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February 22, 2006
Creating icons and favicons in Photoshop
I'm a very visual person. I think more with pictures than with words. That's why I'm always looking for ways to put more graphics into my life and onto my desktop. When I'm searching for files and folders on my PC, I'm slowed down by having all the icons look the same and having to read the file/folder name. I've started converting those little manila folder icons into ones that represent the contents of the folder. Now I've found a tool that makes this conversion much easier.
I just stumbled upon this post: Favicon - How To Create A Favicon.ico | PhotoshopSupport.com. I've mentioned favicons before, but what was most useful about this article was the mention of a free Photoshop plugin that will convert anything you create or open in Photoshop into an icon file (.ico). It even works in the cheap version of Photoshop that I use, Photoshop Elements.
The plugin, called ICO Format, is one of the free products offered by Telegraphics.
Posted by rigd0003 at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
Afternoon coffee miscellany
Usually, a morning coffee is enough to get me through the day, but today required an afternoon refill. I'm doing some database work and improving my study model. I thought I'd take a bit of a break with this miscellaneous post.
• My favorite dog breed, the pug, won best in its group last night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Tonight, Dermot the pug goes head to head for best in show! That means another opportunity for my family to hear me giggle and squeal with delight, "it's a PUG!"
• What am I listening to these days? The Avett Brothers, The Long Winters, Cat Power, Chris Mills, Liz Durrett, and Elliott Smith.
• The New York Times science writer, Gina Kolata, has an interesting analysis of the recent Women's Health Initiative study on dietary fat and cancer. The article is an exploration of a core belief that "we are what we eat." But this study focused on one component of what we eat: fats. I think the salient point of the article is found in this paragraph:
The truth, said Dr. David Altshuler, an endocrinologist and geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital, is that while the Western diet and lifestyle are clearly important risk factors for chronic disease, tweaking diet in one way or another — a bit less fat or a few more vegetables — may not, based on studies like the Women's Health Initiative, have major effects on health. "We should limit strong advice to where randomized trials have proven a benefit of lifestyle modification," Dr. Altshuler wrote in an e-mail message.
• Now is the time of year when donations ebb from local food shelves, but demand remains strong. Today, on St. Valentine's Day, I suggest you "share the love" with a donation to your local food bank.
Posted by rigd0003 at 03:34 PM | Comments (2)
February 10, 2006
Ring tones from They Might Be Giants
I'm a huge fan of the band They Might Be Giants. They're always coming up with something new and quirky. And now I can share that quirky love with John and Jane Q. Public with the help of the new They Might Be Giants ring tones!
Three tones to chose from. Let the entire city block know you are getting a call by choosing the brash "Phone Phone Phone." Or chose the more mellow ensemble, "Ring Ring." Finally, do your part for full disclosure with the "Call Connected thru the NSA" ring tone. Get 'em while they're hot!
Posted by rigd0003 at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2006
Cat napping
Ben surreptitiously caught me and Pippin cat napping on Saturday. I was recovering from Friday's wisdom teeth extraction (my jaw still hurts). It may look like I'm crushing little Pip, but he's actually tucked right along side me, as if he knew I needed a little extra comforting. (Which, of course, he did, as any cat lover will tell you.)
Posted by rigd0003 at 10:10 AM | Comments (1)
February 06, 2006
Tasmanian devils succumbing to effects of shrinking gene pool
I came across a sad story recently about a facial cancer that is killing Tasmanian devils. The disease is being monitored by the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water & Environment (DPIWE). There's more information on the disease on their web site, but a heads up about the pictures -- they're a bit graphic.
What strikes me as simultaneously odd, fascinating, and devastating about this particular disease is that the cancerous cell itself appears to be acting as the infectious agent. There are some well-known examples of viruses causing cancer, you may even call it an "infectious cancer", I suppose. For example, feline leukemia virus (FeLV) in cats; and human papillomavirus (HPV), of which there are several strains that cause cervical cancer. (Fortunately, two vaccines are close to production that would prevent infection by the most common cancer-causing strains.)
But for this devil disease, a virus isn't the culprit. It appears that the cancerous cells themselves are being transmitted between animals during fights and skirmishes -- being scraped from the facial lesions of the sick into wounds of the healthy. The reason why this is so odd is that immune systems are really good at fighting foreign cells and invaders. Viruses and bacteria, in order to successfully reproduce, have evolved stealth mechanisms to evade immune systems in their hosts. Normally, a cancerous cell would be a big red target to the devil's immune system.
The key to what's gone wrong in this instance is described towards the end of the ProMED-mail posting: the low genetic diversity in the current Tasmanian devil population. It sounds like the devil gene pool is now similar enough among the different devils that the cancerous cell is not identified as 'foreign,' but rather the animal's immune system thinks of it as 'self' and doesn't attack it. Like I said, it's a sad story.
Posted by rigd0003 at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2006
Global surface temperatures in 2005
This is an image from NASA's Earth Observatory news site. The agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) considers 2005 to be tied for the warmest year ever recorded. The other year, 1998, was the year in which the strongest El Niño in a century occurred; 2005 reached the same high temperatures without an El Niño effect.
Here's what the GISS director has to say about 2005:
In early 2006, James Hansen, director of NASA GISS, pointed out that five of the warmest years over the last century were in the previous eight years: 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. Moreover, the GISS team states, “It is no longer correct to say that ‘most global warming occurred before 1940,’” an argument sometimes made by those who are skeptical of the link between human-produced greenhouse gases and global warming. Instead, the GISS team says, global warming over the last century up until 1975 was slow, with large fluctuations. Since 1975, there has been a “rapid warming of almost 0.2°C per decade.”
That's the same James Hansen who says he's being censored and hindered in his efforts to talk about global warming to the public. We can't screw around with this. This is a problem that transcends not only borders but time. And not just time in the sense of a few presidential administrations, but in the sense of generations.
Posted by rigd0003 at 10:27 AM | Comments (1)