A look at the gaming industry big releases

Newest video is all about how big name, major title games seem to be ruining the gaming industry.  Not good for gamers, not good for gaming, not good in general.  From franchises to lack of innovation, I think gamers need to band together and fix this.  First, most of us need to acknowledge the problem.  So says I, anyway.

Hope that you enjoy and see where I'm coming from with it.  Until next time!

Exciting weekend outing!!!

So this past Saturday was super epic awesome s'more brownie day.  Following that, Christine and I decided that we needed to have a 'real' Spring Break.  You know, at the very end of what was supposed to be a full week of break.  Meh.  Anyway, she had the great idea to head up to Lake Travis and do some jet skiing!!!!  SCORE!!!!  For like an HOUR!!!  Cause we got BANK!!  Yea rental fees take both our cards and split that sh$& straight down the middle to not have just one of us taking the burdon of cost!!!  FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY FTW!!!!!!

Also we brought sunscreen.  Cause, you know, the sun was sort of out.  And UV rays are bad.  Have you seen my video on light?  If not, do so.  Talks about that.  Nifty.

Anyway, here you go.

Yea at the dock ready to go!!!  Also, it was kinda cold so she didn't  even take off her jeans.  Weird-o.

Panorama of awesome!!!  Also Christine's weird face.  Whatev.

KING OF THE.... ummmm.... JET SKI!!!  YEA!!!

Awww.... now she's queen of the jet ski.... :(

Yeeeeaaaaaa controls!!!  And some land of some sort.  I think the fastest we went  on the lake was about 64 km/hr.  Not bad, if I say so myself.  Also, got serious air at one point.  Christine did not approve.

The marina we rented from.  This is us actually waiting to return the ski.

Still waiting.

Sign just off of the marina entrance.  Because all water adjacent roads need the 'oh SH$&!!' moment.

After we were done with our awesome hour of jet skiing, christine wanted to go to a really good BBQ place at an outdoor mall (pretty posh place, I might add).  To give you an idea of the poshness, the Austin Martin, Mini Cooper, Ferrari, and Lotus clubs were all meeting together.  Really nice cars, but the people seemed like dicks.  Anyway, we go to the BBQ place and turns out it's closed for the season :( .  What does that mean?  I don't know.  But we can't have briscit.  So I got $10 worth of saltwater taffy at a candy store there.  Noms.  Then we took a couple pictures.  It is a very nice location, overlooks the lake.

All the above are from a balcony-ish thing atop The Oasis.  Gorgeous view and a lot of restaurants that overlook as well, but they're, you know, really pricy places.

Post jet skiing, staying up until 2:30 for the brownies, and no breakfast meant we were hungry, but obviously not BBQ she wanted, so we settled on a favorite of ours, HOMESLICE!  And no, not just because it sounds gangsta, but rather mostly because their pizza is super awesome.

Christine like pizza margherita... nom nom nom.  This pie is, sadly, gone now.

So that was our trip.  It was pretty awesome and, though I almost fell asleep driving on the way back (super jealous of Christine, in that regard) we made it back and had a great time.

Back to our regular grind this week, though, and I'm working on a couple of video projects for various things, hopefully I'll be posting my newest one for this blog pretty soon.  Until next time!!

Weekend Food Om Nom Nom!!!

This past weekend (on Friday, Saturday ish), Christine had the awesomely amazing idea for a dessert.  Are you ready?.......

Brownie S'Mores.

O



M




G.

I was like shea!!!!  Thus we began.

Gram cracker crust (bit of butter and honey added to keep the structure) and scratch made (oh yes) brownie mix

Pour the SCHIZNIT!!!!!  Mmmmm..... brownie.

Marshmallow fluff added atop brownie layer post-brownie baking.

Like a parfait, we have layers.  In this case, layers of awesome.

What's better than a marshmallow?  Yes, toasted marshmallow.  In this case, torched bruleé style.  Part to enhance flavor, but also to give a decent, solid surface to put more brownie on. 

Mmmm.... more torching.  Also angry birds.

Second brownie layer is slightly... ummm.... bumpy, I guess?  Marshmallow fluff does not spread well.  But we'll still try it anyway.... aaaaannnnnddddd

GAAAA!!!!  It's alive!!!!  Literally.  It looks alive.  But no.  It's not.  Fluff expanded and pushed up the second brownie layer.  Not bad, but not great.

In the end, we did still get our layers.  Bottom brownie came out a bit mushy, but still super delicious.  So now we know for next time :D

The torched fluff def. made a difference.  I could certainly taste the awesome, but subtle, camp fire style taste it gave.  Next, we make sure that A) bottom brownie cooks more initially, B) less fluff, and C) more even brownie distribution.  Still awesome, though.

Blinding with SCIENCE!!!

