My favorite book of all time so far

A book about how to live your life.

Not an easy read, but often voted one of the top ten books in the English language.

And after all, why would a book about purpose in life be an easy read? George Eliot was an absolute master of the mot juste. Every sentence is exquisite.

Middlemarch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlemarch

Available for free at
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/145

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
(as are many books that are out of copyright).

Better yet, look for a real copy, like one from the 1870s or 1880s at ebay or an antiquarian book dealer. Why pay more for a paperback printed last year? I got a first edition in one volume for two dollars! The spine is cracked, but the pages are free of foxing and just a pleasure to read (but, my, my, the typesetting used to be even stranger than the English!). And the inscription led me on a great chase! I know a lot about Mariana Alice Fletcher, to whom it was given on her twenty-first birthday.

... for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

A good New Year to those of good will!

Epigenetics and the Epigenome

This is probably the most important thing you can learn in 2008.

Trying to understand DNA and genetics takes quite some time.

The good news is there is something much simpler and more important: epigenetics.

Each cell in your body has a complete copy of your DNA, but in any one cell, most of the genes are "turned off", and relatively few are "turned on". That is why your cells are different from each other. Different types of cells have different genes turned on.

A gene being "turned off" means that a small molecular tag is attached to the beginning of the gene, like a little peg, so the gene is physically blocked and is inactive. This is the subject of epigenetics.

When you are young, genes that should be turned on are turned on, and genes that should be turned off are turned off. That is why everything works properly and your risk of cancer is really low when you are young.

However, as you get older, extraneous "turn off" molecular tags are accidentally attached where they should not be, so over time, gene control becomes chaotic.

If we could remove the extraneous molecules, we would vastly drop our risk of cancer and would actually become physiologically younger.

Fortunately, this can be accomplished easily. Fasting one day a month or one day a week will turn all your cells into check-DNA-tags-and-rip-off-any-tags-that-don't-belong-there mode. That's it. On occasion, just do not eat from dinner one day to dinner the next day. Drink water, though. The effects are enormous.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=3985674

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/the-risks-and-rewards-of-skipping-meals/

If you don't want to do that, you can take resveratrol. Go to longevinex.com

In January 2008, a documentary called Ghost in Your Genes will become available at Amazon. It may also be rebroadcast. After you see it, you will understand why this is such a big deal.

Migraine headaches

A possible cure for migraines. The possible cause is quite surprising.
(However, one of my friends has said in his medial experience the pharmaceutical mentioned does not relieve migraines.)

A heart treatment produces 'spectacular' results for chronic migraine sufferers!

This was the top story at The Independent the other day.

http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article3284878.ece

2008

Actually, it is quite possible that the year is not 2008 but 2012 or even 2015. If the Star of Bethlehem is a conjunction of planets or other astrological event, that event could have occurred as early as 7 BC.

In the Hebrew calendar, January 2008 will be in the year 5768 as dated from one year before the Creation.

In the Chinese calendar, February of 2008 will be the Year of the Rat, 4705, dated from that morning in February 4704 years ago when the Moon and all the visible planets were grouped together in the dawn sky, the celestial clockwork's hands all set at zero.

Why is Christmas on the 25th of December?

On the winter solstice, around December 22, the Sun appears to pass farthest to the south. For three days it appears to stay at that same level. Then, on the 25th, it appears to begin heading north, and so is "born".

LA Times says gas may go over $4 a gallon

The LA Times says gas may go to more than $4 a gallon next year.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gas27dec27,0,7315706.story?coll=la-home-center

Since it does look like that from here on demand will outstrip supply, we are coming to a major transition in the Age of Oil. The Oil War has been going on for a century now; it is nothing new. (The US is currently doubling its emergency reserves, even though the price is near a historic high, because they know something is coming, and that something is not good. Oil demand usually drops toward the end of the year, but this year it just kept going up.)

Major oil fields like Mexico's Canterell are seeing unbelievable drops in production, and there is little replacement capacity coming online. Mexico may cease to be a major oil exporter to the US in just a few years.

Drilling in Alaska preserves will not save us. That would run the world for a few days. Brazil recently announced a 10 billion barrel discovery. Wonderful. That would run the world for about 4 months. And there hasn't been a discovery like that in decades.

Many say that the price of oil drives the supply of oil, so don't worry: as the price goes up, the supply will go up. But I think this is clearly wrong. It is the supply that is controlling the price, not the other way around. In the 70s and 80s, technology became available that allowed a lot of oil to be discovered and pumped out. After the oil crises, the UK, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark used technology that had just become available to pump the oil and gas out of the North Sea. That oil and gas, and oil and gas that became available elsewhere due to the same technological advances, were suddenly available, breaking the stranglehold of the oil exporters. That and improved efficiency dropped the price to $10 to $20 a barrel for decades. But be careful what you wish for. I think we will come to see this as not necessarily having been a good thing in the long run. Although over the last 30 years the anomalously low price produced the biggest economic boom the world has ever seen, for the economy to continue the way it is requires that the energy supply continue to grow, or at the very least not decrease. That is looking progressively unlikely.

