mrichich's New Writeups

Somewhere Else (thing)

2007-04-24T01:13:06Z

Somewhere Else is the fourteenth album by Marillion, released in the UK on April 9, 2007. Unlike the bands previous two albums, there was no preorder special edition of this album--fans were asked to order the album online from Townshend Records who released it with a special edition DVD with 3 live tracks.

For Somewhere Else the band parted ways with producer Dave Meegan and worked with Michael Hunter--who worked with Meegan on Brave and had done other work with the band. A different producer led to a very different kind of album--the sound much less "produced" than Marbles or Anoraknophobia, a much more intimate and live feeling sound. Also notable is that the songs tend to be shorter--none over 8 minutes--and are a bit simpler, and more rock-oriented.

The album's first single, See It Like A Baby, was a download-only single that got Marillion a #45 spot on the UK singles chart. A second, double-A side single is planned in…

marbles (thing)

2007-04-24T00:40:08Z

Marbles is the thirteenth album by Marillion, released in April, 2004.

Like Anoraknophobia before it, Marillion had a pre-order campaign, this time to raise money for promoting the album and tour. People who signed up received a special 2 disc edition of the album, in a slipcover with a 128-page booklet, containing original artwork as well as all the names of the contributors.

Taking two years to write and record, and under the hand of Dave Meegan producing, the band created what is now considered one of their most artistically successful and profound albums. The combination of long tracks and themed Marbles vignettes gave the album progressive rock credentials, and songs like You're Gone and Don't Hurt Yourself proved to be good singles--the former reaching #7 on the UK singles chart on the strength of fans buying multiple formats. A stunt to be sure; but a stunt that got them a lot of press attention and helped sales of the album.

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Slim Devices (thing)

2006-11-17T02:05:13Z

Slim Devices is a company founded in early 2000 by Sean Adams and Dean Blacketter. Its first product was the SliMP3 networked music player, and they now manufacture the Squeezebox 3 and Transporter networked music players. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California

Slim Devices is known for their loyal customers, highly interactive customer support forums, and using open source software to run their products.

In October 2006 Slim Devices was acquired by Logitech who is running the company independently, but plans to expand manufacturing capabilities as well as product distribution, and possibly integrate with other Logitech products like Harmony remotes.

Kuro Box (thing)

2006-01-10T15:57:28Z

The Kuro Box is a homebrew NAS kit, based upon the Buffalo LinkStation commercial NAS device. "Kuro" means "expert" in Japanese.

The Kuro Box comes in two models: the standard KuroBox with a 200Mhz Freescale PowerPC based processor, 64MB of RAM, a USB 2.0 port, and 10/100 Ethernet. The Kuro Box HG has a 266 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 2 USB 2.0 ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The boxes as sold come without a hard drive and users are expected to add their own ATA hard drive.

Many people have hacked the embedded Linux environment on their LinkStations. The advantage to a Kuro Box, besides being able to put in larger hard drives (at this time the largest Linkstation available is 400GB) is that an open Linux environment is available on the base install. Since the Kuro Box hardware is equivalent in most ways to PowerPC-based LinkStations, there is much sharing of hacking and other tips.

Support for Kuro Boxes is somewhat limited by Buffalo--the US operation is run by one…

pulse oximetry (thing)

2005-01-15T23:35:35Z

A noninvasive method to determine oxygen saturation of the blood. Pulse oximetry is a little-heralded advance in medicine that is probably responsble for saving countless lives. It is in fact referred to as the "fifth vital sign" along with temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.

Pulse oximetry works on the principle that oxyhemoglobin--oxygenated hemoglobin, what carries oxygen from the lungs to the cells--absorbs light differently than deoxyhemoglobin--hemoglobin that has given up its oxygen. At 100% oxygen saturation, all hemoglobin is oxyhemoglobin. If saturation is less than about 98-100% (at sea level) it suggests difficulty in the cardiopulmonary system which can be from countless causes. Oxygen saturation of less than 90% indicates serious difficulty usually requiring supplemental oxygen. Rapid desaturation can indicate acute respiratory or cardiac distress. The ability to determine saturation in real time and without drawing blood…

infantile myofibromatosis (thing)

2005-01-15T23:07:27Z

Infantile myofibromatosis is the name for several varieties of benign soft tissue tumors, usually present in infancy or early childhood. It is described as the most common cause of childhood fibrous tumors, however, its incidence is extremely rare, with around 200 documented cases in the medical literature, and no general clinical studies on the disease. It is believed to be genetic in nature, with either a dominant or recessive inheritance model, possibly depending on the manifestation of the disease or other factors. The rarity of the disease, and the possibilty that mild cases may remain undiagnosed, makes it difficult to identify and treat.

Infantile myofibromatosis was first identified in 1954 by Stout, who referred to it as congenital fibromatosis. It later was differentiated into several forms. Congenital solitary fibromatosis refers to a single tumor, usually in muscle tissue but also in bones, skin or viscera; congenital specialized fibromatosis which is multiple…