Adsense Tips for Bloggers 1

On my to-be-read list is Adsense Tips for Bloggers 1 -- and then parts 2-8!

I'm hoping the articles will explain how a blog can overcome this part of the official AdSense FAQ which is, ironically enough, promulgated by the company that bought Blogger:

Place ads on content pages that don't change frequently.

Or else, Google says, we'll run public-service ads on your site and you won't make any money. But have a boring, unchanging site that won't draw repeat visitors, and you can make all the cash you want!

I've made 60 cents from AdSense, by the way. Thanks for clicking on those ads, when they appear.

Update: Whoops, I just found out the Terms of Service forbid discussing how much I make from AdSense. Please forget what you just read. :-)

July Climbing Trip Update #5: Camping for $5

I've found camping for us, with showers and toilets, for just $5 a person. We'll be staying at Pepper Pod Campground in Hudson, Colorado, just east of the start of the Denver metro area. Ryan, Jihee, Shannon and I have stayed there once before. It's a nice place, easy to find, and just 40 miles from our climbing destination, Golden.

It has absolutely none of the natural beauty we experienced at Shelf Road, but you don't have to drive through Denver to get there when you're all tired and punchy. For me, more sleep = better climbing. So I think it's worth a try for all of us.

One caveat: You can hear the Interstate noise from the campground. Bring earplugs if, like me, you're a light sleeper. If you forget yours, I've always got a good supply with me. Just ask.

Previous updates:
July Climbing Trip Update #4
July Climbing Trip Update #3
July Climbing Trip Update #2
July Climbing Trip Update #1
Colorado Climbing Trip July 9-11

Note to Self: Post on Wikitravel

Wikitravel is a free travel guide written by anyone who cares to submit information. I really should add some of my writings about Taiwan, Germany and ... Nebraska.

By Jove, I Think I've Got It!

It's all about the negative margins. I think I'm almost there in making Adam Polselli's rounded corner and drop shadow solution work here on johnfulwider dot com.

Rounded Corners with Partially Transparent GIFs

Adam Polselli kindly told me how he does the rounded corner on his front-page photo:

About the rounded corner… it is achieved quite easily, and without having to do any image work in Photoshop. All it is is a small GIF image on top of the photo. Part of the GIF is transparent, therefore you see the photo through it and get the effect of a rounded corner.

Adam referred me to the page source for more information. You can analyze it, too, just search the source for the filename of whichever photo he has up at the time.

Now I'll have to see how I can implement this solution. Doing the drop shadow and rounded corner without Photoshop is hugely appealing, because I hope to post a huge number of photos in upcoming years from places other than my home computer -- in fact, as far from said computer as possible. :-)

Movies on the Green 2004

Reminder to self: Movies on the Green 2004 runs Thursday nights from July 8-August 12.

July Climbing Trip Update #4

People are sending in their RSVP forms for the July 9-11 climbing trip to Golden, Colorado. So far the following people have confirmed they're coming:

• Bryant


• Chris


• Jami


• John


• Jon


• Justin


• Shannon


• Tim


• Tim

If you think I know you're coming but you're not on the above list, please follow the instructions with the RSVP form and e-mail me your confirmation. Don't worry, I'm not going to turn this into some over-organized, no-fun trip. It'll be <Snoop Dogg>laid back</Snoop Dogg>. Just need to make sure we have enough ropes and cars for everyone to get there, climb a lot and make it out alive. :-)

Previous updates:
July Climbing Trip Update #3
July Climbing Trip Update #2
July Climbing Trip Update #1
Colorado Climbing Trip July 9-11

Jami's Garden

Some more flowers waiting to be identified in Jami's Garden. First person to post a comment with the names of all five plants gets a valuable prize. :-)

First Pictures with My Casio Exilim EX-P600

My Casio Exilim EX-P600 came today and I've got a slideshow to prove it.

These are my very first photos taken mere moments after turning on the camera, so don't expect quality. Yet. :-)

July Climbing Trip Update #3

It's time to get down to details about our July 9-11 climbing trip to Golden, Colorado (which still leads in the destination poll). Believe it or not, it's just 16 days away.

