mikeolson

mikeolson, 7 days ago to random

I first learned about molecular biology in earnest during the 1990s and heyday of the Human Genome Project. The idea then was that we'd find the gene for cancer, the gene for aging, disrupt some metabolic pathways, knock down any biology we didn't like.

I recently finished reading "How Life Works" by Philip Ball. It's a thirty-years-later what-have-we-learned update on the field. The answer: it's way more complicated, and way more interesting, than we first thought.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/how-life-works-a-user-s-guide-to-the-new-biology-philip-ball/19818121?ean=9780226826684

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mikeolson, 8 days ago to random

Corner of Bowery and Joey Ramone.

mikeolson, 9 days ago to random

In my undergraduate days at UC Berkeley, I earned a BA degree in computer science. I minored in Dutch Studies, and by the time I graduated I was quite conversant, though not fluent, in Dutch.

This very interesting Strong Language post crossed my feeds yesterday:

https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/sick-fuckin-bag-dude/

(CW on the link -- pretty sweary)

We didn't cover this construct in the classroom. I'm sorry about that! I aim to speak idiomatic Dutch, but it's tricky, Echt een teringtaal.

mikeolson, 11 days ago to random

Been watching the #aurora cross the continent, east to west: Maine, Quebec, Toronto, Ontario. Feeling jealous of the northern latitudes, but then saw this shot from Colorado Springs an hour ago by @uguisubari:

https://m.ai6yr.org/@uguisubari/112420341871336277

Just about my latitude in Berkeley! I've got a lot more light pollution, but now I am hopeful.

grammargirl, 14 days ago to random

Any "Dune" fans here?

Tomorrow I'm interviewing big-time audiobook narrator Scott Brick, who narrates the "Dune" books, and Kevin J. Anderson who has written many "Dune" books.

Do you have any questions you'd like me to ask them (I'm especially interested in questions about the language of "Dune").

mikeolson, 20 days ago to random

@molly0xfff is one of my favorite cryptocurrency reporters -- insightful, timely and an excellent writer. Her new piece in Bloomberg is typically great:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-05-02/crypto-is-anything-but-strong-right-now?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcxNDY2MzU0MSwiZXhwIjoxNzE1MjY4MzQxLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTQ1VQMFREV1JHRzAwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJBNUFCQzU4QkE0OEQ0RTQwQTVFNTYyRUVFMENFQThFNiJ9.J71mUeP37p8CUytI8s_WntmxxdzdrjkId4KBPBbeG3Q

(Long URL because it's a gift link with a seven-day fuse.)

Much of it is quotable, but I'll just pull this out:

"Crypto firms and their lobbyists love to threaten that a crackdown on the industry would stifle innovation. But what innovation has the sector produced?"

Indeed.

mikeolson, 20 days ago to random

Thorough, sobering retrospective on the hot mess at Boeing, by @pluralistic

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

mikeolson, 1 month ago to space

Voyager 1 is back online:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/04/22/nasas-voyager-1-resumes-sending-engineering-updates-to-earth/

One hell of an engineering team.

#nasa #voyager

stshank, 1 month ago to MIjazz

Big personal news: after 25 years at CNET, I’ve joined Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup developing zero-carbon power plants to help fight climate change. As head of content, I'll work to make knowledge of fusion mainstream as the technology proves itself worthy. Questions? Hit me up! Details: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7187102636267995138/
#Fusion #ClimateChange #FusionEnergy #startup #NewJob

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

"'Whenever humanity revisits Valinor Hills — either with a rover, a new aircraft, or future astronauts — Ingenuity will be waiting with her last gift of data, a final testament to the reason we dare mighty things,' said Ingenuity’s project manager, Teddy Tzanetos of JPL."

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-team-says-goodbye-for-now

This story genuinely chokes me up a little bit. I love that we dare mighty things. I love the JPL engineering team on this one. And I love Ingenuity.

sundogplanets, 1 month ago to random

I have loads of grading and stupid committee stuff and proposals to read and (another) thesis to read (and still that awful referee response to deal with) and my kids are super grumpy.

