My friends are plotting against me!

DIY Biotechnologists - Start Praying

Apparently the new rage is to attempt synthetic biology in one's home, says this article:

Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
(via the Associated Press)

People with no training and only rudimentary knowledge doing genetic splicing in unregulated lab conditions? Very scary. And you thought genetically engineered food was bad? Please. You haven't been scared s***less until you've seen Joe the Plumber trying to splice vanilla flavoring into E.coli and then injecting it into his Gun'n'Roses tattoo so he can have a scratch'n'sniff bicep.

"We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game," says Mackenzie Cowell, a 24-year-old who majored in biology in college and co-founder of the group DIYbio which has set up a community lab where the public could use chemicals and lab equipment, including a free Craigslist freezer.

NO. We shouldn't. Science will always be sexy to the hardcore. and it is sexy to stupid people as well... but it should be kept out of their reach, and restricted to people dedicated enough to pursue it. Is this a discriminatory statement? Absolutely not: anyone regardless of background is free to pursue it, but they should be required to obtain the appropriate training and put in the work to get there. There's nothing discriminatory about meritocracy.

I cringe every time I see college kids not using goggles and other safety equipment in lab, and they're actually being supervised and taught proper lab technique. Do you really want untrained individuals to be weilding even more responsability than that, in your backyard?

The Ball Droppeth... again

Sony Computer Entertainment has today announced that it will perform a worldwide release of the new PlayStation Home service on December 11, 2009. The 3D social gaming service has recently completed its lengthy beta test and will allow PlayStation 3 users to interact, communicate and share game experiences with each other.

PlayStation Home will allow open interaction among users, business partners and SCE, and will evolve with additional features including dedicated game spaces, special events and exclusive themed items, to further enrich the entertainment experience on the PS3 platform.

A variety of consumer partners will participate in Home including Paramount Digital Entertainment, Red Bull and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
(via Gamespy)

Great Sony... you just invented Second Life, except now I'll be dealing with people who don't have a keyboard. Leaving most to use BT headsets (though many people on PSN don't, and those who do, I can seldom understand them clearly).

Well, regardless, I'm sure all my friends will be on here, just like in Second Life... oh wait, that's right... none of my friends use Second Life.

What I think more people would REALLY appreciate is for Sony to improve the ability to communicate with people on your Friends list, and to more easily hook up with them for games. I'd really appreciate a better interface for jamming with my buddy in online Rock Band 2, for instance. Seriously... "Invite a Friend" basically emails them an attachment?

Come on, Sony, make this easier. Take all these social-networking type feature and make them 2D (ie built into the XMB interface) rather than revert back to the "ooh, 3D is the Wave of the Future!" mentality of the 90's. I'd much rather have the ability to make a audio/text chat room with a few clicks in the XMB, to meet with my buddies and arrange a game, rather than go join a 3D one that involves having to run around and find people. Much more complicated.

(Note: I'm not bashing Second Life, just the fact that it's not so wildly popular that I think it justified PS Home being pushed ahead of the other updates I mentioned)

12/15/08 Update: I tried out Home the day after it went public (turns out 12/11/08 was just the public beta) and I couldn't get on. I tried again today, 5 days later and I still get a "can't connect" message. What's worse is there is no option to retry the connection. Some form of "busy redial" would seem appropriate to me. All in all, it's a bust so far. I'm asked to accept the online usage policy every time, as well.

I'd Sooner Kiss a Wookie

I was totally floored to see this in the recent Robot Chicken Star Wars Special 2. For all you kids who aren't old enough, or (*ahem*) cool enough to know, the nerds pictured here are playing Escape from the Death Star. Until now, I thought my close friends and I were the only ones priviledged enough to have played it.

Wait, did I say privledged?
I meant damned. Worse board game ever.


Maybe our dice were just weighted, but it seemed that no matter what you did, you inevitable wound up in the detention block/trash compactor at the center of the board, which you could only escape from with a perfect roll. We all spent most of the game stuck there. To this day, mention Escape from the Death Star to any of my friends who was there, and they break into a cold sweat, and go into full PTSD-mode.