Here's what we need to figger out:

• How many people are coming? (About 20 have expressed interest so far.)


• How many people are driving?


• How are we splitting the available car/truck/SUV/catamaran seats?


• How many people coming have ropes?


• Does everyone coming have the minimum necessary gear: harness, climbing shoes, chalk bag, belay device, locking carabiner?

In order to figger this out, please e-mail me at this address: john@nospamjohnfulwider.com. Delete the "nospam" in the address and you've got my e-mail. To make things all simple and efficient for me, your valued yet humble trip organizer, please copy the following form into the body of your e-mail and fill it out:

What's your name?
Are you driving?
If driving, how many other people can you take?
Do you have a rope?
Do you have the minimum necessary gear?
(Optional) What's your cell phone number?

(If you don't have the minimum necessary gear, please consider buying at Outek, a Lincoln store worthy for at least two reasons: One, it employs three of our friends, Eli, Joe and Kate; Two, the owner, Matt, had the courage to locate downtown (near most of us) when it would have been easier to build out in the 'burbs. You can get a Black Diamond Momentum AL Package, with harness, belay device, locking 'biner, chalk bag and chalk for $77.31. You can also get a pair of Mad Rock Flash climbing shoes for $69.95.

Moose's Tooth is another locally owned store that employs several more of our friends, including Dave. They have a more limited climbing selection, but they carry some sweet prAna clothes that'll make you look like one cool cat.

If you're hard up for cash, as are most of us, some people may have extra gear they can lend. I, for example, have some size 10 1/2 La Sportiva climbing shoes.)

Please write back as soon as you can.

Previous updates:
July Climbing Trip Update #2
July Climbing Trip Update #1
Colorado Climbing Trip July 9-11

Sharing the Road is Safer?

Busy European and Chinese streets where cyclists, pedestrians and motorists share the road with no barriers between them are safer than ones typically designed in the United States, according to this Salon article (registration or ad viewing required):

The "self-reading street" has its roots in the Dutch "woonerf" design principles that emerged in the 1970s. Blurring the boundary between street and sidewalk, woonerfs combine innovative paving, landscaping and other urban designs to allow for the integration of multiple functions in a single street, so that pedestrians, cyclists and children playing share the road with slow-moving cars. The pilot projects were so successful in fostering better urban environments that the ideas spread rapidly to Belgium, France, Denmark and Germany. In 1998, the British government adopted a "Home Zones" initiative -- the woonerf equivalent -- as part of its national transportation policy.
"What the early woonerf principles realized," says Hamilton-Baillie, "was that there was a two-way interaction between people and traffic. It was a vicious or, rather, a virtuous circle: The busier the streets are, the safer they become. So once you drive people off the street, they become less safe."

My two and a half weeks of travel in Taiwan bear this out. It's crowded there, and the sidewalks are makeshift parking zones for the hundreds of thousands of scooters. So pedestrians weave in and out of the street, cars and scooters don't stick to the lanes, and bicyclists go on their merry way. Yet no one gets hit. I saw one accident the entire time, a minor fender-bender involving two cars.

My theory is there's a strong group agreement at play: Worry only about what the person in front of you is doing, and all will be fine if everyone else does the same.

I'd try anything to make the streets here in Lincoln, Nebraska, safer for cyclists. My friend Eric just got his shoulder, collarbone and wrist banged up by a careless driver, and won't be climbing again for some time. I haven't yet been hit, but it's only a matter of time.

Via Boing Boing

Die, DMCA, Die!

From Wired:

Some powerful U.S. representatives are backing a bill that would overturn major portions of the DMCA, allowing people to copy CDs and DVDs more freely.

And good riddance.

In 1998, record companies and Hollywood lauded the DMCA as a way to stop piracy, which they said had accelerated because of digital copying technology. But the DMCA has since evoked buyer's remorse in many lawmakers, who fear they handed copyright holders far more control than intended while eroding Americans' fair use rights. They also worry that the law has criminalized otherwise innocent activities, such as making a personal copy of a purchased CD, or trying to get a DVD to play on a Linux computer.