But I just scheduled an interview for a National Geographic article later in the week so that's pretty darn cool.

Also, baby goats are coming sooooon. First goat mama is due on Sunday!

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

Notionally -- you have to ignore Daylight Saving Time -- if you stand on the meridian that defines a time zone (um, also ignore geopolitical boundaries) and look straight up, the sun will be exactly overhead at noon.

That's not true very often. The Earth's orbit is elliptical, not circular, so solar noon moves a little every day.The Equation of Time measures the difference between solar and civil noon.

This week Tuesday where I live, the EoT will pass through zero.

@EquationOfTimeBot

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

This is a great story on the origins of one of the very first ISPs in the world:

https://www.sensitiveresearch.com/Archive/TLG/TLG.html

I miss the days.

Came my way via @pluralistic's most recent occasional linkdump.

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

Nerd alert!

@bcantrill and @ahl interviewed Andres Freund, the engineer who discovered the xz backdoor, on the latest Oxide and Friends podcast. This is such an excellent episode. Andres is fascinating, but Bryan and Adam are exceptionally good at interviewing him. Everybody's so, so deep on systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg5F9UupL6I

Of course I also loved it because Andres talks Postgres performance. I know the spinlock he talks about personally!

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

If you use Python to do numerical processing of large multi-dimensional arrays -- maybe you're a climate modeler or working with medical data -- you should check out Cubed. It's an open source, Apache-licensed library that makes matrix math fast and easy, with bounded memory consumption and predictable performance:

https://github.com/cubed-dev/cubed

The project is led by my friend @tom_e_white.

1/2

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

@eb has written a pretty good tick-tock on the introduction of the xz backdoor:

https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor

mikeolson, 1 month ago to random

I read my RSS feed every morning.
https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/112100784223896818

mikeolson, 2 months ago to random

We have an emptied-out, tall round plastic take-out container that we throw dead batteries into, to save them for our irregular trips to the hazmat recycling place. I have always lazily thought that was a bad idea, but it worked fine.

I was sitting in the kitchen at 9:30 tonight and the fucking thing exploded. Flash and BANG. Soot all around the inside, on the cabinet above.

It's outside on concrete now, far from flammables. Will diagnose closely tomorrow.

Mischief managed, but oh, my.

mikeolson, 2 months ago to random

One of my favorite things:

The Netherlands has a lot of territory below sea level. It manages a system of pumps, dikes, canals and locks to control water flow.

That interferes with annual migration of fish to their spawning grounds.

Smart folks have set up a "fish doorbell." There's an underwater camera live-streamed on the web. If you're watching and spot fish, you press a button, and the lock keeper knows to open the gate!

https://www.iamexpat.nl/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/utrechts-fish-doorbell-back-spring

glyph, 2 months ago to random

I just want to write some code, maybe make some music, maybe draw some pictures.

I don't want to be mad about blockchains, I don't want to be mad about GenAI, I don't want to be mad about terrible backfiring "think of the children" legislation, I don't want to be terrified about the rising tide of bigoted, racist fascism ending democracy in my lifetime.

I don't want you to have to be mad about all that either.

I wish the world would leave us all alone for a little bit.

mikeolson, 2 months ago to random

You guys! My semicolon haiku got an honorable mention in the annual ACES grammar poetry contest!

https://aceseditors.org/news/2024/results-are-in-read-winning-entry-aces-14th-annual-poetry-contest

I’m super into competitive poetry.

Thanks, @grammargirl!

mikeolson, 2 months ago to random

The California Presidential primary election is March 5. Early voting begins today. I'm going to walk down to the Methodist church in my neighborhood this morning to vote.

I canvas and donate to support causes and candidates, but this single action -- marking a ballot -- is the most consequential thing I do as a citizen.

Every generation of Americans inherits the responsibility to form a more perfect union, and passes on its legacy.

This is how we do it.