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Biotech

Is DIY Algae Farming the Future? 322

Posted by timothy from the for-fun-and-food-and-friendship dept.
hex0D points to this "interview with Aaron Baum explaining why people growing algae at home for food can help the environment and their health, and what he's doing to facilitate this. 'We'd like to create an international network of people growing all kinds of algae in their homes in a small community scale, sharing information, doing it all in an open source way. We'd be like the Linux of algae – do-it-yourself with low-cost materials and shared information.' And one of the low-cost materials is your household urine."

Submission + - Learn Self Hypnosis (learning-self-hypnosis.com)

Submitted by gabrielm86
gabrielm86 writes: According to the online popular encyclopedia, Wikipedia.com, hypnosis is defined as "a mental state (state theory) or set of attitudes and beliefs (non-state theory) usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a series of preliminary instructions and suggestions." Hypnotic induction can be achieved in a few different ways. One possible way is by a trained professional who suggests one to be in a relaxed state and subdues the conscious mind in order that the subconscious mind can be more awake.

The conscious mind controls many regular bodily functions including our movements, decisions, and is aware of our surroundings. Our subconscious mind is what is most active when we are asleep and less active when we are awake. It controls dreaming and sleeping and is working while we may not even know it.

When the subconscious mind becomes "awake" and takes over our conscious mind through hynposis, we are a lot more prone to suggestion based on our beliefs and values. In other words we are still in full control of our actions, lives, and wills even while one is under hypnosis, contrary to what many believe.

Another way to enter into hypnosis is for a person to induce self hypnosis by a series of external instructions usually given by an audio CD, MP3, etc. The instructions can also be read and then implemented in the mind.

When one taps into the subconscious mind and makes (and takes) suggestions and instructions, these are usually carried into the conscious mind over a period of time. For example, if a person is suggested through hypnosis to change his or her lifestyle in order to lose weight, then that person will carry those suggestions over into his or her conscious mind and will eventually overcome obstacles that holds one back to lose weight. This can be done for many aspects of a person's life. For example, hypnosis can be used to help a person quit smoking, be more confident, study harder, concentrate more, be more motivated, etc.

Hypnosis is also a very safe way to change habits and lifestyles. It does not require any medication or dangerous activities. It is merely a way to be more open to suggestions. The list is endless of what hypnosis can help. It help overcome fears and social problems like panic attacks and anxiety. Hypnosis can be an extremely powerful tool when done right.

Learn Self Hypnosis

Submission + - Out of control Job Responsibilities 5

Submitted by greymond
greymond writes: I was originally hired as an Online Content Producer to write articles for a company website as well as start up the company’s social media outlets on Facebook and Twitter. With budget cuts and layoffs I ended up also taking over the website facilitation for three of the company’s websites (they let go of the current webmaster). During this time the company has been developing a new website and I was handed the role of pseudo project manager to make sure the developer stayed on course with the projects due date. Now that we’re closer to launch the company has informed me that they don’t have the budget or staff in place to set up the web server and have tasked me with setting up the LAMP and Zend App on an Amazon EC2 setup, which while it’s been years since I worked this much with Linux I’m picking it up and moving things along. Needless to say I want to ask for more money, as well as more resources, as well as a better title that fits my roles, but what is the best way to go about this? Of course my other thought is that I'd much rather go back to writing and working with marketing than getting back into IT.

Submission + - Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: Far Worse Than Expected (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Daniel P.
Daniel P. writes: Apparently, the amount of oil leaking from the source is a lot greater than estimated so far. Recent numbers said that the amount of oil spilled would lie anywhere between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels daily. Those numbers have now been corrected and increased tremendously to at least 20,000 barrels, and up to 30,000 barrels of oil per day, according to The New York Times.

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) even talks of up to 40,000 barrels a day (http://www.faz.net/s/Rub47C2F00B5F984DC2A4997324448B2EA2/Doc~ED1146D96CA1849D6B551FBD42C5AEF40~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html).

