tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59872012010-02-08T06:04:00.286-05:00A blog by Keith Soltys. Things that interest me: science and technology, music, technical communication, computers and software, science fiction, and whatever else I feel like writing about.Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.comBlogger3979125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-56938320366765568812010-02-08T06:04:00.000-05:002010-02-08T06:04:00.398-05:00

Antibiotic use in China is more widespread than almost anywhere else in the world, and it's resulting in strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It may result in exports that we don't want.Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA . There are warnings that new strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-25921635542880790442010-02-07T17:10:00.000-05:002010-02-07T17:10:00.201-05:00

When I was a kid, I was seriously interested in science, and I had a chemistry kit. I don't remember doing anything really remarkable or dangerous with it, but it was neat to mix up various chemicals and observe the results. My lab was the laundry room, because we didn't have a basement bathroom at the time, and the laundry tubs were pretty much impervious to anything I could concoct. Chemistry

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-28440247833386392652010-02-07T10:36:00.003-05:002010-02-07T10:43:40.026-05:00

Saturday's Globe and Mail had a long article about the Tea Party, the US populist fringe party that's holding its convention in Nashville this weekend. It's making mainstream US politician's quite nervous.Though their gripes are not always coherent – they're against Mr. Obama's “government-run” health-care proposal, but cling to publicly funded Medicare for seniors – the Tea Partiers are

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-82979757773119101262010-02-06T17:56:00.002-05:002010-02-06T18:00:17.996-05:00

According to research conducted in 2008, the Arctic sea ice is melting faster than projections and threatens the Arctic's ecosystem. The melting ice poses different threats. Barber said the ice is full of toxic contaminants, which are released back into the environment when the ice melts. Wildlife in the Arctic is negatively impacted by the loss of ice and degraded habitat. Animals that live in

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-65220017831571747092010-02-05T06:48:00.003-05:002010-02-05T06:55:22.741-05:00

Featured links for the week of February 1, 2010Interview with Bruce Sterling, SF author and futuristUse Google Map Buddy to get full-page, hi-res maps from Google MapsA short video with some good Google Reader tipsUniversity students failing because of poor grammar

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-62033325152672331202010-02-04T18:37:00.003-05:002010-02-04T18:39:50.994-05:00

Here's John Scalzi's take on why publishers and publishing won't go away any time soon. It's a satirical, funny, and short three-act play. CHARACTERS:ELTON P. STRAÜMANN, a modern-thinking man with exciting ideasJOHN SCALZI, a humble writerKRISTINE SCALZI, the wife of a humble writerACT ISCENE OPENS ON STRAÜMANN and SCALZI, standing.STRAÜMANN: The publishing world is changing! In the future,

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-41094029479047168342010-02-04T06:16:00.000-05:002010-02-04T06:16:00.341-05:00

It's been a while since I've looked at the latest developments in web standards, so I can't really say much about why HTML 5 has been creating a lot of buzz recently. But most of it seems to be about video, with sites like YouTube using HTML 5 instead of Flash to display video. The folks at Gizmodo have taken a close look at HTML 5 and hae written a long detailed article about the effect that its

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-57248788009629986822010-02-03T19:03:00.003-05:002010-02-03T19:07:41.771-05:00

It looks like the third attempt to film Frank Herbert's Dune is still in production, albeit with a new director, Pierre Morel. He claims to want to make a movie that's closer to Herbert's original vision, which would be just fine with me."Everybody now who reads Dune reads it with David Lynch's images in mind," he said. "So we have to get away from that. It's not a remake of David Lynch's movie.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-10683156244224779742010-02-03T06:35:00.003-05:002010-02-03T06:51:16.227-05:00

Here's an article from The ContentWrangler on how traditional (that is, book) publishers can use XML to modernize their processes and help them use their books' content in new ways. From what I've garnered reading authors' blogs, book publishers are still using practices that were modern in the 19th century (some are still accepting manuscripts only on paper), so this article may be a bit

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-41989171070526121382010-02-02T18:17:00.003-05:002010-02-02T18:22:12.905-05:00

Locus, the monthly newsmagazine of the SF field, has published its recommended reading list for 2009. It's a pretty compreshensive list covering SF and fantasy novels, YA books, anthologies, collection, art books, and short fiction. I note that both Robert Charles Wilson's Julian Comstock and Karl Schroeders The Sunless Countries made the best novel list.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-78090656585165366522010-02-02T11:49:00.001-05:002010-02-02T11:49:00.206-05:00

DocFetcher is a small, free file search utility that searches both for filenames and for content inside your files. If you have privacy concerns about Google Desktop or want something with less overhead, then this might be worth a look. LifeHacker has a short review.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-91929774824077903082010-02-02T06:43:00.002-05:002010-02-02T06:46:31.114-05:00

After the Deadline is a Firefox add-in that checks your spelling and grammar in Firefox. If you do a lot of commenting or writing blog posts, this might be worth looking at as it is more customizable and has more features than Firefox's built-in spell checker.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-18529861549451444752010-02-01T11:36:00.000-05:002010-02-01T11:36:00.213-05:00

