The navigation menu on the left side of the page no longer hides the link for the page you are on. The Agent and Search Engine now have a more intelligent pager.

As always, let Decius or I know if you run into any bugs.

] This section involves two tools, one for Windows, and one
] for OSX, which allow you to select text in any
] application, hit a hot key, and receive search results
] for that text. Both tools perform Google searches, and
] both have been adapted to perform MemeStreams searches as
] well.
]
] The power of these tools is that they extend searching
] such that it becomes a kind of augmented knowledge
] system. When you are reading or writing something, and
] you come upon a subject that you want more information
] about, you can get access to more information at the
] touch of a mouse.

MemeStreams makes you smarter!

] Williams, who has worked in security at the mall for more
] than nine years, said he signed the complaint on the
] orders of his boss, assistant director of security Fred
] Tallman. Those orders came after Tallman told the
] Guilderland police officer working the case that he
] (Tallman) was too busy to come to the police station and
] that Williams represented the company and should sign.
]
] "I just followed directions of management of that mall to
] the letter," Williams said Friday evening. "And I get
] fired for doing my job."

'Guard says he lost job in T-shirt flap' - timesunion.com

] A REPORT declassified by the United Nations yesterday
] contained a hidden bombshell with the revelation that
] inspectors have recently discovered an undeclared Iraqi
] drone with a wingspan of 7.45m, suggesting an illegal
] range that could threaten Iraq's neighbours with
] chemical and biological weapons.

] US officials were outraged that Hans Blix, the chief
] UN weapons inspector, did not inform the Security
] Council about the drone, or remotely piloted vehicle,
] in his oral presentation to Foreign Ministers and tried
] to bury it in a 173-page single-spaced report
] distributed later in the day. The omission raised
] serious questions about Dr Blix’s objectivity.

UK Times - Iraqi drone 'could drop chemicals on troops'

] "My goal was to say farewell to 20th-century Korean
] journalism, with the concept that every citizen is a
] reporter," said Mr. Oh, a wiry, intense man whose mobile
] phone never stops ringing.

Oh my the South Koreans are blowing the American's doors off. They rocketed from Agrarian to Industrial culture in about 20 years, and they haven't slowed down. If you want to know what MemeStreams will become, this is it.

Online Newspaper Shakes Up Korean Politics

I've been using Alltheweb a fair amount the past few days. I like it.

AlltheWeb.com

] There's an essay lurking in here, but I've been reluctant
] to write it. Here's what it would say. Up till now Google
] has done really well with the low-key,
] we-let-our-software-speak-for-us approach to public
] relations. But that method doesn't work now. People are
] confused about what Google is.

Ok. Good. I'm glad I saw this. I'm not nuts. Apparently, I'm also not the only one trying to wean myself off Google.

I really like Google. Its been my favorite search engine for years. And I had no problem being 100% dependent on it. The "we just do search" thing was a big deal to me. I guess, between that going away with the purchas of Pyra and the recent patent stuff.. I'm scared shitless.

I had to ask myself "the question".. If Google went away tommorow, how would I function? Answer, I wouldn't! It would be like sticking an ice pick right up through my eye socket into by brain and jiggling it around the frontal lobe. I'm that dependent on Google. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Hence, me being the way I am, I can't have that kinda dependency on a resource I'm starting to question. Its that simple. If I depend on it, I have to trust it. Otherwize, I have to have multiple options.

So, I guess it woke me up to one basic thing I already knew.. Its bad to be dependent on a single resource for a critical function. Have I stopped using Google? No, I still think Google is a rocking search engine. Am I using other search engines? Yep.

I have similar reasons for why I use Open Source toolsets.

Weaning off Google

] Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been
] trying to come up with an operating theory of the
] world—and a military strategy to accompany it. Now
] there’s a leading contender. It involves identifying the
] problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking
] them. Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor
] of warfare analysis, has been advising the Office of the
] Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually
] at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now
] he gives it to you.

The Pentagon's New Map

] Lung cancer may be caused by a faulty repair mechanism
] triggered by smoking, according to a new study.
]
] US researchers have found that a primitive cell pathway,
] which is crucial for the development of lungs in the
] embryo, could be the major culprit in small cell lung
] cancer (SCLC).
]
] The pathway is found in all creatures, from worms to
] humans. It is called Sonic Hedgehog, after a mutant form
] in fruit fly embryos that leads to the sprouting of hairs
] all over their bodies.
]
] "The hypothesis was that smokers chronically injure their
] airways and pathways such as hedgehog get turned on to
] repair damage - but chronic injury results in persistent
] pathway activation, which leads to cancer," says Neil
] Watkins, team leader at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive
] Cancer Center, part of Johns Hopkins University in
] Maryland.
]
] The group's experiments showed that the Sonic Hedgehog
] pathway was indeed activated in half of 10 SCLC human
] tissue samples. Furthermore, they successfully stopped
] tumour growth in mice by blocking this pathway and
] believe this may lead to potential therapies in humans.

From Nanochick:
This article is particularily interesting to me for several reasons. One is that I am learning about this particular pathway in my Animal Development class (and learned a bit about it in other classes as well), so its just cool to see something in the news about it. Also, what makes this interesting is that lung cancer is the cancer that nobody has seemed to make much headway on in the way of cures...
At the end of this article, they talk about the cells differentiating into adult lung cells...and that means that this could be an important find for other areas of biology as well...such as organogenesis.

Me:

So, what are my chances of lung cancer being cured before I get it?

New Scientist - Faulty repairs blamed for lung cancer

] The CDC is still analysing the bacteria responsible for
] these outbreaks. But Bancroft says initial tests show the
] same strain is responsible for all the outbreaks in Los
] Angeles, and that it appears to be the same as a strain
] first isolated in New York in 1997. It may be more
] virulent because it has a gene called PVL, which codes
] for a potent toxin.

More info on the Superbug

New Scientist - Superbug strain hits the healthy