I’ve written about Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy here before. I liked the ideas, but the books didn’t grab my imagination by the scruff of the neck. The film version of the first book comes out this week: The Golden Compass. Hopefully the books will translate in to good movies. If they expose more people to the ideas then that will be a good thing™. Mark Morford has written a nice column on the flap the film is causing amongst the “faithful”. Well worth a read.
I’ve just moved into a new role in work. My new title is Technology Consultant. A major part of the job function will be finding, evaluating and introducing new technologies into the company I work for and into our ICT offerings. I’ll also have a team of people working for me. Should be fun. Getting paid to look at new stuff. Obviously there will be more to it than that, but still…
There has been a lot of hoopla and news coverage recently about the results, from teams in Japan and the USA, who used chemical manipulation to produce cells that resemble stem cells. Many groups that oppose the use of embryos in research have proclaimed that the new results mean that there is no longer any valid reasons for using stem cells derived from embryos. They are mistaken for several reasons (ignoring the fact that they opposed the research using embryos anyway).
The results from the latest research do not equate to a medical breakthrough (as some have claimed). What has been published are the results of research on using transcription factors to reprogram skin cells into a state that resemble a stem cell. However both groups used viruses as the vector to introduce the genes to produce the transcription factors into the cells. It’s very unlikely that virally modified cells will be permitted for use in human trials and treatments. So the current research will not be directly translatable into human treatments. More work will be required to find other ways to introduce the transcription factors. Also the fact that the resultant cells resemble stem cells does not mean that they are stem cells. There could be biochemical limitations and side effects that have still to be discovered.
Talk of the end of research using embryonic stem cells is premature. We need to pursue all lines of research, including using embryonic stem cells. Given that many embryos are left over after human fertilisation, and that these will be discarded anyway, then I can’t see what the problem is with using them for research. If we accept the processes that produce the embryos (and we should) then simply discarding the unused ones when they could be used for research is just daft.
All avenues of research need to be kept open and funded in this area. We don’t know which technique will prove to be the best. As Einstein once said:
If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?
To paraphrase. If we knew the best outcome then we could pick the research line that leads to it. But we don’t, so we have to research on all fronts. And that includes using embryonic stem cells and other techniques like nuclear transfer and animal/human hybrid cells. Plus any other techniques that researchers haven’t thought off yet.
The Omni Group have announced pricing and a release date for OmniFocus. I’ve been using the beta versions for a while. It’s a very nice application for sorting out the things you need to get done. It can help you implement the Getting Things Done methodology. Well worth checking out if you need an application to help sort your life out and keep track of all the tasks you need to do in work and personal life. The also have a nice movie, that is the first of a series to be posted, to show how to use the application.
The evidence…
Of course if you did the a similar video for the sites espousing irrational beliefs you’d be there for a while.
Link via Pharyngula.
I haven’t heard this song for ages. Several years, until it came up on random play in iTunes today. I was working from home writing stuff for work with the music as background. I did something I very rarely do these days and just let iTunes play songs at random from the whole library of between 4 & 5 thousand tracks. That’s just under 20 days of music if I let it play through the whole library.
Anyway it threw up In a Broken Dream by Python Lee Jackson with Rod Stewart as guest vocalist. This is a truly wonderful piece of music. The vocals are fantastic. The guitar is blistering. The bass guitar is stunningly good, and the drumming is a perfect rhythmic complement to the whole thing. It’s tracks like this that remind me what a truly wonderful thing music is. Brilliant.
I can’t find it on iTMS to link to it. There is a YouTube video of about 3 minutes 30 seconds of the track. It’s a video of a vinyl copy being played 🙂
It’ll let you get a good feel for the song. I have it on the best Rock Album in the world…ever. Vol 1.
The SF Sketchfest comedy festival is on in SF from 10th to 27th January. Happy days. I’ll be in San Francisco for 10 of those days. Have to keep an eye on the Sketchfest schedule to see who is performing on the nights I’m there.
First heard on the current TV ad for the Saab 93. Grabbed from iTMS.
Taken from the album Let There Be Love.
Finally started walking for exercise again today. Did 5.46 miles along some recently completed pathways for walkers and cyclists that are being laid along the old Belfast to Comber railway lines in Dundonald/Stormont area. As usual the distance was tracked with the Nike+ and iPod nano combination. Summary as shown on the Nike+ site below.
