Monday, May 14

CANCER'S BEEN CURED!!!

Excuse the rather annoying title, but caps' is the only way to express how I'm feeling!

About 1 week ago, this university published that dichloroacetate [DCA] can cure cancer. It basically makes the mitochondria work like normal, so it won't harm healthy cells. Its "a odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule" , so it will hopefully be used commonly in a few years.

I bet it will become over-the-counter, although I doubt people would diagnose themselves, so it might just stay prescription. Either way, this is a HUGE step. I imagined the cancer drug would be overly expensive, but its great to know its cheap, and already readily available. (NOTE: The current readily available form contains other very bad materials that will harm you, so don't try buying it from a chem. supply shop!)

This is a great achievement, and who'd guess it'd be the Canadians who solve it?

On a sad note, there's about 50,000 hopeful young'ns who want to cure cancer when they grow up, Sorry!

What's Up With This Forum?

If you haven't joined yet, seriously, go here
You may be wondering, "So? Whats the deal-ea-oh?", if you are normal, you are probably wondering, "So? Whats with this?". Either way, its a new type of forum!

ITS A REPUBLIC!

I've thought about it, and most, heck ALL forums have barely any democratic.... anything! So, I wanted to try to create something that had a "forum government" that was.

There were 2 options, 100% direct democracy, or a republic. The former would probably lead to mob rule (just look at ancient Greece), so that wouldn't work.

So I started work on a forum that would eventually become this republic. I couldn't use something like phpBB because it isn't flexible enough for me to add in a whole new moderation system, so I had to start from scratch. Right now, a decent forum is in place. It has some markup, some emotes, privates, boards, profiles, the basics.

I'm still touching up on things (let me know!), but I'm mainly trying to get people to freaking use it! WHY WON'T YOU JOIN!?! I have 3 users that I'd call active, one of them being me. Theres less than 10 total, few have more than 5 posts! Its a Catch-22 situation -- you need people to post to get more people to join, and you need people to join for people to post.

So right now, if I haven't lost you, PLEASE JOIN AND POST A LOT! You may notice the CAPS, they were meant to catch your eye, and hopefully force you to do so!

If you are actually reading this sentence, I congratulate you, because most people would have stopped reading. And now for something not completely different!

So anyways, it will be a cool experiment. Please comment on what you think about it, I really need some input!

Web projects galore!

Over the last 4 months or so, I've done many web projects. Because I started web programming, I've been trying to get my spot in Web 2.0! Actually, although Web 2.0 is centered around how person A can talk/help/inspire B,C,D,E,F,G..., I like the AJAX part better.

I started with my popup game, which along with the next item, was sadly erased with a server upgrade. It was basically a spoof of that 150-popup page thing, except you picked how many there were, and there were high scores and stuff. (The record? 21000-ish)

Then there was the wonderful "Islanders" game, which got fairly far into, but alas erased and never fixed. I had so much done, too!

After that, I wanted to try to create a good, useful startup. So I tried to create a series of interconnected tools, based around a WebOS. I got to the point where it had Word Processing, a Calendar app, and a collection of online textbooks. Then I realized that Google's stuff is wayyyyy better than mine, heck, I used Google's Apps instead of mine! (Still running!)

Soon after, I was thinking how forums are "Governed", and realized they're all "monarchy"'s. (Or Oligarchies, but thats still bad). So I figured a democratic forum would be interesting. I decided on a republic (See next post on why). Its still in the works, but its a hand-coded forum that is fairly good for someone like me. (Please join!)
I've done various scattered 2-day projects, and some stuff for my Chumby, but these are the "open to the public" things :-)

So, what did we learn? That I have so much time on my hands, and I will make something good in the future! :P Really, we just learned that while everyone is running around outside having fun, I'm indoors programming!

(Wow, I really did ramble!)

(Note to self: Ramble on about programming and the Forum)

Hello, World!

Whoo! Its officially the 6th blog for Zach!

Yay!!

Well, not really. I have a deadly disease called FBS, or Forgetful Blogger Syndrome. This means I forget to blog after a day or two!

So hopefully, this time I will stick to my regiment, and not die on you guys! :P