via ldy‘s journal –
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A dear friend of mine writes:

I’ve been involved in a truly inspiring story about a woman of extraordinary courage. Liz DiVivo was a 36 year old wife and mother of two lovely girls. And just a few months after she finished her Master’s degree, she suddenly was struck with a rare and incurable disease.

The story of her wait for two years for a double lung and heart transplant is one of the most gripping stories I have read in my life. Liz did get her transplant back at the beginning of August, 2003 — and the amazing thing is, she was just released from the hospital and is on her way to a tremendous recovery.

I thought I should let you know because you can download a free ebook Liz wrote for the whole two years she was waiting for her transplant. I guarantee, you’ll laugh, and you’ll cry, but most of all, you’ll take some rich lessons about life from this amazing woman. It is an easy read, with just a page for each day. It’s called “Believing in Second Changes: The Story of a Life.” You can read it with the Adobe Reader.

http://www.lizfund.org/download/Liz%20DeVivo%20Believing%20in%20Second%20Chances.pdf

At the site they also have some great pictures of Liz and her family, and you can get up-to-the-minute updates on entries to her diary. If you want a get a dose of true inspiration, I recommend you visit there now, and read Liz’s diary.

This is to those of you who have decent exposure… we have put together this eBook of basically Liz’s online journal she kept for all this time, and we are attempting to have people download it, and with enough downloads, perhaps be able to pitch it to a real publisher who’d make a printed copy and give Liz and her family some much needed money (if you have any idea how much these things cost, you can imagine, even a book deal probably won’t cover her expenses… but she is alive!)

This is mainly directed at Ldy, who has the power to not only get her friends to download this, but those friends to spread it to their friends. A real meme, so to speak.

Consider it done, Scooter.

If you can, folks, please do right-click on this link— it’s only a ten second download on broadband. I’m already in the middle of two other books, and yet am finding it a compelling read.

And please do pass on the link as well.

The rest of her site is here: http://www.lizfund.org/

It’s easy to become jaded in this online world, where so many people are not what they seem.

Take ten seconds and a chance, and open your heart just a wee bit, k?

Thanks 🙂
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Landlord walking more people through to inspect the roof, to sell the place. I look forward to showing them the scary element that’s in the closet. He called at 10pm last night to let me know.. getting better about notifications.. but not much. I’m just glad that I’m home while they’re doing the walkthroughs.. I *really* hate folks walking through my place (potentially letting newt get out) when I’m not home. I would’ve had to tell them that they’ll need to reschedule…I wonder if he would’ve, or pulled something sneaky?

Frankie is still living next door. I asked LL about it, and he mentioned that he was being “relocated”. I wonder what that means, exactly?

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8.5GB DVD+R discs, drives to ship April ’04

Expect double-layer, almost double-capacity DVD+R drives and media to hit the stores next April, members of the DVD+RW alliance say.

The technology, co-developed by drive maker Philips, and media specialists Verbatim and Mitsubishi Kagaku, adds a second recording layer to a standard-thickness DVD+R disc, taking the medium’s capacity from 4.7GB to 8.5GB.

That’s enough for four hours of DVD-quality material, 16 hours of VHS-quality content or two hours’ archive footage. The discs are playback-compatible with existing DVD players and DVD-ROM drives.

Initial products will offer a write speed of 2.4x.

DVD+R DL, as the technology is known, was demo’d last month in Japan and shown to the press in London last week. Alliance members said the next step is to publish the format’s specifications, a process which should be complete this year.

Officially, the Alliance says DVD+R DL hardware and media will ship during “the course of 2004”, but privately a number of member companies said they are “hoping” for an April 2004 introduction.

That should provide a further boost for the DVD+R/+RW format, which is increasingly seen as the successor to the older DVD-R/-RW spec., thanks to its full multi-session compatibility with both DVD-ROM and consumer DVD systems. Essentially, DVD+RW discs can be re-edited even when the session has been closed – of ‘finalized’ – to ensure compatibility with DVD video playback. That said, there have been some claims about the level of DVD+R/+RW compatibility with consumer DVD players; the consensus appears to be that DVD-R/-RW discs, suitably finalized, are more likely to work with any DVD player than is a DVD+R/+RW.

Fortunately, the question of which format to go for is becoming made less relevant thanks to the growing number of DVD burners that support both media formats. The DVD+RW Alliance claims that next year pure-play DVD+R/+RW drives will outsell DVD-R/-RW units four to one. Also, dual-mode drives will also outsell single-format drives. Oooh.. keeno! I’ve been waiting for some DVD growth.

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Plague of locusts causes mass allergy attack

A plague of locusts is being blamed for an epidemic of allergic attacks in central Sudan. At least 11 people have died and thousands are reported to have been hospitalized, suffering from what Sudanese officials are calling “lung eczema”.

The outbreak centers around Sudan’s second largest city of Medani, 180 kilometers south of the capital Khartoum. The annual locust swarm has been particularly ferocious in 2003 and experts believe it has triggered an allergic reaction in the local population, aggravating asthma.

The local authorities told Sudan’s national news agency that there had been an above average increase in asthma cases from 22 October: “We consider [it] an epidemic for patients suffering from asthma.” The mass allergic reaction is the first ever reported in Sudan.

Abdel Moneim Hassan Khalifa, an agricultural official in the Medani area, told Sudan’s al-Rai al-Amm newspaper the illness is linked to a pheromone released by locusts during their mating season. It has “a strong effect on people with asthma,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” says entomologist Janet Hemingway, director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK. “Insects release various chemicals, and the scales come off them as well. You can certainly get respiratory illness linked to working with insects, and not just locusts.”

Face mask

Insects are well known sources of allergens and there are strict rules to safeguard the health of UK scientists working with them in the lab. For example, scientists with respiratory problems are forbidden from this kind of work, and all researchers must wear a face mask.

Previous studies have shown that scientists working with locusts in the lab are much more likely than researchers not handling the tropical pests to develop work-related wheezing.

Outbreaks of desert locust are not unusual in Sudan, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome issued an alert on 20 October warning that a particularly bad plague might threaten crops in Sudan, Niger and Mauritania.

“The number of locusts is increasing rapidly. They are beginning to concentrate themselves into groups characteristic of an outbreak,” warned FAO’s Locust Group in a statement.

Swarm behavior

The group notes that: “Desert locusts are normally solitary, scattered insects but when climatic conditions are favorable, for example after good rains and a mild temperature, they can rapidly increase in number.” The pests tend to congregate as the rainy season ends and the vegetation dies off, leaving only isolated pockets.

After several years of drought, exceptional rains in Mauritania had allowed the desert locusts to breed and increase in number in 2003, says the FAO. “Vegetation had dried out much quicker than expected in the country, causing locusts to concentrate in three areas,” it adds.

Hemingway says that the actions, not just the presence, of the locusts could also be responsible for the allergy epidemic. A swarm of locusts devastating vegetation can leave lots of dust in the air, while chemicals, such as phenols, can be released from the breakdown of vegetation. “It could be a whole raft of things,” she says.

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via flyingblind – If you don’t mind pop-ups or better yet, have a blocker Leo’s Lyrics is a great way to search for words inside song lyrics either as scattered words or a whole phrase… now you can look up songs that might have the words “monkey” and “butt” in them, and a really extensive They Might Be Giants list. (my first tests)