Those Lying Resumes!

Since so many people are still out there hunting for jobs in this tough economy, I would like to offer a bit of advice based on an unfortunate situation that I was lucky enough to not participate in firsthand: Do not send your resume out to someone with "Track Changes" enabled. It just means your potential employer can actually watch your lies being written in front of them.

From Anil Dash.

Dim Bulbs? Hack 'Em!

This Popular Science article instructs us in the fine, though apparently not terribly difficult, art of turning your dim-bulbed incandescent flashlight into one of those snazzy, and often expensive, LED jobbies. To wit:

You'll also need a resistor for each LED: For a three-cell flashlight, use 30 ohm resistors, 75 ohm for four cells, 130 ohm for five and so on. (Try digikey.com for the parts.) Trim the LED leads to about a half inch (maintaining their relative lengths), and the resistor leads to one-eighth inch on one end, 1 inch on the other. Solder the short resistor leads to the long LED leads. Carefully break the old bulb. Use a soldering iron to heat the bottom of the bulb case until you can push a long resistor lead through it, and clip the excess. Solder the hanging LED lead to the flange of the bulb case. Solder the remaining LED/resistor pairs in parallel to the first and stuff them all into the reflector. Now shine on, you crazy diamond.

I am so going to do this, right after I buy an iTrip and hack it to boost the antenna power. No, FCC bloodhounds, I'm not trying to start a pirate radio station, just making sure my iTunes muzak can reach all the stereos in my home. That's right, I'm gonna use the iTrip for a purpose its manufacturer did not intend: hooking it up to a desktop Mac, as I sadly lack an iPod.

(LED link via Boing Boing, antenna hack link also via Boing Boing)

July Climbing Trip Update #2

About a dozen people are strongly interested in going on the July 9-11 climbing trip to Colorado. I expect to be able to firm up the list of people going tonight at Tim's party.

One of our friends from Colorado, Brian, wrote to raise a bit of concern about climbing at Golden:

Pros: relatively short approach, high concentration of moderate climbing, decent rock, plenty of space, usually not very crowded on weekends.

Cons: It can get wicked hot during the summer (it is south facing and the rock is dark), relatively no camping in the vicinity, it can get really hot.

I'm sure the heat's only worsened by the fact that the Golden crag overlooks the Coors brewing plant. All that beer, so close, yet so far away ... if only I had a really long slackline! I haven't experienced the heat; in fact, on the day Ryan, Shannon, Jihee and I went, we got caught in a hailstorm. I got to look a little cool using my trad gear and ground tarp to rig up a shelter for the ladies, but Ryan was the real hero of the day, cleaning our top rope gear during the storm so we could evacuate.

Regarding the camping, I was thinking about proposing that we all stay at the place Ryan found late one Friday night when we all felt like refried beans and just couldn't drive a mile farther. Pepper Pod Campground is in Hudson, Colorado, just east of the start of the Denver metro area.

Pros: Group camping discounts, well-lit, showers and toilets, extremely easy to find, 40 miles from Golden.

Cons: Not in a state park or other beautiful natural area, 40 miles from Golden.

So, to summarize, we may need to think about everyone's heat tolerance before we settle on Golden. I'm cool with it (groan!), but the Garden of the Gods would be cooler in temperature terms. Jon wrote to note that Shelf Road would be similarly toasty, and he also points out:

Another possibility is Elevenmile Canyon. It's up higher, so it's cooler, and there are a lot of rocks (Arch Rock, in particular) that are not so exposed to the sun. Arch Rock also has a lot of moderate sport routes all in a row.

There's plenty of time before the trip to think about all this, of course, but it wouldn't hurt for everyone interested to share their ideas with me by posting a comment, sending an e-mail, or talking to me in person. Since the wall's closed for freakin' ever, you can find me at Tim's party tonight or Jazz in June on Tuesday.

Previous updates:
July Climbing Trip Update #1
Colorado Climbing Trip July 9-11

And don't miss this classic of Western literature:
Cat Pee = New Circular Saw

Slashdot | Turning Up The Heat On On-Line Registration

Cat Pee = New Circular Saw

From Slate:

"Inappropriate elimination" is the No. 1 cat behavior problem.

