68 degrees and really awesome Colours . . .

Richard......do check out the Otis Redding cut I just posted for Uli..........

. . . as soon as You Posted - i got iT ;)) nice one Sir

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

The crazy guy is PM'ing me again.

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me@rescam.org

The crazy guy is PM'ing me again.

Your Milla avatars are irresistible. ;-D

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Finally, finally, things have lightened up at work!

I have reported one error to Microsoft, which was reported by a customer, and the same customer called a couple of days ago about an another error, which I have spent the past days to investigate and test, call Tax, try to provoke it to appear in my own system, etc. so today I spoke with the support guy at Microsoft, and he was quite helpful. He asked me to export the wage/salary part of the copy we have of the customer's program and send it to him together with the file from Tax, so I started to export the accounts after I spoke with him. When I left 1 hour and 30 minutes later, my computer was still working on the export, and I asked my coworker to log off my computer if it had finished when he leaves today. Else to log off tomorrow, if it has finished by then. He, my coworker who usually works on that company's system, told me that the file generated will most probably be about 3 Gb big. The Microsoft support guy sent me an address and a password to upload that big file and the others to, he has allocated space for it all, and then he will take a look at it, importing the accounts into his program and test it and look through it to see what we, the customer and I, are complaining about and how it behaves. The other error I spoke with him about will require that I go remote into the company's accounts and export the same there, and then send it to him also together with the files from Tax.

And he gave me an explanation why my own program crapped out on me, so now I'll see if I can fix it by compiling the latest update, else he said I could send that to him as well to look at. It turned out that when I imported the accounts into the newest version, I suddenly could create those files to Tax, which I couldn't create in the current system. So maybe we have a forced upgrade now, I will have to see if I can fix the older version. I wasn't aware of that the program won't allow me to create files to Tax more than once per day, I haven't read about that anywhere, so I'll ask him to send me something written about it that I can send to the customers so they don't do the same and make their program crap out on them. With the consequence that they have to have a consultant, my coworker or me, out to recompile their systems and waste their money on that.

So all in all a good day.

And fall has really kicked in here. Yay!






I have just had a cup of tea and a chocolate croissant to go with it.

Cyber coffee and tea and chocolate croissants for all here.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

The crazy guy is PM'ing me again.

Your Milla avatars are irresistible. ;-D

Yeah and I can't do a thing with them until I get around to loading them from my backup disk.

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me@rescam.org

<------------

:-(

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Glad things are better at work Fuzz..

Went to my chiropractor today and had some trbl with deep breaths on the left side--a sharp stabbing pain. Ends up I had a rib that had locked up somehow. He popped it and it said I'd be sore---WOW---it's worse than before.

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Sometimes a rib muscle can get caught out of place. That happens to me about once a year, always the same rib. Ouch.

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me@rescam.org

Huge earthquake drill planned for tomorrow

San Diego Union-Tribune

November 12, 2008

What is being billed as the largest earthquake drill in U.S. history is scheduled for tomorrow morning.

An estimated 5.1 million people in Southern California are expected to participate, including more than 400,000 in San Diego County.

At 10 a.m., in response to an imaginary quake, people will be advised to “drop, cover and hold”: get to the floor immediately, move under a sturdy piece of furniture if possible and hold onto it.

The drill is part of the “Great Southern California ShakeOut,” a simulation of a magnitude-7.8 earthquake on the southern end of the San Andreas Fault, which would have widespread regional impacts. The ShakeOut was organized by the Earthquake Country Alliance, a partnership of quake professionals, emergency managers, elected officials, businesses and community leaders.

More than 100 local schools and 100 businesses have signed up to take part in the drill, and organizers would like individuals and families also to rehearse their responses during a quake.

For more information or to sign up to participate in the drill, go to http://www.shakeout.org.

Additional exercises, which include a triage display at UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest tomorrow morning, continue through next week. The preparedness drills are designed to test emergency responders'ability to deal with the impacts of a major earthquake.

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me@rescam.org

Google tool sounds alarm as flu spreads

By Miguel Helft
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

November 12, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO – What if Google knew before anyone else that a fast-spreading flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick?

And what if Google could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in?

That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends.

It turns out that a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases such as “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors.

That simple act, multiplied across millions of keyboards in homes around the country, has given rise to a new early-warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks. Google believes the tool may help people take precautions if a disease is in their area.

Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company's philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In early February, for example, the CDC reported that flu cases had recently spiked in the mid-Atlantic states. But Google says its search data show a spike in queries about flu symptoms two weeks before that report was released. Its new service at google.org/flutrends analyzes those searches as they come in, creating graphs and maps of the country that, ideally, will show where the flu is spreading.

The CDC reports are slower because they rely on data collected and compiled from thousands of health care providers, labs and other sources. Some public health experts say the Google data could help accelerate the response of doctors, hospitals and public health officials to a nasty flu season, reducing the spread of the disease and, potentially, saving lives.

“The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza,” said Dr. Lyn Finelli, lead for surveillance at the influenza division of the CDC. Between 5 percent and 20 percent of the nation's population contracts the flu each year, she said, leading to about 36,000 deaths on average.

For now, the Google Flu Trends service covers only the United States, but the company is hoping to eventually use the same technique to help track influenza and other diseases worldwide.