Message from Our Alien Overlords

As frequent readers know, every Saturday we publish a new article in our Home & Lifestyle section of the blog. This week, frequent contributor Xltlksxxr has a few helpful tips for how to tidy up around the house.

Matriarch of Qtrrklr-7, and Freelance Contributor

PUNY HUMAN

LOOK AT YOU, WITH YOUR ENDO-SKELETON, AND SOFT FLESHINESS. WHERE IS YOUR RAZOR SHARP CARAPACE? YOUR ACID BILE SACS? YOUR INTERNAL DIGESTIVE SYSTEM IS PITIFUL

AS IS YOUR LACK OF EYESTALKS

THE FACT THAT THE POISON STINGER OF YOUR YOUNG CANNOT EVEN PIERCE THE THORAX OF A WYUGLIR BIRD IS PROOF THAT YOUR SPECIES IS DESTINED ONLY FOR SUBJUGATION

SOON YOU WILL BE OUR SLAVES

TREMBLE IN FEAR

Join us next week for the continuation of this article, including more tips on how to knit the perfect tea cozy.

Swap Modifier Keys Between Macbook and External Windows Keyboard Modes

A problem with PC keyboards on the Mac is that your Option and Command keys get mapped to the Windows and Alt keys, respectively (this swaps their placement). This makes it confusing when you are switching between a Macbook's onboard keyboard and USB PC keyboard.

Well, in Keyboard & Mouse preferences you can swap the modifier keys (Option, Command, Control, and Caps Lock) to remedy this. In Tiger, you could only change this globally for all keyboards, meaning that when you switched between external and internal keyboards, you'd have to keep switching the settings if you wanted to keep the right key orientation. This gave rise to the Applescript below, from Lance Ball.

In Leopard, however, they added the ability to configure keyboards independently. You could, theoretically, leave your internal keyboard with the default setting, and only have them swapped for the external. Oh, if only this were the case. I run a Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3000, and used to, for a brief moment, have the option to do this. It was listed as "USB Reciever". However, the Logitech Control Center driver removed this. That's what brought me to the following script. This will automatically swap the Option and Command key mappings, toggling between them each time it is run. The original Lance Ball script was for Tiger, but has been adapted for Leopard. You can use this with MarcoPolo to run automatically when you add/remove your keyboard.

Update (9/29/08): I gave up using my MX3000 mouse, and went to a more ergonomic MS Natural Mouse. Since the MX3000 keyboard never worked with Logitech Control Center anyway, I just removed the driver. I've now reclaimed the ability to independently map my Logitech keyboard. Huzzah.

If you still need the Leopard script for some reason, here it is. I added code to swap the MBP’s keyboard illumination on/off (off for ‘docked’ mode. You can enable this feature as per the script comments since it's disabled by default.

Paste and save the following in Script Editor.

-- **********************************************************************************
-- Utility script to switch keyboard mapping for Command and Option keys.
-- Useful when you have a PC external keyboard that you use in one location, but
-- at other times you are using the builtin laptop keyboard or an Apple keyboard.
-- Author:  Lance Ball (lanceball - at - mac - dot - com)
-- Modified by: Joe Chan
-- Modified attributes: Script will change Internal Keyboard to have default behavior when
-- changing keyboards
--
-- Leopard 10.5.5 version by netgarou.  Also added feature to toggle Macbook Pro keyboard illumination.
-- (Remove the appropriate remark lines that start with "--**" to enable this if your system supports it).
-- Also disabled Growl notifications by default.
--
-- **********************************************************************************

-- Set up growl notifications
tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
-- Make a list of all the notification types
-- that this script will ever send:
set the allNotificationsList to ¬
{"External Keyboard Mode Notification", "Default Keyboard Mode Notification"}

-- Make a list of the notifications
-- that will be enabled by default.
-- Those not enabled by default can be enabled later
-- in the 'Applications' tab of the growl prefpane.
set the enabledNotificationsList to ¬
{"External Keyboard Mode Notification", "Default Keyboard Mode Notification"}

