Even if you gotta go bad, you'd choose the sink over rubbing shoulders (and heaven forbid other parts) with the guy at urinal number one. - Jeff Crites
You can't really fit two adults in that corner. Rubbing parts looks quite eminent. - embee
Someone really doesn't know the unwritten rules of urinal etiquitte. Must have been a woman. - Dave Roth
You guys are missing the obvious. This urinal setup was made for conjoined twins. - Louis Gray
efficiency.. guys.. the share holders want you to stop complaining and start doing your job! we just save 0.5 sqm in real estate investment . just wait for this Q's results :) - Naor
This might be popular at a gay bar. - Jack Carlson
I knew it! I have battled anxiety off and on in my life - and I knew that the panic attacks, irritable bowel syndrome as a child and other small things had to be related. - Brandon Werner via Bookmarklet
This will be a photograph in the top 10 of many future lists. - Andrew Baron
Explanation: "In January 2007, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught has now returned to the outer Solar System and is now only visible with a large telescope. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework." - Andrew Baron
Wow, 153 people 'liked this" so far and almost 30 comments. - Andrew Baron
Absolutely incredible shot! Then again some of the best shots on the web come from NASA, National Geographic, Discovery and, of course, Hawk :) - Charlie Anzman
Not to be too cynical but that shot seems to good to be true -- I wonder if there is more processing going on than the text seems to admit. - Brian Sullivan
I'm going to side with Brian here. What is right: Comet McNaught was that bright in WA (I use to live there), but I checked my attempted pics, they predate this by over a week. I'm sure the comet was only that bright for less than a week. Second, the main Australia Day fireworks occur in Perth City...which isn't near a beach . Maybe it's Leighton Beach with Fremantle to the left...but it doesn't seem right. I did check the weather records though, there was a storm that night, and it's in the right direction - Duncan Riley
I do hope it is real though...and I forgot how wonderful the environment there is - Duncan Riley
Duncan, last year both Fremantle and I believe Hillarys held their own fireworks for Australia Day. I myself was trying to guess the location this morning. Being a regular on Leighton beach though it doesn't look familiar so I was thinking it may have been taken to the north of Hillarys. It also made me very nostalgic for Perth :) - Penny
At 302 likes, the #1 most liked post of all time on FriendFeed. Antti Kemppainen Photography - Here's Antti's original picture http://jkemppainen.com/antti/i... Antti's e-mail is kemppaisantti@gmail.com, and you can scroll through Antti's other photos. - Mitchell Tsai
Creative capitalism, good; crony capitalism and vulture capitalism, bad. The former promotes excellence and innovation; the latter promotes mediocrity and stagnation. - Sean McBride
Thanks, just added this feed to Goog Reader. - Andrew Meyer
Creative capitalism is a baloney. Whenever you force altruism through people, it is bound to fail. As an alternative, I propose sensible capitalism, which is the realization that by ensuring "prosperity" to people all over the world (universal health care and certain other welfare measures comes into this category) and by ensuring the "sustainability" in this world (environment, etc comes into this), we are achieving two things that are important for capitalism. (contd) - Krish
We are increasing the reach of the markets by several fold with the cost distributed throughout the society (greed, hallmark of capitalism followed by the market fundamentalists, is ensured even in the taxes) and we are reducing the enemies by several fold (imagine what will happen if people left out by capitalism take up arms struggle). In sensible capitalism, we can achieve everything which Gates says in his theory without altruism. Hope I have explained this idea properly. - Krish
In short, under sensible capitalism, you achieve all the things which Gates wants to achieve with his creative capitalism but by keeping greed as the central dogma (which market fundamentalists will always prefer). - Krish
thanks all, it's the Chihuly exhibit currently on display at the de Young museum in SF. It's a great show and very cool that they allow non-flash photography. I'm planning on going back a few more times to shoot more there as well. Info on the exhibit here: http://www.chihulyatthedeyoung... My entire Chihuly set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/t... - Thomas Hawk
I was considering going to shoot the exhibit, but it appears that doing so would just make me feel bad about my skill. Instead, I'll enjoy this set and go enjoy the exhibit with no camera. - David Thomas
