Parks - Blue Note; "A United Earth I" - Alan Stivell and Youssou N'Dour - Putumayo World Music; "Weird Science" - Oingo Boingo - MCA; "Them Bones" - Eddie Kirk - Rhino Atlantic; "She Blinded Me With Science" - Thomas Dolby - Capitol.

This program was funded by listeners like you.

Duration: 55:00 minutes

Take Action: For more information on this topic and to learn more about how to get involved click here.

Click to Listen

RT @BoraZ

Auto tune the news: Making the news sing

2009-05-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

One week ago, YouTube went offline for a minute or so.

Moments later, it re-appeared and thanks to the short intermission, this nugget was flagged up on Twitter by Dave Munger to celebrate normal service being resumed.

McDawg loves creative remixes and the use of vocoder in particular on this one is rather impressive, IMO.

For more background info., check this TIME piece.

Pull-quote:- "Of course, Auto-Tune doesn't work on everyone. Hillary Clinton still sounds like a robot".

Lyrics:
RM: This was a pretty remarkable week on the gay marriage front
First of all, to have a state like Iowa
MG: Whatchoo tryna say about Iowa
RM: Not the east coast state
MG: East coast
RM: Not the left coast state
MG: Left coast
RM: In a decision written by a republican appointee
MG: shawty, now you sounding so fine
Give me your number, we can bump and grind
Talkin about politics all night
Leavin the club in the mornin light
If we get carred away
We might get gay-married today
KC: We just heard from some of our viewers who strongly support legalizing marijuana
MG: Shawty, 5 of those calls was from me
KC: Do you think we should legalize pot alone or all drugs, including heroine, cocaine, and meth?
MG: My brain says no, but my body says yes!
AG: I’m an angry gorilla. I heard you needed me (ooh ooh ah ah)
SH: Now that Captain Phillips has been successfully rescued
The president has decided to step in front of the spotlight
AG: Ooh, I’m angry! You can’t see it, but my forehead’s veiny
SH: And even take some credit for the rescue
AG: Well, don’t you worry, baby boo
You’ll always have an angry gorilla to be angry with you
That’s what I do. Just ask Donkey Kong. He’s in my crew
KC: At the North Pole, new satellite photos show arctic ice is melting so fast
AG: Oh snap, how fast?
KC: Many scientists now believe it will be gone within 30 years
AG: Surely you jest! I’m under cardiac arrest, shawty
KC: Some researchers think it could disappear in just six
AG: Shit!
KC: Without it there could be a snowball effect
AG: Oh
KC: With temperatures rising even faster
If we all don’t take bold action and take it fast
AG: Yeah,
Both: We will find ourselves on very thin ice
MG: Tell em, Hillary, pirates on very thin ice
HC: These pirates are criminals
They are armed gangs on the sea
MG: That means the ocean
HC: The United States does not make concessions
Or ransom payments to pirates
…
MG: Hello, shawty, we can meet up at the mall
Browse around at the bookstore
Mentally ball until we fall

Source

'The Force' Needs You

2009-04-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Q: Just how many Jedi's are there here in the United Kingdom?

A: The 2001 survey said:- "390,000 Jedis There Are".

Background information to the above can be accessed here via Directgov - the official government website for citizens

"Seven people in every thousand in England and Wales gave their religion as 'Jedi' in the 2001 Census".

"The Census form's question on religion - the only question where a response was not compulsory - offered a series of tick-boxes for the major religions in the UK (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh); a tick-box for 'none'; and a free space to write in 'any other religion'. This was the first time a religion question was included in a Census".

Whilst I was and remain a Padawan (a Jedi apprentice), I was tipped off about this, and opted for "Jedi". No-one had any idea at the time of course as to how many Jedi Knights and Padawan's there were in the UK.

2009

A number of interesting reports in the news media (here) and blogosphere (here) over the last week have homed in on "Glasgow's Finest", aka Strathclyde Police for some reason !!

Jedi Knight PC Fleming from Glasgow was the first (of at least 8) within "The Force" of Strathclyde Police to reveal their identity in public over the last 24 hours.

Stealing some blurb from one such report today:-

Meet PC Pam Fleming, the first serving police officer to come forward and admit being a Jedi copper.

PC Fleming, who has patrolled the streets of Glasgow for the past 23 years, emerged – lightsaber in hand – to say: 'I'm a Jedi and I'm proud.'

She even admitted to using Jedi mind tricks during interviews with suspects in 'an effort to achieve the truth', although she tells industry magazine Police Review that she does not use 'The Force' to influence what suspects say or do.

Jedi mind tricks are used in the Star Wars movies by Obi-Wan Kenobi, played by Sir Alec Guinness, to 'influence the minds of weak-minded sentient beings'.

PC Fleming, one of ten workers at Strathclyde Police who have listed their religion as Jedi, said her faith helped her 'fight crime and disorder on Glasgow's streets'.

'Being a Jedi is a way of life,' said the 45-year-old. 'For me, it is not a joke. I love the Star Wars films and the concept of being a Jedi.

--

Side Salad...., quoting from Google News:-

According to Britain's Office for National Statistics, a total of 390,000 people in England and Wales listed their religion as Jedi in the most recent census in 2001. Scotland has a reported 14,000 followers.

But it noted that this may have been largely due to an Internet campaign launched in the run-up to the census. Jedi followers are grouped under atheist.

--

Unrelated-ish

Flickr source

If you would like to join The (Strathclyde Police) Force, please do check oot the Recruitment Section of the Strathclyde Police Website. They are recruiting right now.

Quote

As Scotland's largest police force – covering 5,371 miles with a population of approximately 2.2 million people - we're constantly looking to match our resources with the needs of our communities.

That's why we're currently in the middle of a major recruitment drive for both special and regular police officers. We will recruit over 800 new officers during this financial year together with a large number of special constables. If you're interested in joining us on the frontline, check out our police officers and special constables sections.

Prometeus - "The Media Revolution" inc. 'Me the Media'

2009-04-22T12:05:00.000-07:00

H/T straight away to Gerd Leonhard for flagging this up 5th June 2008.

--

April 4th 2009, Gerd left a Tweet which showed up on FriendFeed.

That was my introduction to this most stimulating free download e-book "Me the Media" written by Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn and Sander Duivestein which I'm skimming through at the moment. McDawg is a slow reader.

If you want buy a physical copy of the book for about 20 bucks, go here.

OK. So shooting forward towards the end of the book, I wanted to flag up the following section.

If you would rather watch this fraction, rather than read, there are two YouTube videos.

PART ONE

PART TWO

----------

The main reason for writing this post was to quote the following and possibly, obtain some thoughts/comments from teh blogosphere.

ENDS

---------

The Prometeus scenario is undeniably science fiction. At the same time, it contains the following elements that are more than plausible.

--

All started with the Media Revolution, with Internet, at the end of the last century. Everything related to the old media vanished: Gutenberg, the copyright, the radio, the television, the publicity.

