< FeroxLog >

FINALLY.

Boulder Dash is coming to the PSP.

U.S. officials have raised alarm about tainted products from China, which produces 80 percent of the world’s toys, including seafood containing harmful drugs, toothpaste with an ingredient found in antifreeze and pet food containing a chemical used to make plastic.

Now some toys made in China have a little too much lead in them to be considered safe.

This is wild. Puncture or cut a zebrafish’s heart and it will seal itself up and repair the damage.

Turns out that office laser printers may emit some of their ink as fine particulates into the air and ultimately into your lungs. The amount increases when they’re used more or when you change cartridges.

Yay.

Article can be read here.

I ended up in a discussion today with someone and we started to compare notes on what freeware and shareware apps are the most handy on a Mac so I’m putting up a list here for future reference. These are applications that don’t (normally) come with your Mac. I’ll add apps as I think of them.

Keep in mind these are the apps I find handy, your list will of course be different.

Btw, a good site to browse for Mac shareware are macupdate.com and iusethis.com

AUDIO
- Audacity - Audio Editor - Freeware
- Audio Hijack - Audio Recorder for many inputs - Shareware

VIDEO
- VisualHub - Transcodes to many different formats - Shareware
- HandBrake - Encodes DVDs to MPG4 movies - Freeware
- MacTheRipper - Rips, decrypts and de-regions DVDs into a new VIDEO_TS folder - Freeware
- VLC - Video player that will play just about anything - Freeware

IMAGE
Graphic Converter - Image editor, converter - Shareware

MISCELLANEOUS
- AppFresh - Software Updater for non-Apple software - Freeware
- AppDelete - Application Uninstaller - Freeware
- Cue-Splitter - Chunks files into individual files based on their .cue file - Freeware
- Fseventer - Tracks in real-time what files applications are touching and maps it out - Freeware
- MacPAR deLuxe - Un Rars .rar files - Freeware
- The Unarchiver - decompresses (and compresses) files using many different codecs - Freeware
- Renamer4Mac - Flexible Batch File Renamer - Freeware
- Celtx - Word processor/system geared towards screenplays and filmmaking - Freeware
- DiskCatalog - Keeps a catalog of what’s on HD’s, Discs, etc… - Shareware

INTERNET & NETWORKING
- Azureus - Bit Torrent Client - Freeware
- Galerie - Makes interactive web pages for your photographs - Freeware
- Google Notifier - Puts a little indicator in your menubar and lets you know when you have new Gmail - Freeware
- Mozy - Lets you specify what files to automatically back up to a server with 2 gigs of free space - Freeware
- KDX Client/Server - Client/Server file sharing system with a ton of additional features like encrypted chat, remote screen control, encrypted voice chat and more - Shareware
- EvoCam - Feature packed webcam software with home security abilities - Shareware
- FireFox - Web browser for when Safari can’t cut it - Freeware
- Transmit - FTP client - Shareware

RETAIL PRODUCTS
- Toast Titanium - CD, DVD, Blu-Ray Burning app with transcoding capabilities - Retail Product

Today I went out and had a small dinner with some friends at a Chinese place. We get the requisite fortune cookies and pick ours from the pile and read them aloud. Two things happened that never happened before.

A: I didn’t get a fortune, per se.
B: Adding “in bed” to it at the end didn’t make it funny.

Here’s what my fortune literally read:

Fortune Not Found:
Abort, Retry, Ignore?

I feel empty and cold inside. Hold me.

There are two interesting articles out today that related to the search for evidence of evolution.

First there is the comparison between a Squid and a Nautilus.

One way to puzzle out anatomical relationships and make phylogenetic inferences is to study the embryology of the animals.

The striking thing about this research is how one small change at the beginning of two similar development cycle can end up with such different results.

The second article is a bit more complex.

The new research supports the idea of a genetic “arms race” going on between a live-bearing mother and her offspring, assisted by the growth-promoting genes of the father.

Reznick and the other researchers found that the IGF2 gene sequences had changed in some species of the minnows, showing that segments of the gene had evolved.

“In earlier research, we had found that the placenta had evolved independently several times in these fish,” Reznick said. “In the current research, we found a strong correlation between the evolution of live-bearing and placentation in these fish and the acceleration of the rate of evolution of IGF2 in the fish. This shows that IGF2 plays a vital role in not just mammals, but in fish as well.”

But it’s worth a read.

Walkscore uses google maps to try and figure out what’s close enough to walk to from a given address, then it assigns that address a walkability score.

My house scored a 2. I live no where.

This is a good one. Look at her then look away so she’s in your peripheral vision. If you can get it, she’ll reverse her rotation. How cool is that? (it’s all about spacial reference, and there’s little information since it’s a silhouette)

Richard Dawkins has started The Out Campaign which, while I like the spirit and idea behind it, I find a bit effrontery and brazen. Okay maybe brazen isn’t exactly it but I think it’s too group-think perhaps. I’m all for people standing up for what they believe in whether it’s super-magic men in the sky or vast expanses of nearly perfect vacuum.

The OUT Campaign declares:

Atheists are far more numerous than most people realize. COME OUT of the closet! You’ll feel liberated, and your example will encourage others to COME OUT too. (Don’t “out” anybody else, wait for them to OUT themselves when they are ready to do so).

It is time to let our voices be heard regarding the intrusion of religion in our schools and politics. Atheists along with millions of others are tired of being bullied by those who would force their own religious agenda down the throats of our children and our respective governments. We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies.

I love and agree with the sentiment overall but I think wearing shirts with large red A’s on it is a bit much. I’ve never been one for symbols or groups or labels. Sure it’s spittin’ distance from employing Godwin’s Law here but I won’t.

I think the better approach is somewhere between Dawkins and Harris perhaps. Where you call into question the very foundation of why discussing (not arguing) religion is so taboo. Why it’s comical to question someone who thinks Elvis is still alive or who thinks they’re sexually abused by aliens once a week but the moment you call into question their belief in an all knowing, all seeing magician who’s always been and always will be who can do ANYTHING and is single-handedly keeping the machinations of the universe on track is a big no no.

People are performing exorcisms today (literally, today, the day I wrote this) in the 21st century. Wars are fought and fueled by disparate religious beliefs and it’s quite possible that science and technology is hindered and slowed by these archaic beliefs. Stem cell research come to mind.

The real danger is not in unfounded blind faith but this sense of taboo when it comes to questioning it. Being loud and proud of your beliefs or lack of is fine but actions speak louder than t-shirts. In fact, just simply speaking about your beliefs or lack thereof speaks louder than any shirt or logo could.

If someone asks you, “What church do you go to?” Say so. If you don’t, tell them you don’t attend church.

Besides all that there’s the problem of the logo itself. It looks like too many other logos:

Worse yet is the very real threat of violence against atheists. There’s Giordano Bruno and of course Hypatia. And more recently Michael Newdow’s life was threatened numerous times for his attempt at removing “one nation under god” from the Pledge. (which wasn’t tacked onto the pledge until 1954.) At least students no longer have to recite or stand during it which is something I was sent to the office repeatedly for in High School to the point where I’d just get up and walk down there in the morning and save the homeroom teacher the hassle.