This is a listing of my favourite iPad apps:Dropbox - Absoutely invaluable for shifting files too and from the iPad; synchronise files between iPad and other computers; useful for collaborationsSqueezepad - Excellent and easy to use interface for Squeezebox Server. Logitech's series of Squeezebox audio devices are really rather a nice way of managing and playing digital audio files.iAnnotate - read and annotate pdf files. Aji Reader Service can be used to synchronise pdf files between Mac or PC and iAnnotate. I use this to synch my pdf collection which I manage on the Linux and Mac notebooks using Mendeley. Unfortunately the current version of the Mendeley iPhone/iPad app leaves quite a lot to be desired.iWork - three iWork applications have iPad versions: Pages, Numbers and KeynoteSkype -VOIP telephony via the iPad. No video of course, but the rumoured second generation iPad may have video. Works well on my WiFi model iPad.The Feed -Interfaces with Google Reader to help keep on top of your RSS feeds (I usually follow around 120 or more feeds).Tweetdeck - Not quite as full-featured as the desktop version, but still pretty good for emitting thoughts into the twitterverse. Has a useful browser panel.Headspace - A kind of hybrid task manager, planning, to-do list app that is really quite versatile. Three dimensional effects!Wolfram - Very useful if your web searches aim to pull out numerical analyses. Reasonably good value when I got it on special offer, but I guess one could always access Wolfram Alpha via Safari. A bit too focussed on American data.Notes Plus - very versatile note taking app, with diagrams and text. No character recognition - for this try WritePad. Works best with an iPad stylus.Quickoffice - read and edit MS Office documents.Penultimate - a neat and easy graphic note-taking app. Works best with a stylus, otherwise you're finger-painting
The BBC reports that the UK ISP TalkTalk (also known as StalkStalk) is pressing on with its intrusive malware scanning system (Talk Talk to introduce controversial virus alert system). However a better analysis can be read over at NoDPI (Update: StalkStalk, Time to Switch ISP).Essentially TalkTalk will visit every website visited by every TalkTalk customer, and investigate it for malware. Essentially this is an exercise in recording customers' web activity, in many cases recording URLs containing personal information. TalkTalk customers cannot opt-out of the URL stalking. As NoDPI put it:
Yesterday, TalkTalk announced the forthcoming relaunch of their ‘anti-malware’ service. The same system was covertly tested on TalkTalk subscribers in June/July.[...]Every URL that you visit will be captured, and used to classify the web site that you visit. The technology is supplied by Chinese company Huawei, who are commercial partners with notorious spyware company Phorm, who in turn use technology supplied by malware hackers OCS Lab in Moscow.TalkTalk customers are advised to read the NoDPI article and judge whether their privacy would be best served by leaving for a new ISP. Personally I left BT over their dalliance with the dreadful Phorm.See also
Related articles
- TalkTalk rapped for trial silence (bbc.co.uk)
- TalkTalk to launch controversial Virus Alerts system (v3.co.uk)
- ISP to test controversial alerts (bbc.co.uk)
- TalkTalk reprimanded over Malware trial (ghacks.net)
Techdirt's latest story on the ongoing saga of the Murdoch media paywall rounds up the apparent effect on the ability of the Murdoch media to break stories (How Murdoch's Paywalls Meant Some News It Broke Went Unnoticed & Uncredited | Techdirt) - no-one notices.This on top of falling advertiser revenues makes me wonder how long they plan to continue the paywall. On the other hand, they've just moved The News of the World behind the paywall.I read a multitude of sites regularly - using the Feedly front-end to Google Reader - and I probably do so just as most web users do. I'm what you might call a 'fly-by' reader - I follow links from feeds, twitter, other websites. I don't read on line newspapers as I do (did) print newspapers, I read single articles. Paywalls just mean I don't go to those sites, so when the NewsCorp paywall went up, I went elsewhere.I guess the big question for NewsCorp is whether paywall income compensates for the loss of advertiser revenue.