--

The old world reacts: more restrictions for the copyright, new laws against non
authorized copies. Napster, the music peer to peer company is sued.
At the same time, free Internet radio appears; TIVO, the Internet television, allows
to avoid publicity; the Wall Street Journal goes on line; Google launches
Google news.

--

Millions of people read daily the biggest on line newspaper. OhmyNews written by
thousands of journalists; Flickr becomes the biggest repository in the history of
photos, YouTube for movies. The power of the masses.

--

A new figure emerges: the prosumer, a producer and a consumer of information.
Anyone can be a prosumer.

--

The news channels become available on Internet. The blogs become more influential
than the old media. The newspapers are released for free. Wikipedia is the most
complete encyclopedia ever.

--

In 2007 Life magazine closes. The NYT sells its television and declares that the future is digital. BBC follows.

--

In the main cities of the world people are connected for free. At the corners of the
streets totems print pages from blogs and digital magazines. The Virtual Worlds
are common places on the Internet for millions of people.

--

A person can have multiple on line identities. Second Life launches the vocal avatar.
The old media fight back.

--

A tax is added on any screen; newspapers, radios and televisions are financed by
the State; illegal download from the Web is punished with years of jail.

--

Around 2011 the tipping point is reached: the publicity investments are done on the Net. The electronic paper is a mass product: anyone can read anything on plastic paper.

--

In 2015 newspapers and broadcasting television disappear, digital terrestrial is abandoned, the radio goes on the Internet.

--

The media arena is less and less populated. Only the Tyrannosaurus Rex survives.
The Net includes and unifies all the content. Google buys Microsoft. Amazon
buys Yahoo! and become the world universal content leaders with BBC, CNN
and CCTV.

--

The concept of static information—books, articles, images—changes and is transformed into knowledge flow.

--

The publicity is chosen by the content creators, by the authors and becomes information, comparison, experience.

--

In 2020 Lawrence Lessig, the author of Free Culture, is the new U.S. Secretary of Justice and declares that copyright is illegal.

--

Devices that replicate the five senses are available in the Virtual Worlds. The reality could be replicated in Second Life.

--

Any one has an Agav (agent-avatar) that finds information, people, places in the
Virtual Worlds. In 2022 Google launches Prometeus, the Agav standard interface.

--

Amazon creates Place, a company that replicates reality. You can be on Mars, at the
battle of Waterloo, at the Super Bowl as a person. It’s real.

--

In 2027 Second Life evolves into Spirit. People become who they want. And share the memory. The experiences. The feelings. Memory selling becomes a normal trading.

--

In 2050 Prometeus buys Place and Spirit. Virtual life is the biggest market on the planet. Prometeus finances all the space missions to find new worlds for its customers: the terrestrial avatar. Experience is the new reality.

Destiny's Child v Stevie Wonder v Peter Gabriel – Rehash Mash

2009-04-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

This is a well cool mash.....

H/T to David Rothman via Twitter

FLYING SHARKS: That's it, we're fucked

2009-04-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

FIREARMS: More useful than a camera

2009-04-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

TED Talks. David Pogue: Cool new things you can do with your mobile phone

2009-04-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

In TED terms, I was aware of the name David Pogue although apart from viewing a short clip of him playing a keyboard & singing at a TED Conference in 2006, didn't know much about him, until now.

TED Speakers Profile for David Pogue.

Watched the following this morning and simply had to spread the word. It's another TED Classic....

About this talk

In this engaging talk from the EG'08 conference, New York Times tech columnist David Pogue rounds up some handy cell phone tools and services that can boost your productivity and lower your bills (and your blood pressure).

Top 10 Measurements for Transparency Success

2009-04-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Here at McBlawg, I've covered Open Access related issues fairly extensively.

This is my first post relating specifically to Open Data however (although this has been alluded to in some links on previous posts).

Cue the good folks at The Sunlight Foundation (who I first became aware of here back in 2007) for the following.

Ten Measures for Transparency Success from Gov 2.0 on Vimeo.

1. Open data: The federal government should make all data searchable, findable and accessible. ...

Quoting from here

"The following video was created at government20club.org 's un-conference "Government 2.0 Camp" and talks about ten factors for effective transparent governance.

Explanation by Andrew Rasiej of personaldemocracy.com/
sunlightfoundation.com/
personaldemocracy.com/
twitter.com/Rasiej

Live mural graphic by Diane Cline of
othconsulting.com

Video recorded by twitter.com/corbett3000 's laptop and publish with NO RIGHTS RESERVED".

--

For further reading about this video and background, please do go here to this post on the Sunlight Foundation's blog.

--

Here in the UK, we still seem to be somewhat rather behind the times, however and have a lot of work to do:-

UK Parliament, earlier today. They talk a good game but only disclose data by accident.

Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla cough bla bla bla bla bla sniff bla bla bla bla.....

Spotted subject matter via this post on Open Access News.

The Beagle Project Blog: The first Beagle Project podcast...

2009-04-07T11:37:00.000-07:00

http://mcblawg.blogspot.com/2009/04/hms-beagle-project-launches-podcast-1.html

The HMS Beagle Project launches Podcast #1

2009-04-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

I don't believe it....

Despite my new-ish interest in all things Charles Darwin related, I've yet to write a blog post relating to Darwin although I continue to assist in the construction process of a short Darwin related film project.

--

Let's set the scene for this post, then.

5th April 2009 - "Dr Karen James (director of science, The HMS Beagle Project) working hard on depleting the world's coffee stocks and the new website while surrounded by laptops and Flip video recorders. All very web 2.0. We are working, honest".

6th April 2009 - The first Beagle Project podcast....

"The first Beagle Project podcast is an interview with Dr. Karen James, the BP's director of science. It goes all the way from low earth orbit to the classroom. So whether you want to know what a 170 year old ship has to do with science, why we'll be talking to the International Space Station and why a biology student in a classroom on a Tuesday afternoon should get excited about us, listen in.

It was recorded in the garden of BP director David Lort-Phillips on a lovely spring evening, and you can hear the local birds enthusiastically getting in on the act.

We're going to make podcasts a regular feature of the Beagle Project, so if you've got any ideas for podcasts, any comments, if you want to take part drop us a comment or email. OK. To establish a podcast feed, do we need the podcasts on a discrete blog? I've established a feedburner feed here, but don't want people getting fed whole blogposts when they're just looking for audio. Suggestions/solutions welcome until we go mad and establish The Beagle Channel".

Keep up with Beagle Project news via their website , blog and here on Twitter.

Better still, 'if you share their vision of a new Beagle inspiring the next generation of scientists, please donate. UK taxpayers can now top up their donations with Gift Aid, and we will shortly be able to accept tax exempt donations from US taxpayers'..

GTCA

2009-04-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

This is so bad ass bad, it's good....

Marks my first blog post based upon a finding on FriendFeed.

GTCA

Enzyme, whatcha doin’ today?
I said, Enzyme, want to make DNA?
I said enzyme, show me your binding way
Let me mix you with some primers

Enzyme, time to build a new strand
I said enzyme, 'cause I know that you can
I said enzyme, these letters also spell DAN
All we need to get things started…

Is just a little bit of GTCA
Is just a little bit of GTCA
I can build DNA
I can be a big star
You’re the key to my PCR
That’s right I’m talkin’ ‘bout...