If those numbers turn out to be true, then the amount of oil spilled every week exceeds the total amount of oil spilled during the Exxon Valdez incident in 1989.
Privacy

Submission + - Effective way to corrupt gathered personal info? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I use Facebook, I used Myspace, and when I was much younger I didn't think twice about putting my name/address/phone numbers out on the web. So I know there is already a significant amount of data on me already gathered. My question is — for me people like me, would supplying false information on publicly accessible websites effectively mess up data about me?

For example, say I create several accounts on several social networking sites with my correct full name and a couple other correct details (alternating the correct details), but completely fudge many others. I set these accounts to fully open and I log in every few months and change a detail here and there.

Over time would this be helpful in obscuring my identity?

Comment Re:lot of 50-something developers in my company (Score 1) 599

by bmpc (#31174662) Attached to: "Logan's Run" Syndrome In Programming

The same is true in the company I work at, which develops products related to resource planning. Most managers and team leaders of my department are both managers and coders. They have a lot of valuable knowledge.

Domain knowledge is essential because it makes you more valuable. Specially if the products are complex, since the new guy will have to receive a lot of training before he can become useful.

If you work on generic applications or websites where you only need to know technical skills (like a Programming Language + SQL) you are easier to replace with a younger guy.

Comment Re:Obivous Answer (Score 2, Insightful) 599

by bmpc (#31174284) Attached to: "Logan's Run" Syndrome In Programming

"I'd rather write half as much code, spend half as much time debugging it, and go home. "

Thats why I like Test Driven Development: when I'm writing unit cases, I'm doing test case design AND I'm coding. Then I also get to write the code that passes the tests. So I end up enjoying the testing part of the work a little more.

Comment Re:Another contributor to productivity invisibilit (Score 1) 597

by bmpc (#30623436) Attached to: Why Coder Pay Isn't Proportional To Productivity


The uber coder could have batted that out in an afternoon, but instead spent a week ensuring that histogrammer behind the report was multi-core aware and could scale to billions of data points without dragging the system to its knees.

That is all good except that it may be totally useless. The solution may be scalable for millions of data BUT if the application never needs to handle more than a few thousands of data, then the solution is just over engineering.

The ubbercoder should have implemented a good, simple, correct solution that fits the data that the application must actually deal with. Instead, he just wasted time playing with himself.

There are limits...

Comment Re:Streisand effect! (Score 1) 222

by bmpc (#30622362) Attached to: Nintendo Shuts Down Fan-Made Zelda Movie

I actually came across the video a week or so ago... watched a few seconds and dispatched the link to a friend of mine's that is a Zelda-addict.

And I probably wasn't gonna go to the site again.

Then I saw this on slashdot... and my interest went up and I started to look for it on torrent sites.

Funny stuff.

Comment Re:Get Your Facts Straight Michael (Score 1) 304

by bmpc (#317621) Attached to: Philanthropy Redefined
"I completely agree. How can Slashdot so vocally support SETI@home, a cool, but completely useless endevour, but badmouth a project that aims to save lives? Protein folding and protein chemistry simulations have applications that could and probably will save your life at some point in time. Even if the project did make money for someone, somewhere, so what? What is so wrong with making a profit? Is robbing someone of their right to make earn a living a cause worth sacrificing lives to?"

Well there's no problem in making money. The point is, they may be using your cicles to make atomic simulations & stuff like that. Stuff that would not be as good for manking as a cure for cancer (or other diseases).
If they make money finding the cure, that's good, they found the cure.. we just expect that they will share that cure with the world: the same world that provided free computer cicles.
~
as for the search for 'et' lives.. hey.. maybe they have the cure for cancer, maybe they have the cure for other stuff, and maybe they have the technologie to help us evolve.. maybe they will kill us, and we won't need cures.. but.. wouldn't be great to have friends in another galaxy ?

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