My first thought was to google: terahertz wave scanner dangers…

And Voila…

From Scotty Starnes’ Blog:

MIT: Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA (Same Waves Used In NYPD Gun-Scanning System)

I published a story yesterday about the NYPD, and the Department of Defense, using new body scanners to conduct “virtual frisks” on the citizens of New York using Terahertz Imaging Detection. These new scanners use terahertz waves to detect if someone may be carrying a weapon. MIT published information that shows these waves can tear apart DNA.

From Technology Review:

…But what of the health effects of terahertz waves? At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging. Terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionise atoms or molecules, the chief reasons why higher energy photons such as x-rays and UV rays are so bad for us. But could there be another mechanism at work?

The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. “Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none,” say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a few buddies. Now these guys think they know why.

Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they’ve found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That’s a jaw dropping conclusion.

And it also explains why the evidence has been so hard to garner. Ordinary resonant effects are not powerful enough to do do this kind of damage but nonlinear resonances can. These nonlinear instabilities are much less likely to form which explains why the character of THz genotoxic effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic, say the team.

This should set the cat among the pigeons. Of course, terahertz waves are a natural part of environment, just like visible and infrared light. But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe.

I don’t think I’ll be the first to say it. I miss the good old New York of the 80′s where stabbings and shootings were the norm. This brave new world of nut cancer guns is too much….

Also, benefiting greatly from being able to watch the same lecture over and over again is actually better than taking them live on campus and then struggling through the homework later that night under some low-wattage bulb. Of course, I will miss all the active feedback and great sweatshirts that are a part of college life, but I also would have missed the whole thing altogether if it wasn’t for iTunes and their partnership with Stanford.

In the future I hope there’ll be a way for more people to take more classes like this online and for qualified individuals to teach them from their own homes. It won’t be free, but it will be affordable.

But wait, you say, Jabberlope, you can do all that and more today at something like Phoenix; but what I’m envisioning is actually being able to turn all that self-study into a degree that matters. I’m talking about certification. Which, in the long run, is all that anyone should care to check if we’re serious about playing fair. It’s also incredibly capitalist. It says, I don’t care how you came about this knowledge, but you seem to have a mastery of it, so in that case I’m going to trust you enough to pay you some money to do a task that is integral to my own making of money. I’m talking about something like the Bar exam, but for Sociology, English, Copy-Editing, everything…

Did you know you never have to go law school to be a lawyer? Of course, it would sure help; but how cool is that? Something that a majority of the leaders of our nation started out as and you don’t have to go to college to do it. Having a great set of instructional videos is all I got at the moment, so I’m considering that a leg up from what I had last week, which was nothing. And I’m tired of whining about having no one to code my ideas.

So definitely check out those lectures if you’re at all interested in learning how to build iOS apps. They’re FREE!!

Also, some choice words I cam came along which are responsible for the title and the genesis of this report. They also prove that coders have some of the driest wit in the Northern Hemisphere.

Avoid Ambiguity (pg. 2)

Bugs are scarce where code doesn’t leave questions unanswered.

Ambiguous Messages

• -sortInfo
• -refreshTimer
• -update
• -fetchInfo:

On the surface, these methods may seem good. For example, they all have vowels. But what they share is the potential for different interpretations because of the language used.

sortInfo – returns sort info, or sort something called “info”?
refreshTimer – return a timer used for refreshing, or refresh a timer?
update – a verb? what is updated and how?
fetchInfo- fetch info about something or give info about a fetch?This is all fixed by slightly modifying the phrases.

Clear Messages:

• -currentSortInfo // “current” obviously describes the noun “sort info”
• -refreshDefaultTimer // refresh is now clearly a verb
• -updateMenuItemTitle // an action is taking place
• -infoForFetch: // now we know info is returned for a fetch

By just adding a few characters to each method, we’ve removed almost all ambiguity. And there was much rejoicing.

PS – for those just interested in just getting my bloggy blog updates at More People Like Us, feel free to join up for that list on Facebook instead of this stream which will continue to feature both MPLU and coding updates from the Jabberlope.

I hate to say it looks a bit odd, but I’m sure once I rode that thing over the bump and grind of Oakland central I’d be sold…

Them're Road-bearing Hips, Mama!!

Source: http://inhabitat.com/innovative-roundtail-bike-frame-smooths-out-bumps-in-the-road/

WordPress User electronicink has the perfect solution for getting the FTP working on your local WordPress install, which is all the more important now that WordPress has gone to automatic updates. Just follow the instructions below and you’ll be in the clear.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/automatic-plugin-updates-not-working-with-xampp-on-osx-needs-ftp-login#post-1644021

always remember to close your head...

Which is not to say I haven’t been busy. Website design has become my salaried bread and butter; and while I’m feeling a bit tired and overworked, it’s not half bad, honestly; I’m actually learning something. Still, being the lone internet cowboy in a small outfit is tough, and boy would it be great to have a HUMAN mentor to bounce things off of. In lieu of that, I’ve got Google, and I kind of muddle along,  And sometimes, in IT, that huge particular problem comes down to a very helpful tweak of a setting or two.

