Book Recommendation: 'The Double Helix' (James D. Watson)

If you haven't read this yet - I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you should. It's not an overstatement to call it a classic and a unique narrative about how science is done. It's a simply wonderful account of the drama surrounding a key discovery. It checks all the boxes for me; scientific discovery, anglo-panache (if that's a thing), and a collection of aggressive personalities competing for a choice prize - the molecular structure of DNA.

Author/reseacher James Watson is a young (freshly-minted PhD), somewhat brash but always a humorous and entertaining storyteller.

I've read this now three times (the first - around 1977 I think). It's that good.  \mf

Subscribe To This Blog ...

Okay, I now have the 'subscribe widget' on this blog working as it should. If you find anything here of sufficient interest to induce you to want notifications when I've posted something new - there's now a way to do so.

For you technophiles - I'm using a feed service called Feedio - which is fairly simple and pretty easy to implement. As mentioned in an earlier post (that you probably didn't know was there) the default feed service that Blogger (owned by Google) uses is called Feedburner (also a Google product). Google hasn't really maintained or improved this for years and they took down the API in 2012. There's talk that they will discontinue it sometime soon. So I opted for an alternative service.

Unlike the older (though still valid) approach where a user has to set up a RSS (real simple syndication) tool to harvest all the content feeds that broadcast to/via RSS and that match their interest - an email subscription is considerably simpler for the user - in that you just receive an email notification when a blog you've subscribed to - posts something fresh. As I don't post anything close to daily - I don't think this will cause an undue load on your inbox - but that's your call of course - and you can always UNSUBSCRIBE. If inclined, check out this article on the subject of traditional RSS vs email subscription.

If the foregoing bores you to tears - don't worry, I will more frequently post things of a more pedestrian nature (meaning of life, literature, art, craftsmanship, faith, hope and charity, etc.). I will probably steer clear of abusing you with my overt political biases.

A couple notes (if you're inclined to subscribe - I can't believe I'm talking so long about this one tiny element of a blog. I'm sorry).

1. if you're reading this on a phone - know that you need to click the 'View Web Version' in order to see the subscribe option.

2. it wouldn't hurt at all to add the following to your email contacts list (in order for notifications not to end up in your spam folder): subscriptions@feedio.co (and that's .co not .com)

3. per normal there is an 'unsubscribe' option at the bottom of any email notification that you receive from feedio.

And I realize it's a 'big presumption' to think you have an interest here. If that's the case - well, my bad.

Email Subscribe WIDGET Appears Functional

There's some contrary press to the default (Blogger) FeedBurner service - essentially suggesting that owner Google hasn't updated it since 2012 and is likely considering dropping it. I sought alternatives and found that Feedio looked easy enough to implement

If all of this makes absolutely no sense to you or evokes zero interest - don't give it a moment's thought. It's a backend thing - and something I probably shouldn't abuse my loyal readers with. Apologies. Only included in case some of you are trying to figure out how to add an 'email subscribe widget' (which is a simpler way for users to receive updates when favorite blogs produce a fresh post - then the older method of using an RSS aggregator, etc, etc. zzzzzzzzzzz SNORE!)

Subscriber WIDGET In-Process

Folks - I'm in process of working out the bugs of a Feedburner or other feed service that handles the admin of subscriptions to this blog. When trying to subscribe you may see the following:

Thanks for your patience while I get this sorted.

\mf

Tech Takes - Epson Eco-Tank Successfully Transports Cover Stock

Ok, now - this is just too great not to share. Those of you who know me, know I'm kind of a (self-proclaimed) mashup of artist, philosopher, Ben Franklin-style scientist with hopefully a dash of 'bonhomie' thrown in. Well, today I attempted to pass a sheet of 'cover' stock (read: heavier than text-weight paper - sometimes incorrectly referred to as card stock) through my wonderful Epson EcoTank ET-3710 printer.

Guess what!!  It works.

Not all printers can accomplish this. So for me (who's constructing some small 'Make It Happen ' bound booklets (there may be a post later about this) -  this is huge. Another reason I fully recommend this brilliant (game changer) solution for printers.

Tech Observations - LibreOffice

LibreOffice

I think, in the advent of Windows 10 - most of us have come to realize that the way Microsoft wants to sell their Office suite products has 'evolved'. Annual subscription model is the thing now. Adobe started it years ago - and every software maker now 'likes it' - for obvious reasons. And, to be fair, there are some advantages for users too - interacting with cloud (or application service provider) solutions that are always up-to-date and which don't take up space (although with todays drive size explosion - that's hardly a practicle consideration) on a user's machine.

So when we purchased a new laptop I was faced with Microsoft's new office software purchase model - and not really loving any of the flavors, I went shopping for a free (read: open source) solution. After a little investigation, I found LibreOffice, installed it - and am actually quite happy with its component functionality which mimics the Word, Excel, Powerpoint, DB, Drawing experiences that we've all grown up with thanks to the Microsoft 'school of software indoctrination'.  There might be a small glitch here and there - with 'translating' certain Microsoft file types - but only occasionally. On the whole - it works and when you're creating documents yourself - I think you'll find the process very satisfying (and familiar). \mf

Tech Observations - Epson EcoTank

Best Printer Solution EVVVEEEERRRR !!               Jan 2020

If you're at all like me, after 20 years of being held hostage by Hewlett Packard (bless their innovative little engineering hearts and the genius strategy of manufacturing a device that is a decoy for their real money maker - the damned ink cartridges), I've recently stumbled on the printer of my dreams.

Shelling out $18 to $39 for standard or XL black HP 62 ink cartridges (which exhaust themselves  INCREDIBLY quickly) - at some point just starts to get under your skin.

I was driving to Home Depot a month ago and heard a radio advertisement for the Epson EcoTank printer and it's guaranteed 2-year ink supply. Two years?! I almost spilled my latte. A couple weeks later (on one of those Saturday morning local-expert AM radio shows) I listened to a guru tout the advantages of the Epson EcoTank. He was careful to note that you'll pay more initially for one of these printers than you will for an HP (or other) low up-front cost cartridge printer. That certainly made sense.

Investigating - I found there's a small range of Epson EcoTank models. I settled on something in the middle (model ET-3710) - paying $379.99 for it. It comes with a bottles of liquid ink (blk, cyan, magenta, yellow) that are estimated (not guaranteed) to produce something like 2,000 black outputs and 1,500 color outputs. Not to be overly precise- that's a fair amount of printing.  The ink bottles are simply poured into one of four chambers or reservoirs. You can see exactly what you've got.  As backup I purchased an additional 3-color set of bottles for $41.99 and one black bottle for $13.99. Which, all in all, struck me as less costly than HP's cartridges - whose opaque container pretty much 'hide' the actual quantity of ink from you. By comparison these are just clear bottles holding 22ml each. It struck me as refreshingly above board to show exactly what you were getting.

After more than a month of printing (and we're printing a lot lately because of our tutoring activities) the levels of ink have barely moved. I love this. To summarize - I feel that I've finally found an efficient and reasonable solution to printer and ink supply management - and wanted to share that with you.  \mf