Great stuff, man. After I was there, I couldn't wait to see what you came back with! - Jeremy Brooks
Thomas, how do you decide what you post to Zooomr vs. Flickr? Is it all the same shots? - Matt
Love the brilliant colors in these photos! - Alan Le
Matt, in the case of the Chihuly show it's the exact same shots to both sites. I have more shots on Zooomr than Flickr but it's kind of haphazard what shots go to what site and when. I love them both. The Chihuly show is an exception but mostly I go through a finished pool of unpublished photos and randomly post 10-15. Sometimes the same shots to both Flickr and Zooomr but frequently different shots to keep it more interesting. - Thomas Hawk
I still have another 120 or so finished Chihuly shots which will be filtered in randomly over time. The 59 I chose to publish last night though were the shots that I liked the most. - Thomas Hawk
Chihuly's art is amazing. One of the first HD shows I ever saw (around 2000 as I recall) was a PBS documentary on a project he conducted in Vienna. Stunning both visually and artistically. - Jody Carbone
I saw a Chihuly exhibition in Miami a few years ago - the glass sculptures amongst the park vegetation and cacti were simply amazing. - Sally Church
Beautiful! I missed Chihuly's exhibit when it was here in Chicago at the Garfield Park Conservatory several years ago, but was able to catch it in Columbus, OH, at the conservatory there (forgot the name). Took so many pictures. :) And I'm happy that I'll be able to visit his glass museum in Tacoma this August. - Cheryl Jones
Unable to see your photos as Zooomr has been down off and on (motley off) since Sunday PM. What's the problem??? - Jeff P. Henderson
"To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "democracy might not be the greatest system there is but it is the greatest system mankind has invented so far." Many American corporations are dysfunctional because corporate democracy is a myth in the United States. They run like a decaying socialistic state. Our boards and CEOs exist in a symbiotic relationship where the boards nourish the CEO with massive stock options that are re-priced downward if the companies stock declines - making them forever valuable. They reward the CEO with pay packages and bonuses when the stock is floundering or the CEO is leaving the company. Corporate performance and the shareholders welfare seldom enter the picture. What kind of democracy is this? There is no accountability." - Bret Taylor
I like it when he quotes himself more. - MG Siegler
Sounds like self-fulfilling prophecy from Mr. Corporate Raider - Mark Forman
I'm kinda confused that anyone would think that corporations are democracies, or that they should be. Corporations aren't governments; they don't necessarily need to use the same structure. Every corporation I've known has been a hierarchy. And that's not a complaint. - Brent Newhall
Democracy is a great form of government, but a corporation is not a government. I don't *want* a say in a lot of the things my company is involved in, I just want to do my job. - Mitch Wagner via twhirl
er, but corporations are democracies, that's what the voting shares are for. This is not some viewpoint or angle, this is reality. - j1m
The system we have works, its a weighted democracy which means CEOs can get on with running the company rather than fighting every rabble-rousing shareholder.....Yes I'm looking at you Carl Icahn. - Cains
Most public corporations are democracies, that's what stocks are here for, except for companies like Google that just take away the voting power from their shareholders. @Brent Newhall - That hasn't anything to do with hierarchy - a government has a hierarchy, too. @Mitch Wagner - Believe it or not, if you can keep your job sometimes depends on the management. Bad management can destroy your job. So yes, you *want* a say in your company if you want to keep your job. - sebmos
@Cains - No, it doesn't work. We have a system where a guy like Terry Semel can destroy a company and still earn half a billion dollars doing it, without ever being held accountable. He didn't have to give back his stock options, he didn't have to pay Yahoo for the damage he created. If you go to a house and burn it down, you'll be held accountable. If you take a company and run it into ground, you make a lot of money. Now how does that system work? - sebmos
This type of writing is useful to read because it does give you some insight into the thought processes churning in the minds of the "corporate titans", if only that it makes you realise that the way they think can be quite different than the way most of us think. Whether or not Icahn really has the moral or social capital to write stuff like this with credibility is another story but it's hard to argue his main point: companies and the economy as a whole suffer when instead of watchmen and leaders, you have "yes" people and seat warmers who are party to what could be the most insidious pyramid-like schemes ever seen. And this highly publicized minority (or so I hope) of the total population gives a bad name to people who actually try to do good work. To be fair, though, business boards aren't the only ones with a preponderance of deadwood. It can, and does, happen in all kinds of organizations. It's just that the spoils available to those at the top are generally smaller and less opulent in other kinds - Mark Dykeman
