Quick OSX tip: if you’re finding that your OSX system is quite busy even though you haven’t asked anything of it, check to see if the processes “mds” and “mdworker” are chewing up CPU cycles (view active processes in Activity Monitor).
If so, then…
The vast majority of the time, I buy what I intend to. Like the old maxim from construction: “Measure twice, cut once”, I always take care to ensure I’m ordering the right thing. At least when things are expensive. When they’re cheap, I’m less…
The killjoy afficiando commenters at Hack a Day love to deride as unsophisticated any project that uses an Ardunio (e.g. this thread). The platform has become so popular that, to co-opt a…
Post by Christoph Schmidt-Hieber
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Here are some relatively pain-free instructions to get NEURON to run with Python support on OS X.
1. Install XCode 3.x. XCode 4 will not work (*). You…
More cleverness from Taro Ishikawa. Instead of buying a homeothermic heating pad for surgeries (these often cost > $1000), Taro used some basic industrial process control items. He bought his stuff in Japan, but similar items are available from McMaster-Carr in…
I was in Tokyo recently and stopped by my friend Taro Ishikawa’s lab (of TaroTools fame). He and Misa are doing very well. They have exciting work underway and are expanding their…
Greg Dunn, a grad student at Penn, is a gifted artist. His work combines the geometry of neuronal arbors with the spare aesthetics of east Asian watercolor art.
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Post by Christian Wilms
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a big fan of small organic calcium indicators (e.g., Oregon Green BAPTA 1). Yes, genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) have many…
MATLAB version R2011b has just been released. The new format for error messages is not as mind blowing as you might have heard. However, there’s one cute little…
Here are some ideas for project enclosures. The stock enclosures from Mouser, Digikey, and others are generally serviceable, but are rarely the perfect size. In addition, making the required cutouts can be inconvenient. Here are a couple of alternatives.
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When I’m in a tight spot and don’t have CAD software handy, there are a couple of sites I use to view CAD files online.
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MATLAB Mobile is a way to use MATLAB from an iOS device. It’s cute, but a bit odd, because you used to need to have MATLAB running on your own server in…
There’s an RFI (request for information) out now for the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience (the structure that cuts across different institutes that all support neuroscience: NINDS, NIMH, NEI, etc.). These RFIs…
Wolfram is pushing a new document format called Computable Document Format (CDF). It looks like PDF + embedded Java apps.
One the one hand, there’s the xkcd viewpoint. This is basically just another…
Last Friday afternoon to Saturday morning I had a marathon data analysis session. It was almost completely in Igor Pro. I used TaroTools so heavily that I dropped Taro another thank you note. It’s really saved me so much programming and analysis time. I highly recommend checking it out. Prof. Ishikawa…
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