Friday, September 12, 2008
Life and Leisure
"What is this life, so full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
Not time to turn at beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
Not time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."
Leisure - W H Davies
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Electronic Health Records? Not until...
The danger of developing EHRs without collaboration at the international level, behoves that people will have their healthcare in one state or one country for the whole of their life. Yes, even in the same country, different states have developed their own system, based on different commercial software vendors. If a patient moves from one state to another, his wonderful comprehensive medical record becomes rubbish in the new state!
Therefore, EHR should not be developed without international collaboration. We need international open standards to ensure
- interoperability
- machine and software system independence
- free communication of information between different systems
- communication and data transfer, with and to, different hardware devices
- security
- governance
- funding and therefore cost effectiveness
Until then we will only be wasting money and resources. We need to work on a long lasting marriage and not a one night stand.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Google spits out Chrome
The success of Google, and the trust they have earned, is what makes this software uniquely important. This will enable users to do things in a different way, in a stable, truly multimedia enabled browser. Everything Google has developed here and there, will become "One".
Initially, Chrome will seem like competition to other browsers. But eventually it will be something quite different from what browsers were expected to be. Google would be planning to bring the Mobile web service providing devices into the Chrome scene. They have been developing software for this market too. Chrome may enable the dvelopment of a multitude of wholly different third party software for the Mobile platform. At the moment the "forgotten browser", Opera, is making inroads into the mobile market. If Chrome should also enter the mobile market with the platforms already in development by Google, then definitely we will have "The One".
Google's timing maybe just right. Let us watch.............
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Teaching
garbage can that people throw their frustrations and
problems into. The more people you teach,the bigger the
garbage disposal problems. But teaching is a wonderful
way to practice Dhamma. Those who teach grow in
patience and in understanding."
- Ajahn Chah.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The sermon
Blessed are the poor in spirit? What is the meaning of spirit? Is it the fighting spirit? Evil spirit? poor spirited as in humble and quiet? Perhaps, it is the latter.
Who are the meek? perhaps they are those who are selfless, without a big ego. Those who know that they are not "individuals" "self" "special" but simply part of god, to be one with god. This means they are nothing on their own, as when they are one with god, this separate identity of a self is no more.
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 'Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye,' and behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
This is a very important part of the sermon, as people have become habitual in judging people fast, too fast. It is best to remember this is my own life, and not judge others or find fault just to feel i am better.
Hypermethylation of DNA
Hypermethylation of DNA is a common molecular alteration in human neoplasia including renal cancer. Altered methylation has a role in silencing tumor suppressor genes. DNA methylation markers have been found not only in primary tumors, but also in serum, plasma and urine in a variety of cancer types. Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) may be an ideal candidate for urine and blood screening because the kidney is at the junction of the circulatory and urological systems. Dalgin et al (page 1126) from Boston, Massachusetts searched the selected DNA regions of 19 significantly down-regulated genes whose expression patterns correlated perfectly with RCC and normal kidney tissue. Methylation patterns were analyzed in DNA extracted from 38 paired RCC normal samples. Seven significantly hypermethylated regions from 6 down-regulated genes were found. The down-regulation of all genes was verified in mRNA and protein level. Overall, the detection of hypermethylation in these highly down-regulated genes suggests that assaying for methylation using cells from urine or blood could provide the basis for a viable diagnostic assay.
Journal of Urology Volume 180, Issue 3, Pages 802-803 (September 2008)
Why do osteodense sclerotic deposits in Prostate Cancer fracture?
Torvaldisms
"Be honest -- sometimes painfully honest. Part of that, by the way, is not feeling shy about saying impolite things or showing some emotion. So I'd rather flame people for doing stupid things and call them stupid, rather than try to be too polite to the point where people didn't understand how strongly I felt about something."
"My personal guiding principle is that I try very hard to find people I can trust, and then try to get out of their way as much as possible. I don't mean totally unconditional trust; but on the other hand, once somebody maintains something, he really should be able to make all the normal daily decisions."
Linus Torvalds - the holder of the reigns of Linux.
Who are the meek?
