Todd Hoff

Do robotic sleeping dogs lie? - Aloof Schipperke

I think I agree with the last part, so I guess you could be cruel to a current robot dog if you've thoroughly caninopomorphized it :) - Eivind

Wow, I used Tcl a gazillion years ago. Good see it's still in use. - Todd Hoff

Still easy to find in the hardware design world. - Aloof Schipperke

I used it on a contract to control something or other over a terminal emulation session. Worked well enough as I recall. - Todd Hoff

"The initial pain-dulling sensation occurs when capsaicin activates heat-sensing transient receptor potential vanilloid 1(TRPV1) ion channels on sensory neurons. Prolonged stimulation with the compound results in desensitization of these neurons. “This is one of the underlying mechanisms of capsaicin’s numbing effect, but TRPV1 is a heat sensor, so how it affects mechanical pain was not known,” said Tibor Rohacs, an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, who led the study. Rohacs and his colleagues uncovered a link between the heat-stimulating function of capsaicin and its ability to relieve mechanical pain including neuralgia (pain from damaged nerves), neuropathy, and muscle and joint pain. Capsaicin’s activation of TRPV1 ion channels in turns inhibits mechanical force-sensing ion channels called Piezo1 and 2 by depleting phospholipid signaling molecules, phosphoinositides, in the cell membrane. “What is unique in this study is how one kind of channel regulates the activity of another,” said Tamas Balla, a signal transduction researcher at the National Institutes of Health who previously collaborated with Rohacs but was not part of the current study. “I believe that this is the first example of ion channel cross-talk mediated by phospholipids,” Balla added." - Todd Hoff

So I guess it's not just a diversion. - Todd Hoff

"Interestingly, so far, February has been unusually mild across the lower 48 states as a whole. In fact, the U.S. as a whole has seen far more record highs than record lows in the past 30 days and for the year to date. This is because a northward deviation in the jet stream has allowed warm air from the southwest to move into much of the West and Midwest, bringing spring-like conditions to states such as Nevada, Arizona and Oklahoma. Record high temperatures were set this weekend all the way north into South Dakota and Nebraska." - Todd Hoff

"Our subjective sensory experiences are regulated by defined brain areas subh visual cortex, auditory cortex,somatosensory cortex, etc., but there doesn't appear to be a "pain cortex" that directly codes our subjective perception of pain. Mano and Seymour, in a review of Woo et al., note the emerging concept that pain might emerge from the coordinated activity of an integrated brain network. Woo et al. provide evidence that distinct brain networks support the subjective changes in pain that result from nociceptive input and self-directed cognitive modulation. Their abstract, followed by a summary graphic from Mano and Seymour:" - Todd Hoff

"Energy is the currency of biology. By harvesting electrons from a stunning range of starting materials, Earth’s organisms produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which powers biological reactions. In the case of mammals and most eukaryotes, sugars and other organic molecules are common electron sources, the oxidation of which drives ATP production. Bacteria and archaea can use a range of other chemicals, from sulfide to iron to ammonium. Cells take up these electron-rich molecules and capture their electrons, which jump down an electron transport chain in the mitochondrial or cell membrane. As electrons move along the membrane toward a final electron acceptor, protons are pumped from the cell’s interior to the exterior, setting up a chemical gradient. Finally, protons stream back into the cell, releasing the chemical pressure and generating ATP. With each energy-requiring reaction, from flagella construction to cell division and growth, cells draw upon their ATP bank. The wide variety of biochemical modes of existence reflects billions of years of evolution, adaptation, and niche differentiation rather than a standardized characterization of biological fortitude. This elegant, multistep process is a pervasive feature of life as we know it, but energetic challenges are ever-present. If the electrical potentials of electron donor and acceptor are too closely aligned, for example, it won’t be possible to squeeze much energy from their coupling. The concentrations of the reactants and the speed at which enzymes can mobilize them are also key factors. These two components—the magnitude of energy available from a particular pairing and the rate of such reactions—determine how much energy a cell can produce." - Todd Hoff

Years ago I read about a laundromat that had a connecting door to a (singles?) bar. - bentley

Interesting article. Thanks. If I had to use laundromats, I'd wish for one like this. (I miss bookstores too. I miss what Borders used to be.) - bentley

