Sure, you’ve got your plentoptic cameras which can focus in post-production, but Adobe have a prototype lens that photographs a scene from multiple angles, allowing you to both focus and move the camera in Photoshop. Unfortunately the initial photograph took a week to process - as long as the program took to write - but it’s a fascinating bit of kit. Introductory video here.

You know how it’s a good idea to expose children to colds, measles etc. as it makes them immune in later life? Turns out, not true. In fact, opposite:

In 1989, an epidemiologist in Britain, David Strachan, observed that babies born into households with lots of siblings were less likely than other babies to develop allergies and asthma. The same proved true of babies who spent significant time in day care. Dr. Strachan hypothesized that the protection came from experiencing an abundance of childhood illnesses.

Dr. Strachan’s original hygiene hypothesis got a lot of press, not only in the news media but in serious medical journals. Less publicized was the decade-long string of follow-up studies that disproved a link between illnesses and protection from inflammatory disorders like allergies and asthma. If anything, studies showed, early illness made matters worse.

Moreover, studies now show that the more infections a person has during childhood, the greater his or her chance of premature death from scourges of old age like heart disease and cancer. The link appears to be chronic inflammation, a kind of lingering collateral damage from the body’s disease-fighting response. [my emphasis]

But what about the original observation? Well, children raised around many other children are indeed less likely to develop allergies and asthma, but not for the reasons thought:

But the link isn’t disease-causing germs. It’s early and ample exposure to harmless bacteria — especially the kinds encountered living close to the land and around livestock and other young children. In other words, dirt, dung and diapers. Just as disease-causing microbes clearly bring on inflammation, harmless microorganisms appear to exert a calming effect on the immune system.

Got it. Don’t go nuts about hygiene, let kids play in the dirt and vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.

More detail in the NYT article, which also points out that colds are not ‘natural’ and part of life as they’re only 5000 years old - nothing in evolutionary terms.

My new rule: never believe anything health-related unless it’s stated, directly, by a trained professional, and even then it’s not a bad idea to check it out with reputable sources online. And keep up with latest research.

I’m not going to tell you the license plate of Hiro’s father’s car in this evening’s Heroes, but, given that he was played by Mr. Sulu, any self-respecting geek should be able to guess.

Plenty of joy to be…had…on the front page of fffound:

FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user’s tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

Not really a social-networking site - which is good, because the last thing I have time for is another social networking site¹ - but absolutely wonderful for people who are, say, taking a photography degree and regularly researching projects.

Unfortunately it’s still in closed beta, which makes me grumpy. I did spot this on the site, though:

Which makes up for it.

1. this is not true. There are many other things that come after this on the list of things I don’t have time for. It is a particularly stupid idiom much like ‘there’s nothing worse than’, which is always followed by something completely trivial. ‘There’s nothing worse than a bad banana’. In my domain is mandatory to follow all such statements with a quote from guy-who-was-with-Jeremy Hardy: “cutting off your penis with a chainsaw” and see what happens. [↩]

Bunnies take Manhattan. The first 50 seconds are so cute it actually hurts:

All claymation, no CGI involved.

Anybody have experience with mindmapping apps / websites? I’ve always found mindmaps useful and am thinking I should be using them for essay planning / research. There are a huge number of possibilities listed on wikipedia…I like the idea of an online solution so I can quickly access it anywhere, and am currently looking at comapping.com and mindmeister.com. The former is nice and quick, if a little visually dull - sure, left->right might be easier to understand, but it’s not as exciting. The latter isn’t based around flash, hooks into twitter/skype, and generally feels and looks more web2.0-y (not that this means anything). I’ll give them both a try over the next few days - anything I should particularly be looking at? I’m really after the one that’s destined to be bought by Google…

I’m going to hope the Labour Party were planning inheritance tax cuts before the Tories made their announcements, but, still, that’s some pretty dire PR work. Geez. I could care less about election timetables, but this is just depressing. Talk about squandering your public support.

