2007/10/29

CherryPy 3: interpreting error messages

I'm stubbing out a method in a nested CherryPy application object. I keep getting error messages of the form


File "/path/to/CherryPy-3.0.2-py2.5.egg/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 551, in respond
cherrypy.response.body = self.handler()
File "/path/to/CherryPy-3.0.2-py2.5.egg/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 24, in __call__
return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs)

TypeError: 'Data' object is not callable


And the cause? Almost every time, in the browser I've mistyped the URL for my server's Ajax method. I might be invoking foo instead of bar, and the result is always this sort of error message.

Why don't I instead get the old "We didn't find anything"? Dunno. It's probably something in my configuration.

2007/10/26

Exhibitionist spiny anteater reveals bizarre penis - New Scientist Environment

Science can be funny.

New Scientist Environment:

The spiny anteater ... is notoriously difficult to observe in the wild and shows little enthusiasm for breeding in captivity...

Four-headed phallus

Then Steve Johnston of the University of Queensland in Gatton, Australia, and his colleagues inherited a male spiny anteater that ... had been ‘retired’ from a zoo as it produced an erection when being handled at public viewing sessions.


This reminds me of a Panda exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo in the late 80s. We were ushered into the viewing gallery in groups, at regular intervals. There we stood gazing in reverent silence upon an artificial bamboo forest -- a quiet, still forest, in the midst of which lay an inert black and white lump.

Minutes passed. The lump stirred. The crowd gasped.

The lump rolled over. The crowd went "Aahhhwww," and broke into applause.

They seemed not to care that they were now facing a leering, semi-conscious panda, sprawled on its back, legs spread wide like a drunken flasher.

Er, anyway... when doing science, one must be careful with electricity:

The spiny anteater's four-headed phallus had been puzzling scientists. "When we tried to collect semen by [electrically-stimulated ejaculation] before, not only did we not get a single drop, but the whole penis swelled up to a four-headed monster that wouldn't fit the female reproductive tract..."


2007/10/19

New Scientist: Cold weather really does spread flu

Cold weather really does spread flu - New Scientist Environment

Flu virus can spread without the aid of coughing/sneezing -- you just gotta breathe. It stays in suspension longer in cold, dry air than in warm, moist air. And it doesn't help that mucus flows more poorly in cold weather.

"...Virtually no lab animals get it the way humans do... The most useful animal has been the ferret... “They’re big, they’re expensive, and they bite,” Peter Palese of Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City told New Scientist.

In 1919, US Army doctors at Camp Cody in New Mexico reported (Journal of the American Medical Association, vol 72 p1056) that the 1918 flu pandemic had killed their guinea pigs – kept at the time for medical tests. “We didn’t know guinea pigs got flu,” says Palese. They are no longer popular lab animals, and no-one had tried them."


Bad news for air travelers:
"“It spread just in the air they exhaled,” says Palese. “Guinea pigs with flu don’t cough or sneeze.”"