Charl van Niekerk » Blog

There's a Python port of the Unofficial Plurk API ...

2008-07-14T20:34:00.000Z

There's a Python port of the Unofficial Plurk API being made over at Google Code.

http://code.google.com/p/plurkapipy/

Well spotted Stephen!

2008-07-12T00:46:00.000Z

Well spotted Stephen!

Thanks for the code, this was just what I was look...

2008-07-11T13:05:00.000Z

Thanks for the code, this was just what I was looking for..

One thing I noticed...

if ($lowercase) array_map('strtolower', $array);

neeeds to be:

if ($lowercase) $array = array_map('strtolower', $array);

hi,i've just installed your great mod_delicious to...

2008-07-07T19:49:00.000Z

hi,

i've just installed your great mod_delicious to my joomla 1.5 site, but i was wondering whether you could tell me how i'd be able to change the font and font colour of the mod? and also remove the bullet points before each delicious entry?

i'm using the rhuk_milkyway template that comes with joomla 1.5. many thanks

two aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid...

2008-06-25T06:54:00.000Z

two aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity research
studies by Resia Pretorius, U. Pretoria, South Africa, debate with JD
Fernstrom: Murray 2008.04.04 2008.05.13
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.htm
Friday, April 4, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1536
____________________________________________________

[ Re: http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/540434/

Mayo Clinic Women's HealthService 2008.05.06

"... Currently, the FDA approves these low-calorie sweeteners:

-- Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet). However, aspartame isn't safe
for people who have phenylketonuria (PKU),
a rare hereditary disease. " ]

"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to enjoy
peace, joy, and love by helping to find, quickly share, and positively
act upon evidence about healthy and safe food, drink, and
environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@comcast.net
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://RMForAll.blogspot.com new primary archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 125 members, 1,539 posts in a public archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartame/messages
group with 1,096 members, 22,620 posts in a public archive
____________________________________________________

[ See also:
methanol impurity in alcohol drinks [ and aspartame ] is turned
into neurotoxic formic acid, prevented by folic acid, re Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome, BM Kapur, DC Lehotay, PL Carlen at U. Toronto,
Alc Clin Exp Res 2007 Dec. plain text: detailed biochemistry,
CL Nie et al. 2007.07.18: Rich Murray 2008.02.24
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.htm
Sunday, February 24, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1524

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/782
Smith, Terpening, Schmidt, Gums: full text: aspartame, MSG, fibromyalgia:
Murray 2002.01.17
Jerry D Smith, Chris M Terpening,
Siegfried OF Schmidt, and John G Gums
Relief of Fibromyalgia Symptoms Following
Discontinuation of Dietary Excitotoxins.
The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 2001; 35(6): 702-706.
Malcolm Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center,
Gainesville, FL, USA.
BACKGROUND: Fibromyalgia is a common rheumatologic
disorder that is often difficult to treat effectively.
CASE SUMMARY: Four patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia
syndrome for two to 17 years are described.
All had undergone multiple treatment modalities with limited success.
All had complete, or nearly complete,
resolution of their symptoms within months after eliminating
monosodium glutamate (MSG) or MSG plus aspartame from their diet.
All patients were women with multiple comorbidities
prior to elimination of MSG.
All have had recurrence of symptoms whenever MSG is ingested.

Siegfried O. Schmidt, MD Asst. Clinical Prof. siggy@shands.ufl.edu
Community Health and Family Medicine, U. Florida, Gainesville, FL
Shands Hospital West Oak Clinic Gainesville, FL 32608-3629
352-376-5071

Avoiding formaldehyde allergic reactions in children, aspartame, vitamins,
shampoo, conditioners, hair gel, baby wipes, Sharon E Jacob, MD, Tace
Steele, U. Miami, Pediatric Annals 2007 Jan.: eyelid contact dermatitis, AM
Hill, DV Belsito, 2003 Nov.: Murray 2008.03.27
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.htm
Thursday, March 27, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1532

"It is generally recommended that exposure to products containing
formaldehyde, FRP's, and aspartame (NutraSweet) be avoided
in children."

