May 22, 2010

Short Updates

Posted by Scott at 09:09 PM

"In temptations against chastity, the spiritual masters advise us, not so much to contend with the bad thought, as to turn the mind to some spiritual, or, at least, indifferent object. It is useful to combat other bad thoughts face to face, but not thoughts of impurity." -St. Alphonsus Liguori. 7:27am

A belated good morning. It's a gorgeous one here in the Souhegan Valley. Sunny and 70°F. Claire & I are just back from a fun Step & abs class. Michelle 'n the kids will be heading out to a birthday party. I'm going to rest a bit and then mow the Bilik estate. 11:08am

Michelle and I just finished 3 hours of lawn and yard work. Time to take the kidlets for some dinner. We're thinking Bentleys in Amherst. 5:51pm

I'm watching the new Doctor Who, "The Hungry Earth" with my boys. 7:37pm

After I got the boys to bed, I set the girls up with another season 3 episode of "Chuck", "Chuck vs. the Final Exam". Only six more and they're caught up. Good night all! 9:08pm

Bookmarks I made today:

The Treatment - Why is it so difficult to develop drugs for cancer?
Comment: A long, but very readable New Yorker article forwarded to me by my ol' roomie, Craig S. Cottingham. As we see biotech and drug companies demonized for "obscene profits", it's helpful to look behind the scenes at all of the trial and error that goes into discovering a useful cancer drug. There's also a mention of Herceptin, which Michelle is receiving for the rest of the year.
Excerpt: "Now, maybe we are crazy, we are romantic. But this kind of characteristic you have to have if you want to be a drug hunter. You have to be optimistic, you have to have supreme confidence, because the odds are so incredibly against you.

So, Mr. President, how's that Guantanamo closing promise coming along? | LA Times
Comment: Funny how for years I heard almost daily how unconscionable Gitmo was. So apparently all President Bush had to do was SAY he would close it, without actually doing so, and the political heat would be off.
Excerpt: 17 months after promising to close the prison, Democrat Obama hasn't and has no new target date and a Democrat-controlled House committee just voted to prohibit a domestic facility.

How to Install a Solid-State Drive in Your MacBook
Comment: I might seriously do this when my machine hits the 3 year, out-of-warrantee point. These days, if you can afford it, installing an SSD is one of the biggest boosts you can give your computer, as the biggest bottleneck these days is often I/O [assuming you already have sufficient RAM]
Excerpt: Solid-state drives (SSDs) come with all kinds of perks over your standard hard drive, not the least of which involves serious speed boosts for your computing. Here's how I installed an SSD in my MacBook Pro.

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