Imablog Perspectives of a Canadian in the Old/Deep/New/Geographic South: This is where I ramble on about nothing in particular and post a few nice pictures.

Remembering Columbia

Wow, it's been a year since the Columbia space shuttle broke up on re-entry. I remember waking up that Sunday morning, turning on the news and seeing the first reports happening live during coverage of what was supposed to be the landing. I remember seeing footage of the shuttle, a bright light streaking across the sky with smaller lights falling from it, and thinking "Gee, that doesn't look right". And then learning that it really wasn't right, hearing people saying that the shuttle had broken up. And then the days and months afterward, learning about the cause, about what happened and the reasons behind the tragedy. It seemed to me that many of the problems cited were very similar to what was supposed to have been learned from the Challenger accident.

Lots of people say the Space Shuttles are outdated and that something new is needed. But perhaps what's really needed is a change in the management structure and culture at NASA.

Comet and Galaxy conjunction

APOD had a very cool photo yesterday showing the near conjunction of the Andromeda galaxy and Comet Ikeya-Zhang. More of the photographer's very cool pictures can be seen at http://www.skylook.net.

MT 3.0 ready for alpha testing soon

Looks like SixApart is ready to start alpha testing MovableType 3.0 soon. I'll probably wait for beta testing to start, seeing as how there isn't much activity on this blog to warrant being on the bleeding edge. But ifyou're interested, drop them a line.

A new PDA

Decided to go for the PDA upgrade, so in a few weeks, I should have a new Tungsten T3 to play with.

A few people around here with Tungsten C's asked why I didn't get one of those with the cool wireless capabilities. Wireless is nice, but not important to me for what I want to do. I wanted the larger screen to make it easier to deal with the spreadsheets I use while I'm testing equipment.

Can't wait till it gets here...

I don't think I can eat Quizno's Subs anymore

I really think that Quiznos Subs got ripped off by whatever ad firm created their latest commercials. Maybe you've seen them. They feature a freaky looking white turd-like lump with a bad singing voice, which on closer inspection appears to be a dead mouse with really bad teeth and creepy bulgy eyes. And then there's that pirate looking thing playing the guitar. I don't know about you, but a dead mouse singing really badly about Quizno's doesn't make me want to eat a Quizno's sub anytime soon. There really isn't anything about those two (yes, there are two of them) commercials that make me even want to step near a Quizno's.

bleah

Journal Club: Optimization of Ga-67 Imaging

Extensive use of simulations with a few experiments thrown in for good measure. Upshot of this article is that the standard 15-20% energy windows most people use aren't optimal for Ga-67 imaging. What I also found interesting was that the optimum windows changed depending on the task being performed (detection vs estimation). Results were based on SNR calculations, but did not look at any changes in image quality. Only planar images were examined in this paper. It would be interesting to see how the modified windows affect Ga-67 SPECT imaging. With 5/8" crystals coming into vogue now, it would also be interesting to see if the optimum windows change with a thicker crystal. I'll have to file that away on my list of projects to get to. That might make an interesting subject for a summer student to tackle.

Cable modem hacking

SecurityFocus has a really interesting article on hacking cable modems. The article talks about a clever hack to Motorola Surfboard cable modems to replace the firmware on the modem with something more customizable, and the obvious security implications. Imagine eavesdropping on your neighbours through your cable modem. An interesting article definitely worth reading if you have cable modem service.

There is hubbub over at Slashdot.

RSS compatibility history

I had no idea RSS had such a storied history. Over at DiveIntoMark he writes about the 9 different incompatible RSS versions. There's a lot more to RSS than I originally thought. Must make it tough on people who write software to read RSS feeds.

Friday Five

1. What's the most daring thing you've ever done?
Made a spur of the moment decision to buy a plane ticket to New York as I passed a travel agency on my way to work. A very big and daring thing to do for a low paid grad student living cheque to cheque and had never gone any further from home on his own than a 3 hour car trip.

2. What one thing would you like to try that your mother/friend/significant other would never approve of?
Hmm, i don't know if I should say...

3. On a scale of 1-10, what's your risk factor? (1=never take risks, 10=it's a lifestyle)
I'd have to say I'm probably around 2 or 3.

4. What's the best thing that's ever happened to you as a result of being bold/risky?
I met the woman who ended up becoming my wife.