Lots of people have been asked this question - by me. The answers werà¶‘ few. Most did not know quite what to make of it. Why the meek? The scared? of whom? God?
I will come back to this...
the selfless, knowing that one is nothing but part of god.
Perhaps there are similarities here with the damma. Selflessness. Egolessness. No individuality. One is Not.
A Christiandamma.
Our body is impermanent - belongs to nature. Our soul is endless - belongs to god. Our mind is impermanent too, and belongs again to no one.
Then is their a soul of my own? Or is it just part of God? In this case there is no business of my soul and your soul. Individually we do not really exist.......
Browsing without a mouse
I am not talking about mobile devices where this is thought to be cool!!!
http://mobizinesupdate.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-mobizines-for-mouseless-devices.html
Oh! But so many people hate the mouse. It slows them down. Gives them pain in their hands and forearms. And on laptops - those mice are just awful! See the flat tops you have to caress or the little "gears" stuck in between the keys! Bloody awful.
What can one do?
Use voice! Thats soooo cooool! Heard of Nuance and their DNS? Doesn't quite work in linux and not in Macs, but in windows, it does a wonderful job for $200 or so, until the many windows viruses hit your throat. And of course, everyone hears your password and everything you write and every site you go to.....
:-(
What can one do?
Look at these
Firefox - add on and add on and add on - what the hell do they have in it without the add ons?
http://www.universefirefox.com/add-ons/browse-the-internet-without-using-the-mouse-mouseless-browsing
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/879
http://www.rudolf-noe.de/index.php?/content/view/14/26/
http://mlb.rudolf-noe.de/
Er..! You could just press this comma key and then type in the name of the link you need too...
Opera - part and parcel for years and years - even the uses did not know they had it !
http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/nomouse/
IE?
just forget it!
There is a FOSS software that can write with a mouse! But here we don't want those sweet creatures....(Sorry Micky and Jerry and all those loved mice from our favourite world of believing)
Using Gmail? mouselessly - http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/qt/et_keyboard_gm.htm
Define Your Own Gmail Keyboard Shortcuts
To change the default Gmail keyboard shortcuts to more handy keys:
- Follow the Settings link in Gmail.
- Go to the Labs category.
- Make sure Enable is selected under Custom keyboard shortcuts.
- Click Save Changes.
- Follow the Settings link again.
- This time, go to the Keyboard Shortcuts section.
- Edit all desired keyboard shortcuts.
- Use '\' together with the corresponding decimal ASCII code to use non-printable characters. "\27" stands for ESC, for example, and "\127" for DEL (you cannot, alas, use the latter for the text input field only accepts three characters).
- Click Save Changes
Eureka! No mice, see? see?
Opera - the future was here!
However, it is a great browser with lots of ability built in. Even though other browsers claim certain capabilities as "firsts", in fact they were already in use in Opera. But no one knew, as hardly anyone used the damn thing!
Tabbed browsing - Firefox thingy ? No. Opera had it long ago. Page zooming, Malware protection, phising protection, pop-up blocking, download manager, BitTorrent client, web feed aggregator, speed dial with thumbnails of the many pages - all started here! Others followed..............
Usability and accessibility features were in it during conception. voice control, page zooming, keyboard shortcuts - the works!
email, chat, news!
By the way who supported CSS first? standard compliance?
But, Firefox catches up! Just like Microsoft did to the Apple OS.
Now, it can match all of the above. It is free it is FOSS. It is the standard browser to develop web sites for!
However Opera is going into the mobile market and the games market (Wii is one!) in a BIG way! There it will live, grow and rule! So the story goes, unless the Mozilla Org destroys the ring of course......
Friday, August 08, 2008
On Guard!
GUARD YOURSELF LIKE A FORTIFIED CITY
"Like a border city, guarded within and without, so guard yourself. Do not let slip this opportunity (born as a human), for they who let slip this opportunity grieve when born in a woeful state."
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Letting Go
Slightly different from giving, which is also a good thing to do and more so, a good way to practice before getting to the stage of letting-go. Giving (to others) is of two types; to give expecting something in return and to give something expecting nothing in return except happiness and contentment that the act gives. The latter is by far the better.