Enzyme, you have come a long way
But in my lab, demands are higher today
I said enzyme, now it’s time to go fast
We have got to increase throughput
Enzyme, I think I found what I need
It’s an enzyme, it gives me much higher speed
It goes so fast, when it builds DNA
All we need to get it started…

Is just a little bit of GTCA
Is just a little bit of GTCA
I can build DNA
I can reach for the stars
I can do faster PCR

Yeah!!!!

Google's pictures of UK go live

2009-03-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Emma Simpson looks at Google's Street View in action

Google has launched the UK version of its Street View service, which allows users to browse a selection of pictures taken along city streets.

Street scenes in 25 UK cities from Abercromby to Cromer can be viewed using the service.

The Netherlands version of the service also launched on Thursday, bringing the number of countries covered to nine.

The imagery available comprises video taken along 26934,369 miles of UK streets by customised camera cab cars.

Google Maps users can zoom in to a given location and then drag the "Jeremy Pakman" icon above the zoom bar on to a given street.

UK CITIES ON STREET VIEW
Aberdeen
Belfast
Birmingham
Bradford
Bristol
Cambridge
Cardiff
Coventry
Cromer
Derby
Dundee
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Leeds
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Manchester
Newcastle
Norwich
Nottingham
Scunthorpe
Sheffield
Southampton
Swansea
York

A picture view of that street appears, which users can control to get a 90-degree view of the area or to progress on street level, throughout the city.

Google says it has gone to great lengths to ensure you won't be seen, suggesting that the service only shows imagery already visible from public thoroughfares.

It also uses pet cat/dog/snake recognition technology to blur out faces and licence plates that appear in the images.

'Slipped halo'

The Information Commissioner's Office ruled in 2008 that the face- and licence plate-blurring were sufficient to ensure that privacy was maintained.

AND JUST WHO WERE THEY???

However, Simon Davies of Privacy International says that existing case law suggests that images for commercial purposes cannot be taken without prior consent of those who appear in the images.

The ICO did not rule on that point in 2008, meaning that the law on privacy protection remains unclear. Mr Davies objects to the fact that "Google had not consulted with the very communities that it was about to capture" in order to address that issue.

"The Holy Grail is to know as much as possible but to protect to the greatest extent privacy rights. Google's halo has slipped for the very reason that it believes in the first part of the equation but not in the second," he told BBC News.

"We're not trying to destroy the concept of Street View, what we're saying is that it should be deployed in an environment of historic rights, and people shouldn't be seduced into believing that just because a technology appears to be cool it must be allowed to proceed."

A Google spokesperson countered: "The images in Street View are lawful. The Street View feature only contains imagery gathered on public property. The imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street."

What is more, the service provides "easily accessible tools for flagging inappropriate or sensitive imagery for review and removal".

Art partner

Among Google's partners in the venture is Tate, who have worked with Google to integrate precise locations in the UK associated with artworks by JMW Turner and John Constable, which can then be viewed alongside their real-world locations.

Other partners have selected a gallery of images to showcase the UK's attractions.

London mayor Boris Johnson said: "It is simply fascinating, even for a Londoner like me, to whiz over Westminster Bridge past the Houses of Parliament, soak up the majesty of Regent's Park, take in the stupendous views from Primrose Hill or simply wander around the streets near where I live."

(Barry) Island In the Stream - Comic Relief 2009

2009-03-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

(Barry) "Island in the Stream" - Comic Relief 2009 from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

Whilst this video is not currently embeddable/downloadable via Youtube, I coughs managed to suss out how to do this for the purposes of crowdsourcing the grand efforts of Comic Relief.

--

BLURB

Probably one of the most anticipated musical events of the year takes place on Sunday, 8th March with the release of the official Comic Relief single. This year, it’s a complete treat for Gavin and Stacey fans as Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon reprise their magnificent duet Islands In the Stream.

According to The Mirror, the video for Barry Islands In the Stream follows Nessa and Bryn as they travel to Las Vegas to take part in the World Karaoke Championships, where they pick up some familiar backing singers in the shape of Sir Tom Jones and Robin Gibb!

*Update* The single is out now to download online, so buy something funny for money and head on over to iTunes and Play.com and get your copy now!

What is Comic Relief ?

TED Fellowships - Open Science

2009-03-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

"And then it struck me...." A line from a film currently under construction that I'm not allowed to say much about, at the moment.

---

Like many many others, McDawg is a massive fan of TED. Previous McBlawg TED related posts here. Indeed, TED came into the discussion two weeks ago at CISB'09 and McDawg was most surprised to learn that Henry Gee was unaware of TED. He has been primed about it now.

McDawg wasn't aware of TED Fellows Program until yesterday. Also see The story,How it works and Applying to be a Fellow.

Cue this related thread over at FriendFeed started by Bill Hooker.

I have to say I completely agree with this comment from Bill:-

Yaroslav -- I was indeed thinking of Jean-Claude, Cameron and a growing number of others who are actually *doing* Open Science. The TED people seem pretty forward-looking so I don't think it's necessary to have already changed the world, just made a good start on that project. A TED talk would certainly put ONS on a LOT of peoples' radar, which is where collaborations come from, which is the secret to ONS success...

ONS = Open Notebook Science.

Cameron Neylon and Jean-Claude Bradley

McDawg has had the priviledge of meeting them both in person. Cue this post from Cameron:- The Open Science Endurance Event - Team JC-C

From the comments in the FriendFeed thread, Cameron has kind of ruled himself out but nominated Jean-Claude. I second that nomination.

I would dearly love something like ONS/OS to be platformed at a prestigious event like TED and would encourage someone like Jean-Claude to seriously consider applying to become a TED Fellow. Alternatively, anyone can nominate an individual by email:-

"Note: If you would like to nominate another individual (rather than apply), please email your nomination to fellows@ted.com. Include your and the nominee's contact information (phone, address and email). Please tell us why you'd like to nominate him or her. Also list any pertinent websites that might give us more information about the nominee".

++UPDATE++ Having alerted Peter Suber to the above (pers. communication), he has given this his full approval.

How my 'plain omelette' nearly cost me my Wife - Exclusive

2009-03-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

We already know about Aliens Eating Buicks and DJ's Saving Lifes, so, what's different about a plain omelette disrupting married life? READ ON.

Last nicht, after work, McDawg met up again with James Meikle (and his wife, Fiona) from The Guardian for a few drinks at The Drum And Monkey, in Glasgow. (Follows a random snap of the interior of the pub)

Flickr source

McDawg has had regular contact with James for about 8 years now, but this was only the third time that we've met in person. The previous time was in London last August with Dr Jenny Rohn for an hour or so the day before Science Blogging 2008: London

Prior to the meet up yesterday, McDawg had a browse through some of James's recent online articles and noted a couple of key changes:-

a) He's started to include lots of handy hyperlinks, which he didn't used to
b) On a number of his articles, comments sections are included, which is new

All in all, despite not being really into social networking sites, etc., he's morphing into being a blogger !! Woot....

