equalize

• 18:51 Nice dinner (and pumpkin ale) at CBC. Now to head home. #fb #

theljstaff
news

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of the new year, we've embarked on a self-improvement kick to boost our backend (pun semi-intended). This will allow us to offer you a holiday promotion in the next few weeks (yes, we're listening and working very hard to make it happen). We sincerely appreciate your continued patience and support.

Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!

jwz

Well, SPF sure is working great. Nicely done, guys. I'm not sure I've gotten a single piece of spam that SpamAssassin didn't flag as SPF_PASS.

Temperatures dropping, spam rising. Lately I'm getting dozens a day that SA doesn't catch. Tragedy.

jwz

1. Google CEO Schmidt is a douche. Schneier responds. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." This is the same guy who blacklisted CNET for publishing personal info about him that they found by googling.

2. Facebook changed their privacy policy, and largely screwed the pooch. Where by "the pooch" I mean "you" and by "screwed" I mean, if any of your friends ever posts a quiz result or installs any other app, the author of that quiz/app is able to get all of your Facebook details -- name, gender, city, friends, photos, pages, etc.

   To be clear: installing an app doesn't just give away that information about you. It gives away that information about everyone who has friended you, and there is no way for them to opt out.

airwick

• 07:44 can't believe how well utream broadcaster iphone app works. #
• 18:28 Hey! I'm live on Ustream from my iPhone - ustre.am/8ZI5 #

equalize

• 09:27 Today is the kind of day that you should be working from home. #boston #fb #

jwz

Super Strength Substance One Step Closer to Human Trials

You may remember Liam Hoekstra, the baby apparently born without the myostatin gene, and similarly enabled animals that have absurd strength. Using gene therapy, NCH scientists were able to get follistatin (a myostatin blocker) to promote phenomenal muscle growth in the quadriceps of macaque monkeys. NCH is now working with the FDA to perform the preliminary steps necessary for a human clinical trial. We could see a superman gene therapy available in the next decade.

Macaques were observed for 15 months after receiving a gene therapy that promoted follistatin (and blocked myostatin) in their quadriceps. There was no observed damage to internal organs, the treatment only seemed to affect skeletal muscle, the reproductive cycles and cells functioned normally, and there was no reported damaged to tendons or ligaments.

The macaques exhibited enhanced muscle growth for 12 weeks after treatment, beyond which muscle mass stabilized. The average circumference of the animals quadriceps increased by 15%. Using electric stimulation (you can't order a monkey to lift weights) scientists were able to observe profound increases in leg strength. One specimen demonstrated a 78% increase over control results.

Along with Muscular Dystrophy treatments, and therapies for muscle loss in old age, the defeat of myostatin could lead to an effective way for all of us to get fit fast. No workouts necessary, eat almost all you want, and have a body like Adonis.

However, if there's one thing I'm sure we DON'T need, it's super-powered Macaques.

equalize

• 08:53 Crazy dreams last night. #fb #
• 12:51 What Makes Good Information Design? infobeautiful.s3.amazonaws.com/good_infodesign_550.png #fb #
• 17:40 Yummy thai food from 9 Tastes for dinner is definitely win. #

jwz

Mathematically Correct Breakfast

An ideal knife could enter on the black line and come out exactly opposite, on the red line. But in practice, it is easier to cut in halfway on both the black line and the red line. The cutting surface is a two-twist Mobius strip; it has two sides, one for each half. After being cut, the two halves can be moved but are still linked together, each passing through the hole of the other. (So when you buy your bagels, pick ones with the biggest holes.)

Previously, previously.