"Through metabolism, aspartame is converted metabolically
in the liver to methanol,
which is in turn metabolized to formaldehyde. 8"

www.pediatricannalsonline.com/showPdf.asp?rID=21306

Avoiding formaldehyde allergic reactions in children
Pediatric Annals. 2007 Jan.; 36(1): 55-6. PMID: 17269284
Sharon E. Jacob, MD, Director, Contact Dermatitis Clinic,
Dept. of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, U. of Miami,
1295 NW 14th St., Miami, FL 33125, fax 305-243-6191

formaldehyde from many sources, including aspartame, is major cause of
Allergic Contact Dermatitis, SE Jacob, T Steele, G Rodriguez, Skin and Aging
2005 Dec.: Murray 2008.03.27
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.htm
Thursday, March 27, 2008
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1533

Sharon E. Jacob, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine (Dermatology)
University of California, San Diego 200 W. Arbor Drive #8420
San Diego, CA 92103-8420
Tel: 858-552-8585 ×3504 Fax: 305-675-8317
sjacob@contactderm.net;

"For example, diet soda and yogurt containing aspartame
(Nutrasweet), release formaldehyde in their natural biological
degradation.

One of aspartame's metabolites, aspartic acid methyl ester,
is converted to methanol in the body, which is oxidized to
formaldehyde in all organs, including the liver and eyes. 22

Patients with a contact dermatitis to formaldehyde have been seen
to improve once aspartame is avoided. 22

Notably, the case that Hill and Belsito reported had a 6-month
history of eyelid dermatitis that subsided after 1 week of avoiding
diet soda. 22"

"We present a case of a medical student who presented with
erythematous eczematoid plaques on her trunk and legs and
fine vesiculation of her scalp, 3 weeks after starting anatomy class.

Of note, she routinely washed her face and arms after leaving the
anatomy lab, but remained in her scrubs for the rest of the day.

Formaldehyde and Quaternium-15 positive reactions
in the same patient."

"Our patient underscores the importance of appropriate patch
testing and education.
Once we identified the allergy to formaldehyde and quaternium-15,
we provided patient education materials regarding the common and
not-so-common locations of these chemicals and cross-reactors.
We also gave the patient information on avoidance
and safe alternatives (see Table 5).

Fortunately, with technical advances, this student completed the
anatomy section via electronic learning tools.

By avoiding formaldehyde, including anatomy lab, FRP
in her shampoo and cosmetics,
and aspartame in her diet, this patient dramatically improved.

As with all contact dermatitides, the mainstay of treatment for
allergic contact dermatitis is avoidance."

http://www.skinandaging.com/article/5158
Allergen Focus:
Focus on T.R.U.E. Test Allergens #21, 13 and 18:
Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde-Releasing Preservatives
Skin & Aging, ISSN 1096-0120; 13(12) 2005 Dec.: 22-27.
Sharon E. Jacob, M.D.,
Tace Steele, B.A.,
and Georgette Rodriguez, M.D., M.P.H. ]

http://foodqualitynews.com/news/ng.asp?n=84424-aspartame-sweetener
recent news re E Pretorius aspartame and brain review

Direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain.
Humphries P, Pretorius E, Naude H, U. Pretoria, South Africa,
Eur J Clin Nutr. 2007 Aug 8: Murray 2007.08.12
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1463

"The aim of this study was to discuss the direct and indirect
cellular effects of aspartame on the brain,
and we propose that excessive aspartame ingestion
might be involved in the pathogenesis
of certain mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR 2000)
and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning."

Eur J Clin Nutr. 2007 Aug 8; [Epub ahead of print]
Direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain.
Humphries P,
Pretorius E, resia.pretorius@up.ac.za;
Naude H.
[1] Department of Anatomy, University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
[2] Department of Anatomy, University of the Limpopo,
South Africa.

The use of the artificial sweetener, aspartame, has long been
contemplated and studied by various researchers, and people are
concerned about its negative effects.

Aspartame is composed of phenylalanine (50%),
aspartic acid (40%) and methanol (10%).

Phenylalanine plays an important role in neurotransmitter regulation,
whereas aspartic acid is also thought to play a role as an excitatory
neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.

Glutamate, asparagines and glutamine are formed from their
precursor, aspartic acid.

Methanol, which forms 10% of the broken down product,
is converted in the body to formate,
which can either be excreted or can give rise to formaldehyde,
diketopiperazine (a carcinogen) and a number of other highly toxic
derivatives.