Buoyancy, fat and metabolism
In a previous stage of my research career, I spent a considerable amount of time screening a collection of recessive lethal Drosophila strains for abnormal mitotic phenotypes. I looked for such phenotypes in squash preparations from third instar larval brains, and to get the larvae out of the fly food, we often floated them out in salt solution. So, while scanning through an alert of new publications in PLoS Genetics, one particular title popped out at me:A Buoyancy-Based Screen of Drosophila Larvae for Fat- Storage Mutants Reveals a Role for Sir2 in Coupling Fat Storage to Nutrient AvailabilityOne of my mantras in the lab is that if one can think of a suitable selection, one can find any kind of mutant phenotype. In this paper, the authors have used a seemingly trivial selection system to identify mutants with a phenotype of altered fat metabolism. You can see the selection in this figure (Panel A in Figure 1):[caption id="attachment_1189" align="alignleft" width="160" caption="Selecting mutant larvae by buoyancy"][/caption]The plastic cuvette is filled with 10% sucrose, and the larvae added and left to float or sink to equilibrium. You can see the wild type larvae in the left cuvette mostly sink, while all the adp mutant larvae float.Clearly there's a difference in buoyant density between the two genotypes. adp is a spontaneous mutation identified many years ago. Somewhat oddly, the authors refer to adp as "a conserved anti-obesity gene first identified as a naturally-occurring mutation in Drosophila". This sounds kind of odd to me. The FlyBase record for adp describes it thus:
There is experimental evidence that it is involved in the biological process: lipid metabolic process; response to desiccation; negative regulation of sequestering of triglyceride.Still, it clearly affects lipid deposition such that adp mutants mostly float in 10% sucrose, thereby demonstrating the efficacy of the selection.The authors used this buoyancy test to screen nearly 900 strains, each bearing transposon insertions, that represent about 500 distinct loci. 66 genes were identified by this assay as affecting body fat composition - some were previously characterised as having a function related to fat physiology, and about two thirds of the genes had mammalian orthologues.
Over at Grumpy Bob's Posterous - Is this evidence of Liberal Democrat moral bankruptcy?Yes, I think it could be construed as such.
While 50,000 students protest the proposed fees increase, this exchange in Parliament:
The flies&bikes blog has been a bit quiet lately. This has been partly because I've been rather distracted by events and activities at work, partly because much of what I write about relates to my bike racing (which is seasonal), and partly because I write on a few blog sites.My blog 'Wonderful Life', which is hosted at this site, is where I blog about biology and atheism, frequently on topics such as creationism and its deviant offspring 'intelligent design'. This has lead me to accept an invitation to join the committee of the British Centre for Science Education (website, forum and blog). So a bit more effort has gone towards 'Wonderful Life' lately..Normal service will be resumed...
It's been quite a few weeks (or perhaps months) since dear Valv. (Piti) - aka Alejandro Valverde's doping case graced this blog. Today, CyclingNews.com reports that Alejandro Valverde has lost the final appeal against his doping ban (Valverde Loses Final Appeal).This of course follows one of the few instances in which DNA fingerprinting led to a correlation between a pro cyclist and ablood bag recovered from Dr Fuentes' stash. I guess the DNA profiling was felt to be rather incontrovertible. Oh, and the barely concealed code name on the bags.He's now banned until the end of 2011. He was formally banned from the first of January this year, but kept on racing for a while. But the bottom line is - why couldn't the Spanish authorities succeed in getting more of the blood bags sampled for DNA fingerprinting? How many riders got away with it? And is it fair to clobber just a few of the cyclists involved?
Clocks change this weekend (from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time) in the UK, and as usual we get a bunch of silly stories about how we ought to change this practice (for example BBC News - Putting clocks back damages our health, says expert).I'm a cycle commuter, and personally I think increased darkness in the morning would be a dangerous change. I'm not convinced drivers are fully awake during the morning commute - a suggestion supported in the article by Dr David Lewis, a chartered psychologist who has done research into the effect of sunshine on our well-being
"But there is a danger that people leaving for work in the morning don't really wake up properly if it's not light."It is apparently recommended that adults take 30 minutes exercise per day and children take 60 minutes. It does seem to me that the easiest way of getting this exercise is by encouraging people to commute by bike where possible (and take public transport with its attendant walking to/from buses and trains): I expect people are less likely to do so in the dark.