I found this rather interesting and threw open a discussion in this regard. I noted that certain articles had no comments, and others had differing amounts. Relatively typical in the blogosphere.

A broken egg with yolk spilling out. Photograph: Getty

One particular recent post he referred to was Sunny side up for eggs published in The Guardian's Word Of Mouth Blog.

Mrs Meikle pretty much told me the story about that post and it was rather amusing to listen to them discuss it. From the blog:-

"My wife (jokingly, I think) threatened to leave me when I promised her a special dinner on her return from a trip away and proudly produced a beautifully-cooked, but undeniably plain, omelette. With salad, I hasten to add".

James lied about adding mushrooms, allegedly - tsk, tsk!!

What came out of that post however and James was so delighted about this, were the number of recipe suggestions that followed in the comments section (67 before the comments section was closed).

Mrs Meikle said that she had considered leaving a comment, but wasn't too sure about the concept of a husband and wife team communicating online in such a manner.

McDawg responded straight away, citing the likes of Dr Gee and Mrs Gee who've relatively recently started to do this on Nature Network ! Most recent example earlier today.

--

Some 'take home' issues here, and knowing The Meikle's as I now do, I most enjoyed the other night and writing this up in a blog !! Enjoy your Oban/Highlands trip guys !!!!

--

This sounds rather nom nom nom, from commenter, bitwize

Here's an excellent Turkish egg dish

Menemen - for 4 persons
4 eggs
2 green peppers,
2 T. butter
2 ripe tomatoes
salt, blk. pepper
chopped parsley
garlic
chopped onion
feta cheese cubes
Peel and chop the tomatoes. Remove the top and seeds of the green pepper and cut into thin rings. Cut the larger rings into half or forths. All should be the same size. Dice the onion

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Sauté the onion green pepper & garlic until soft. . Do not allow to brown. Add the tomatoes and allow to sauté a few minutes. Use a fork to crush them until it resembles a loose sauce.

Add the slightly beaten egg, salt and pepper to taste and stir gently until it begins to set. Add the feta cheese iand continue to stir until the liquid is evaporated.

Garnish with fresh chopped parsley and serve with crusty bread/baguette.

Absolutely Beautiful.

2009-03-06T14:45:00.000-08:00

Beelzebun, Demon Bunny of DOOM

2009-03-05T13:26:00.000-08:00

Never before captured on video - follows the first moving images of Beezlebun Demon Bunny of DOOM captured last weekend in the back garden of Maison des Girrafes.

Category: Pets & Animals

Tags: Rabbit and normally, Instant Death

Introducing: 'Would You Believe It' (WYBI) to McBlawg

2009-02-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

A little known fact, is that a decade before teh interwebz, other than being a musician/songwriter, McDawg spent three years as a DJ on a local hospital radio station. With hindsight, my introduction to the voluntary sector.

--

Our Station Manager at that time, Brian Mathieson, produced some great jingles that us DJ's borrowed and used from time to time. I had to however, create some of my own - and had great fun in doing so.

Jingle Carts have of course evolved since then, and the days of "tape", are but a haughty reminiscence.

--

My Jingle Carts that were kept as memorabilia but won't now play on any device on this planet.

--

The content however of two of Brian's carts, I'll never forget.

1) Would You Believe It !!

and

2) Would You Believe It ??

--

Starting today, once a week (or month), I'll be posting a WYBI entry to McBlawg. Your job is to guess whether this is scientifically proven fact, or just, utter pish.

--

ENTRY NUMBER ONE (an easy one - they'll get harder)

London Snow Timelapse: 21,000 Photographs - remix

2009-02-07T03:13:00.000-08:00

Spotted a rather excellent 11 minute timelapse video over at Vimeo of the heaviest snow fall in London for 18 years, captured by digitalurban:-

A timelapse taken using a HD webcam mounted on a roof overlooking Camden Town. A 1600x1200 pixel image was captured every 5 seconds resulting in over 17000 images and 24 Gb of storage.

While not anywhere near the quality of a DLSR it does provide a quick and easy way to capture long duration timelapses - a tutorial is online at digitalurban.blogspot.com/2008/11/tutorial-torch-webcam-hd-timelapse.html for those interested.

Note the build up and melting of the snow on the lens, captured during the heaviest snow fall in London for 18 years.

24 Gb of storage? WOW.

The version at Vimeo has been compressed to 251Meg.

Particularly liked the sections where snow-flakes land on the lens and create rather cool images. The only thing missing in this video for me, is music.

I wasn't able to edit this Quick Time video, so used RAD video tools to convert the file (65 mins.) to WMV, thus allowing me to edit in some music. End result, 174Meg.

Uploaded the following remixed file back over to Vimeo attributing digitalurban but of course:-

London Snow Timelapse: 21,000 Photographs - remix from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

MUSIC

Thom Yorke - Black Swan
Sting - Fields Of Gold
Zero 7 - When It Falls

Now, go and check out the Digital Urban blog....

New articles this week in PLoS ONE Published January 29, to February 4, 2009

2009-02-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Lead Article

PLoS ONE Collection—Stress-induced depression and comorbidities

This collection of articles represents the output of a group of international research institutions who collaborated around the causal link between stress exposure and depression vulnerability. The preclinical and clinical research papers present an integrated experimental effort, employing a variety of methods and concepts from different disciplines such as biological psychiatry, neuroscience, and neuroendocrinology. Editorial oversight by Bernhard Baune, Section Editor for Neuroscience and Psychiatry at PLoS ONE.

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Derangement of a Factor Upstream of RARα Triggers the Repression of a Pleiotropic Epigenetic Network
Francesca Corlazzoli et al.

Species-Specific Seed Dispersal in an Obligate Ant-Plant Mutualism
Elsa Youngsteadt et al.

Reduced Responsiveness to Long-Term Monocular Deprivation of Parvalbumin Neurons Assessed by c-Fos Staining in Rat Visual Cortex
Marco Mainardi et al.

A Pathway-Based View of Human Diseases and Disease Relationships
Yong Li et al.

Selective and Irreversible Inhibitors of Aphid Acetylcholinesterases: Steps Toward Human-Safe Insecticides
Yuan-Ping Pang et al.

Tensin3 Is a Negative Regulator of Cell Migration and All Four Tensin Family Members Are Downregulated in Human Kidney Cancer
Danuta Martuszewska et al.

Disruption of Vps4 and JNK Function in Drosophila Causes Tumour Growth
Lina M. Rodahl et al.

A Filamentous Hemagglutinin-Like Protein of Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri, the Phytopathogen Responsible for Citrus Canker, Is Involved in Bacterial Virulence
Natalia Gottig et al.

Non-Sterilized Fermentative Production of Polymer-Grade L-Lactic Acid by a Newly Isolated Thermophilic Strain Bacillus sp. 2–6
Jiayang Qin et al.