There are a lot of macro recording applications out there, some application-specific (FrameScript, VBA), and some more generic (MacroExpress). Sikuli is a new take on the latter type, but instead of recording keystrokes, it works by reading screen captures. To get a better idea of how this works, watch the short video embedded in this LifeHacker article. It looks like it could be useful in many

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-83617382454903974702010-02-01T06:20:00.001-05:002010-02-01T18:16:22.408-05:00

Here's one of the few hands-on reviews of Apple's new iPad that I've seen. I suspect it'll do well, but it still won't replace a netbook, which is what I was hoping for.Update: Fixed the link, sorry!

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-46752098683166873352010-01-31T17:54:00.000-05:002010-01-31T17:54:00.064-05:00

I've posted here before about physicist Garrett Lisi and his unconventional take on the unified field theory. I haven't seen much about it recently, so I was glad to see this article in yesterday's Toronto Star. The article includes comments from Lee Smolin of Waterloo's Perimiter Institute. The article's web page also includes the full text of the interview with Lisi on which much of the article

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-36593624947202606502010-01-31T06:35:00.001-05:002010-01-31T06:35:00.096-05:00

It's been six years since the rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars and they're still working. Spirit is stuck in a sand trap and it's roving days are over, but it can still provide valuable science data. Opportunity is heading to Endeavour Crater, the biggest crater on its mission. Not bad for a couple of machines that were only designed to work for 90 days.Air and Space has an article

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-52335944678510009532010-01-30T17:44:00.003-05:002010-01-30T17:48:24.238-05:00

For many years, Torontonians were proud to point out that Toronto was home to the world's tallest structure - the CN Tower. Now that title has passed to Dubai, home of the Burj Khalifa, which surpasses the CN Tower by about 900 feet. Planetizen has a gallery of pictures showing the Burj Khalifa and its surroundings in Dubai, surely one of the more science-fictional places on the planet.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-4113468760631553172010-01-30T15:01:00.002-05:002010-01-30T15:04:06.678-05:00

Although MadCap Flare is a Windows only tool, it is possible to run it on other platforms by using virtualization tools, as this post from The Tech Pub points out.With virtualization, I had a few choices. Mac has a program called Parallels, which allows you to run another operating system (Windows, for example) on top of the Mac operating system, for around 80 bucks. There’s an Open Source

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-21781171030731080192010-01-30T13:34:00.002-05:002010-01-30T13:35:32.615-05:00

This cartoon about the Spirit rover is quite heart wrenching.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-17590498520692697742010-01-29T18:28:00.000-05:002010-01-29T06:54:55.064-05:00

Featured links for the week of January 25, 2010:Now you can upload any type of file to Google Docs, free storage limit is 1 GB.The cost of health care graphed against life expectancy around the world. Take a look at where the U.S. sits and tell me their health care system is better than Canada's. Delete unwanted styles in Word, handy tips although you still can't get at the built-in stylesHow to

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-40407681925881137362010-01-28T11:26:00.000-05:002010-01-28T11:26:00.486-05:00

You can get a free e-book edition of Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, a novel that may be on the SF awards shortlists later this year. This is what io9 had to say about it. Set in Thailand's future, the book follows scientist spies hunting good genomes in a world ruined by GMO diseases. In the tradition of politically-minded hard SF writers like Iain M. Banks and Ian McDonald, Bacigalupi

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-63589553451421440202010-01-28T06:18:00.000-05:002010-01-28T06:18:00.106-05:00

I don't know who made this video, explaining Transport Canada's new regulations for flying to the U.S., but it's hilarious.

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-79873694603233314742010-01-27T18:09:00.004-05:002010-01-27T18:54:42.158-05:00

So to no one's surprise, Apple introduced the iPad today. On first blush it looks cool - an iPod on steriods. But, and it's a big but, it's just an iPod on steroids. So it's got a bigger screen and a snazzy new e-book reader. But what if you want to check something on the Web while you're reading that book. You're out of luck - no multitasking. No USB port either, but of course you don't need one

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-9166577260124367102010-01-27T11:31:00.000-05:002010-01-27T11:31:00.264-05:00

In what has got to be one of the most wrongheaded decisions ever made by a school board, a Southern California school district has banned Merriam Websters 10th Collegiate Dictionary because it contains a definition of oral sex. "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper. But that's OK

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5987201.post-54815916637330294012010-01-27T06:05:00.000-05:002010-01-27T06:05:00.089-05:00

Say what you will about Barack Obama's policies, there's no doubt that he's the most Internet savvy president yet. This Washington Post article describes in some detail how he gets information and makes decisions, and the Internet plays a big part.Obama is the first truly wired president, the first to have Internet access at his desk and to converse regularly via e-mail. This fingertip access

Keithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11022139065377254628noreply@blogger.com0