Click picture for larger view
I’ve used my Marriott points and BA AirMiles, as discussed here, to book 10 days in San Francisco in January for Macworld Conference and Expo 2008. Planning on going to a day long Office 2008 launch event on Monday 14th, Steve Jobs keynote and expo hall on Tuesday 15th and then the Mac IT conference for the rest of the week. I’ll be in San Francisco from Friday 11th so will have a weekend before the conference for exploring and getting used to the time difference. I’m going to hire a bike and ride over the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito for lunch one day. I’ll have 1.5 days after the conference in San Francisco as well, 9 nights in total. Happily I have enough Marriott rewards points banked over the last 2 years to get the hotel for free (apart from local taxes). I’m also flying British Airways Club World both ways using BA Executive Club points to upgrade. Sweet 🙂
Terry Pratchett’s latest book featuring the Moist von Lipwig character who was introduced in the excellent Going Postal . I didn’t think that Making Money was as good as the other recent books in the Discworld series. For one thing it felt a bit short and rushed at the end. Was still a good read though. Looks like Moist will get another starring role in a book about taxes. Allegedly, Terry Pratchett said at a book signing in the USA that it would be called Raising Taxes.
BTW: I read this on my Sony Reader.
I wrote previously about choices for a new car when my current leasing contract ends. I had a Honda Civic Hybrid on loan today for a test drive. I love it. It has a 1.4 litre petrol engine but it feels much more like 1.8 litre. It uses electric motors to assist the engine when required, and the batteries get charged when you brake or go downhill. The hybrid feels as responsive as my current 1.8 litre Renault Laguna, plus it’s really nice to drive. Weird getting used to the engine turning off when you stop moving! Going to call the leasing company and find out how much the 1.4 IMA EX version with built in Sat Nav costs.
Bill Maher tells some truths. See the video on onegoodmove.
Thanks to Pharyngula for the link.
I thought I’d written about the Swedish group, The Concretes, here on the Soapbox before. But it seems not. I’ve been into the group for a few years now. For several reasons, one of which was the vocals of Victoria Bergsman. I say was, because it seems she has left the group. Not all doom and gloom though, as she has a new solo project called Taken by Trees, plus The Concretes have a new album out and Victoria Bergsman is featured on the wonderful Peter Bjorn and John track called Young Folks.
Victoria Bergsman (Click picture for larger view)
BTW: The Taken by Trees album, Open Field, is excellent. She really does have a wonderful voice.
The iPod touch lacks the Notes application that is on the iPhone. As a work around for this (until Apple gets the message and adds it via a software update!) you can create a Contact called Notes and use the Note field of the contact to record snippets, to-dos, etc. on the go. The Contacts app on the iPod touch only shows fields with data in them. So Set the first name filed to Notes and put text in the Notes field and these are the only two fields that will be visible for that entry. When the iPod touch is synced with MacOS X the Notes entry and its associated text will be available in AddressBook. And vice versa, changed in AddressBook will sync to the touch.
I posted earlier about getting sun burnt in San Francisco. I was curious how far it was from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge. Using Google Maps to get directions it seems it is 5.9 miles. See picture below. More pictures of the route here and here.
Click picture for larger view. Route is blue line, sort of. The actual walk hugged the coast more at North Beach and Fort Mason
Just got electronic access to the first few books for a new Open University course that starts on 6th October. It’s a 3rd level computing course called Natural and Artificial Intelligence. It covers traditional AI research and how ideas from biological systems and evolution are shaping AI ideas. Finished the introductory book already. Good stuff. Looking forward to the rest of the course. Also start the recently introduced course on evolution next February.
The exam for the AI course is sometime around 14th June 2008. I’m hoping that means it’ll be in the week after Saturday 14th and that it doesn’t clash with WWDC 2008. It looks from the Moscone Center web page for June 2008 that there are non Apple events on in the Moscone West on the weeks beginning 16th and 23rd June. Looks like the event listed as Corporate Event from Sunday 8th June to Friday 13th June in Moscone West will be next years WWDC. I’ve got enough British Airways air miles for a free flight from Heathrow to San Francisco, and enough Marriott Rewards points for almost a week in a hotel. So should be able to do WWDC next year pretty cheaply.