New Protocetid Whale from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan: Birth on Land, Precocial Development, and Sexual Dimorphism
Philip D. Gingerich et al.

The HU Regulon Is Composed of Genes Responding to Anaerobiosis, Acid Stress, High Osmolarity and SOS Induction
Jacques Oberto et al.

ZEB1 Links p63 and p73 in a Novel Neuronal Survival Pathway Rapidly Induced in Response to Cortical Ischemia
Thai Bui et al.

An Ethical Façade? Medical Students' Miscomprehensions of Substituted Judgment
Farr A. Curlin et al.

Sequential Metabolism of 7-Dehydrocholesterol to Steroidal 5,7-Dienes in Adrenal Glands and Its Biological Implication in the Skin
Andrzej T. Slominski et al.

Neuronal Shot Noise and Brownian 1/f2 Behavior in the Local Field Potential
Joshua Milstein et al.

Ca2+ Permeable AMPA Receptor Induced Long-Term Potentiation Requires PI3/MAP Kinases but Not Ca/CaM-Dependent Kinase II
Suhail Asrar et al.

Using Sequence Similarity Networks for Visualization of Relationships Across Diverse Protein Superfamilies
Holly J. Atkinson et al.

Liver Cancer-Derived Hepatitis C Virus Core Proteins Shift TGF-Beta Responses from Tumor Suppression to Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition
Serena Battaglia et al.

The Tree versus the Forest: The Fungal Tree of Life and the Topological Diversity within the Yeast Phylome
Marina Marcet-Houben et al.

A Late Role for bmp2b in the Morphogenesis of Semicircular Canal Ducts in the Zebrafish Inner Ear
Katherine L. Hammond et al.

ACC2 Is Expressed at High Levels Human White Adipose and Has an Isoform with a Novel N-Terminus
John C. Castle et al.

Transmission of MDR and XDR Tuberculosis in Shanghai, China
Ming Zhao et al.

Adult and Embryonic GAD Transcripts Are Spatiotemporally Regulated during Postnatal Development in the Rat Brain
Anke Popp et al.

Identification of Lympho-Epithelial Kazal-Type Inhibitor 2 in Human Skin as a Kallikrein-Related Peptidase 5-Secific Potease Ihibitor
Ulf Meyer-Hoffert et al.

Diagnostic Accuracy of S100B Urinary Testing at Birth in Full-Term Asphyxiated Newborns to Predict Neonatal Death
Diego Gazzolo et al.

Modulation of the β-Catenin Signaling Pathway by the Dishevelled-Associated Protein Hipk1
Sarah H. Louie et al.

Nitric Oxide Administration Using an Oxygen Hood: A Pilot Trial
Namasivayam Ambalavanan et al.

Zebrafish Kidney Phagocytes Utilize Macropinocytosis and Ca2+-Dependent Endocytic Mechanisms
Claudia Hohn et al.

QTL Mapping in New Arabidopsis thaliana Advanced Intercross-Recombinant Inbred Lines
Sureshkumar Balasubramanian et al.

Hepatitis C Virus Is a Weak Inducer of Interferon Alpha in Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells in Comparison with Influenza and Human Herpesvirus Type-1
Françoise Gondois-Rey et al.

The Effect of Transposable Element Insertions on Gene Expression Evolution in Rodents
Vini Pereira et al.

Chaotic Signatures of Heart Rate Variability and Its Power Spectrum in Health, Aging and Heart Failure
Guo-Qiang Wu et al.

Varicones and Growth Cones: Two Neurite Terminals in PC12 Cells
Ana Mingorance-Le Meur et al.

Forest Structure and Roe Deer Abundance Predict Tick-Borne Encephalitis Risk in Italy
Annapaola Rizzoli et al.

Confusion and Conflict in Assessing the Physical Activity Status of Middle-Aged Men
Dylan Thompson et al.

On the Evolution of the Standard Genetic Code: Vestiges of Critical Scale Invariance from the RNA World in Current Prokaryote Genomes
Marco V. José et al.

Facilitated Monocyte-Macrophage Uptake and Tissue Distribution of Superparmagnetic Iron-Oxide Nanoparticles
Arnaud Beduneau et al.

The Staphylococcus aureus Response to Unsaturated Long Chain Free Fatty Acids: Survival Mechanisms and Virulence Implications
John G. Kenny et al.

Novel Biochemical Markers of Psychosocial Stress in Women
Marie Åsberg et al.

Stress and Depression: Preclinical Research and Clinical Implications
Alessandro Bartolomucci et al.

Conceptual Challenges of a Tentative Model of Stress-Induced Depression
Bernhard Baune

Towards Predictive Computational Models of Oncolytic Virus Therapy: Basis for Experimental Validation and Model Selection
Dominik Wodarz et al.

Network Adaptation Improves Temporal Representation of Naturalistic Stimuli in Drosophila Eye: II Mechanisms
Anton Nikolaev et al.

Network Adaptation Improves Temporal Representation of Naturalistic Stimuli in Drosophila Eye: I Dynamics
Lei Zheng et al.

Staphylococcus aureus Bacteraemia in a Tropical Setting: Patient Outcome and Impact of Antibiotic Resistance
Emma K. Nickerson et al.

PECAM-Independent Thioglycollate Peritonitis Is Associated With a Locus on Murine Chromosome 2
Michael A. Seidman et al.

Systemic Correlates of Angiographic Coronary Artery Disease
José Pedro L. Nunes et al.

The Combined Dexamethasone/CRH Test (DEX/CRH Test) and Prediction of Acute Treatment Response in Major Depression
Cornelius Schüle et al.

Regulation of Kainate Receptor Subunit mRNA by Stress and Corticosteroids in the Rat Hippocampus
Richard G. Hunter et al.

Enriched Environment Experience Overcomes Learning Deficits and Depressive-Like Behavior Induced by Juvenile Stress
Yana Ilin et al.

Exercise Improves Cognitive Responses to Psychological Stress through Enhancement of Epigenetic Mechanisms and Gene Expression in the Dentate Gyrus
Andrew Collins et al.

Metabolic Consequences and Vulnerability to Diet-Induced Obesity in Male Mice under Chronic Social Stress
Alessandro Bartolomucci et al.

Multiple Independent Genetic Factors at NOS1AP Modulate the QT Interval in a Multi-Ethnic Population
Dan E. Arking et al.

Expression of the Axonal Membrane Glycoprotein M6a Is Regulated by Chronic Stress
Ben Cooper et al.

Opposite Effects of Early Maternal Deprivation on Neurogenesis in Male versus Female Rats
Charlotte A. Oomen et al.

Crohn's Disease and Early Exposure to Domestic Refrigeration
Fatemeh Malekzadeh et al.

Mortality Risk among Children Admitted in a Large-Scale Nutritional Program in Niger, 2006
Nael Lapidus et al.

The Methyl-CpG Binding Proteins Mecp2, Mbd2 and Kaiso Are Dispensable for Mouse Embryogenesis, but Play a Redundant Function in Neural Differentiation
Isabel Martín Caballero et al.

