I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see any major medical advances in my lifetime, due to the lack of any trend in this area lately.

• Designing Ecstacy (MDMA) to reduce the psychoactive effect and increase the cancer fighting potential:
  http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/23/could-a-form-of-ecstasy-fight-cancer/
• MIT’s DRACO antiviral drug could prove to be a cure for HIV, AIDS, and the common cold:
  http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/antiviral-0810.html
• More information on DRACO:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRACO_(antiviral)

The Producteev Windows application uses some interesting techniques—some of the same ones employed by modern 3D video games—to render a lot of the visual elements. These elements were designed from scratch by our in-house designer and they’re a lot more resource-intensive than the bland native elements that the Windows API provides. In order to accommodate for the extra pressure they put on your computer, a lot of optimizing and tweaking was needed to get them to display smoothly.

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I’ve updated the C# API library for accessing Producteev.com and made a dedicated page for getting updates on it.

http://www.markhamilton.info/projects/pdtvapi/

Released under MIT open source license. Feel free to use this in any of your projects free of charge. I will be regularly updating it.

http://markhamilton.info/src/pdtvapi-0.1.zip

Update: For the latest version and documentation, you can check out the dedicated PDTV Library Page

Here’s some pictures of my first piece of Jewelry I’ve made. It’s a steampunk bracelet.

Programming is all about knowing when to boil the orange sponge donkey across the phillipines with an orangutang gorilla crossed with a ham sandwich to the fourth power of twelve across the nile with an awful headache from the previous night when all of alfred’s naughty jalapeno peppers frog-marched the nordic elves across the loom-lined geronimo induced swamp donkey over and above the fortran fortified kilomanjaro fence past the meticulously crafted anti disgusting sponge cake scenario where all the hats doth quoteth the milk which is not unlike the super werewolf from the infinite realm of ninja-step. it’s hard to define, really.

http://www.joshmillard.com/2008/06/12/found-poetry/

As a gadget lover, this thing piqued my interest.

Beautiful. Windows 7 on a tablet. What the iPad should’ve been.

From the videos I’ve seen it does have some slight issues with choppiness. You can’t really expect a whole lot from a desktop OS running on an iPad-sized tablet. What counts is you can use the same workflow that you carry on your desktop, sans keyboard. If you’re an artist or like taking handwritten notes, it will be a wonderful companion for you. But don’t travel too far from an outlet since it only has a measly 3 hour battery life. This is comparable to similarly priced notebooks, but unusable for anyone who can’t be tethered to the wall; longer battery life really does equal more freedom.

You can expect to shell out about $1,000 for this when it’s released.

Preorder here: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/buy/featured/asus.aspx?WT.mc_id=WOL_US_SM_asus

(Photos courtesy ASUS and Microsoft.)

Does Windows 7 Home Basic not have the ability to change backgrounds by default, or is this something that the OEM has done?

I’m kinda’ baffled to be honest with you. All traces of changing your background have been removed from context menus. Maybe this is just a super slimmed down version of the OS just for Netbooks.

Edit: After placing my foot in my mouth, I realized that this is Windows 7 Starter, not home basic. And no, I can’t.

I liked meeting and talking with the other developers.

Using a multitool, some screw drivers, wire cutters and a crimper, I got the glass marble out of a Ramune bottle. Will I do it again? Probably not, unless I get a power drill for Christmas this year. Continue Reading »