Previously, it has been reported that consumption of aspartame
could cause neurological and behavioural disturbances in sensitive
individuals.

Headaches, insomnia and seizures are also some of the neurological
effects that have been encountered, and these may be accredited to
changes in regional brain concentrations of catecholamines,
which include norepinephrine, epinephrine and dopamine.

The aim of this study was to discuss the direct and indirect
cellular effects of aspartame on the brain,
and we propose that excessive aspartame ingestion
might be involved in the pathogenesis
of certain mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR 2000)
and also in compromised learning and emotional functioning.

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication,
8 August 2007; doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602866.
PMID: 17684524

Keywords: astrocytes; aspartame; neurotransmitters; glutamate;
GABA; serotonin; dopamine; acetylcholine

Received 25 October 2006; revised 26 April 2007;
accepted 27 April 2007
Correspondence: Professor E Pretorius, Department of Anatomy,
University of Pretoria, BMW Building, Dr Savage Street,
PO Box 2034, Pretoria 0001,
Gauteng, South Africa. E-mail: resia.pretorius@up.ac.za

c 2007 Nature Publishing Group,
All rights reserved 0954-3007/07
$30.00 www.nature.com/ejcn

[ Figures 1-6 not included herein ]

[ for more, use initial URL..... ]

Cool all the best, really hope you can make it, wo...

2008-06-25T00:36:00.000Z

Cool all the best, really hope you can make it, would be great to see you around the George area again. :)

Yeah I think let's take up this discussion again i...

2008-06-25T00:35:00.000Z

Yeah I think let's take up this discussion again in a week or two though, just need to work my way past a few work-related crises and then we can get back on the hacking track. :)

Hi CharlWhen you have time - let's have a chat wit...

2008-06-24T08:41:00.000Z

Hi Charl

When you have time - let's have a chat with Paul. I think this would be an excellent concept!

I like the fact that everybody can contribute and access it...

Not making any promises - but will try my best to ...

2008-06-24T08:36:00.000Z

Not making any promises - but will try my best to attend. Would love to reconnect with everybody.

Promise to blog about it though!

@Kåre: We don't have too many of those sites here ...

2008-06-23T20:11:00.000Z

@Kåre: We don't have too many of those sites here in South Africa so I think I would be quite interested in opening one up. However I like your site just the way it is, nice and simple and minimalist, if we open up our own site focused on South Africa or not, I would most certainly send you all the coordinates we have to put on your site as well. Keep up the great work!! :)

@Bev: That's pretty cool, I never heard about the wiki before otherwise would have mentioned it, but I think that this kind of thing can quickly grow out of proportion and would be much better in a database. I have a busy schedule at the moment but will keep this in mind for one day when I have some time.

Thanks for both the comments so far! :)

Hi Charl Paul started something similar a while ba...

2008-06-23T11:13:00.000Z

Hi Charl

Paul started something similar a while back. Check out

http://sawifi.pbwiki.com/Cape-Town

Maybe just add one for the Garden Route.

Bev

HiThank you for your post on workatcafe.comYes, we...

2008-06-23T06:59:00.000Z

Hi
Thank you for your post on workatcafe.com

Yes, we are located in DK, but as you point out the site is in english, and it is so for a reason. We believe that hot spot and hot coffee is world wide, so I would encourage you to help us locate the good hotspots in South Africa. Nice country btw. Been to Cape Town - Boulders beach is very beautiful.

If you send a google map location to us, we can put it on the map - it's that easy!

Regarding commeting of the spot and such, we've been trying to go that way on the w@c site, but since denmark has soo many social/forum/commeting sites for cafés and restaurents it hasn't yet been a viable solution.

Hi Morgan,Yes it's working now again - thanks. I h...

2008-06-16T19:40:00.000Z

Hi Morgan,

Yes it's working now again - thanks. I had this problem before a couple of days back but I figured they were working on it as it's been on-and-off. If the problem persisted I would have contacted Andrew.

Cheers,
Charl

http://ubuntu.mirror.ac.za/ works fine for me, and...

2008-06-16T18:22:00.000Z

http://ubuntu.mirror.ac.za/ works fine for me, and should always be working. If not, contact Andrew Alston using his initials at tenet.ac.za...

Cool thanks Andreas!!

2008-06-16T10:18:00.000Z

Cool thanks Andreas!!