Let-go little by little until one can let go of one-self.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Canadian study of genetics to fight cancer
It will track
- 300,000 randomly selected Canadians
- ages 35 to 69
- for at least the next 20 to 30 years
The study will be gathering information on health and lifestyle through surveys and the collection of blood and other specimens, according to the partnership.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
sinhala tiddlywiki
Friday, June 06, 2008
install Sinhala unicode in Ubuntu Feisty with sayura input system or keyboard
1. Get everything ready
Using synaptic (system->administration->synaptic package manager)
install
language-pack-si-base
scim and scim-dev
dpkg and dpkg-dev
autotools-dev
2. Install sinhala unicode font
download the sinhala unicode font
http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/files/lklug.ttf
open the terminal (applications-accessories-terminal or there is a little icon on top of desktop.). The terminal IS the quickest, easiest, best place to do most of the stuff, and is the ONLY way in some instances. So get used to it!
type the following and press the enter key.
mkdir ~/.fonts
or in synaptic package manager
right click in home directory as it opens or file menu - create new folder and name it
.fonts (period or full stop at the beginning)
open the file manager nautilus ( the home icon on the desktop)
in the menu bar
in view - click on show hidden files.
copy the lklug.ttf file you downloaded into the directory .fonts
in view menu click on show hidden files again to disable what you did first.
click again in show hidden files to disable it.
back in the terminal (more fun!) type:
fc-cache -fv
press the enter key
there will be some output
check that the font is enabled by typing
fc-list :lang=si file
it will tell you something about the file - that means it is installed.
log out and log in again (No need to shutdown).
Go to
http://si.wikipedia.org/
If you can read sinhala on the page, that is it!
copy some of that text and then open the open office wordprocessor and paste the stuff into a new document. From the font list select lklug
3. To get a keyboard installed to type in sinhala...
The Sayura keyboard system from Anuradha Ratnaweera is at
http://www.sayura.net/im/
create a directory called sayura
Now download the scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz ( the o.3.3 will change with time as versions will change) and put it in the above directory
http://www.sayura.net/im/scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz
unpack in terminal (CLI) or file manager(nautilus has to be opened as su - to do this open the terminal and type sudo nautilus - then in nautilus, right click the file and select "extract here")
or in terminal (more fun!)
cd to directory (cd sayura) formed and type
tar -xzvf scim-sayura-0.3.3.tar.gz (some output will be seen)
cd scim-sayura-0.3.3
The following HAS to be done in the terminal in the scim-sayura-0.3.3
.
sudo dpkg-buildpackage -b
the deb package will be made and found in the sayura directory.
install it by opening the terminal and cd sayura and then
sudo dpkg -i scim-sayura_0.3.3-1_i386.deb
(or in synaptic package manager opened as su you can select the file by right clicking ans select open with Gdebi package installer)
check in system-preferences-scim input method setup that sinhala is installed
check in system-administration-language support to see if everything is OK there (in my case as I open it it said there were some files to be installed, and i said OK).
Then shift-space or ctrl-space will bring a little icon on the system tray(right bottom), click on it and you will get a list and you can pick sayura from the "other" list.
shift+space will change between the two languages.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Changing weather patterns, anything new?
- During the El Nino cycle in 1789, 600,000 people died in just one region of India due to severe drought.
- The nineteenth century blizzard of 1888 paralysed East Coast from Cheasapeake Bay to Maine
- the "year of no summer" in 1816
- The eighteenth century brought tremendous cold and snow - the "little ice age"
- Thomas Jefferson wrote about a global warming during his time!
- Hurricanes in Havana in 1932 killed 3500 plus people
- The Great Blizzard of 1978 in Ohio lasted 2 days
- The El Nino in 1997 was the biggest and hottest in 150 years
facebook and twitter and others
It is not to say that there are not any decent people about, but unless something is done to control harassment these places are going to get less people joining in and more people leaving.
Few people are making any use out of it, mostly among family members who are living away from each other.
Hm!
Maybe I am missing some hidden fun?
Thursday, January 17, 2008
AUA recommendations and Clinical Practice Guidelines
- Standard
- Recommended
- Options