@sebmos The board/shareholders choose the management, sometimes things just don't work out and it's not always just the CEOs fault (but ultimately it is their responsibility). Terry Semel had as much incentive to increase the share value as any other stakeholder (infact I think he missed out on performance options). - Cains
Congrats, real good choice that I am sure you will enjoy - Fred Grott
@Louis yeah, I was tempted to mess with people and post pics of myself at FriendFeed and various other places, but decided to come clean. [Note: I still think FriendFeed would be an awesome gig too...] - Jeremy Zawodny
Never realised you had a linux blog on the side. Any others? - Neil Saunders
Yeh, I started a linux blog 'on the side' so that my regular blog bioinformatics/web/science blog didn't become overrun with linux-related posts. I could have used categories, but not enough people would use them. I also started a Wii blog since I became Wii-obsessed when I bought one on the launch day, and really felt like tracking new developments around the console. My interest in Wii-blogging has really subsided after ~ 12 months, and because of the Wii blog no one here had to suffer through it :) - Andrew Perry
Oh, and I started a game development blog (http://gamedev.pansapiens.com), mostly just to post my Ludum Dare 48 hour game development entries :) . There you have it, full disclosure of my (sometimes slightly embarrassing) blogging on the side. Don't tell "Your bones got a little machine", it may get jealous :) - Andrew Perry
I sometimes think about that - a lot of my "bioinformatics" blog is more like computer science. In fact my most popular posts ever concern (1) running background processes in PHP; (2) getting YouTube sound to work in Firefox and (3) installing Ubuntu from a USB stick. Not really what I intended, but there's no accounting for the readership. - Neil Saunders
Why do you think I pre-empted myself and covered all my bases when I named mine bbgm ... just in case :). - Deepak
lol - I think my blog title about covers it too :) - Neil Saunders
I've never seen the "user" to run as in crontab before... which Linux is that ? - General Kafka
@General Kafka - I think the crontab shown is a "system crontab", as opposed to the type generated by "crontab -e". It's mentioned near the end of "man 5 crontab". - Neil Saunders
funny, because I did the same thing when I was hacking around in Wordpress. Didn't want to fill my science blog with meta-stuff. - Mr. Gunn
General Kafka / Neil: well spotted, I hadn't noticed that ! I updated the post with a warning about that gotcha ... it could really confuse new users. - Andrew Perry
upregulates, generates, contributes to, affects, induces - pick your weasel word - Mr. Gunn
Maybe the BioGang can complement the impact factor with a bullshit-abstract factor, based on the occurrence of those weasel^Wbuzz words? - Egon Willighagen
I can pretty much take all the words here, add some more for structure and have a short abstract - Deepak
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque ultricies, elit a iaculis suscipit, turpis turpis aliquet dui, quis facilisis orci ipsum id lectus. Vivamus a urna. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Fusce at felis. Sed rhoncus lorem et metus. Curabitur eget lectus vulputate libero tristique viverra. Aenean ullamcorper justo ut mi. Cras mollis nunc sed leo. Sed iaculis eleifend nisi. Phasellus sem eros, ullamcorper at, pretium ac, rutrum ac, odio. Praesent nec quam congue mauris aliquet condimentum. Fusce dui dui, faucibus vel, eleifend vitae, tristique a, pede. Proin ante ante, volutpat vel, lacinia ac, feugiat sagittis, sem. - Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Yes, I was thinking along the lines of defining a BS Index (which of course is short for "Buzzword Similarity Index"), but I never got around to doing it. I think it could have many (politically incorrect) uses: the most obvious is to be able to rank abstracts based on their BS Index, but one could also consider averaging across all papers by a given author to obtain the author's BS Index ;-) - Lars Juhl Jensen
Todd - that is great. I put in some realistic and some bogus terms and got, pretty much, something we REALLY did in the lab! - Bora Zivkovic
Bora Zivkovic and Herbert Underwood
NCSU