As in peeing, not finding your cat with a live mouse stuck in its mouth all the way up to the squirming tail, about to inappropriately eliminate said rodent.

... of the almost 5,000 calls she gets a year, nearly 90 percent are related to out-of-the-box soiling. It is the most common reason cats are turned in to shelters .... At least my situation was not as dire as that of the man who called the hotline to complain that his cat would urinate only on the stove. Whenever he cooked he turned on the burners and ran from his home until the urine burned off.

If my cat ever did that to my 15,000-BTU power burner ...

As I read through the litter literature, I realized the deductive skills needed to analyze the causes of elimination problems could provide CBS with a new spinoff: CSI: Cat Pee. Anything from the purchase of a new piece of furniture, to the owner having a change in work schedule could cause a cat to soil in protest.

I don't have enough time to watch CSI: Miami!

The vet gave me a tip sheet for eliminating the elimination problem. Following all the vet's tips, and combining them with the other advice I read, would lead to a litter-box care program that was only slightly less consuming than embarking on a career as a professional gymnast. ... I should put litter boxes in each place where the cats soiled, to try to retrain them to use the box. This would mean stepping into a litter box upon getting out of a shower, and wearing a couple of litter boxes, like a pair of mukluks, as I stomped around the kitchen preparing dinner. I needed a litter box on every floor because the cats might resent having to take the stairs in order to relieve themselves.

Hey, you know what I got out of my cats' "elimination problem"? A brand-spankin'-new circular saw, with which I cut a hole in a perfectly good steel door for a pet flap. Now they're roaming, and tinkling, on the town.

July Climbing Trip Update #1

We've already got a couple of cars' worth of people ready to head out for some Colorado climbing July 9-11. Even better, three of them know how to lead routes and set up top ropes, so that should mean we'll be able to have at least three ropes going. That way people should have the chance to get in a lot of climbing.

As you can see from the poll results on the right side of the page, Golden is looking like the popular destination. But this trip is (mostly) a democracy, so please vote for your preference -- you could change the result. You should only vote once, unless you're from Texas, where the "vote early and vote often, even if you're dead" tradition is so strong that individuals born there can't be expected to overcome it. Fair warning: I was born in San Antonio, and I'm running the poll, so take from that what you will. :-)

You can find more details about the trip in this previous post.

Slashdot | The State of Urban Wireless

Slashdot | The State of Urban Wireless

Slashdot | Austin Becoming Wi-Fi Hot Spot

Slashdot | Austin Becoming Wi-Fi Hot Spot

Colorado Climbing Trip July 9-11

I'm putting together a Colorado climbing trip for the weekend of July 9-11.

• Who: Anyone, experienced or not


• What: Top-rope climbing


• When: Leave Friday afternoon (July 9), return Sunday night (July 11)


• Where: Front Range, specific crag to be determined


• Why: If you need a reason, delete this e-mail :-)


• How: Very carefully


• Length of Trip-Related E-Mails: Much shorter than Jon's

Please vote in the poll on the top right side of the screen to determine our destination. If you choose "Other" please add a comment to this post specifying where you'd like to go.

Here's info from rockclimbing.com about the destination options:

• Eldorado Canyon


• Garden of the Gods


• Golden (Table Rock Mountain North, specifically)


• Shelf Road

Please contact me by e-mail (john at thiswebaddress dot com) or talk to me at the wall if you'd like to go.

God Bless the Black and White ...

... Cookies, that is. Popular blogger Jason Kottke somehow just discovered them, despite living in B&WC heaven, NYC. He gushes:

Whoa, what a dessert! The black and white cookie is, in fact, not a cookie but a flat, thinly frosted cake, like someone has sat on a cupcake. Cookie convenience, cupcake taste. I am hooked.

Unfortunately Kottke shut down comments on this post before I had a chance to slightly correct the statement that B&WCs are called "Amerikaners" in Germany. There is such a cookie in Deutschland, but instead of two frostings it's just one, a honey-vanilla flavor that's out of this world.