"The researchers found these features most likely to generate retweets: Ask people to share. Words like ”please,” “pls,” “plz” and, of course, “retweet” were common in successful messages. Be informative (often measured by length). Use the language of the community, and be consistent with the language you usually use yourself, with which your followers are familiar. The researchers are also testing on Reddit, where users form distinct communities. Imitate the style of newspaper headlines. (In their tests, the researchers used the New York Times as a model.) Use words that appear often in other retweeted messages. Use words that express positive or negative sentiment. Refer to other people, not just yourself. Use third person pronouns. Use generalizations. Statements that can be applied to a variety of situations are the most often repeated. Make it easy to read. The researchers applied a formula used to measure the grade level of a text." - Todd Hoff

"Right now, humans are well on pace to at least double carbon dioxide concentrations from preindustrial levels by the middle of the century. But given how complex the climate system is, how do we know that the IPCC’s sensitivity estimate holds true? There’s a lot at stake — if the scientists are overestimating the climate sensitivity then global warming might be less worrying. No wonder that climate “skeptics” have often cast doubt on the matter." - Todd Hoff

"in his pursuit to create a suitable house for sparrows, ryan bruxvoort worked through multiple iterations in an effort to reach a final product called ‘affinity’. early on in the project bruxvoort set forth the following statement, which helped guide him through his design process from start to finish: ‘my goal is to create a shelter that compliments its environment while at the same time attracting sparrows to inhabit it. ultimately I wish for this to culminate into a form that shows empathy for the sparrow, in a serene, carefully crafted manner. this led to the development of a delicate, almost fragile look that has been constructed in a manner that affords tremendous structural integrity. this light yet resilient quality of the house is to be reflective of the sparrow itself.’" - Todd Hoff

gorgeous - Todd Hoff

Want - Kevin (aka ThreadKilla)

I guess the small amount of water that would come in through the opening would drain towards the front and out between the slats? - Ken Morley

"Making things with electronics is tough, but if you're just starting out, littleBits are an easy way to start experimenting with all kinds of projects. You can connect real world components to the cloud instantly, program If This Then That recipes, and even connect it all to an Arduino. Here's how to get started using them." - Todd Hoff

"http://youtu.be/sHy9FOblt7Y" - Todd Hoff

"California is no longer the earthquake capital of the contiguous U.S., and even earthquake capital Alaska has been surpassed by an unlikely new contender, according to a new report." - Todd Hoff

"Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo has created a series of works in an unlikely medium—ice. In a project called ‘Melting Men,’ Azevedo installs a crowd of ice figurines in a public space. Since 2005, she has been creating these public art installations around the globe at sites that have historical significance to the city. “It concentrates on small sculptures of small men, the common men,” said the artist." - Todd Hoff

"Tu and Soman hypothesized that one reason for why we procrastinate is that we do not envision time as a linear, continuous entity but instead categorize future deadlines into two categories, the imminent future and the distant future. A spatial analogy to this hypothesized construct is how we categorize distances. A city located at a 400 kilometer distance may be considered as being spatially closer to us if it is located within the same state than another city which may be physically closer (e.g. only 300 kilometers away) but located in a different state. The categories "in my state" and "outside of my state" therefore interfere with the perception of the actual physical distance." - Todd Hoff

"With a highly technical understanding of sound change, and collections of thousands upon thousands of cognates, whole words, and then large vocabularies of unrecorded languages have been revealed. Much of the early history of academic linguistics was spent reconstructing European “proto-languages”, our best guesses at earlier forms of familiar linguistic groups. There was proto-Germanic, proto-Romance, proto-Slavic and, eventually, a huge lexicon of proto-Indo-European (PIE) a hypothetical language that represents the common ancestor of everything from Welsh to Romanian, Greek to Sanskrit. This, of course, takes us back quite a long time. Just how long is a matter of fierce debate. In all probability it gets us just a bit beyond the earliest writing, about 6000 years ago. Not quite palaeolithic then, but late neolithic – still stone age, and before, or at the very dawn of agriculture. What did society look like then? How did people live, eat and hunt? Well, let’s look at some of the vocabulary we’ve been able to reconstruct (thanks to the database over at University of Texas, Austin, for these examples)" - Todd Hoff

