Udderings

Udderings is compiled by David Hall, a PhD student in BME at Boston University

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November 14
Pike board approves toll hike - Local News Updates - The Boston Globe you now pay a $9 toll if you take a cab from Logan airport anywhere.  Just another example of why you should never take a cab in Boston.
November 13
marco: Tiff: I tie all of Marco’s ties, so I’m looking forward to trying out something new.  Apparently I’ve only been doing a Four in Hand knot. After some experimentation, Tiff just leveled up, choosing to upgrade my standard tie knot to the Shell Knot. And I just learned that my best man, Mark, gave me a Windsor for my wedding. (It was a great knot. I just had to know.) Straight up Windsor for life.  Or since the age of 5.  (which on a different note, when you went to a school with uniforms that included ties, it seems so foreign when people don’t know to tie a tie.  It reminds me of when I found out that one of my friends who grew up in Manhattan had never rode a bike or driven a car.)

marco:

Tiff:

I tie all of Marco’s ties, so I’m looking forward to trying out something new.  Apparently I’ve only been doing a Four in Hand knot.

After some experimentation, Tiff just leveled up, choosing to upgrade my standard tie knot to the Shell Knot. And I just learned that my best man, Mark, gave me a Windsor for my wedding. (It was a great knot. I just had to know.)

Straight up Windsor for life.  Or since the age of 5.  (which on a different note, when you went to a school with uniforms that included ties, it seems so foreign when people don’t know to tie a tie.  It reminds me of when I found out that one of my friends who grew up in Manhattan had never rode a bike or driven a car.)

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Bothered about some design decisions on the new MacBooks

marco:

One of the reasons I’ve decided to hold off on a laptop upgrade is that Apple has made a number of questionable design decisions with them.

The buttonless trackpad
I’m not entirely sure who, exactly, had ever complained that Apple’s trackpads had too many buttons. I appreciate the goal of minimal design, but this isn’t elegant at all: it requires a lot of hardware and software tricks to work properly, and it still doesn’t. It’s incredibly unreliable, missing a lot of clicks. (Buttons never had this problem.) Supposedly a software fix is coming soon, but we don’t know if it will actually solve the problem, or if the problem can be solved without a hardware redesign. Why was this change necessary, adding tons of complexity (and more weight, I bet) at the cost of reliability, to eliminate an inconsequential part of the design that never bothered anyone?

I’m not sure the other design never bothered anyone.  There’s a reason why there’s the whole tap to click on the trackpad option.  Some people really don’t like the button.  And the people who use the top on the trackpad are absolutely miserable in their attempts to drag stuff around.  There are likely people who want something like the tap to click, but never used it because it makes using your trackpad almost hellish.  This design makes that experience not suck.

November 10
Bone Marrow Transplant Appears to Halt HIV
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Triathlete, 14, Is an Ironman Who's Not Yet a Man - washingtonpost.com Surprisingly balanced article on the ethics of allowing a 14-year old to compete in long distance triathlons.
November 8
A lot of people are talking about the burden the Baby boomers will put on young americans who have to support them in their old age through things like Social Security and Medicare.  Less talked about is the idea that certain fields are closed off to young blood by the increasing amount of old blood.  NIH funding of research labs is the main one I hear about these days.  The average age for the first grant has crept up over 40 in the last few years.  A huge percentage of money goes to the boomer generation of professors.  And will continue to in an environment where it is increasingly required for you to almost do the experiment before the NIH will fund it.  This is in stark contrast to what was described 30 years ago where scientists proposed projects involving bacteria they had never cultured or using techniques they had never tested.  If you have access, read the Science article. (Note, I’m not saying that I’m getting messed up by the system in any way.  I’m paid by the NIH, so I clearly cannot complain… for now.  And I hope to move into the biotech startup world post-graduation, so I probably won’t be looking for NIH money, although the last startup to come out of my lab did get an NIH grant at one point.)

