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  • Have Canadian Researchers Found a Cure for Diabetes?

    In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians. Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

    You can read the full article on the National Post website.

    I am not directly affected by this disease, but I know enough people who unfortunately are to realize that this has the potential to tremendously change a lot of people’s lives, if it does lead to anything even remotely viable for humans.

  • Pre-Order a PS3 with Linux Installed

    TerraSoft is now taking pre-orders for Sony PlayStation 3 with Yellow Dog Linux 5 pre-installed. YDL5 is based on Fedora Core 5.

    If you already have the new console, you can also just order the new YDL5 distro on DVD, or download it via TerraSoft’s YDL.net Enhanced. Both options have support options.

    You can also wait a few more days and download it during the week of December 25, or take the more experimental road, and do it the other way.

  • Bruce Trigger: Archaelogist, Anthropologist 1937-2006

    This is, by Web standards, old news, but I still wanted to mark the passing of a great Canadian mind. See the article on the Globe and Mail site.

    Archaeologist, anthropologist and historian Bruce Trigger had a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity that roamed across civilizations — from ancient Egyptians in Africa to the Huron Confederacy in Eastern Canada — historical time frames and scholarly disciplines. He understood from an early age that complexity was an underlying factor in human behaviour, an insight that made him wary of ideological determinism and rigid methodological approaches to data.

    See also: Honouring Bruce Trigger in the McGill Reporter.

  • Review of the New Parallels Beta Build

    Since I unfortunately don’t have the time to get deep enough into the new Parallels Beta to write a valuable review about the new features, here’s the LifeHacker review instead. The review covers most of the beta build’s new functionalities and also has nice pictures and videos.

  • Memories for Life

    Memories for Life is a unique project, funded by the EPSRC, bringing together a diverse range of academics in a bid to understand how memory works and to develop the technologies to enhance it. We are our memories. Our memories underpin every thought we have, every fact we learn and every skill we acquire. In today’s technology-rich society this human memory is now supplemented by increasing amounts of personal digital information; emails, photographs, Internet telephone calls, even GPS locations and television viewing logs. We believe bringing together psychologists, neuroscientists, sociologists and computer scientists will lead to a more effective use and management of both the human and computerised memory. It will place the technology in the context.

    This truly sounds like a fascinating project.

  • Warning: cheesy pet video ahead. 😉

    Anybody who knows me (and them) knows that I had to do the following. Consider it saving a short snapshot for posterity, since they’re 10 (Surf, dog) and 8 (Bandit, cat).

    Or like Linus Torvalds once said:

    Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it.

    Whoever said cats and dogs hated each other didn’t know these two. Surf’s been taking care of Bandit since the day he was born. And yes, the snoring is coming from Surf. 🙂

  • Screencast: Installing Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop

    In the spirit of my other Linux install screencasts (1, 2), I took a lot of screenshots while installing Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop on my 12″ iBook G3, and made this 2+ minutes video out of them.

    It hopes to demonstrate how easy it can really be to install Linux, and to demystify some of the FUD around this great platform. Show it to your family and friends during the Holidays, and we might just end up with a few more Linux users in the new year! 🙂

  • Great Mac Disassembly Guides

    Having a few fun plans for a 2002 iBook G3, I was searching for online instructions on how to take apart the notoriously feisty little thing. And then I found the Fixit Guide Series, by iFixit. [Cue the heavenly background music]

    Each Fixit Guide has detailed disassembly instructions that walk you through the process of easily accessing and replacing components in your iPod, PowerBook, or iBook.

    This, to me, is just brilliant. Here is a company that sells Mac parts, and has the clairvoyance to think that their customers might want to do it themselves, whether for fun or to save a few bucks, and actually helps them doing so without trashing their box. Pure genius!

    And they do it well too. All the the guides are clear, concise and well illustrated.

    I was not only able to browse and get PDF copies of all the instruction sets I’ll probably ever need for my 12″ iBook G3, but also for our Mac Minis, 13″ MacBook, 12″ PowerBooks and 17″ PowerBook at the office. And to top it all off, they even have iPod repair guides.

    I didn’t know iFixit before tonight, but now, I know where I’m shopping next time I’m searching for Mac parts online. If their service and prices match this kind of spirit, they just gained a client for life!

    Thanks, and good job guys. I’m usually not that easy. 😉

    Update: 2006-12-10:

    I’ve been in touch with the iFixit crew after posting this, and on top of all the above, turns out they’re nice guys too. 🙂

  • Half-Pipe Skateboarding Competition, Part 4 of 4

    And to conclude the series, here’s part 4 of 4 of the fan video I filmed at the 2002 Slam City Jam, in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

    Audio: Straight Up, licensed from ibaudio.com.

    Probably not the best one in the series (my faves are #2 and #3), but I had some raw footage left. 🙂

    See also:

  • How to Build a Simple Wood Puzzle

    This short video shows how to build a very basic puzzle, with and for [your] kids, out of any non-toxic scrap wood and just a few simple tools.

    It takes less than 15 minutes, not including drawing time, and the kids love it.

    My kids and I have made dozens of those in the last few years, some a lot more elaborate than what is sampled in this video, but the basic concept and techniques are the same.

    And the first person to laugh at my narrative skills gets hit on the head.
    WHAAACK. Dam’it, I laughed at myself… ;P