Despite ten years of intensive efforts, little is known about the molecular mechanisms that underlie circadian rhythms. Recent observations have implicated cryptochrome, a photolyase, in this process, but to date no perturbation studies of this gene have been conducted. We tested the hypothesis that cryptochrome functions in circadian rhythms by cloning the Japanese quail cryptochrome homolog. The homolog encodes a predicted protein of 1000 amino acids with 96% overall identity to the vertebrate cryptochrome. Japanese quail cryptochrome is highly expressed in all retinal ganglion cells and colocalizes with period, a protein known to be essential for circadian rhythms. Mutations in cryptochrome substantially disrupt circadian rhythms and cause Japanese quail to become clock-blind. These observations 1) confirm a role for cryptochrome in circadian rhythms and 2) suggest that cryptochrome and period form part of a core complex mediating circadian rhythms. - Bora Zivkovic
"This year, however, proponents of same-sex marriage have found encouragement in both the California Supreme Court decision and in a subsequent order by Gov. David A. Paterson of New York, instructing agencies in his state to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally elsewhere. The California court has also rebuffed several challenges to its May 15 decision, made by two conservative legal groups and by Republican attorneys general who fear that the California marriages will lead to legal challenges brought in their own states." - Bret Taylor
The current UK administration defused the issue of same sex unions by the introduction of Civil Partnerships in 2005 linked to an across the board change of relevant laws to provide parity with married couples - with the exception of those with religiious objections (who should really know better) this has gone smoothly and been introduced across the UK. Its not called a marriage but has all the advantages (and responsibilities!) of the mixed sex varaint. - Jican
It makes me very happy to see gay folks entering the light in California. I'm also very amused at how frustrating it must be to the Right. Well, I guess in a few years one of us will be proven right. Either a small percentage of the population of California will be happily married and gay or the country will lay in smouldering ruins and people will be having sex with box turtles. - Tad Donaghe
Tad: I feel a box turtle urge coming on! Hah. - Robert Scoble
@Tad - I had box turtles as pets when I was kid. Never considered that activity with them though... - Hutch Carpenter
"It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." - Rick Santorum (Idiot) ex-Senator from Virginia - Tad Donaghe
Dude in the pic with "Bruce Willis" is freakin HYOOOGE! I wonder how many opponents of gay marriage have been pwned by his hand...LOL - Rahsheen Porter
Whoa, don't push Santorum on us Virginians! hehe - Jody Carbone
Oh crap - sorry to pollute Virginia with Santorum! Oops. I wouldn't wish that on anyone... - Tad Donaghe
I hope it "sticks". My boyfriend and I are waiting until after November. To have the rug pulled from under us after enjoying a few months of wedded bliss would be too much for the heart to bear. - Jason Menayan
Congrats to all the new couples, with wishes for many happy years. - Chris Baskind
In my home town in Austria, we had a case of a black man and a white woman wanting to marry, they ended up being refused by the marriage registrar. Of course, we also haven't got gay marriage legalized here. The US have problems, but in some cases, law is way more progressive than in Europe. - sebmos
@Phil: LOL! This has certainly been a momentous (and good) development. But it would be nice to see these kinds of decisions made through the legislative process. The fact that this decided in the courts will make the outcome more contentious than it would have been had the population been forced to have a legitimate conversation about the issue. The more bigoted corners of our society now have a victim card to play - and play it they shall... - Forrest Cox
@Forrest: The genius of our system of government lies in its checks and balances. In particular, an unfettered democracy would be subject to the problem of the "tyranny of the majority". Fortunately this is offset by our Constitution and our courts, whose job is to ensure that individual rights are not trampled on, no matter how unpopular that individual may be, for whatever reason. Any bigots playing the victim card are ignorant of basic civics. - Ruchira S. Datta
@Ruchira I agree. The Cali court is playing exactly its Constitutional role, and it's essentially a conservative and Federalist approach to reconciling changing societal mores and the demands of a minority. As I've commented elsewhere, we are winning this argument, and we're doing it state by state, rather than through a Federal fiat, which simply is not feasible at this time. All good things... - Rick Powell