Seriously, inheritance tax cuts? I was under the impression we on the left weren’t keen on people getting money they haven’t worked for without some kind of tax. Of course the Tories think the opposite - that’s why they’re Conservatives! Why not emphasise this? And why not use stamp duty instead? People couldn’t afford mortgages until their mid-thirties before the market went tits-up - it’d be a great way to appeal to younger voters on an issue that doesn’t seem to have any particular basis in the Labour ethos¹. What a cock up.

1. does it? [↩]

Somebody very kindly bought me this:

Which is perhaps pushing the definition of ‘yogurt’. Was tasty though.

It’s Buy A Friend A Book week:

you can’t buy your friend a book because it’s their birthday or they just graduated or got engaged or had a baby or anything else. You have to give them a book for no good reason. In fact, this present out of the blue from you should shock the pants off of whomever you decide to give it to. And it’ll make them happy.

I like. Let’s do it.

We’ve sold nine books in the last five days, and of course can’t post any of them. I’m a little worried about the two foreign ones - I’m hoping my emails have been understood, or we may be in for some negative feedback. With a bit of luck I could appeal against that, though. I do sympathise with the Royal Mail - I don’t know how the hell you cope with losing a monopoly and having other businesses take the markets you use to subsidise non-profit-making areas - but it’d be lovely if they could get it sorted / get bought by the government or something.

(update: just heard the government already own the post office. Not that I don’t know what I’m talking about, or anything.)

On Dell’s online system configurator, in the midst of questions like ‘do you want Office?’, ‘do you want a 20″ widescreen monitor?’ etc., is this:

This is just a bios option that takes half a second to change, but I don’t really object to Dell charging as it’s not something many people know about. However, I’m pretty sure any computer will boot to the hard drive by default - what does the first £3 actually buy you?

The Sunday results show for Strictly is a bit odd, given the BBC’s recent pronouncements on not misleading the audience. It’s clearly filmed on the Saturday night as the audience is the same, and although Bruce and Tess are careful not to say anything about being ‘live’, they work hard to give the impression it’s another day. Strange. It’s also odd for the audience and cast to know the result 24hrs before the rest of the country - surely any of them could leak it? The various TV gossip sites will surely get hold of it early. I’m not convinced it’ll last.

I introduced Abi to the show and thankfully she enjoyed it Good job, since between it and It Takes Two there’ll be Strictly every single day between now and Christmas! She found Bruce a little irritating, and I was trying to convey how his on-screen personality is part of a greater whole that’s more dedicated to entertaining the studio audience, and actually he’s far more likeable once you’ve seen that. It’s tricky to explain unless you’ve been there, though. 

Shame about Brian and Karen being voted out so early. He was probably one of the weaker dancers, but definitely had the look and I’m sure would have improved significantly. Oh well, it’ll please the various Karen-haters who surprised the hell out of me last season. She’s still the best, though
I thought Kenny was a bit miserable and not really into the spirit of the thing, but the other guys were all likeable. Fun as they were, though, they couldn’t hold a handle to the girls. Even with only a group routine they completely stole the show. Blimey. Next week should be great.

He said it himself, and I think we can all agree this is great news. Email and IM should stop him getting so ronery and sadry arone. Via Ben.

Excited? Me? Maybe just a little Not sure about the results show moving to Sunday, but we’ll see. Watching tonight’s show with Abi, who’s never seen it before. This, quite frankly, borders on self-harm, so it’s good she’s finally seeking help. Good job Kelly Brook’s not performing this week - I have trouble thinking straight whenever she’s on tv, which might not go down well…

As with last year, the best place for non-snarky, informed Strictly news is Strictly Come Blogging.

One of my photos from last year’s Stratford Mop Fair is currently on the front page of the Stratford Council website, which makes me happy. The fair is this Thursay/Friday and falls perfectly over the times I have to be in London, which makes me sad. Less sad than the original happiness, though, so I’m in credit.