So, in the interest of keeping this this space alive, and perhaps saving a few lone gun slingers on far flung shores from scratching their heads for longer than they have to, I’m going to be posting a few quick tips to things that blew my brain’s circuits out the wrong way first before I figured out it was a simple binary solution.

I hope you enjoy the change of content.

I’m always blogging for fun over at “More People Like Us”, so come check me out and leave a comment or two.

Namaste,
BT Burton

I have left this blog long languishing in limbo, and feeling somewhat guilty for cheating on it with my newer, sleeker Tumblr URL (which has since become my favorite residence for new fiction), have been thinking about what indeed I should do with this space, as I have been for so long operating under this handsome pseudonym, the Jabberlope.

Does one strip the redirect off and paste it to the new blog? No, I thought, that just doesn’t sound right. I can’t  slap Jabberlope onto More People Like Us, that wouldn’t be fair to either domain.

So it hit me: why not bring back the old Jabberlope as an arena for more science and less fiction? And so it will be. I hope to lend my take on the Fukushima disaster by way of an introduction, but if that doesn’t come to fruition it will certainly be something interesting.

Stay tuned, then, and don’t fret. You can always find more of my new fiction over at “More People Like Us”, my new “travel” blog, which resides at http://morepeoplelikeus.tumblr.com Here, then, will be a place to sit back and really nerd out.

Dark lasers, fast breeders, suction cups made of living organisms.
That’s only the beginning.

So strap on your strap-on’s and your goggles, and let’s get educated!

Sincerely,
The Jabberlope

http://morepeoplelikeus.tumblr.com

It’s a fresh look but the same old bullshit; and for once that a’int what you dread on Monday morning.

Hope to see ya there!

The world is on fire all around you, but here you’re safe, it seemed to say.

Or, maybe, I just needed glasses.

10.19.2010

I gripped the railing of the small balcony and was looking at the bug flap flap flapping its wings and thinking about how the pool man would find it there in the morning and how maybe I should save it, when suddenly the whole apartment complex shook. An earthquake. A minor one. But I remember the last time this happened and how I thought it wasn’t really happening, and because here again I was smoking a joint and then out of the depths of the earth comes this shudder.

I could feel it in my fillings. A yawning backwards. But never more than once. When it’s more than once, then you get worried.

Still, my fate was better than that of the poor doves who roost in the tree that shades our pool and courtyard. I remember now, reading something about how birds get all crufted up during earthquakes. Maybe they were sleeping? And it’s like waking up to a black bag on your head. Because all was quiet, besides the bug, and then just as the shock hit the two birds flew straight out of the tree like barfly’s scattered from their watering holes at closing time, veering and careening, their occipital lobes scattered in an electric seizure. I just hung there watching, as he/she (I’m guessing it was the guy) flew straight into the side of the apartment building, before falling to the ground with a fat thud, while his partner hovered a moment before taking off into the skies. her too bumping the side of the building on her way out. The flapping of his wings came a few seconds later.

The pool is quiet again. Okay, good night world. Don’t fall apart.

b.t.b | 09.05.2010

Or else this will happen.

I cant beliee im trapped on here with you and you can’t wen acquowledge youre drinking juice

I found this in my notes. Who knows what I was originally intending to say.

Computers = 1
Diction = 0

Till next time. The jabberlope.

That’s the problem with turning your blog into a showcase for fiction; it just doesn’t come out as often, or as prettily as one would like. Begin working on something longer, like a novel, and you’ve basically committed yourself to going down the rabbit hole and not coming back for at least a year.

Well, it’s been a long while, and the Jabberlope is finally surfacing for air. In the coming weeks, I’m hoping to have a few snippets from the now, fully drafted book to share with you, some “tips”, some hard fought chapters, some questions for you, too, readers. Because I know how valuable your time is and how much there is to read. Why struggle through fiction stale as a cracker when the world itself grows more fictitious by the day?

It’s only just last night that I finally began a work of worthy fiction that isn’t older than I am. My hats are 3/4 the way off for Jonathan Lethem’s “Chronic City” (there’s just this fuzzy bit about his girlfriend being an astronaut that strikes me as off). So far. I’ll keep you updated.

When I began this blog, I was shooting posts all over the map. Physics, space, politics and environmental justice. It was fun, but I had no point to fix my compass on. I actually expect to go back to some of the more far-out astronomy: dark stars and cannibalizing worm-holes, along with some more spur of the moment fiction, be it tumbled smooth or rough and unpolished, but I just wanted to let you know this little enclave was still broadcasting, and that I’d be putting out fresh cookies soon.

Until then, check out some of my fiction here. In lieu of a tip, leave a comment instead.

-b. tyler

http://goodtunesfriday.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/the-mountain-goats-the-sunset-tree/