The comments sections contains links to several recipes which I shall have to examine. Previous efforts at "roll my own" resulted in nothing because the recipes were so complex as to require an hour to read and a day to prepare.

Int

Wired News: Car Dealers Feel Net Effect
Edmund's Reed said consumers should avoid car dealers without an extensive website. "If they don't understand the Web, then you don't want to deal with them," Reed said. He warned that although it may be cheaper for companies to sell online, the number of salespeople isn't likely to diminish. "Since they all are paid by commission, it doesn't cost the dealers to have a bunch of guys standing around smoking cigarettes."

Turn your PC into a Mac

Instructions to make your WinXP desktop look much like OSX's. Heretical statement: Running XP Service Pack 2 Beta, I don't mind XP much anymore. Until I purchase a second Mac, it'll have to do.

Free Background Patterns ...

... and high-quality ones, at that, are right here. Right now I'm using Pattern 94.

Some Good PHP Tutorials ...

... are right here.

johnfulwider dot com moves to Boston

A bit ago, dearest seven readers, I told you of my discovery that johnfulwider dot com made its home on a Hong Kong hard drive. I've now rectified that pokiness-inducing situation, having requested a move to the closer computers in Boston. I hope you enjoy the faster load times.

Understanding Histograms

Digital Outback has this article on understanding histograms, which I'd darn well better read before getting my histogram-equipped Casio Exilim Pro camera in a month or so.

So you might think that watching your pictures on that small LCD is a main benefit going digital. Ok, if you try hard you can check sharpness by zooming into the image. The main advantage of this LCD for me is actually to check the exposure of my last photo.
The right exposure is a key to taking quality images.

Automatic Image Rotator

The Image Rotator from Automatic seems to offer the tasty goodness for which I've been looking:

The Image Rotator is an easy way to make an image on your website change every time a visitor reloads the page. The Rotator picks a randomly selected image from a folder you specify and displays it to your visitors.

A List Apart has this article with instructions on customizing the 4k PHP script that makes it all happen.

I've tested out the Rotator and found it works just as described. Now I just need to cook up a whole kettle of same-sized images to rotate, perhaps with the help of another freeware tool from Automatic, Dimensionizer -- a context-menu plugin that fixes OSX's rather glaring lack of easy-to-access image dimension information.

Coffee: The Ideal Single Cup?

I'm coffee cursed. I emit a strange electromagnetic field that interferes with my every attempt, no matter how careful, to brew a nice cup of joe. Until now. I think I've discovered a foolproof way to prepare a decent cup by making what's essentially a Cafe Americano in a slightly unconventional manner. Here's the recipe.

John's Cuppajoe

Equipment Needed:

Low-end household espresso machine
Microwave
Coffee measure
Espresso tamper
Small coffee mug

Ingredients:

Finely ground coffee, preferably an espresso roast
Filtered water

Directions:

1. Put two heaping measures of coffee into espresso machine arm. Tamp it down and attach arm to espresso machine.


2. Fill mug a bit less than one-quarter full with water. Pour water into espresso machine.


3. After tightly sealing all the necessary orifices per the machine's instruction manual, turn the espresso machine to the brew cycle.


4. Fill mug a bit less than three-quarters full with water. Nuke it in the microwave for one minute. Increase nukage as needed to account for any low microwave power or high pain threshold present.


5. Place the mug of warmed water under the espresso machine spout. If your machine is as slow as mine, this should be in plenty of time to catch the first drops of espresso.


6. When the espresso's finished dripping, place the frothing wand in your mug and turn on the frother to stir your coffee.

Ow! My Freakin' Ears!

The MovieWavs Page has just about all the movie and TV show audio-clip goodness you could want, including some of these classics:

TODD: Ow! My freakin' ears!

BOB: Well, it looks like you've been missing quite a bit of work lately.
PETER: Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob!

BRIDGEKEEPER: "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
ARTHUR: "What do you mean? An African or European swallow?"
BRIDGEKEEPER: "Huh? I-- I don't know that! Auuuuuuuugh!"

CARTMAN: "Follow your dream. You can reach your goals. I'm living proof. Beefcake. BEEFCAKE!"

