You're a daisy if you do.
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know."
- Mark Twain
Shawn McClure
I'm a software engineer who specializes in developing web and database applications for air quality research. I also study particle physics, neuroscience, online trading, philosophy, and cellular automata. When I'm not programming or studying I'm usually rummaging, relaxing, pottering about, taking pictures, writing, or perfecting my flim-flam. I also enjoy weightlifting, adventuring, playing video games, and pondering the mysteries of the universe. I created this site primarily to experiment with coding and web development techniques, collect links, read RSS feeds, scam visitors, and amuse myself. So far so good... About me-My résumé-Contact me

science newsmore...

Researchers have found high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the deep sediments lining the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal (IHSC) in East Chicago, Ind. Scientists say the discovery is cause for concern because the IHSC is scheduled to be dredged in spring 2012 to maintain proper depth for ship traffic in this heavily industrialized area of southern Lake Michigan.
Researchers are pioneering promising research utilizing a monitoring technology that could provide a better understanding of acquired drug resistance and assist in clinical decision-making for developing individualized patient treatments for multiple myeloma.
Women who use contraceptives like birth control pills experience memory changes, according to new research. Their ability to remember the gist of an emotional event improves, while women not using the contraceptives better retain details.
Human DNA found on deer remains could help to track down poachers. Identifying deer poachers can be problematic, as the crimes are often committed in remote areas and are not discovered until some time after the event.
A new article provides a brief summary of the various species of thrips present in US cotton, their plant host range and injury to cotton, a general description of thrips biology, and management practices currently available to growers.
Scientists have conducted studies to investigate the use of virgin cotton in nonwoven materials and products.
Considerable regional differences exist in the treatment of patients with acute cerebral infarction.
Green garnet, recently introduced on to the gemstone market, is renowned for its brilliance, hardness and rarity – much rarer than diamond for example. On top of these fine qualities this precious stone has a high level of purity and a lower price compared with emerald, its direct competitor since it has the same color. These properties give it high economic potential for the producer countries, essentially Tanzania and Kenya. Researchers have now drawn up the first identification card for green garnets according to their deposit of origin. A first step towards certification of the new gemstone and greater added value on the jewellery market.
Manufacturers should be encouraged to make products that last longer, retain their retail value and are more readily recyclable after use, according to a green consultant. He suggests sustainability will only be achieved by promoting growth in high-quality goods and the phasing out of "shoddy" products.
Researchers have succeeded in explaining 10 000 years of glacial melt in the Andes. They showed that the Telata glacier in Bolivia retreated 3 km during the Holocene epoch covering that time and continuing in the present. This regression was linked mainly to a 3°C increase in atmospheric temperatures resulting from warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean, itself a response to a rise in insolation in the tropics.

software development news

With the new Database Project in the latest version of SQL Server Developer Tools, you can now perform your database development in the same environment as your application development. We introduce the new release.
The Microsoft Entity Framework (EF) June 2011 CTP brings support for a number of the features developers want most, like enums, spatial types, and TVFs. Srikanth Mandadi introduces these new features by walking you through some simple examples.
With smartphone shipments recently outpacing PC shipments for the first time, many organizations want to target client experiences on multiple platforms, such as the desktop, Web, phones and tablets. The Open Data Protocol can help, as you’ll see with here with several detailed examples.
As much as the development community and latest browsers are pushing the HTML5 hype up to a fever pitch, the vast majority of people on the web aren’t using those brand new browsers and versions. But that doesn’t mean you have to put off using HTML5 till the next decade. In this column, Brandon Satrom provides some practical strategies for how you can adopt HTML5 technologies today.
F# is known for its ability to simplify complicated problems, but it’s far more than that. Chris Marinos shows you how to use F# to build practical Silverlight and WPF MVVM applications. You’ll learn how useful F# can be for solving everyday problems, and you’ll see how to use F# to make even the simplest applications easier to read, write, and maintain.
Who wants to get up at 3 a.m. for a status meeting? Learn valuable lessons about organizing and managing teams with members around the globe, who have various skills, motivations, commitments, project affiliations and restrictions.
Michael Desmond's first Editor's Note looks to the broad implications of the Windows Phone 7 "Mango" update.
Have you ever had to deal with the infamous “big ball of mud” clogging up your project? Learn the best practices to help fix a deteriorated system and patterns to prevent a growing system from growing badly and uncontrolled, degrading over time.
Our resident C++ guru continues his exploration of the thread pool, this month examining objects that control the environment in which callbacks execute.
Sometimes useful state information about an Entity Framework context is lost when the context goes out of scope, but Julie Lerman explains how a second-level cache can help retain this information for further use, such as in automatically generated database persistence commands, for example.
To make an estimate of a your geographical location, I wrote some server-side code to extract your IP address from your browser and use it to query some publicly-available databases for the geographical information that is currently stored for your address. But because IP addresses are not inherently tied to geographic locations in the first place, and because the topology and structure of the Internet are constantly evolving, geo-location by IP address can only be an estimate at best. As a result, the estimate of your location may be off by a little (or a lot). You can visit my Geolocation page for more details and a bigger map.
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