{"id":3275,"date":"2013-02-02T17:43:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-03T00:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=3275"},"modified":"2014-09-12T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T17:58:09","slug":"where-ive-been-to-feb-2-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2013\/02\/02\/where-ive-been-to-feb-2-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I&#8217;ve Been (to Feb 2 2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><ul class=\"diigo-linkroll\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/science\/la-sci-how-dogs-evolved-20130124,0,1620029.story\">Carbs were key in wolves&#8217; evolution into dogs &#8211; latimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Long ago, some brazen wolves started hanging around human settlements, jump-starting events that ultimately led to today&#8217;s domesticated dogs. Now geneticists say they have identified one of the key changes that turned wolves into the tame, tail-wagging creatures well-suited to living by our sides \u2014 the ability to digest carbohydrates with ease.<\/p>\n<p>The report, published online Wednesday by the journal Nature, found signs that dogs can break down starch into sugar, and then transport those sugars from the gut into the bloodstream, more efficiently than can wolves. Comparing dog and wolf DNA, the authors pinpointed several changes in starch and sugar-processing genes that would have made early dogs better able to digest the scraps they scavenged from dumps in early farming villages, helping them to thrive as they gave up the independent life of the pack to entwine their lives with ours.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That food was obviously the same kind of food that we were eating,&#8221; most likely a mix of roots, porridge and possibly bread along with bones containing meat and marrow, said study leader Erik Axelsson, an evolutionary geneticist at Uppsala University in Sweden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/dogs\">dogs<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/animals\">animals<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/domestication\">domestication<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/evolution\">evolution<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/m.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2011\/06\/how-i-failed-failed-and-finally-succeeded-at-learning-how-to-code\/239855\/\">How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code &#8211; Atlantic Mobile<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">What happened instead is that I burned out after a week. The text itself was dense and unsmiling; the exercises were difficult. It was quite possibly the least fun I&#8217;ve ever had with a book, or, for that matter, with anything at all. I dropped it as quickly as I had picked it up.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably I went through this cycle several times: I saw people programming and thought it looked cool, resolved myself to learn, sought out a book and crashed the moment it got hard.<\/p>\n<p>For a while I thought I didn&#8217;t have the right kind of brain for programming. Maybe I needed to be better at math. Maybe I needed to be smarter.<\/p>\n<p>But it turns out that the people trying to teach me were just doing a bad job. Those books that dragged me through a series of structured principles were just bad books. I should have ignored them. I should have just played.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody misses that fact more egregiously than the American College Board, the folks responsible for setting the AP Computer Science high school curriculum. The AP curriculum ought to be a model for how to teach people to program. Instead it&#8217;s an example of how something intrinsically amusing can be made into a lifeless slog.<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/learning\">learning<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/how to\">how to<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/code\">code<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/atlantic\">atlantic<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\/programming\">programming<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"diigo-ps\">Posted from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\">Diigo<\/a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/nirtak\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"nuan_ria_plugin\"><object id=\"plugin0\" style=\"position: absolute; z-index: 1000;\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" type=\"application\/x-dgnria\"><param name=\"tabId\" value=\"undefined\" \/><param name=\"counter\" value=\"514\" \/><\/object><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<div class='wp_likes' id='wp_likes_post-3275'><a class='like' href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(3275);\" title='' ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-likes\/images\/like.png\" alt='' border='0'\/><\/a><span class='text'>Be the first to like.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class='like' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.like(3275);\">Like<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='unlike' ><a href=\"javascript:wp_likes.unlike(3275);\">Unlike<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>Carbs were key in wolves&#8217; evolution into dogs &#8211; latimes.com Long ago, some brazen wolves started hanging around human settlements, jump-starting events that ultimately led to today&#8217;s domesticated dogs. Now geneticists say they have identified one of the key changes &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2013\/02\/02\/where-ive-been-to-feb-2-2013\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[353,9,14,81,351,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-2","category-educational-technology","category-general","category-information-technology","category-nature-animals-urbanrural-life","category-teaching-learning"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Hsb6-QP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3447,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2013\/05\/25\/where-ive-been-online-may-2013-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":3275,"position":0},"title":"Where I&#8217;ve Been Online (May 2013, part 1)","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"May 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a record of places I have bookmarked. (I also post them to Diigo, but since I don't like to leave stuff only in the cloud, I am also keeping a copy here. The Rise of the New Groupthink - NYTimes.com tags: nytimes groupthink intelligence Solving the World -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Games&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":148,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2009\/05\/30\/on-on-sheep-dogs-and-wolves\/","url_meta":{"origin":3275,"position":1},"title":"On: On Sheep Dogs and Wolves","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"May 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't usually do this, but this is a response to another blog, found here.\u00a0 The piece I am commenting on is part of a larger post about what Canadian troops are doing in Afghanistan. It is in support of our Canadian Military and repeats a sheep and sheepdogs metaphor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Games&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Working Sheepdogs","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/2006-03-mar-101c-292x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3302,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2013\/03\/09\/where-ive-been-online-to-march-9-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":3275,"position":2},"title":"Where I&#8217;ve Been Online (to March 9, 2013)","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"March 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Your Game! Offer Serious Games Price Breakthrough: Your Game! Your content in an engaging, immersive, rapidly developed simulation. New from Totem Learning, our February launch promotion: Your content in a bespoke serious game at less than eLearning prices! Harness our award winning technology and over ten year\u2019s serious games heritage,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Educational Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Educational Technology","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/educational-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2365,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2012\/06\/16\/where-ive-been-weekly-4\/","url_meta":{"origin":3275,"position":3},"title":"Where I&#8217;ve Been (weekly: June 10-16)","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"June 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"~ A record of places on the web I want to remember ~ BBC NEWS | Health | Video games 'can improve vision' Playing action video games can boost an aspect of adult vision previously thought to be fixed, a US study shows. Researchers found playing the games improved the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Games&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":398,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2009\/11\/28\/398\/","url_meta":{"origin":3275,"position":4},"title":"Another nail in the coffin&#8230;.and another step away from being natural.","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"November 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Many people seem to believe that every natural place should be available for recreation, and that all other uses should defer to them. People who try to raise animals ethically and naturally repeatedly come under fire, but I don't see all of North America going vegan any time soon, so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Working Dogs","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/2006-06-05_20-13-40_001-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":430,"url":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2010\/01\/09\/avatar-could-have-had-a-much-better-ending\/","url_meta":{"origin":3275,"position":5},"title":"AVATAR could have had a MUCH better ending.","author":"Katrin Becker","date":"January 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't already know how it goes (and can't guess) then DON'T read this post. I won't tell you exactly how it ends, but guessing will be child's play after reading this. Don't get me wrong; I loved this movie. I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Na'vi max small","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Navi-max-small-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3275"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4409,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3275\/revisions\/4409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}