PHOEBE: "If you don't meet her now you're gonna be kicking yourself when you're eighty which is hard to do and that's how you break a hip."

HOMER: "So, a graduate student, huh? How come you guys can go the moon, but you can't make my shoes smell good?"

HOMER: "Mmmmm... forbidden donut..."

HOMER: "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

HOMER: "Mmmmm... soylent green..."

Warning: Style Changes Coming

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! It's once again time to make some style changes here at johnfulwider.com, and you, my loyal seven readers, get to come along for the ride. Try the changes out on a test server first? Pish posh! What fun would there be in that?

Anyway, the color scheme and font choices are staying. I'm just moving to a three-column layout to make room for Google ads and an Amazon-powered "what I'm reading/listening/consuming/etc." list.

Bookmark: HTML Resume Template

Wordpress designer extraordinaire Alex King has an HTML Resume Template that I need to include here on johnfulwider.com at some point.

It outputs in valid XHTML and CSS and makes it easy for viewers to print and get a text-only version.

Three Strikes and You're Not Out

So I've been worshipping God outside lately (read: skipping church to go on climbing trips) and thus haven't heard a sermon of any kind in quite a little while. Returning briefly to the fold, as it were, I heard probably the best ever.

The pastor talked about teaching his daughter to play baseball. He bought the biggest whiffle ball and the biggest plastic bat he could find. First he asked her to swing the bat a few times so he could tell where the bat tended to go. Then he threw the ball in that area to maximize her chance of hitting it. Strike one. He moves closer so the ball's easier to hit. Strike two. Moves closer. Strikes three through five. He throws the ball at the bat. PING! (Or is that "thump"?) A home-run hit and she runs the bases -- the wrong way. Dad cheers her on all the same.

The pastor tied this all together by reminding us that even Abraham, the "father of many nations" and a hero of the church, had several strikes against him. He fathered Ishmael with his wife's servant Hagar, laughed at God's promise to enable him to have children with Sarah, and more. Not to overextend the metaphor, but God still gave Abraham plenty of chances at bat. Considering he's now one of the most respected figures in the world's three major monotheistic religions, you might say Abraham hit a home run.

" scooby snack tea parties near 2571 "

... is about the most intriguing spam subject line I've ever received.

Bookmark: National Motorists Association

National Motorists Association

We support more reasonable speed limits, better driver training, improved motorist-to-motorist courtesy, and sensible, easily understood regulations. We oppose heavy-handed enforcement, unfair motorist taxation, speed traps, kangaroo traffic courts, and government edicts that take away your rights as a consumer and user of automobiles. We're working for the establishment of traffic laws based on engineering principles and public consensus.

Church Habits Now Prime Political Predictor

USATODAY.com - Churchgoing closely tied to voting patterns

Voters who say they go to church every week usually vote for Republicans. Those who go to church less often or not at all tend to vote Democratic.
Forget the gender gap. The "religion gap" is bigger, more powerful and growing. The divide isn't between Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Gentiles. Instead, on one side are those of many faiths who go to services, well, religiously: Catholics who attend Mass without fail, evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants who show up for church rain or shine, some Orthodox Jews. On the other side are those who attend religious services only occasionally or never.
... Meanwhile, Democrats haven't reached a consensus on a strategy to narrow the religion gap and regain voters the party has lost. ... [Some] argue that voters who frequently attend church would be receptive to an appeal that recasts some traditional Democratic issues -- protecting the environment as the stewardship of God's creation, for instance.

1. It's no longer the gender gap (basically, women vote Democratic, men Republican), it's the religion gap. As my favorite pointy-eared nonhuman would say, fascinating.

2. It's the Republicans who should latch onto environmentalism as stewardship of God's creation. Here's a quiz: Which two words that describe a) "The protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and of natural resources" (source link) and b) a major political orientation have the same root word?

