Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-2-2008

[andrewducker]

• Increase in asthma linked to Caesareans
  Babies born by Caesarean delivery are more likely to develop asthma than those delivered naturally, doctors say. Exposure to bacteria in the vagina during birth is thought to play a key role in priming the immune system, providing a defence against the development of allergies.
  
  In Caesarean children, exposure to bacteria happens later and research has shown they have different intestinal flora and gut bacteria, suggesting the maturation of their immune systems is delayed.
  (tags: asthma babies caesarians)
• Dan Kaminsky and the DNS hack
  If you like your techno-thrillers realistic, then this true story of a massive vulnerability earlier in the year is very entertaining.
  (tags: technology security network internet dns)
• Google reveals Chrome extensions plan
  Oooh - might actually be enough to get me using it!
  (tags: news googlechrome google chrome)
• Terry Pratchett: "If I"d known what a progressive brain disease could do for your PR profile I may have had one earlier"
  Nice interview that covers everything from the Alzheimers to writing - and includes some stuf I didn"t already know
  (tags: writing terrypratchett interview)
• Why defend freedom of icky speech?
  Neil Gaiman talks about why he supports the CBLDF in legally defending someone being prosecuted for owning manga containing underage sex.
  (tags: speech manga law freespeech neilgaiman rights writing)
• Possibly the finest personal ad I"ve seen in some time
  Awesome in its awfulness
  (tags: dating funny geek)
• The 10 big energy myths
  Including some things you might not already know
  (tags: green environment solar wind science renewables nuclear)
• Mike Cohn"s Blog - Succeeding With Agile
  Has some answers to questions I"ve been having recently.
  (tags: agile development blog)

Comments

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Anyone who wants to understand how to deal with global warming / the energy crisis would do well to read McKay's free book.

[andrewducker]

I intend to, as soon as I have an EReader!

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Are you getting one soon?

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/287520/sony-e-reader-prs-505-sc-reader-dig/ ?

[andrewducker]

It's on my Christmas List :->

[robhu.livejournal.com]

The comments claim it can be had for £160, although I don't know if that's the latest version.

[Bad username or site: woodpijn' / @ livejournal.com] got one a few months ago. I don't know what she thinks of it though.

I wonder how good it is at dealing with A4 formatted PDFs.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Not brilliant, sadly.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

[Bad username or site: woodpijn' / @ livejournal.com] has also informed me that the flash-to-black is annoying (or looks like it would be annoying I think she said, as she hasn't used it much).

[nmg.livejournal.com]

The flash to black isn't too bad; you eventually get used to hitting the next page button slightly before you reach the bottom of the page.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

How does that help. The idea here is that flashing to black is annoying, not anything related to the timing of how long it takes to transition to a new page (if that's what you mean).

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I thought you were complaining about the duration of the transition effect, rather than just about the existence of a transition effect (in the form of the flash to black).

The flash to black may be an artefact of the display technology, but you get used to it quickly, and it's hardly more distracting than turning the page of a paper book.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

OK. It looks annoying to me, and my friend who has one said she thinks it 'will be' annoying (as she hasn't used it very much), but you have the experience here so I defer to your experience.

[andrewducker]

I'd seen a few reports that the firmware update from June this year made PDF reflowing work well, and A4 PDFs were now readable. Is this an overstatement?

[nmg.livejournal.com]

It's an overstatement. PDF reflowing relies on being able to extract the words from the page in reading order. Any document containing mathematical expressions gets horribly broken (sadly, reading theses was one of my justifications for buying the reader), and documents in which the text can't be extracted can't be reflowed (the PDF of Gaimans's Study in Emerald is one such, and I suspect that many OCRed documents will have the same problem).

[robhu.livejournal.com]

It looks like it's launch day too.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Am I confused or is the Guardian link actually a summary/advert/book summary masquerading as an independent article?

[andrewducker]

Independent from what? It's an article written by someone knowledgable in the field, who undoubtedly came to the attention of the editor because he's got a book out. Happens all the time in newspapers.

[andrewducker]

Sorry, that came across more strongly than I meant - I was in work and tired.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Insufficient! I demand Seppuku !

Or, for an even worse fate watch this and .

[andrewducker]

That second one is awesome!

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I expect it to appear in your del.icio.us so others can see it too XD

[andrewducker]

On delicious now - on my link blog soon, here tomorrow at 3:30!

[giantbedsprings.livejournal.com]

I was born normally, but that didn't help me. Genetics = fail.

Knew all the energy myths.