5. ... and what's the worst?
hmm, nothing comes to mind.

I am boring

I am. My wife told me so this morning. She said flat out "Your blog is getting boring".

She used to find what I wrote funny. But I just haven't had much funny stuff to write about anymore.

So I hang my head in shame. I can't even entertain my wife with my writings anymore.

In other boring non-exciting news, I finally got my driver's license from the DMV yesterday. A shiny new license with a new picture that expires in ... 364 days.

For bubble wrap addicts

A friend of mine emailed this to me. It's a little something for all you bubble wrap addicts who just ran out.

Virtual bubblewrap

You'll never run out of bubble wrap again. I particularly like Manic Mode. I know it's not quite the real thing, but it's good for a little mindless entertainment.

Body Challenge Week 4

Ok, it's been 4 weeks since the Body Challenge started. I'm still at 172 lbs and I have to admit I've been a little lazy as far as the working out part.

Time to see if I've changed at all
Chest 95 cm (-0.9 cm)
Waist 91 cm (-0.4 cm)
Hips 102 cm (-2.1 cm)
Thigh 58 cm (-3.0 cm)
Bicep 31.5 cm (-0.9 cm)

So I'm making a little bit of progress. Just need to start working out.

Testing PHP in entries

Just testing MT to see if it will allow me to do code in entries.

Inspired by a thread on the MovableType support forum, I want to see if I can display a text string as an image inside a blog entry.

It works! Well, it used to work until something broke on the server...

Nothing terribly complicated, but the ability to use PHP inside a blog entry does have some interesting potential.

For those of you interested in seeing what I did, I just embedded the following in my entry

  $text = date("F j, Y, g:i a");
  echo "<p>Today's date: $text</p>\n";

  // Set the image size based on the font size and text
  $font = 8;
  $width  = ImageFontWidth($font) * strlen($text);
  $height = ImageFontHeight($font);

  // Create the image object
  $im = imagecreate($width,$height);
  
  // white background and blue text
  $bg = imagecolorallocate($im, 255, 255, 255);
  $textcolor = imagecolorallocate($im, 0, 0, 255);
 
  // write the string at the top left
  imagestring($im, 5, 0, 0, $text, $textcolor);
 
  // output the image
  // write the image to a file
  // Change /path/to/image/dir/ to whatever path you're using
  if (is_writable("/path/to/image/dir/")) {  // Check to see if the directory is writable
    imagepng($im,"test.png",75);
    echo "<p>Today's date as an image: <img src=\"test.png\"  height=\"$height\" width=\"$width\" /></p>\n";
  }
  else echo "<p>Don't have permission to write to the current directory</p>\n";
  imagedestroy($im);

No reprieve for Hubble Space Telescope

Well, this is disappointing. The BBC article (via Slashdot) reports NASA has decided Hubble is doomed to fall back to earth. No servicing mission to fix Hubble's gyroscopes, no possibility of carting it back to display in a museum. NASA's deemed a Hubble mission as too unsafe.

From the article,

Readdy, a former shuttle astronaut, said Nasa had already analysed the question of whether to send astronauts to fix Hubble, and determined that it was unsafe.

He added that Hubble offers no "safe haven" for astronauts seeking refuge from a damaged shuttle, while the ISS does.

Well, at least there's still Herschel and the James Webb Telescope to look forward to..

Battlestar Galactica on SciFi!

Woo hoo! SciFi has given the green light to a new Battlestar Galactica series!

via kadyellebee and SciFi Wire

Blood donation #16

Chalked up my 16th blood donation today since moving to SC. That means over the past 3 years or so, I've donated close to 8 liters (2 gallons) of blood. It also means I've made 48 or 49 donations since I started donating blood. And since each donation can be used up to 3 different ways, that means I have probably helped as many as 150 people!

So what are you waiting for? Click the button and make your appointment. You could potentially be helping out 3 other people with just an hour of your spare time. Starve a mosquito, give blood!

BTW, I nabbed the image from the givelife.org website...hope they don't mind.

TopicExchange: Conversing via Trackbacks

Discovered this interesting website that takes Trackbacks to another level. TopicExchange.