Basically, the nonfrozen land area of the Earth and the shallow offshore areas have all been searched, and everything huge has been found. There may be more large fields in deep water to be discovered, but compared to finding the oil that was produced for the last century, this is going to be really difficult.

Basically, oil is so useful and contains so much energy that everything around us (including us because the food that we eat is provided by using huge amounts of oil) depends on continued supply. The Population Bomb may not have been avoided, just delayed, and made very much worse by all the cheap oil.

The good news is that technological advance should really explode over the next 20 years, and we may figure out how to produce really good photovoltaic panels and batteries to run vehicles.

Netherlands Pavilion, Nagoya Expo 2005

The Netherlands Pavilion at the Nagoya Expo in 2005 was really wonderful. When you entered, the room looked empty, with just a big white sunken floor. But then the dimmed the lights and suddenly the floor looked like it had turned into rippling water. The effect was stunning. These pictures do not do it justice, but there is no video I can find on YouTube or by Google.

http://www.hollandtrade.com/vko/zoeken/ShowBouwsteen.asp?bstnum=561&location=&highlight=

What is science?

The best answer I have heard so far:

Science is the process of learning to be less wrong.


The same could be said for a lot of things we do.

British Idol

The British version of American Idol. Three of the following videos are in good quality, that is to say, much better quality than a typical YouTube clip up until now.

If you don't have time to watch them all, at least watch the third one, Paul Potts.

Very funny... High quality video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8wWncO0m00&feature=related

The Bar Wizards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oQ_q_AaPJs

Paul Potts High quality video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

And the winner is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwkVnyfdGYQ

Dan Fogelberg, 1951-2007

米歌手 Ｄ・フォーゲルバーグ 死去

No man ever spoke so straight to my heart.

http://danfogelberg.com/news.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QKUBuLzDtJU&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cy3GHCy49Dw&feature=related

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xAHHWb783VE&feature=related

There is a 62-track, "Portrait - The Music of Dan Fogelberg from 1972 - 1997", at iTunes for $19.99. All the old favorites are there...

There is a new CD coming out later this year, and a new song on iTunes.
http://danfogelberg.com/news.html

3D Movies

It is likely that there will be more and more 3D movies in the future... because they cannot be pirated easily.

I saw Beowulf in 3D. Stunning.
NOT for children.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article1996446.ece

If a 3D movie has subtitles, however, having to focus back and forth from where your attention is to where the subtitles seem to be floating in midair is really tiring and annoying.

TV from Hawaii over the internet to your TV

I knew this day would come.

I have no idea whether this is good or not, and the content is slim so far, but it is just starting out...

I often want to watch full news broadcasts from Hawaii, and there are only short news clips on the net so far, but I already have so much electronic stuff in my apartment, the last thing I want is another box. But, on the other hand, it would be great to go home to Hawaii and not turn on the news and say "Who is that?".

Actually, I would rather just pay 50 cents a day to get the broadcast over the net... I hope they do that soon.

Even if it turns out to be good, the set top box will become obsolete and the company will
either adapt or go out of business in a few years... but on the other hand, it ain't gettin any earlier... and everything is changing so fast, an electronic device going obsolete in a few years is normal... and if you have grandparents or parents living away, I think they would enjoy it...

This company seems to be offering a deal...
it is like 100 dollars cheaper than what it says at the company site itself, I think.
http://www.alohavalley.com/hawaii-iptv.html

This is the company site.
http://tvfromhawaii.com

Here is what some of the earliest life on Earth looked like

NewScientist is offering free wallpaper.

One of the pictures is absolutely spectacular. Living stromatolites! I had no idea they were red!

This is what life looked like on Earth for the first few billion years.

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/screensaver/2007/wallpaper/NewScientist_november_large.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolites

How to use someone else's (cable) modem

You go to your friend's house, and you want to connect your laptop to the internet, but your friend doesn't have wireless.

You unplug the modem from your friend's computer and plug it into yours, but you cannot connect.

Leave your computer plugged into the modem, then disconnect the modem from the electrical supply (that is, unplug it from the electrical socket), wait a few seconds, then reconnect the modem to the electrical supply.

The modem should now autodetect your computer, and that will be it. You will not need to imput any addresses or anything like that.

The above applies to cable modems.

Tell your friend to get WiFi.