Time for another awesome video about SCIENCE!  This one talking about the EM spectrum, focusing on visible light.  Plus just a dash of non-visible UV light.  Fun stuff and hope that you learn a bit!

P.S. Today was the day I hit 200 views to my blog!  Regardless of if a large portion were to stat tracking sites, I'm ecstatic!  Hooray!

$$$$ Talks

The days certainly are getting away from me quite quickly.  Between a rather inordinate amount of lab work and being unable to sleep it has not been good.  But enough about me, we got stuff to discuss for a bit!  Today's topic is actually a topic for tomorrow, the infamous SEQUESTRATION!!!  Dun dun duuuuun!

For those uninitiated, tomorrow (March 1) is the deadline for our 'wonderful' Congress to come up with a budget for the fiscal year that we're *checks watch* almost halfway through.  If they do not, about $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts occurs across all walks of government: defense, education, energy, security, etc.  The most important for me, obviously, are the cuts to SCIENCE!.  Basically this is a key step in reducing the deficit.  From whitehouse.gov:

We have a lot of debt as a country, and this is one way to stave it off for a bit.

Here's the problem that I have.  Across the board cuts (obviously) include everything.  Science is part of that.  Whenever there are acts in Congress to decrease spending across the board, science is always hit.  The issue is that, since the Clinton era, science has never really been a high priority with presidents.  Clinton increased scientific funding massively, but Congress essentially said 'where are all the cures?  We spent all this money, now where are the results?'  Science takes TIME.  In some cases a great deal of time:

30 years and $2 billion to approval

30 years is a long time, even for drug discovery.  Even for a new, groundbreaking type of drug.  This is more typical:

Between basic research, drug trials, and other testing, drugs typically take 12-15 years to gain FDA approval

It's no wonder the Clinton administration didn't see any immediate results.  It's because they take time.  Congress, however, doesn't seem to realize this. It's really no surprise, though, as there is a physicist and a microbiologist working in Congress (between the House and Senate).  Plus 32 'Health Professionals' if you'd like to count them.  So 2.  2 Actual, REAL, SCIENTISTS working in Congress.  It's no wonder they don't understand the implications of cutting research funding!!!  Everyone's all business and law!  At least, the majority are.  And no, we don't count the 'Christian Scientists', people.

Accurate as of January 11, 2013

Anyway, back to the nitty gritty.  According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, publishers of the journal Science), federal R&D programs of all sorts (including defense) stand to lose about $8.7 billion, which is about 6% of the proposed $142 billion.  While it may not seem like a lot, the majority of that money is going to be coming out of research grants.  Salaried people still need their salaries, utilities must be paid, etc.  $8.7 billion is a lot of money for research as a whole.  When you're talking about labs surviving on ~$0.5 million for 5 years, $8.7 billion can do a lot of good.  Granted, once again, this is ALL R&D, including defense.  And those guys spend money like.... ummm.... a really rich rapper in a music video.  While it isn't specified how hard hit the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will be, they did say that both continuing grants and new grants (new ones already having barely 10% funded) will be hit: Click here for the official NIH notice.

Rep Jim McDermott (D-WA) submitted a bill, lovingly called the Medical Research Protection Act, which would save the NIH from the sequestration, but it doesn't look good as of now.

*sigh*.... The whole thing just seems completely ludicrous to me; they set a deadline for themselves to motivate decision making and compromise, then delay the deadline, and STILL can't come up with anything.  Here's a great idea, at the top of the list for things to cut, write this:

Congressional Salaries

That'll get their butts in gear to actually do what they were elected to.  Or they'd delay some more until they could find a way to change it -.-

If you're interested, check out This White House link to see how your state specifically will be affected.  Most are similar issues of jobs, economic security, etc., but there are some nasty education cuts that are at the top of the Texas list.  Very unfortunate.

That's it for me, I hope that you enjoyed reading this and that is opened your eyes a bit to some of the sequestration's devastation.  See you next time!

Happy birthday to me.... I made another video.... Happy birthday to meeeee.... I really suck at rhyme.....

Hello again everyone from the dark, dank area known as LAB!!!  Dun dun dun!!!  My cells (i.e. the little d-bags in my previous post) are giving me all sorts of trouble and virtually no time to do my videos, but here's one now!!  The first (of what will likely be quite a few) video game reviews.  Really focusing on the characters and their development, though, not simply 'yay this!' and 'boo that!'.  Huzzah!


P.S. the game is Farcry 3; an FPS.  Just like I promised!  And you were all clearly wondering about.

P.P.S I just realized this is my sixth video.  Go me!  My YouTube 'station' has almost 150 views!..... Total..... amongst the 5 already there.... but that's beside the point!  Go me! (again)

Hope you liked it!