(Hint in the form of another question: which Republican president established the US Forest Service, five national parks, 51 wildlife refuges and 150 national forests? Answer)

Curing Human Aging: The Engineering Approach

Bookmark: Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS): A practical way to cure human aging

The simple explanation:

... [O]ur ultimate goal is the availability to the entire human race of technology that will restore them to whatever degree of youth they desire and keep them there for as long as they want. That's a bit stronger than simply "a cure for aging" -- it says that the cure should be available (at a price that they can afford, of course) to absolutely anyone who wants it. ... [W]hat "youth" means for our purposes is physical robustness and vitality.

The less-simple explanation:

SENS is a detailed plan for curing human aging. SENS is an engineering project, in the same way that medicine is a branch of engineering. The key to SENS is the appreciation that aging is best viewed as a set of progressive changes in body composition at the molecular and cellular level, caused as side-effects of essential metabolic processes. These changes are therefore best thought of as an accumulation of "damage", which becomes pathogenic above a certain threshold of abundance. The traditional gerontological approach to life extension, namely to try to slow down this accumulation of damage, is a misguided strategy, firstly because it requires us to improve biological processes that we do not adequately understand, and secondly because it can even in principle only retard aging rather than reverse it. An even more short-termist alternative is the geriatric approach, namely to try to stave off pathology in the face of accumulating damage; this is a losing battle because the continuing accumulation of damage makes pathology more and more inescapable. Instead, the engineering (SENS) strategy is not to interfere with metabolism per se, but to repair or obviate the accumulating damage and thereby indefinitely postpone the age at which it reaches pathogenic levels.

World's First Commercial Spaceflight: June 21

According to Slashdot, the world's first commercial spaceflight on June 21 will send one lucky pilot over 100km above terra firma.

I'm so glad this is happening in my lifetime. Moonbase One, here I come.

Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel Tips and Tricks

Bookmark: Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel Tips and Tricks

There's some tips in here that apply to other digital cameras, like using a cheap drugstore ear syringe to replace an expensive dust blower and using cheap cellphone hands-free kits to replace expensive remote shutter release cords.

It's also nifty to read about the firmware hack that nearly turns a ~$800 camera into a ~$1,250 camera, in feature-set terms. I haven't developed my view on this matter fully, but my initial reaction is to say that I don't like companies that create products by crippling existing ones, as is the case with the Digital Rebel. To wit, from Slashdot:

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales. This is, however, a reality that more corporations are having to confront. In an era where programming labour is relatively cheap and computer connectivity more frequent can artificial, marketing-driven, barriers between technology products, last?

But then a possibly good point ...

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales.

That arguement is rediculous. What part of Canon's market that will shell out for that camera will apply this hack? Probably almost none of it, if they can find it or understand it. So that leaves the likes of the slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into Canon's sales.

... followed by another, contrasting, possibly good point:

What part of the normal music market will learn to download MP3s off the internet? Probably almost none of it, if they can find or understand them. So that leaves the likes of the Slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into cultural acceptance. Oh wait...

Ha!

Ooh, I'm Excited ...

... that I may finally have made a good gadget purchase decision. Casio has already released a firmware update for their Exilim Pro EX-P600 camera I plan to buy. Quick firmware updates for brand-new products usually mean the company means to support a particular model (as opposed to just plopping it down in the market), and I'm happy as a clam.

(Via Photography Blog)

iPodding Your Way Past Social Critique

Gizmodo:

Apple's silhouette iPod ads have been far more pervasive than anyone probably imagined, and now thanks to an anonymous New Yorker (or, more likely, New Yorkers) armed with a Sharpie the posters have become a platform for expressing the various feelings of hate, jealousy, passion, and, yes, poetry, that the tropical-hued advertisements and their white audio sperm inspire. Starting with the same argument levied against the iPod's great uncle, the Walkman, the phrase, "The "i" in iPod stands for isolation," was scribbled on the first ad, replicated down the line with "irrational," "insecure," and other iWords taking the place of "isolation." Deep! Ironically, the people that felt the need to parley an mp3 player into social critique are exactly the people we wear headphones to avoid.

Joel Johnson has been getting cheekier and cheekier, and his gadget-lust site Gizmodo just keeps getting better as a result. If he'd just cut the unnecessary profanity (seen in other posts), all would be good and right in the world.