Lunch With George!

April 3, 2003 - California Pizza Kitchen

Lunch With George! Restaurant Reviews. Click here for this week's review.

Agenda

• Cancer-fighting T-cells
• Switcheroo
• The Future of Mapping
• April Fools Pranks
• Nouning and Verbing
• Don't Fool with Mother Nature

Scientists took both the white blood cells and the cancerous cells from patients with advanced bowel cancer. So far, the technique has destroyed the cancer cells in every experiment.

The next step will be to take white blood cells from 30 advanced bowel cancer patients, genetically modify the cells, and then transfuse the cells back into the patients.

The body's immune system doesn't attack cancer cells, since they are rogue versions of the body's own cells. What the researchers have done is to give the white blood cells the ability to recognize cancerous cells as the enemy, and destroy them. It is hoped this technique can be used to treat patients who are beyond the capabilities of conventional medicine. It seems to me this approach may someday lead to treatments for all types of cancers.

Switcheroo

What is it? It is DOC's attempt to correct the faux pas of direct linking to the images on other websites (specifically, his own website). In simple terms, Deuce of Clubs is not an image-hosting service for other people's message board postings of auction listings.

The Deuce noticed excessive hits on some of the images he hosts on his website. He tracked them down, and found that others were using his images. One guy generated over 4,000 hits in one month! How do you stop such a gross violation, in the free world of the internet? Thus Switcheroo was born.

DOC began replacing the images to which other people were linking with an altered one, but with the same filename. The altered image usually plays on the web site hijacking the original image, sometimes hilariously. Deuce always adds his URL to image, of course.

Here's an example of one of his switcheroos. Someone direct linked to an image on the Deuce of Clubs they thought would enhance their discussion board posting, so Deuce enhanced it further:

BEFORE	AFTER

The Future of Mapping

Earthviewer over Sedona

If you've watched any major news network's coverage of the War with Iraq, then you've certainly seen those impressive 3-D, real-time, moving terrain maps of the region. If you watch closely, you'll see credit being given to a company named Keyhole, and a link to their web site:

Earthviewer is available for PCs with 3D graphics cards, or can even be used to enhance your web pages. Unfortunately, it is NOT available for Macs.

Earthviewer is just one of a number of Terrain-viewing Software (TVS) products now available to the public. They're fun just to use, but have real commercial applications in urban planning, commercial and residential real estate, and even for consumers trying to find the closest Radio Shack or Macaroni Grill.

How do they work? Aerial images taken from aircraft and satellites are merged together into a database, and the final application uses 3D gaming technology to navigate around the texture map created from the photos. While a company spokesman for Keyhole admits their corporate name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Government's system of spy satellites used during the Cold War, their images were taken by civilian airplanes and satellites.

April Fools Pranks

George responded by sharing one of his great stories from his years in field service. It had to do with changing the forwarding of one of his buddies telephones to a recorded prayer hotline... but I've forgotten the details. Send it to me one more time, George!

Nouning and Verbing

Don't Fool with Mother Nature

Walski was honored as Photographer of the Year by the California Press Photographers Association in 2001, his winning photo depicting a 10-year old Afghanistani girl watching the Kalashnikov rifle being carried by a security guard. His winning portfolio also contained an image of Orange marchers in Northern Ireland with a British soldier's rifle in the foreground.

Knowing what we know now about his photo in the LA Times, aren't we almost required to question the authenticity of these clever juxtapositions in his other photos? What about this photo of a Mujahdeen appearing to look at a circular contrail?

Below is the merged photograph. To see the two originals, visit the Los Angeles Times site.