A recent BBC news article caught my eye:
An international research team has proposed new techniques that may lead to the mass production of meat reared not on the farm, but in the laboratory.
Developments in tissue engineering mean that cells taken from animals could be grown directly into meat in a laboratory, the researchers say.
Scientists believe the technology already exists to directly grow processed meat like a chicken nugget.
Exactly what does it mean when it says 'grow processed meat'? Should we expect fully-formed and genetically perfect burger trees? Are we heading to a Matrix-style 'Field Of Flesh', with our daily Meat intake provided by the latest harvest of Meat cubes?
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I've noticed a couple of the contacts on my MSN list have started displaying 'http://msncheck.41m.com - free way to check who blocked and deleted you on msn'. Naturally I went to this website to investigate and found that it promised the ability to check if anyone has blocked or deleted me, provided I gave my msn username and password.
Now there is no way I'm giving my username or password to anyone, let alone an unknown website. However, I was curious as to what would happen if I did. I tried the website with false information:
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Thanks again go to Tai for his translation of the second part of the Theme Guide series into Japanese. Great work!
Also, Simos Xenitellis has produced a Greek localization for the Giraffe theme. You'll need the .mo file for the theme, and the .mo file for WordPress (taken from this Greek translation website and converted into a .mo file). Check it out from the Localization menu in the sidebar of this website, or visit his website for the full effect. Thanks Simos!
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I've been trying to learn Chinese for over half a year now and, well, it's kinda tough going. Not only do you need to learn a whole new way of speaking, but you also need to learn two written languages: pinyin (the English transliteration of Chinese words, so you can actually read anything), and Chinese characters themselves.
The spoken language is difficult in its own right due to tones. These are like the accents found in other languages, but more complicated and unfortunately much more important - getting the wrong tone in a word can change the meaning completely, to the extent that you could call your mother a horse by using the wrong inflection.
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With the onset of summer, and the unavoidable high humidity, I decided to try and get rid of the pile of cable under my desk by taking another crack at setting up a wireless connection. I'd tried several months back but because of the strange internet connection I have (an ethernet connection to a building-wide Internet hub) I just couldn't make it work with a standard wireless router. Until today when click click click and it magically started working. I guess the lesson learnt here is that computers sometimes fix themselves (except when it involves hard drive).
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My last post was June 6th, and today it's June 21st. In the time since then my hard drive had a spasm of identity, and I went back to England for a short holiday. Actually, both happened at the same time, which has left my computer pretty much incapacitated until I got back to Prague. Now I have the fun task of restoring its former glory. And they say computers are designed to make our lives easier.
While most of my work and emails were backed up, I had 10's of gigs of photos and videos that were not, and not all of them survived. It's quite disheartening really, as some were the only copies I had.
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I've decided to change my hosting company.
I am prepared for a lot of pain and suffering, but so far it's going rather smoothly. This wasn't some well thought out decision, but rather a fit of activity after becoming frustrated with the averageness of GoDaddy, my current host.
Finding a decent host is a real chore, and I came to this conclusion pretty soon the first time round. The internet is flooded with copy-cat hosting companies who are mostly resellers that buy bandwidth from real companies. Even their websites all look the same, with identical prices, identical features, and identical hidden setup fees. This makes me both weary and wary.
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They say that technology is converging and that our gadgets will soon do much more. I'm not sure who they are, but it seems to be true - mobile phones can take photos and play games, computers double up as VCRs, and even fridges are online.
My apartment here in the Czech Republic is a fine example of Czech architecture, and is lovely and spacious. It's got most of the modern conveniences I could want, except for a telephone line. I have a mobile phone, but it’s very expensive to call my family back in England, and just as expensive for them to call me.
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I came across a series of photos at Notes From A Desi Geek that show the amusing-yet-interesting cultural oddities in India. One thought led to another and I arrived at the conclusion that the blog is the perfect vehicle to show all my international oddities discovered on my own travels. I think I am developing a hobby in this respect, as this follows on from a previous post about the best onions in China. Still, photos for amusement sake are fine by me (and I so wish I had a photo of the Chinese shampoo 'Ugly Girl').
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On the flight back I experienced an occurrence of what is now known as 'air rage', although I prefer the term 'stupid drunk person'. A man, one seat over from me, began the 11 hour flight by drinking from a bottle of Whiskey he had secreted in the front pouch. While this was initially met with the thought ‘are you kidding me?’ it did become more worrying when he'd drunk nearly half of a 1.5L bottle within a few hours.
This incident made me think about what would happen if he turned violent. My first thought was that either the flight staff, or some passengers, would restrain him. However, the man was big, and obviously a bodybuilder, so I couldn't imagine that happening without problems.
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