Doctor Who: a 50-year history in one data visualisation

Doctor Who: a 50-year history in one data visualisation | News | guardian.co.uk
Just in case you had any questions regarding The Doctor. Very impressive data visualisation but utterly crap on a netbook.

Every Doctor Who villain since 1963

Every Doctor Who villain since 1963 - as a spreadsheet and visualised | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk
So many villains visualised - a work in progress.

If full-time parenting was that fulfilling, more men would have been doing it

If full-time parenting was that fulfilling, more men would have been doing it | Deborah Orr | Comment is free | The Guardian  Fair point. And as for full time male stay at home parents ... Oh be still you whiny wuss!

Some good news - a new malaria drug

New malaria drug packs a triple punch - health - 25 March 2013 - New Scientist
ELQ-300. Sexy name. They need to work on that. 'Plasmodysplat' perhaps? Falciparumide? Malaribang? Why is it good news? According to the World Health Organisation:

About 3.3 billion people – half of the world's population – are at risk of malaria. In 2010, there were about 216 million malaria cases (with an uncertainty range of 149 million to 274 million) and an estimated 655 000 malaria deaths (with an uncertainty range of 537 000 to 907 000). Increased prevention and control measures have led to a reduction in malaria mortality rates by more than 25% globally since 2000 and by 33% in the WHO African Region.

Apart from the deaths and associated trauma, malaria is extremely debilitating so people's ability to be self supporting is severely compromised. And global warming is bringing an infected mozzie to your first world home sometime soon. Since NS articles disappear for non subscribers after a fairly short time, here's the article:

"There's nowhere to hide". Michael Riscoe of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is talking about Plasmodium falciparum – a species of parasite that causes the most dangerous kind of malaria. His team's new drug hits the parasites at three vital stages in their life cycle, in blood, in the liver and in mosquitoes too. Most existing drugs only kill the parasite in blood.
The drug, called ELQ-300, wrecks the parasites' ability to reproduce by disabling their mitochondria, the factories that produce two of the building blocks they need to make DNA. The drug does not harm human mitochondria, which produce energy rather than DNA.
ELQ-300 rapidly cured infected mice and killed parasites in mosquitoes that were allowed to feed on the mice shortly after infection, blocking further transmission to new victims.
Riscoe says that if ELQ-300 passes the obligatory safety tests, trials could begin in humans within two years.
"This is an excellent evaluation of an exciting new series of antimalarial drugs," says Nick White of the Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand, a country where resistance is developing fast to artemisinins, the most potent class of antimalarial drugs now in use. "Let's hope they make it through to the clinic," he says.
Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine, doi.org/kwk

Ford India demonstrating excellent timing

Today's WTF moment especially for Lou and Meg. Ford India should probably fire its ad execs for depicting bound and gagged women. The car has a big boot you see. Or 'booty' perhaps? I'm a bit ashamed of myself for that but I'm not even in the same league as Ford India.

Laser pointers

More good news. Laser pointers: Most red, green lasers are more powerful than allowed by law. Excellent. I like the definition that a laser pointer is "a handheld laser intended to trick an audience into thinking your PowerPoint slides are even vaguely interesting" As evidence they proffer this formal paper presentation which is well worth a look. Also of interest is the Russian take on all of this: Party laser 'blinds' Russian ravers. Now they don't have to rely on the bathtub vodka to get blind. Them Russkis.

Sigur Rós new album Kveikur and single “Brennisteinn”

One for Pac and Matt and maybe me too.

Sigur Rós new album Kveikur and single “Brennisteinn”: Watch the video for the heavy new song.

Mmmm, flouro yellow disembowelment.  And only 7 minutes. I think I quite like it. But are they selling out? Or, given Iceland is in receivership, have they decided they need to pay their mortgages? Have the significant Others in their lives said the equivalent of the lyric in Steve Hackett's song Marijuana, Assassin of Youth:


You need a haircut and then a degree
Don't you want to start a family
Take a stand and make some real cash
Sell your guitar and throw away your stash

It comes to us all in time (or at least most of us). Thank heavens he didn't though.

Thank you Slate.

Marvel?

Silver surfers fighting loneliness with technology - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Excellent. Probs more than 150 silver surfers out there though. Now if only we could find a way to disconnect trolls.

Minor prescription adjustment

Glasses on a string?
Well ring a ding ding!
No glasses on a string?
Can't see a thing.

Insanify

Squeeler Software, the makers of FuckItUp is proud to announce new Insanify! Version 5.3 (actually 0.8 because it doesn't work yet but we thought 5.3 sounded better - Remove this before publishing - Ed).

In this dog eat dog world aspirational office workers needs every tool at their command to scale the slippery slope of the office hierarchy. How best to do it? Drive your fellow workers insane! How to get away with it? Mess with people's minds almost subliminally! How does it work? Insanify! makes little noises while you are away from your computer, just enough that over time your office neighbours will be driven insane! One less competitor to worry about! There is no pattern to the sounds, no link to particular computer functions, no way to predict when that annoying sound will happen. Talk about tenterhooks!

On the Insanify! control panel you can set the volume to suit your office background noise and degree of intrusion into your neighbour's sonic world. You can also set individual sounds to a range of volume profiles: increasing, decreasing and, my favourite, randomly loud followed by a user defined period of complete silence so that when your neighbour calls others over to hear the sound they are looked on as being what they are becoming: increasingly insane!

Insanify! 5.3 supports sonic themes including such favourites as dying fan, electrical fault, stuck keyboard, creaky chair, random key clicks, chalk on a blackboard, tinnitus, mosquito, fly, muffled mobile phone, voices in your head and farts.

Share the fun. For the proactive there is also Insanify CB (Complete Bastard): a stand alone version that can be loaded onto other people's PCs. Insanify! will cleverly unload when the desperate users runs spyware detector or other virus checking software, stay dormant for a while and then reload, crushing your enemy's feelings of success and technical competence.

Maintain your status as the office sociopath: install Insanify! now and show them that you really are better than them! Available now from Squeeler Software and please remember to pay or we'll be sending The Red Chap around to discuss the state of your kneecaps.