Category Archives: news

geekspeak, news

The Sky Is Falling…

Be sure to visit your local hardware store soon, because supplies of duct tape and plastic sheeting are going fast! After all, you don’t want to be the only one in the country without an Disaster Supply Kit.

Because you know that Al Qaeda’s first target will be [insert your hometown here], U.S.A.

Call me a cynic. Call me a typical apathetic Gen-Xer. I just don’t think that the biological weaponry, whatever it may be, will end up here in Bowling Green, Ohio. If the assailants are dumb enough to release some sort of something-or-other that will propagate all the way here from wherever they dump it, something tells me that a.) duct tape on the windows won’t help, and b.) it’ll get them eventually, too.

I just refuse to get sucked into a panic before the situation warrants.

And now for something completely different… I’m very proud of myself. Last week, I received my shipment from fixyourownprinter.com, including a new pickup roller and installation video CD-ROM. In only, oh, an hour and a half, I managed to disassemble my LaserWriter II NT, change the pickup roller, clean the registration roller, install some new felt pads in the electronics of the printer, and reassemble it… in working order. 🙂 My printer will now be happy and will print pretty wedding announcements.

news, randomness, site-related

7 March 2001

This is the first edition of my new and improved personal website. I’m hoping to have some pics, some rants, and some miscellaneous
wackiness.

For now, check out what’s in my CD player (to the right), my daily rant (to the left), and my spiffalicious mint green color scheme and stylesheets.

* * *

Today’s Rant: Patenting Genes

There’s a company in California (I think) that owns the patent to the two known genes for breast cancer. Actually, according to an article in Wired, they don’t own only the gene itself… they must also own the method of isolating it and using it.

This little snag in my research complicates my rant. See, I had been going to bitch about owning a part of nature — it’s like trying to patent a left thumb. However… owning the method of determining the gene’s existence still throws a monkey wrench into the whole works of science. I know for a fact that breast cancer research in some parts of the country has had to be halted due to this patent. There’s just something not right about this…

As far as my little research snafu:

A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring,
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again.

-Author unknown

(PS – If you’re a “religious” person, check out this reference where I found the text of the poem I was looking for. Interesting stuff.)