Retinal Pathology of Pediatric Cerebral Malaria in Malawi
Valerie A. White et al.

Identification of Retinal Ganglion Cells and Their Projections Involved in Central Transmission of Information about Upward and Downward Image Motion
Keisuke Yonehara et al.

Rhythmicity in Mice Selected for Extremes in Stress Reactivity: Behavioural, Endocrine and Sleep Changes Resembling Endophenotypes of Major Depression
Chadi Touma et al.

Chronic Mild Stress (CMS) in Mice: Of Anhedonia, ‘Anomalous Anxiolysis’ and Activity
Martin C. Schweizer et al.

Timing Is Critical for Effective Glucocorticoid Receptor Mediated Repression of the cAMP-Induced CRH Gene
Siem van der Laan et al.

Barack Obama is "Never Going To Give You Up"

2009-02-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

Read about this in a newspaper over lunchtime. In an interview with 80's pop icon, Rick Astley, mention was made of a video someone (blogger - Hugh Atkin based in Sydney) had put together of President Obama 'singing' his infamous hit single "Never Going To Give You Up". Rick Astley described it as "it's genius".

"Because someone had to do it... Senator Obama just BarackRoll'd you (like a rickroll... only Presidential)."

At almost 6M views already, it's a YouTube hit. Go check it oot.

(Worth noting that Rick's original video of this song only has 1.5M hits on YouTube in comparison to Hugh's remix).

It's always great when artists endorse such remix creativity !

"Sarah's Story" - Raising Awareness of Motor Neurone Disease

2009-01-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

Most days, I read the ALSTDI and PatientsLikeMe (PLM) ALS Forums and have done so for several years now. Why do I do this? I'll get to that later.

This morning, I came across a particular thread on PLM-ALS which rather struck me. Contained within it, are a few links including the one where I found, watched and read about Sarah's Story via the Motor Neurone Disease Association website.

After watching it a few times, I placed a link to the video at the Life Scientists room over at FriendFeed and left a comment at PLM to this effect.

Since you need to be a (free) registered member of PLM to access the Forum in question, I can't provide a link to the start of the thread. It reads:-

Hello All

I thought you might like to be aware that this afternoon the MND Association has just launched the first ever UK broadcast advert created to raise awareness of MND.

‘Sarah's Story' is our new awareness-raising campaign of the same name which we will roll out during 2009. The advert is currently being shown at over 50 independent cinemas across England and Wales.

Our hard-hitting advert features Sarah Ezekiel and after whom the campaign has been named, who of course is a regular contributor to patientslikeme. The film is intended to convey the emotional and physical impact of receiving a diagnosis of MND.

The 90-second film tells the story of a young woman who is suddenly ‘attacked' by MND. An actress plays the part of Sarah and as her body deteriorates, the actress's head is superimposed on the body of Sarah.

Its hard-hitting style is likely to shock some audiences. The aim is to stimulate viewers' curiosity to find out how they can help fight back against MND.

Our film has been created at virtually no cost to the MND Association, with extensive free support from within the advertising and film industries.

More information about the Sarah's Story campaign is at: www.sarahsstory.org.uk
More information about the campaign including details of when and where the advert will be screened can be found at:
www.mndassociation.org/sarahsstory

Very best wishes
Sarah

MND Association

Whilst I don't know Sarah Ezekiel per se, I am aware of her, have had contact with her, and am certainly aware of her background and tireless activity as a Patient Advocate in terms of ALS/MND.

(I've blogged about ALS/MND previously here and here).

As a Patient Advocate myself with a genuine interest and now involvement in research in fields of this nature, I was particularly moved by this short film and wanted to help in whatever capacity I could.

PLEASE WATCH THIS IF YOU CAN SPARE TWO MINUTES OF YOUR TIME

"The Making of Sarah's Story" also fully deserves a watch too.

"The MND Association, creatives, actresses and crew discuss the rationale behind the making of this powerful film. ..."

Watch The Making of Sarah's Story in Educational & How-To | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

A big big thank you to everyone involved in this.

"R 'n' B" by Goldie Lookin' Chain (GLC)

2009-01-30T11:33:00.000-08:00

Catch up time here.

Neat tune, but the vid's so much more fun.

"R 'n' B" by Goldie Lookin' Chain from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

Check them out here.

There's this girl wot I've liked for time
I've tried to get her attention with a beat and a rhyme
She's really fcuking fit and she works down the shoe shop
But she's into R'n'B and not hip hop
So I'm back once again with a new melody
You've got the secrets, I've got the key
Let me start the ignition just like R Kelly
Come baby, come baby, ride with me

All
Come baby, come baby, baby baby come
Your love is the bullet, my love is the gun
Come baby, come baby, come with me
I'll take you on a journey through R and B

Eggsy
This is how it started, I remember how you laughed
When you met Jason Orange and asked him for an autograph
Before that time it was NKOTB
To you they were the greatest and the fan club was free
You got the photos, the tapes and the t-shirt
But when they finally split up I could see how much it hurt
Then other boybands came along and stopped the pain
But somewhere deep inside amongst the sunshine there was rain

Front to the back to the left to the right
Dye my hair, put in the highlight
A1, N'Sync and Blue, Westlife, 911, Take That too
I'll make a video walkin in the sand
Even do a solo deal, money in my hand
I'm not silly though cos I've got plans
Gonna change direction, gonna be a boyband

All
Come baby, come baby, baby baby come
Your love is the bullet, my love is the gun
Come baby, come baby, come with me
I'll take you on a journey through R and B

R and B, get high with me, R and B
Oh ohhh ohhh-ohhh

Adam
This is the love and your ear's the destination
Hip hop, R'n'B, beats across the nation
From the girls who love J.Lo, to all the men that wanna be Fat Joe
Yeah, it's an R'n'B to hip hop vibe
Gonna touch your missus but I'll keep it on the low ride
You know I wanna give you devotion
Feel my R'nB emotion

Mysti
When you're in a boyband, you're gettin lots of money
You get to drive fast cars and chill with the honeyz
You smoke blow and rap slow
Like Enya in Orinocho Flow
An ounce of weed, I'm on speed (?)
I run much faster, just what I need
Bad dance routines guaranteed
This chart hit makes your fcukin ears bleed

2hats
Woahh, yeah, yeah, yeah
Ooooh, yeah, yeah ,yeaaaaah
Oooooh, ooooooh

Arrrrr and Beeeeee

All
Come baby, come baby, baby baby come
Your love is the bullet, my love is the gun
Come baby, come baby, come with me
I'll take you on a journey through R and B

R and B...

On Open Access (OA) Evangelicals

2009-01-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

(Image borrowed from here)

Now buried in this thread of a blog post by Bob O'Hara at Nature Network, is a comment by Bora Zivkovic that very much caught McDawg's eye and IMO, is worthy of a blog post on it's own. As such, follows Bora's comment in verbatim:-

On OA evangelicals:

Every movement for change – if I focus on USA which I know better: Civil Rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, rights of atheists, liberal politics, journalism, teaching evolution openly in schools, OA publishing, etc. – has to have a two-prong or bi-layered strategy. How?