The concept seems to be kind of similar to Usenet newsgroups, but not nearly as many newsgroups at the moment. To post to a topic channel as they're called, you make an entry in your trackback-enabled blog, and ping the URL for the group. Or you can create a new topic channel. Each channel also has an RSS feed, making it easy to keep track of with your favourite RSS aggregator.

A very nifty concept. Shall have to keep track of this one.

My T3 is here!

My T3 arrived today! Woooo!!! Gotta wait for it to charge before I can play though. Looks pretty cool though. Got the wireless keyboard to go along with it. The keyboard is bigger than I expected...it definitely isn't a Stowaway keyboard.

Next task is to find a decent case for it.

Charge T3, charge!

On this day: Marriage license

3 years ago today, we got our marriage license. In SC (as in many other states I imagine), you go apply for your marriage license, and a few days later you go pick it up. And 3 years ago today, that's what we did. That also means our anniversary is coming up. So I guess I'd better start thinking of something to do...

Friday Five

1. Are you superstitious?
No

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?
Hmm, can't really think of any off the top of my head.

3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition?
Don't think I have one...

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?
Not really.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?
No. I think it's silly to think that some particular arrangement of stars and planets somehow determines our personality and/or fate. I mean really, they're stars and planets that are hundreds, thousands, even millions of light years (miles for the planets) away. How could any arrangement of flaming balls of gas possibly determine the course of our existence? And if they could, why would they care?

Palm's wireless keyboard

The keyboard is a little thinner than my Stowaway keyboard, but bigger in the other two dimensions. Unlike the Stowaway's clever foldout design, this one just folds out in half. Pop the latch (which also serves to support the backrest for your Palm) and fold out the right half of the keyboard. In fact it looks remarkably similar to ThinkOutside's wireless keyboard.

You are greeted with a 3 row keyboard layout (with a split spacebar and other function buttons on a 4th row). A blue Fn key gives you access to the numbers and PDA related functions, while a green Fn key gives you access to symbols.

I like the wireless part. The keyboard's IR port swivels into position above my T3. No connector to snap on to, which is good. I've already worn out one button board on my Visor because of the constant snapping into and out of the keyboard.

I don't like the keyboard at all though. In fact, I suspect anybody who touch types more than 20 wpm probably won't like this keyboard. The hinge just happens to sit where I normally rest my thumb to hit the space bar which keeps me from hitting the space bar properly. I have to hold my thumb in an awkward position to hit the space bar. Maybe I'll just have to train myself to put my thumb a little farther out to clear the hinge.

Having the numbers and symbols compressed into the top row of letters is also inconvenient if you're typing a lot of numbers mixed in with text. Really slows typing down having to reach for those extra modifier keys. It also means the right hand number keys are all in the wrong position (compare with a full-sized keyboard to see just how out of position they are).

Key spacing is all right, somewhat narrower than the original Stowaway keyboard design. 19mm vs 18mm may not sound like much, but it sure feels like a lot.

I think hoever came up with the 3 row keyboard design was never much of a touch typist who entered a lot of numbers. I suppose eventually I'll get used to it, but man, it sure makes typing slow.

I'll have to hunt around and see if I can find an original Stowaway keyboard that I can use with my T3.

Body Challenge Week 5

Week 5 of the Body Challenge is over. I'm down to 170 now, but I still haven't been able to drag my lazy ass out to the gym on a regular basis. Yeah, I'm bad. Still walking and climbing stairs though.

Love my T3

I've been playing with my T3 for a few days now, and I absolutely love it. Screen is nice and bright, sharp, colourful, and I absolutely love the extra screen space when you slide it open. Really makes using spreadsheets a lot easier (which is something I do a lot of). The screen is easy to read in the daylight and battery life is pretty good. Used it quite a bit to test a couple of x-ray rooms the other day. 5 hours of hard use along with lots of syncing and the battery indicator was down to about 40%. And it's fast. Being able to switch between portrait and landscape mode is pretty cool to. The thing can handle pictures and music (comes with a Palm version of RealOne) too. Also comes with a webbrowser, but haven't had the opportunity or need to use it yet.

The virtual grafitti area is pretty cool. Collapsing it gives you a bunch of extra screen real estate. One thing I would like to see is the ability to customize the buttons in the virtual grafitti area, like the hardware buttons can be customized. Since it *is* virtual, I don't see any reason why they couldn't be customizable.