-- Register our script with growl.
-- You can optionally (as here) set a default icon
-- for this script's notifications.
register as application ¬
"Change Keyboard AppleScript" all notifications allNotificationsList ¬
default notifications enabledNotificationsList ¬
icon of application "Script Editor"
end tell

-- Open System Preferences
tell application "System Preferences"
activate
set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell

tell application "System Events"
-- If we don't have UI Elements enabled, then nothing is really going to work.
if UI elements enabled then
tell application process "System Preferences"
get properties
--If keyboard illumination is on, disable it when the external keyboard is connected.
--**if value of checkbox "Illuminate keyboard in low light conditions" of group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse" is 1 then
--**    click checkbox "Illuminate keyboard in low light conditions" of group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse"
--**end if
-- Open up the Modifier Keys sheet
click button "Modifier Keys…" of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse"
tell sheet 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse"
-- get the text of the 3rd pop up button
set areweDefault to "0"
set commandKey to value of pop up button 2
-- If we're in default mode, swap the keys
if commandKey ends with "Option" then
-- Change "All" keyboards
click pop up button 2
click menu item 4 of menu 1 of pop up button 2
delay 0.1
click pop up button 1
click menu item 3 of menu 1 of pop up button 1
delay 0.1
-- Send growl notification
--** tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
--notify with name ¬
--** "External Keyboard Mode Notification" title ¬
--** "External Keyboard Mode" description ¬
--** "Settings have been optimized for external keyboards" application name "Change Keyboard AppleScript"
--** end tell
--** delay 0.1
click button "OK"
else
-- We're in PC keyboard mode.  Swap back to the defaults
click button "Restore Defaults"
--** set areweDefault to "1"
-- Send growl notification
--** tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
--notify with name ¬
--** "Default Keyboard Mode Notification" title ¬
--**    "Default Keyboard Mode" description ¬
--**    "Reverted to default keyboard settings" application name "Change Keyboard AppleScript"
--**end tell
click button "OK"
end if
-- close the sheet
end tell
--** If switching back into laptop keyboard mode, then reenable the keyboard illumination if it was disabled
--** if areweDefault is "1" then
--**    if value of checkbox "Illuminate keyboard in low light conditions" of group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse" is 0 then
--**        click checkbox "Illuminate keyboard in low light conditions" of group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard & Mouse"
--**    end if
--**end if

end tell
tell application "System Preferences" to quit
else
-- UI elements not enabled.  Display an alert
tell application "System Preferences"
activate
set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"
display dialog "UI element scripting is not enabled.
Check \"Enable access for assistive devices\""
end tell
end if
end tell

Spore: Round One

I started playing Spore this week.  I don't know how the online reviewers could claim that the performance was good even on less powerful machines.  I have it running on my Macbook Pro 2.2ghz (Geforce 8600M 128MB) with all the settings turned down, and it *CRAWLS* once past the Cell stage.  Anyway, here  are two of the products from my game: my species, and a land vehicle for them. Although not much of a game at this point in development, the creator tools really are amazing.  I'm looking forward to seeing what else I can come up with.

Yeah, it looks kinda funny... but I'm proud of the duck head.  It reminds me of the one on Wade's swimming tube from the US Acres/Garfieldd & Friends cartoon.



[caption id="" align="alignright" width="250" caption="Wade Duck"][/caption]

As you progress to each new stage (Cell->Creature->Tribal->Nation->etc) your species develops one of three specializations depending on your choices in the last stage.  For some reason mine became faith/culturally based.  Thus in the Civilization stage I must use faith to convert other rival nations.  Hence, this guy here is the "Faithinator 1000".  Those loudspeakers coming out the side blare the word of Cthulhu to the heathen.  I'm somewhat proud of the VW-Hippopotamus look that it's taken on, and only wish the legs would articulate when the unit is moving in the game (what's the point in putting in legs if you can't see them walk?).