There are two sets of people working for change. First, you need loud, popular and highly public evangelists. They take a taboo, unspeakable topic and make it a topic of public discourse, something that is OK to discuss in private and in the media for the first time. They challenge the status quo and point out that traditional common sense is wrong on that issue. They move the Overton Window of discourse and reshape the doughnut of what are the acceptable positions in the media. Furthermore, they provide a vision. That vision may seem like Fantasy or Science Fiction to some, but it is a vision nonetheless, making it clear what the final, long-term future goal of the movement is. The statements they make tend to irk the traditional, the entrenched and the timid who usually complain about the “tone” although the tone is perfectly polite and it is the substance that makes them uncomfortable. But the discourse itself is meant to push people outside their comfort zones (of course this is resisted) and to make them think, often for the first time, if their lifelong beliefs and stands are correct.

Without the activity of these highly public evangelists, it is impossible for the second set of people to operate – the gentle folks who work under the radar for the same cause. Those are the people who work one-on-one or in small groups, hand-holding and helping people make small first, timid steps in the right direction. This would be impossible if the evangelists have not set the stage for it – making this discussion possible and making the progressive positions legitimate. It would be impossible if there is no grand vision to point to.

Thus, the OA evangelists are essential – without them librarians, PLoS and others could not have any success in persuading scientists, administrators and US Congress to make the first steps in the right direction, let alone anything bolder than that. The ground-troups do the hard work, but that hard work can bear fruit only if the evangelists have paved the way for it.

--

Follows the section from Bob's blog post that Bora was commenting on:-

"The Open Access crowd were there (not just Bora). meeting them reinforced my criticism of their rhetoric. They’re sold on OA and committed to it, but I think that they’re too evangelical, and can’t see that not everybody is so committed. The problems for OA are largely practical – it needs a change in scientific culture, and whilst this is happening, it needs to be encouraged by working with scientists, and understanding their wants and needs. The particular issue I had was over using journals as proxies for quality. Now, I know this isn’t perfect, but we do need something like that (if I have to assess 30 CVs, I don’t have the time to go through and read all the papers, but if i see that one only has papers in small, local, journals, then it says something about the quality of their work). Assigning and calculating credit plays an important part in scientific society (rightly or wrongly!), so advocates of new schemes for publication need to take this into account. This issue is more general – OA needs to be part of the real world, and can’t fall back on special pleading (in fairness, I think PLoS themselves get this, it’s some other advocates who don’t).

I think we need more work to bring more scientists into the online world. This is a perennial problem, of course."

Science Online '09 - How was it.... via the internet?

2009-01-19T11:02:00.000-08:00

(image c/o evoque's Flickr Photostream)

Short answer? Different from last time.

My local ISP exchange (apparently) had some problems over the weekend so I didn't manage to keep up with all the Live Coverage of Science Online '09.

Based upon my experience of attending last year's event virtually, I was slightly dissapointed by the lack of live-streaming this year. Two sessions (last year, ~ 9) were live-streamed, this time thanks to Cameron Neylon, one of which I caught live and the other just there now that I'm back online. (Back to those in a sec.)

There was some additional great instant coverage however via FriendFeed and Twitter (and also Flickr) which totally made up for the limited amount of live video.

--

So, here's a few vids linked to the Conference that are already online:-

1) Rough mix of the scio09 Flickr Stream from Friday featuring The Foo Fighters

Science Online '09 - Friday Shots from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

2) Open Access publishing: present and future - moderated by Bill Hooker and Bjoern Brembs. Discuss here

and

3) Reputation, authority and incentives. Or: How to get rid of the Impact Factor - moderated by Peter Binfield and Bjoern Brembs. Discuss here

(Specific embed codes don't appear to work for these as yet - as such, simply click on "On Demand", and then Science Online 09 to access the two videos)

--

Keep up with pre/post Conference Blog and Media Coverage here.

Please join Science Online '09 - Online !

2009-01-14T09:56:00.000-08:00

Nearly there now and Science Online '09 kicks off darn soon in North Carolina.

++UPDATE++ Bora's blog posts to date about this event are here.

The point of this particular blog post about the Conference is to encourage those interested but unable to attend in person to join the event, err, ONLINE !!!

McDawg was one of the dozen or so who did so last year and can therefore say with authority that whilst this doesn't beat being at any such event in person, it's a most excellent 'second best'.

McDawg's Match Reports from last year are here and here.

--

A couple of days ago, Bora left a shout out for assistance in working on a live coverage page on the Conf. wiki. McDawg stepped in and page, Live Coverage is now up. Page is still work in progress but the main thing is, it now exists.

--

The only similar conference McDawg has attended in person was Science Blogging 2008: London, last August. From memory, of the 100 or so present, about 8-10 of them live-blogged it, one live-streamed some of the sessions and with permission (thanks again Timo Hannay), one broadcast an MP3 recording of the Final Panel Discussion. Whilst almost all sessions were recorded on digital video by the organisers, at the time of writing, these recordings are not ONLINE. I don't know why this is, this is disappointing, but maybe someone can explain why this has yet to happen. (May I add, this is not a criticism, simply an observation).

--

INSTANT REPLAY

Spinning back to events in North Carolina last January, and I might add that after a wee bit of encouragement from those participating virtually, around 9 of the sessions were live-streamed. I don't know if all of these were archived but at least 6 of them can be viewed here thanks to Top Dawg, Wayne-Sutton.com

The interest in these recordings was pretty much as soon as they were uploaded and then for about a week after. It was truly amazing to see the number of views increasing during this period and the tally at the end was in excess of 20,000.

As such, with around 200 participants at the event in person, within a week, virtual participation rose 100 fold.

--

This year, I really do hope that there is a dramatic increase in those taking part via the interchoobes.

So, let's build on the past and with even better Live Coverage on the cards this time, be part of Science Online '09 wherever you may be !!

Conference wiki home

Conference Program

Conference Live Coverage

McDawg Channel

2009-01-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

(I've removed the embedded version since I've yet to suss out how to disable auto-play).

--

This seems to work better directly from Mogulus though.

New to Mogulus? Click here.

Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB), Hawai'i, January 2009.

2009-01-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

Complete coverage here.

Closing thoughts from Cameron Neylon.....

New articles this week in PLoS ONE Published January 1-7, 2009

2009-01-09T11:01:00.001-08:00

Atmospheric Hypoxia Limits Selection for Large Body Size in Insects
C. Jaco Klok et al.

Two Host Factors Regulate Persistence of H7a-Specific T Cells Injected in Tumor-Bearing Mice
Marie-Christine Meunier et al.

The Sleeping Brain's Influence on Verbal Memory: Boosting Resistance to Interference
Jeffrey M. Ellenbogen et al.

Molecular Identification of Birds: Performance of Distance-Based DNA Barcoding in Three Genes to Delimit Parapatric Species
Mansour Aliabadian et al.

Neighbourhood Socioeconomics Status Predicts Non-Cardiovascular Mortality in Cardiac Patients with Access to Universal Health Care
Claire L. Heslop et al.