Science, Working, and Working Out

Hi all!  I hope that you're doing well.  But enough about you, this is my blog.  Thus, we talk about ME!  Yay me.  So I don't have my latest video ready yet (a video game review this time; pretty major FPS).  Long story short I've been working on getting the technology to record gameplay as well as upgrading my video editing software (for whatever little it may be worth).  Moving on....

Working out.  Backwards from the title?  Yes.  Do I care?  No.  Anyway, Christine and I have been doing the Insanity program for two weeks now and it's pretty rough.  We're both doing better, though, getting stronger, losing some fat, and I'm fairly certain I have an ab.  It's pretty awesome, if I say so myself.  Which I do.  If you've wondered about it or heard and don't know much, it is pretty worthwhile.  We like it, anyway.

Science and work!  Work and science.  Hmmm.... A thought occurred to me that most people I know aren't aware of what I'm studying.  If you're curious, read on.  If not, well..... watch the videos.  They're pretty cool.  And subscribe on YouTube.  Now let's see... right!  My science!  I'm doing work with mouse Embryonic Stem (ES) cells.  These were popularized around 2000 with their massive potential for therapeutics, etc., but underlying ethical issues of destroying fetuses to harvest the cells.  Enter line restrictions  protests, vandalism, etc.  Regardless, they do have substantial potential for therapies with diseases causing cell loss (Alzheimer's, Leukemia, Parkinson's, etc.) as they have the ability to turn into any cell type in the body, from the brain to the toe.  Though I can't think of a toe degeneration disease off hand.....  Hahahaha!  Can't think of a TOE off HAND.  I crack myself up.  Anyway, these so-called pluripotent ('many powers' in latin; in this case can turn to many adult cell types) cells are taken from the inner cell mass (see below) of a developing embryo and can be kept in culture indefinitely.

Establishment of pluripotent Embryonic Stem (ES) cell lines

Again, there is a great deal of controversy with this, namely amongst religious groups (see science education and evolution vs ID videos for some more controversies).  In 2006, it was discovered that you could take an adult cell (liver, skin, brain, blood, etc.) and, by forcing it to express specific transcription factors, change it back to the state of pluripotency, thus birthing the induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell.  This was a major breakthrough in the technology, just recently indicated by a Nobel Prize win.  Instead of trying to get these dissident groups to go along with using ES, we found a way to get around the controversy entirely.  Not necessarily easy, but it certainly worked.

Examples of Reprogramming (bringing cells back to pluripotency) and some of the methods used.

Before we start randomly injecting these, or other, stem cells randomly, though, we need a few things.  Namely, we don't know a great deal about how stem cells work or the processes that change them to new cell types.  Don't get me wrong, we know plenty about it, but not enough to start with therapies.  My project is based around a specific aspect of this: how the cells deal with mutations.

Mutations are permanent changes in the DNA sequence of cells.  Frankly, ES cells don't mutate very much.  Data has shown that they mutate at about half as frequently as adult cells and about a quarter as much as cells made in the lab using ES (for example, making a brain cell from ES in a culture dish).  My project is focused on trying to understand why this happens and, perhaps, eventually be able to maintain this level of genetic integrity (as it's called in the field) when the cells are becoming whatever they need to be for the therapy.  I'm specifically looking at the major pluripotency genes; the ones that keep a pluripotent cell pluripotent, and seeing if they have some relationship to genetic integrity genes.  There are two major ways mutations are fixed: DNA repair and Cell Death.  DNA repair fixes smaller issues (single or a few bases missing, mismatched, etc.) while cells trigger apoptosis (a major death pathway) is there is major damage such as too few/many chromosomes, large scale damage, etc.  What I've found by looking at gene expression and control data is that there is a great deal of interaction between pluripotency and these integrity genes.

Cell death genes (right) under direct control of the three major pluripotency genes (left)

If we add in additional transcription factors, the number of controlled genes increases significantly.

I'm also going to be validating this data in our own ES cell lines, ensuring that the binding is occurring and the expression levels are the same as this data shows.  In addition, I'll eventually be getting rid of the plutipotency factors from our cells and seeing how both the integrity gene expression and mutation frequency are affected.  To make a long story short, we use a transgenic mouse that gives us the frequency of mutation by a special reporter gene.  It's pretty awesome.  As a quick note for you, as well, here's a special picture from a couple of days ago:

This is an image of my cells in culture.  The larger white circles/ovals are the cell colonies while the longer, individual cells are a cell type we use to grow the ES on, known commonly as feeders (appropriately, as they take in the media we give and spit out the media the ES cells use).  Some of the smaller bunches of cells are the differentiating ES (those turing to adult cell types), particularly the ones with distinct nuclei (a lot of white space and a small dot).  And if you're curious, this picture is of the cells at 40X actual size.

I hope you liked my little overview of my project.  If you're feeling extra nerdy, feel free to ask about it.  If there's one thing I enjoy it's talking about science, and more specifically my work.  Either way, I'll see you next time!