“From a technological perspective, it is the beginning,” said Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive.

The premise behind Google Flu Trends – what appears to be a fruitful marriage of mob behavior and medicine – has been validated by an unrelated study indicating that the data collected by Yahoo, Google's main rival in Internet search, also can help with early detection of the flu.

“In theory, we could use this stream of information to learn about other disease trends as well,” said Dr. Philip Polgreen, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa and an author of the study based on Yahoo's data.

Still, some public health officials note that many health departments already use other approaches, such as gathering data from visits to emergency rooms, to keep daily tabs on disease trends in their communities.

“We don't have any evidence that this is more timely than our emergency room data,” said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, assistant commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City.

If Google provided health officials with details of the system's workings so it could be validated scientifically, the data could serve as an additional, free way to detect influenza, said Mostashari, who is also chairman of the International Society for Disease Surveillance.

A paper on the methodology of Google Flu Trends is expected to be published in the journal Nature.

Google Flu Trends avoids privacy pitfalls by relying only on aggregated data that cannot be traced to individual searchers. To develop the service, Google's engineers devised a basket of keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and many others.

Google then dug into its database, extracted five years of data on those queries and mapped it onto the CDC's reports of influenzalike illness. Google found a strong correlation between its data and the reports from the agency, which advised it on the development of the new service.

“We know it matches very, very well in the way flu developed in the last year,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org. Finelli of the CDC and Brilliant both cautioned that the data needed to be monitored to ensure that the correlation with flu activity remained valid.

Others have tried to use information collected from Internet users for public health purposes. A Web site called whoissick.org, for instance, invites people to report what ails them and superimposes the results on a map. But the site has received relatively little traffic.

HealthMap, a project affiliated with Children's Hospital Boston, scours the Web for articles, blog posts and newsletters to create a map that tracks emerging infectious diseases worldwide. It is backed by Google.org, which counts the detection and prevention of diseases as one of its main philanthropic objectives.

But Google Flu Trends appears to be the first public project that uses the powerful database of a search engine to track a disease.

“This seems like a really clever way of using data that is created unintentionally by the users of Google to see patterns in the world that would otherwise be invisible,” said Thomas Malone, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. “I think we are just scratching the surface of what's possible with collective intelligence.”

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me@rescam.org

<-------- Tired.

Later...

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

...and not what I went to college for is draining on the soul.

I hear ya brotha!

And no we didn't have admission day off. I'm going to complain to my boss about it too! :) Speaking of your corner of the earth..I heard you almost had a new king. Seems the natives want their islands back and they were arrested for trespassing instead...again. I dunno. I personally think their better off being part of the US.

They couldn't find the throne room. I have a throne room. That means bathroom in lower slower California.

Not everyone in Southern California believes in that phrase, Here It's still a bathroom, Unless one were in the military as they have their slang for It too. ;)

Just don't show pictures of it.

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me@rescam.org

I had an appointment at my doctor at 7.30 this morning, so I was up very early to get there. Ugh!

So I have made coffee for the early birds:



I bought some breakfast crusty rolls on my way home



and some Breakfast Danish pastry



and I have put some coffee on the thermo for those who come in later



So help yourselves.

I'll now go back to bed and get some more sleep. Later...

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Nice pastries, Yum, But their not part of My diet. :(

Cyber goodies can always be enjoyed. ;-)

Fresh coffee is served:



And no crusty rolls today, that was yesterday I had the opportunity to go to the baker and buy some (I don't bother to go anywhere today).

By the way, I feel a craving for hot cocoa today, so I'll make a cup after I have finished my coffee.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

The new Matrix

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me@rescam.org

The new Matrix

LOL Good one. :-D

But the best Matrix spoof is Foamy's.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

And the unhappy love story about the rabbit and the cat continues:

There She Is!! Step 4

I really hope there's a happy ending in Step 5, the last episode. ::sigh:: :'-(

Discrimination is an ugly thing!

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

And the unhappy love story about the rabbit and the cat continues:

There She Is!! Step 4

I really hope there's a happy ending in Step 5, the last episode. ::sigh:: :'-(

Discrimination is an ugly thing!

Thanks for posting Fuzzy......such a sad episode.....sniff....

The kitties will hope for a happy ending too........can love conquer all?

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

And the unhappy love story about the rabbit and the cat continues:

There She Is!! Step 4

I really hope there's a happy ending in Step 5, the last episode. ::sigh:: :'-(

Discrimination is an ugly thing!

Thanks for posting Fuzzy......such a sad episode.....sniff....

The kitties will hope for a happy ending too........can love conquer all?

Yes, let's hope society will start to accept love between rabbits and cats. And let's hope the cat comes out of jail and finds the plane ticket to Paradise, and then he gets to the airport in time to join his rabbit girlfriend. It was so sad when her pet hedgehog died. ::sniff:: :'-(

And so sad when he didn't answer his cellphone because he was in jail, so she fell into the abyss of despair. It's easy to fall into despair when your loved one doesn't call or answer the phone. :'-(


I have just had a nice Italian dinner, tortelloni with a creamy gorgonzola sauce and with peas. And for dessert a big lump of real Italian pistachio ice cream. Yummy!

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

Finished all profile pics. Wow.

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me@rescam.org