Syncing is really fast too. Way faster than my Visor with USB. Already have it loaded up with about 10 MB of stuff, and a complete sync including backing up all the contents of the T3 only takes 2-3 minutes.

It has Bluetooth, which at the moment isn't too useful for me yet. Maybe I'll find something to use it for.

Migrating from my Visor was easy too. Sync my Visor, and rename the backup directory. Install the updated Palm Desktop, attach the cradle and sync my T3. All the contacts, datebook, todo and memos were transferred over seamlessly. I use Datebk5 and had to recategorize some of my datebook entries though. Some of the events got mixed up into different categories. Minor inconvenience. Then it was just a matter of dragging the apps I wanted to transfer out of the old backup folder to Palm's QuickInstall tool and doing another sync.

Still carry my Visor Platinum around, just in case there's something I need that I forgot to transfer over, but soon it will be relegated to sitting in my desk drawer. Anybody want to buy a used Visor Platinum? Good condition, just needs a new screen (digitizer is flaking out). Comes with USB and serial cradles, Stowaway keyboard (starting to suffer a little bit of wear and tear), Memplug and Vaja case. I think I've even got a few extra styli lying around I can throw in. Make me an offer if you're interested.

Blogging by PDA

Testing a Palm conduit (plog) that lets you write blog entries in an app you load onto your PDA, then sync them to your blog. It uses MT's XML-RPC interface to create the blog entry. So now you can blog from anywhere! Of course it doesn't show up until you sync, but for us non-wireless PDA plebe/owners, it's better than nothing.

Don't try this at home

All I can say to this is...whoa.

Lighting a Barbeque

Friday Five

When was the last time you...

1. ...went to the doctor?
About a year ago for my annual physical

2. ...went to the dentist?
Probably far too long ago. I think maybe 8 or 9 years or so.

3. ...filled your gas tank?
About 3 weeks ago.

4. ...got enough sleep?
Sleep? I always get enough sleep.

5. ...backed up your computer?
Home computer was backed up about a month ago, work computer
probably too long ago. That one's a little overdue.

Journal Club: Magnetic field-induced DNA strand breaks in brain cells of the rat

Ok, this one is a little bit out of my field, but the topic intrigued me. Found the article through a posting at ScienceDaily.

I'm always a little bit sceptical about claims on the effects of EM fields on tissue and the brain in particular. Mostly because many of the studies that show an effect use conditions that the majority of people aren't exposed to in real life for significant periods of time. And there really isn't a lot of energy in low frequency EM radiation (in the radio wave and low frequency microwave end of the spectrum) to do much more than re-arrange electron configurations. Maybe that's enough though. Who knows. It's a lot like extrapolating the effects of low level and chronic radiation exposure when all you've got is data from high level and acute exposures.

The article (Lai H, Singh N P, "Magnetic Field-Induced DNA Strand Breaks in Brain Cells of the Rat", Environ Health Perspect, publication pending, doi:10.1289/ehp.6355) has been accepted for publication, but hasn't been published yet. The PDF of the pre-publication version of the article is available here for the time being.

Going to try to read this one over the weekend and see what interesting tidbits it contains.

Abstract:

In previous research, we found that rats acutely (2 hrs) exposed to a 60-Hz sinusoidal magnetic field at intensities of 0.1 - 0.5 mT showed increases in DNA single and double strand breaks in their brain cells. Further research showed that these effects could be blocked by pretreating the rats before exposure with the free radical scavengers melatonin and N-tert-butyl-α-phenylnitrone, suggesting the involvement of free radicals. In the present study, effects of magnetic field exposure on brain cell DNA in the rat were further investigated. We found that: (1) Exposure to a 60-Hz magnetic field at 0.01 mT for 24 hrs caused a significant increase in DNA single and double strand breaks. Prolonging the exposure to 48 hrs caused a larger increase. This indicates that the effect is cumulative. (2) Treatment with Trolox (a vitamin E analog) or 7-nitroindazole (a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor) blocked magnetic field-induced DNA strand breaks. These data further support a role of free radicals on the effects of magnetic fields. (3) Treatment with the iron-chelator deferiprone also blocked the effects of magnetic field on brain cell DNA, suggesting the involvement of iron. (4) Acute magnetic field exposure increased apoptosis and necrosis of brain cells in the rat. We hypothesize that exposure to a 60-Hz magnetic field initiates an iron-mediated process (e.g., the Fenton reaction) that increases free radical formation in brain cells, leading to DNA strand breaks and cell death. This hypothesis could have an important implication on the possible health effects associated with exposure to extremely-low frequency magnetic fields in the public and occupational environments.