I'm disappointed there's no ancient word for nachos. - Todd Hoff

"Take heart feline enthusiasts. Your cat’s continued indifference toward her new Deluxe Scratch DJ Deck may be disappointing, but there is an object that’s pretty much guaranteed to pique her interest. That object, as the Internet has so thoroughly documented, is a box. Any box, really. Big boxes, small boxes, irregularly shaped boxes—it doesn’t matter. Place one on the ground, a chair, or a bookshelf and watch as Admiral Snuggles quickly commandeers it." - Todd Hoff

"Rivera had a sketch of the Tread before he even returned to work. It looked like a bit like a bike chain, with interlocking tools. Many Leatherman tools are “wearable,” but not like the Tread. A bracelet made sense: It allowed you to have your tools on you, literally, all the time. It also required each bit, wrench and driver to be tiny, so you wouldn’t encounter trouble from the TSA, Disney guards or anyone else. The longest, sharpest bit—a pointy sim card removal tool—is just under a quarter-inch long, well within TSA regulations. And there are no sharp edges on any of the links." - Todd Hoff

I think I got my next present for my dad! - Todd Hoff

It's been raining still, but that not that hard. About 1/8th of a wheel barrow. - Todd Hoff

And how would one attach those hair minnows? Asking for a friend. - Ken Morley

I hope to find out some day :-) - Todd Hoff

I want to know too ;-) - Amit Patel

"This bringing together of Joyce’s esthetic theory with the māyā idea was a wonderful illumination for me. I just woke up this morning and said, ”My god, I have finally got it after eighty years.” I have known the implications of esthetic arrest, but I’d never linked it up to the māyā idea. It is your mental attitude that determines whether you experience the projecting or the revealing power. The world is there in both modes. It is not that the world changes, it’s your consciousness." - Todd Hoff

The idea esthetic arrest as defining art is too pragmatic for me. It means something is art if it stops a viewer and transports them beyond categories. It doesn't leave room for an artist producing something by their process, but because of how it's received it's not therefor art. Intent matters as well. But neither results or intent are ever enough. - Todd Hoff

"Combining Loscalzo’s molecular networks with Thurner and Barabási’s disease networks would help to create a bridge between correlation and mechanism. If comorbid diseases share overlapping molecular networks, researchers could use the networks to understand the biochemical mechanisms behind them. These two kinds of networks, very different in how they are built, are united only by the idea that data can reveal connections that otherwise would pass unnoticed. But together these networks have the potential to open new doors in the study of disease." - Todd Hoff

I want one of those - Steve C, Team Marina

The hours suck and I'm sure you don't get paid very much. - Todd Hoff

"The Amazon, Nile and Mississippi are mighty rivers, but they and all their worldwide brethren might be a relative trickle compared with an unseen torrent below the surface. New research shows that rivers might constitute as little as 20 percent of the water that flows yearly into the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific Oceans from the continents. The rest flows through what is termed the 'subterranean estuary,' which some researchers think supply the lion's share of terrestrial nutrients to the oceans." - Todd Hoff

"Psilocybin may be useful in treating anxiety, addiction, and depression, and in studying the neurobiology of mystical experience. CREDIT ILLUSTRATION BY STEPHEN DOYLE On an April Monday in 2010, Patrick Mettes, a fifty-four-year-old television news director being treated for a cancer of the bile ducts, read an article on the front page of the Times that would change his death. His diagnosis had come three years earlier, shortly after his wife, Lisa, noticed that the whites of his eyes had turned yellow. By 2010, the cancer had spread to Patrick’s lungs and he was buckling under the weight of a debilitating chemotherapy regimen and the growing fear that he might not survive. The article, headlined “HALLUCINOGENS HAVE DOCTORS TUNING IN AGAIN,” mentioned clinical trials at several universities, including N.Y.U., in which psilocybin—the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms—was being administered to cancer patients in an effort to relieve their anxiety and “existential distress.” One of the researchers was quoted as saying that, under the influence of the hallucinogen, “individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states . . . and return with a new perspective and profound acceptance.” Patrick had never taken a psychedelic drug, but he immediately wanted to volunteer. Lisa was against the idea. “I didn’t want there to be an easy way out,” she recently told me. “I wanted him to fight.”" - Todd Hoff