1. Podiobooks make it into the New York Times.

    02 March 2007

    These days, just about everyone has heard of audio books - people read books (or abridged versions therof) and are recorded, so that you can listen to them in the car, at work, or whenever you can't sit down with a real book but your ears are free. Many people also listen to podcasts, which are recordings similar to radio shows that are released periodically that cover a variety of topics, from science fiction to medicine to politics, and just about everything in between. But not many people have heard of podiobooks, a synthesis of podcasting and audio books. Many authors …

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  2. Podiobooks make it into the New York Times.

    02 March 2007

    These days, just about everyone has heard of audio books - people read books (or abridged versions therof) and are recorded, so that you can listen to them in the car, at work, or whenever you can't sit down with a real book but your ears are free. Many people also listen to podcasts, which are recordings similar to radio shows that are released periodically that cover a variety of topics, from science fiction to medicine to politics, and just about everything in between. But not many people have heard of podiobooks, a synthesis of podcasting and audio books. Many authors …

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  3. Welcome to root canal city, population me.

    01 March 2007

    After a day at work stoned out of my mind on Motrin and fighting the aftereffects of a power failure, I left the office and headed for home for the appointment at the endodontist's.

    As the title of this post implies, I'm due for a root canal in about two weeks' time. The botched crown my last dentist installed somehow allowed something nasty to swim down into the tooth (which wasn't hollowed out, incidentally, just capped) and eventually take up residence.

    I've started antibiotics and I've got analgesics out the yin-yang.

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  4. "Here's the secret of the signal, Mal - you can't stop the signal."

    01 March 2007

    He might not be Mr. Universe but Ken Jones, a volunteer at UHF television station 45 South in New Zealand is just as determined to make sure that an uplink signal hits the airwaves. Because the station either wasn't able to purchase a $20kus microwave uplink to get their signal to a full-sized broadcast station, Jones constructed a parabolic antenna to broadcast their signal using a $10us wok from a housewares store.

    That's right, a wok. As it turns out, if you work the math behind parabolic reflectors, the particular kind of wok he bought works just as well as …

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  5. Changing the IP address of a Solaris 10 machine.

    01 March 2007


    1. Edit /etc/hosts, change the IP address corresponding to the system's hostname.

    2. Edit /etc/netmasks, change the network and subnet mask.

    3. If required, edit /etc/defaultrouter and set the new default gateway of the system.

    4. Edit /etc/inet/ipnodes, change the IP address of the system's hostname. This file trumps all of the other TCP/IP config files, so if you miss this file everything else is pointless. Alternatively, you can delete or rename this file, and this will trick the Solaris 10 SMF subsystem into thinking it's an IPv4-only system.

    5. shutdown -i 6 -y -g 5 to reboot the …

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  6. Electrical stimulation of tissue regeneration in xenopus laevus.

    01 March 2007

    Researchers at the Forstyth Centre for Regenerative and Developmental Biology in Boston, Massachusetts, lead by Dr. Michael Levin have figured out how to trigger tissue regeneration in xenopus tadpoles past the age when they are normally capable of it. After a certain age, the tadpoles are unable to regrow their tails or other organs after amputation, but some nicely nonlinear research shows that it is possible to duplicate the weak electrical field that builds up around sites of major trauma that heralds the regenerative process. This is a phenomenon found in many higher lifeforms, from frogs to deer (the males …

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  7. Sometimes I hate being right.

    01 March 2007

    It seems that Dell Computers is putting the brakes on their new lines of Linux-equipped computers. They've changed their minds, and instead of selling machines with SUSE Linux preinstalled they are actually certifying three models (the Optiplex desktops, Latitude notebooks, and Precision workstations) for use with Linux. If they are going to sell machines running Linux, it's not going to be anytime soon.

    I hate to tell Dell spokescritter Jeremy Bolen, but the Linux community has already certified Dell's hardware under Linux - we've been doing it for years and posting our results.

    Read our lips: We want to buy Dell …

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