Body Challenge Week 6

Still at 170. Had a momentary lapse yesterday and strayed off my diet to satisfy a meat craving at Brinson's Beef & Brew. Not a bad place. Tasty burgers. I had the Tower of Chili burger, which I thoroughly enjoyed half of. Saved the other half for dinner tonight. Also had the Cheese Fries, which was ok, but would have been better with a cheese sauce instead of regular melted cheese. Add a little gravy to it (which they don't have), and mmmm, a plate of artery clogging goodness.

And now back to our regularly scheduled healthy eating.

Yankee or Dixie?

Couldn't resist taking this quiz, Yankee or Dixie. What came as a surprise was my result: 63% (Dixie). A definitive Southern score!

Considering where I'm from, definitely a surprise. But maybe not so much considering where I live now. I don't know if I should be insulted, or troubled...

Found via anything but ordinary

Tungsten T3 in x-ray

One of the things I like about my job is that I get to play with x-ray machines, and you can get interesting pictures of things using x-rays. I think x-rays always give an interesting perspective on the way things look.

This is what the insides of a Tungsten T3 look like with the slider opened. Click on the image for a larger version. I've annotated some of the more obvious bits that can be easily recognized. The rest are just components on the motherboard. If you look closely, you can even see the ribbon cables on the right side of the button pad and lying over the battery.

For those of you wanting the technical details on how I took the image, I used an 8"x10" CR cassette, 40" source-image distance, 80kVp 1.5mAs, small focal spot (0.3 mm) in a Siemens Axiom RF room. Tungsten T3 was placed on the cassette. Cassette was read on an Agfa ADC Compact+ CR reader using flat field processing.

Geek toys

I want one of these

Big impact movies

CNN: Woman dies watching 'Passion'.

Wow. 6 months ago, there wasn't a film distributer in the world that was going to touch this movie with a 10 meter pole. Too controversial, too anti-semetic they said. Now it's all the rage. Church groups are buying out theaters and urging everyone to go see it.

You might even die from it.

Ok, ok, it's probably not quite fair to say that about this movie. But I wonder if now they'll add a disclaimer or something. Or perhaps a new rating.

This movie rated RH: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. People with heart conditions require accompanying medical personnel.

My collections

I like to collect things. One of the collections I'm most proud of is my small collection of radiology related things. There's not much in it, but I enjoy each piece I have. I try to acquire new items when I can, although nowadays with service engineers having to return all the bits they take out, it's a little harder. My favourite item is the hand held fluoroscope that I acquired off E-bay. It's the oldest piece I have. It gives me a connection to how radiology used to be done. I just find it cool to hold it, and imagine how someone would have used it 60 or 70 years ago. Unfortunately it doesn't have any labels on it, so I have no idea just how old it is.

Go visit my museum of radiology artifacts.

Business card fun

Thanks to Melissa, I've just wasted about 15 minutes and sacrificed a dozen of my business cards building a couple of business card cubes.

Who knew business cards could be so much fun. And all this time, I've just been giving the darned things away!

Found via Melissa

Body Challenge Week 7

Week 7, and I've gone up to 172. It's been a tough week staying on track with the diet. One of those weeks where I've just been too lazy to do much cooking of any kind. So I've probably been eating out a few more times than I should have been.

I've also been really lazy about getting a workout routine started. It's bad, I know. I need to do some form of exercise that I enjoy, and quite frankly, working out in a gym or health club is not something I enjoy. And if it's not something I enjoy, I'm just not going to be able to commit to doing it.

What I really want to do is be out on a bike cycling down the road. First I need to get a new bike. And all the requisite accessories. That's a little ways down the road though, and probably won't be happening soon. So I'll have to find something else in the meantime.

She got in!

She got in! Wooo!!! My wife got accepted to med school at MUSC!!! Yay!!!