Jan
21
Good question !
Filed Under health, informatique | Leave a Comment
Seen on Slashdot, an anonymous reader writes this question :
My Health Sciences Campus has about 8,000 desktop computers, and on any given night about half of them are left on. I know this because I track all the MAC addresses in case there is a virus outbreak. Aside from the current fad of ‘being green’, has anyone had any success in encouraging users to power-down at night? You could potentially eliminate running bots, protect yourself from the next virus outbreak, keep your data safe, etc. Do security concerns and power consumption issues matter enough to do this?”
He’s not wrong, not at all. When I was working at the University of Lausanne, I cannot count the number of Mac or Windows machines that were left on at night… for no reason. So, either they could be used for some grid computing projects (such a programm is being developped at the University of Lausanne) but if not, just shut’em down !
Oct
13
“A fuckin’ wall”
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A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had
been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a
long, long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.
She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to
leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an
interview.
“Pardon me, sir, I’m Rebecca Smith from CNN. What’s your name?
“Morris Fishbien,” he replied.
“Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?”
“For about 60 years.”
“60 years! That’s amazing! What do you pray for?”
“I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims.”
“I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop. “
“I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults, and to love their fellow man.”
“How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?”
“Like I’m talking to a fuckin’ wall.”
> source : onegoodmove.org (whom else!)
Aug
31
MEA CULPA AGAIN (not from me!)
Filed Under health | Leave a Comment
My friend Marco rightly made a correction following a recent comment made by James Randi, about omeophathy, in SWIFT. Here are Marco’s comments :
I watched the video of your talk at Google with pleasure, but I was a bit surprised by your reference to Switzerland. Is really a disproportionate amount of woo-woo things coming from home?
Hahnemann was not Swiss but German, and I don’t think he ever lived in Switzerland. And even if he did, given the state of
medicine at the time, late 18th - early 19th centuries, when blood-letting was a cure, his idea was wrong but worth a try, not that far from contemporary Jenner’s [valid] discovery of vaccination. Avogadro’s Law was published in 1811, though the value of Avogadro’s Number was only estimated much later, in 1865.I′ve been looking for the date when double-blind testing was invented. It looks like it wasn’t available to Hahnemann at the time, but that it was invented in 1835…to debunk homeopathy! :
The organizers concluded that the symptoms or changes which the homeopaths claimed to observe as an effect of their medicines were the fruit of imagination, self-deception and preconceived opinion if not fraud.
Homeopathy gave us randomized double-blind testing: how sweet!
Only 170 years later (2005) the Swiss government removed homeopathy and other quack medicines from the list of treatments covered in mandatory health insurance (all were provisionally included in 1999). Only acupuncture remains listed. Progress! Here in Switzerland!
And (part of…) Randi’s answer 
:
Sorry, Switzerland
> Read it
Jul
29
What does 120 calories look like?
Filed Under food, health, links, Sport | Leave a Comment
Dozens of pictures to make you realize what 120 calories looks like, even though it’s not all about calories (despite what a lot of people might think), it’s still pretty interesting !
Just to give you an idea… :