The "advanced" thing, with the following features:...

2008-06-16T04:14:00.000Z

The "advanced" thing, with the following features:
- give "ABCd" or "AB Cd" or "J E T Word" as an $example_string parameter, to tell the function how it should split acronyms and MIXedWords.. (performance issues are avoided via caching in static variables)
- additional $glue parameter to implode the array afterwards.

See http://www.bevolunteer.org/trac/wiki/CamelCaseExplode

Example use:

echo '
'.camelCaseExplode('MyXMLParsingEngine', true, 'ABCd', ' ');
echo '
'.camelCaseExplode('MyXMLParsingEngine', true, 'AB Cd', ' ');
echo '
'.camelCaseExplode('MyXMLParsingEngine', true, 'A B Cd', ' ');

gives

My XMLParsing Engine
My XML Parsing Engine
My X M L Parsing Engine

---------------

And here's the code...
(sorry, blogger doesn't like the < pre > tag in comments)

function camelCaseExplode($string, $lowercase = true, $example_string = 'AA Bc', $glue = false)
{
static $regexp_available = array(
'/([A-Z][^A-Z]*)/',
'/([A-Z][^A-Z]+)/',
'/([A-Z]+[^A-Z]*)/',
);
static $regexp_by_example = array();
if (!isset($regexp_by_example[$example_string])) {
$example_array = explode(' ', $example_string);
foreach ($regexp_available as $regexp) {
if (implode(' ', preg_split(
$regexp,
str_replace(' ', '', $example_string),
-1,
PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY | PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE
)) == $example_string) {
break;
}
}
$regexp_by_example[$example_string] = $regexp;
}
$array = preg_split(
$regexp_by_example[$example_string],
$string,
-1,
PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY | PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE
);
if ($lowercase) array_map('strtolower', $array);
return is_string($glue) ? implode($glue, $array) : $array;
}

LOL! My job as a "software engineer" also means I ...

2008-06-13T13:55:00.000Z

LOL! My job as a "software engineer" also means I do a lot more than engineering software so I think that counts for a lot of us, but at least we do what we do without pretensions. :)

I am an "Ideas Magician" - essentially this means...

2008-06-13T13:42:00.000Z

I am an "Ideas Magician" - essentially this means I do everything from sweeping floors, making coffee, doing admin, doing budgets, carrying boxes, networking, advertising, PR, crises management, product/campaign design right up to corporate strategy...

A title is just too limiting to describe all of that! Right?

Totally slacked on leaving a comment here... sorry...

2008-06-12T22:06:00.000Z

Totally slacked on leaving a comment here... sorry.

Anywho I work for Vidoop and we understand the usability issue with OpenID and work (as myOpenID does) to make it better/easier.

We have a pretty neat password manager that we offer along side OpenID at http://myvidoop.com worth a look and we are always interested in feedback.

Thanks!

If you want a decent response put a name to your c...

2008-06-10T21:14:00.000Z

If you want a decent response put a name to your comment. :)

Hi Chris,Main reason for me choosing rooibos tea i...

2008-06-10T21:13:00.000Z

Hi Chris,

Main reason for me choosing rooibos tea is because I enjoy drinking it without milk or sugar. Some people claim there are health benefits to it but there are also claims of health benefits with normal tea, coffee, and pretty-much everything else. :)

I think all things should be taken in moderation. I think normal clean water should be the best to drink in large amounts.

Just my opinion... ;)

Thanks for posting the solution corey! :)

2008-06-10T21:09:00.000Z

Thanks for posting the solution corey! :)

Found a solution for IE. This has only been tested...

2008-06-10T18:10:00.000Z

Found a solution for IE. This has only been tested in IE7 and FF2.

Find the last child of the optgroup (this should be the last option added to the optgroup) and set the text.

Example:
$(optgroup).find('option:last-child').text(value);

I agree on the benefits of short-term fasting. It...

2008-06-10T17:47:00.000Z

I agree on the benefits of short-term fasting. It tends to clean up my system and leave me more clearheaded. I've been using fasting to stabilize and reverse my diabetes. Notice you use rooibos tea. Any insights on the health benefits of use?
Thanks!

Sorry, what I meant to say was, Did you get caught...

2008-06-10T16:16:00.000Z

Sorry, what I meant to say was, Did you get caught browsing porn again?