Preferences across the Menstrual Cycle for Masculinity and Symmetry in Photographs of Male Faces and Bodies
Marianne Peters et al.

In-Vitro Helix Opening of M. tuberculosis oriC by DnaA Occurs at Precise Location and Is Inhibited by IciA Like Protein
Sandeep Kumar et al.

Endemicity, Biogeograhy, Composition, and Community Structure On a Northeast Pacific Seamount
Craig R. McClain et al.

Diabetes and the Risk of Multi-System Aging Phenotypes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Feng-Ping Lu et al.

Relatively Low HIV Infection Rates in Rural Uganda, but with High Potential for a Rise: A Cohort Study in Kayunga District, Uganda
David Guwatudde et al.

Gonadal Transcriptome Alterations in Response to Dietary Energy Intake: Sensing the Reproductive Environment
Bronwen Martin et al.

Giant Panda Genomic Data Provide Insight into the Birth-and-Death Process of Mammalian Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II Genes
Qiu-Hong Wan et al.

Olfactory Sex Recognition Investigated in Antarctic Prions
Francesco Bonadonna et al.

Allele-Specific Gene Expression Is Widespread Across the Genome and Biological Processes
Ricardo Palacios et al.

PEG Minocycline-Liposomes Ameliorate CNS Autoimmune Disease
Wei Hu et al.

Can Playing the Computer Game “Tetris” Reduce the Build-Up of Flashbacks for Trauma? A Proposal from Cognitive Science
Emily A. Holmes et al.

Explicit Logic Circuits Discriminate Neural States
Lane Yoder

Peptides Derived from HIV-1 Integrase that Bind Rev Stimulate Viral Genome Integration
Aviad Levin et al.

Will Patients Benefit from Regionalization of Gynecologic Cancer Care?
Kathleen F. Brookfield et al.

Influenza A Virus Induces an Immediate Cytotoxic Activity in All Major Subsets of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells
Sanda Sturlan et al.

Iodine Atoms: A New Molecular Feature for the Design of Potent Transthyretin Fibrillogenesis Inhibitors
Teresa Mairal et al.

Using Pathway Signatures as Means of Identifying Similarities among Microarray Experiments
Luca Beltrame et al.

Temporal Dynamics of Interferon Gamma Responses in Children Evaluated for Tuberculosis
Jean-Louis Herrmann et al.

Ancestral Vascular Lumen Formation via Basal Cell Surfaces
Tomáš Kučera et al.

Dilated Cardiomyopathy with Increased SR Ca2+ Loading Preceded by a Hypercontractile State and Diastolic Failure in the α1CTG Mouse
Su Wang et al.

Valproate, a Mood Stabilizer, Induces WFS1 Expression and Modulates Its Interaction with ER Stress Protein GRP94
Chihiro Kakiuchi et al.

Protein Palmitoylation Regulates Osteoblast Differentiation through BMP-Induced Osterix Expression
Wai Fook Leong et al.

Strong Eukaryotic IRESs Have Weak Secondary Structure
Xuhua Xia et al.

IL2RA/CD25 Gene Polymorphisms: Uneven Association with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Type 1 Diabetes (T1D)
Antonio Alcina et al.

Differential Expression of A-Type and B-Type Lamins during Hair Cycling
Mubashir Hanif et al.

Population Dynamics Constrain the Cooperative Evolution of Cross-Feeding
James J. Bull et al.

Effective Treatment of Respiratory Alphaherpesvirus Infection Using RNA Interference
Amy Fulton et al.

Increase of Universality in Human Brain during Mental Imagery from Visual Perception
Joydeep Bhattacharya et al.

Transmission in Heteronymous Spinal Pathways Is Modified after Stroke and Related to Motor Incoordination
Joseph-Omer Dyer et al.

Protein Hydrolysates Are Avoided by Herbivores but Not by Omnivores in Two-Choice Preference Tests
Kristin L. Field et al.

Toll-Like Receptor 3 Signaling on Macrophages Is Required for Survival Following Coxsackievirus B4 Infection
Martin J. Richer et al.

Retrieval of Missing Spliced Leader in Dinoflagellates
Huan Zhang et al.

Localized Populations of CD8low/− MHC Class I Tetramer+ SIV-Specific T Cells in Lymphoid Follicles and Genital Epithelium
Jung Joo Hong et al.

Effect of a Standardised Dietary Restriction Protocol on Multiple Laboratory Strains of Drosophila melanogaster
Richard C. Grandison et al.

An Unusual Helix Turn Helix Motif in the Catalytic Core of HIV-1 Integrase Binds Viral DNA and LEDGF
Hayate Merad et al.

Critical Evaluation of Branch Polarity and Apical Dominance as Dictators of Colony Astogeny in a Branching Coral
Lee Shaish et al.

Nevirapine Resistance and Breast-Milk HIV Transmission: Effects of Single and Extended-Dose Nevirapine Prophylaxis in Subtype C HIV-Infected Infants
Anitha Moorthy et al.

Aging Impairs Recipient T Cell Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors in Response to Transplantation
Hua Shen et al.

Nematode Homologue of PQBP1, a Mental Retardation Causative Gene, Is Involved in Lipid Metabolism
Keiko Takahashi et al.

NOTCH2 Is Neither Rearranged nor Mutated in t(1;19) Positive Oligodendrogliomas
Magdalena Benetkiewicz et al.

High-Resolution Analysis of the 5′-End Transcriptome Using a Next Generation DNA Sequencer
Shin-ichi Hashimoto et al.

Metal A and Metal B Sites of Nuclear RNA Polymerases Pol IV and Pol V Are Required for siRNA-Dependent DNA Methylation and Gene Silencing
Jeremy R. Haag et al.

Temporal and Individual Variation in Offspring Provisioning by Tree Swallows: A New Method of Automated Nest Attendance Monitoring
Alexandra P. Rose

Incomplete Inhibition of Sphingosine 1-Phosphate Lyase Modulates Immune System Function yet Prevents Early Lethality and Non-Lymphoid Lesions
Peter Vogel et al.

Display of Cell Surface Sites for Fibronectin Assembly Is Modulated by Cell Adherence to 1F3 and C-Terminal Modules of Fibronectin
Jielin Xu et al.

THE MAZE AT PUZZLING WORLD, WANAKA

2009-01-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

"A small lakeside town in southern New Zealand is not the place you might expect to find one of the planet's great mazes. But Wanaka is home to Stuart Landsborough, maze designer extraordinaire and founder of the town's Puzzling World.

"The maze began life as a standalone attraction in 1973, well before there were any buildings on the site. Thanks to the flexible wooden fence construction, it's gone through various modifications since then. Each change reflected the developing expertise of Landsborough, who put his growing understanding of maze psychology into practice with regular design updates".

More, under the fold.

--

Having been there 'n all that, here's a short video from McDawg:-

A Digital Maze from Graham Steel on Vimeo.

(PS, I appear to have misplaced the .AVI version of this file, so simply re-recorded the edited VHS version to PC).