A lot of people are talking about the burden the Baby boomers will put on young americans who have to support them in their old age through things like Social Security and Medicare.  Less talked about is the idea that certain fields are closed off to young blood by the increasing amount of old blood.  NIH funding of research labs is the main one I hear about these days.  The average age for the first grant has crept up over 40 in the last few years.  A huge percentage of money goes to the boomer generation of professors.  And will continue to in an environment where it is increasingly required for you to almost do the experiment before the NIH will fund it.  This is in stark contrast to what was described 30 years ago where scientists proposed projects involving bacteria they had never cultured or using techniques they had never tested.  If you have access, read the Science article.

(Note, I’m not saying that I’m getting messed up by the system in any way.  I’m paid by the NIH, so I clearly cannot complain… for now.  And I hope to move into the biotech startup world post-graduation, so I probably won’t be looking for NIH money, although the last startup to come out of my lab did get an NIH grant at one point.)

November 6
Technology Review: Chinese, African Genomes Sequenced

Adding to yesterday’s news, the first 2 non-caucasian genomes have been released.

So, we’re now at:

  • 2 white men
  • 1 white woman
  • 1 Chinese man
  • 1 African man

These numbers are just going to explode with the PGP-10 on their way and the eventual goal of 100,000 genomes from the personal genome project.
November 5
NANOBAMA_blocks (via ajohnhart) Obama’s face at 10 times the width of a human hair.  Grown from carbon nanotubes.

NANOBAMA_blocks (via ajohnhart)

Obama’s face at 10 times the width of a human hair.  Grown from carbon nanotubes.

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Scientists Decode Set of Cancer Genes - NYTimes.com

Wash U gives us the first cancer genome.  And the first genome of a female.  woot!

summary is that traditionally, there have been “usual suspects” that researchers look at for mutations in cancer cause that’s cheap.  Instead, Wash U sequenced the whole genome of a healthy cell and a cancerous cell.  And they found 10 mutations, 8 of which wouldn’t have been found with the traditional approach.  Most scientists probably view this as overkill, so people the National Cancer Institute wouldn’t pay for this study.  But it did give 5 times as many results, which might make it seem less silly.
November 4
samreich: thedailywhat: Massachusetts finally votes to decriminalize Marijuana. I think I’ll move back home. I was hoping it would be solid green across the state.  Unfortunately, some douchebag county (Lawrence) ruined it all.

samreich:

thedailywhat:

Massachusetts finally votes to decriminalize Marijuana.

I think I’ll move back home.

I was hoping it would be solid green across the state.  Unfortunately, some douchebag county (Lawrence) ruined it all.

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Obama has an early lead in WV?  Weird results like these are keeping me hopeful that Indiana and Virginia will move from McCain to Obama.
Obama has an early lead in WV?  Weird results like these are keeping me hopeful that Indiana and Virginia will move from McCain to Obama.
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anyone else feel like this result is sketchy?  (only 3% of precincts in the county reporting, but still…)
anyone else feel like this result is sketchy?  (only 3% of precincts in the county reporting, but still…)
November 3
“ The news arm of the search engine expects Tuesday’s day of voting and Wednesday’s day-after to raise the bar higher still.

Yahoo News Is Bracing for a Day of Heavy Traffic

I think this quote emphasizes how differently Yahoo! views itself than how many people outside the company view it.  Noone inside Yahoo! would describe the company as a “search engine”.  (And noone ever would have in the past…)
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Diversity Blooms In Outer Suburbs (of Northern VA) There’s part of this that makes me sad in the discussion of how this is resulting in the inner suburbs where I grew up becoming more white and less diverse.  I enjoyed growing up in the midst of a melting pot of a neighborhood and believe it shaped me well.  I don’t know where to raise my kids to have the same experience.
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Justice Ordered To Produce Wiretap Memos, Judge: Admin. Must Deliver White House's Legal Basis For Eavesdropping On Americans Without Warrants - CBS News The fact that the Bush Administration believes the government should be protected by attorney-client privilege is absolutely disgusting.