According to the io9 science fiction blog,  researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a microscope that turns your mobile phone into a diagnostic tool:

They hit upon the idea of a smart phone microscope because parts for it have become cheap, and many developing regions have fairly good wireless networks for phones. Using a cheap phone attachment with an LED, the engineers feed magnified images into the cell phone camera. Software on the phone can analyze bacterial counts, or images can be sent via the cell network to labs for quick analysis.

io9’s got screenshots . . . you know you want to see what malaria looks like on a mobile phone.

Officially, Prof. Hacker accepts the distinction linguists make between prescriptive and descriptive grammar.  Unofficially, however, we’re raging grammar queens, and so are mad for these handy stickers:

Only $3! A bargain.

Lots of sites have been linking to Paul Graham’s essay on “Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” for its clear delineation between one type of schedule, built around meetings, and another, built around vast empty spaces in which you can get things done.  He also makes the point–familiar to anyone who’s ever frittered away an hour’s research time because “there’s no point in starting before the meeting”–that meetings eat up more than just their time on the calendar.

Worth noting for academics is the way Graham has imported the concept of office hours for his venture capital firm:

How do we manage to advise so many startups on the maker’s schedule? By using the classic device for simulating the manager’s schedule within the maker’s: office hours. Several times a week I set aside a chunk of time to meet founders we’ve funded. These chunks of time...

Not a guide to negotiating the back-to-school barbecue, but a handy guide to manipulating text. Ramsay answers key questions like: Why should I care?  How can I improve my regex skills? Do I need anything to get started?

If you’ve ever typed “cp *.html ../” at the UNIX command prompt, or entered “garden?” into a web-based search engine, you’ve already used a simple regular expression. Regular expressions (“regex’s” for short) are sets of symbols and syntactic elements used to match patterns of text. Even these simple examples testify to the power of regular expressions. In the first instance, you’ve copied all the files which end in “.html” (as opposed to copying them one by one); in the second, you’ve conducted a search not only for “garden,” but for “garden, gardening, gardens, and gardeners” all at once.

A .pdf version of Ramsay’s guide...

At his home blog, ProfHacker editor George Williams shares his wish list for a first-year faculty member’s workbag.  As you’ll see, he takes the connectivity concept seriously:

An academic geek should not want for wired connectivity options, such as some combination of the following: a miniature 4-port USB hub, retractable cables (USB 2.0 cable, Firewire 6-pin, Firewire 4-pin), some Flip video USB cables, and an ethernet cable.

(George is much, much more organized than I am.)

This will be a recurring feature at ProfHacker: What’s in your bag?