Digital Traces

The New York Times has a very interesting article about the digital traces we leave and a completely new generation of Big Brother approaching.

More about → Digital Traces

The Hitchhiker's Online Game

I accidentally just found out about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy online game by Douglas Adams. And it's full of his witty and hilarious dialogues. (If you have a hard start, try turning on the light... and register on h2g2 to save your games.)

More about → The Hitchhiker's Online Game

Is the World Ready for a Cyberwar?

After reading a lot in the media about the so called cyber war, I wonder: How well prepared are the nations? In the media it seems as if Russia and China had active cyber warriors sitting and waiting to get into action or if not already attacking. But I can hardly imagine that any technologically advanced nation would not have highly professional IT security experts available...

What do you think? Or are the US cyber warriors just more sneaky? Would the US invent the internet for military reasons and then just sit there while everybody else seems to be putting up their armies? Could a cyber war lead to a real war? Are plain computers the 21st century's war machines?

More about → Is the World Ready for a Cyberwar?

How To Make Buttermilk Substitute Recipe

How To Make Buttermilk Substitute RecipeSo, you need to learn to make a buttermilk substitute in a pinch for a recipe? This buttermilk substitute will get you back to cooking so you don't have to go running to the grocery. Simply grab one cup of milk and a tablespoon of either vinegar or lemon juice. Add either the vinegar or lemon juice to the milk and let sit for about 10 minutes. That's it!

More about → How To Make Buttermilk Substitute Recipe

Vorsicht vor Ginkgo in Lebensmitteltees /// Gesundheit Tipps

Vorsicht vor Ginkgo in Lebensmitteln
von Sylvia Schneider
Teemischungen mit Ginkgo-Blättern erfreuen sich zunehmender Beliebtheit. Sie werden in Supermärkten und Drogerien immer häufiger angeboten. Diese Lebensmittel-Tees enthalten erhebliche Mengen gesundheitsschädlicher Ginkgolsäuren, warnte jetzt das Zentrallaboratoriums Deutscher Apotheker e.V. (ZL) in Eschborn. Apotheker Prof. Manfred Schubert-Zsilavecz, wissenschaftlicher Leiter des ZL, dazu: "Dem Verbraucher wird suggeriert, dass das Trinken eines Teesmit Ginkgo-Blättern positive Wirkungen auf die mentale Leistungsfähigkeit hätte. Die Tees enthalten nach unseren Untersuchungen aber große Mengen an potenziell gesundheitsschädliche Ginkgolsäuren. Deshalb rate ich dringend von diesen Tees ab." Ginkgolsäuren können unter anderem Allergien auslösen.

Diese Warnung gilt allerdings nur für die Tees, nicht für die freiverkäuflichen Arzneimittel mit Ginkgo. In Arzneimitteln mit Ginkgo-Extrakten sind die Mengen an Ginkgolsäuren vom Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte (BfArM) auf 5 ppm (parts per million) begrenzt. Das entspricht einer zulässigen Aufnahme an Ginkgolsäuren von höchstens 1,2 Mikrogramm pro Tag. Dieser Grenzwert wurde bei allen untersuchten Lebensmittel-Tees bereits durch eine Tasse Tee um das 40- bis 80-fache überschritten, so die aktuelle Studie des ZL.
Bleiben Sie natürlich gesund!
gemobst
Leider dürfen immer wieder viele schädl. Präparate uns beigemischt werden....
LG

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

Garantiert mehr Lebensqualität:
Egal, was hier steht, Sie wollen etwas ändern?
Unsere Lösung, auch wenn es NICHT GLEICH verständlich ist ..., ist ganz einfach, Zahnbürste/Lotion bestellen und weitere Infos bei Job Gesundheit Freizeit und Unterstützung von uns anfordern!

INFORMATION !!!

Videofilm: Gesundheitshinweise

---------------------------------------------------------------
Fragen zur Anwendung und Selbsthilfe beantwortet unser internes Gesundheitsnetzwerk.

More about → Vorsicht vor Ginkgo in Lebensmitteltees /// Gesundheit Tipps

Concept ships by razer

Ridiculous post by a Russian artist by the nickname razer on conceptart.org.

Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!






















RAZER conceptships weekly header #37 November 28th - December 12th, 2008 (two weeks)

Keywords: professional digital technical concept spaceship vehicle art from a conceptart.org post by razer russian artist residing in moscow russia

More about → Concept ships by razer

Concept ship art by Roboronan

Ronan's portfolio. His post on conceptships.org.







Keywords: Professional concept artist Ronan LE FUR paris france proficient in modeling texturing shading rendering compositing design

More about → Concept ship art by Roboronan

The Infallible Ticket Machine - When Machines Do Make Mistakes

The LinuxJournal posted a great article about good and bad consequences of technology.

I have had similar thoughts. What people may forget is the problems you may get into with machines and that they do make mistakes. But let me tell you what happened to me.

I went to buy train tickets. They were non-refundable day tickets valid for one day only (not 24 hours).

I went to the machine. I chose the type of ticket. Then I chose a date. Then I chose to take two of them. Then I paid and left. A few hours later I looked closely at my tickets and found out that it did not apply the choice of date to both tickets. One of them was valid only for yesterday. I had bought them at about 11.45 pm. And yesterday was now already past.

Okay, there were several problems: The machine should have warned before selling you a day ticket that would be valid only for 15 minutes. It should actually automatically select the next day then. But the very least it must of course apply your choice of day to the tickets when in the last step it asks you for the number of tickets.

Okay, I thought, no problem. Luckily there are still humans. I went to a service person. The date and time of purchase were printed on the ticket, so it was an obvious situation. I told them about it and was quite surprised about their reaction.

The tickets are non-refundable they told me. That I aleady knew. I said again that I told two tickets and that the date was not applied. They told me I must have made a mistake when ordering them, so it was my fault. That kind of remark is hard to deal with, especially if you're earning money with IT services. I tried to explain this to them and they informed me that machines don't make mistakes.

Ah. That was new to me. I gave up with her and went to another service person somewhere else:

I: Hi, I've gotten the wrong ticket from the ticket machine.
S: Well, the tickets are non-refundable.
I: Oh yes, I know. But I didn't choose that ticket.
S: Then it wouldn't have printed it - you must have made the wrong choices.
I: Aha. (explaining the choices). Could the problem be with the machine?
S: No, there is no problem with the machines. You should simply buy the tickets one by one.
I: And now?
S: You're too late to exchange it now. Try writing a letter to the central custumer service department.

By now I had no time to buy new tickets and had to run to catch my train. It turned out that the train personell didn't even notice the difference in dates when checking my tickets. So luckily in the end a human error helped me avoid problems after the machine's error.

In the end I quite agree with his critic view on technology: One should always keep in mind that machines do make mistakes. And when they do, it can be extremely hard to impossible to convince people of it.

More about → The Infallible Ticket Machine - When Machines Do Make Mistakes

Easily Receiving Big Files via Droopy Webserver

There's a nice little python script named droopy available which let's you receive big files quite comfortably over a simple web browser upload.

More about → Easily Receiving Big Files via Droopy Webserver

CODEX AILIIMENTARIUS

The Healing Path :: CODEX AILIMENTARIUS- 2009 NEW WORLD ORDER/ BILL C-51: Dr. Rima Laibow, MD, in a passionate speech at the 2005 conference of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals (NANP)calls the new Codex standards “food regulations that are in fact the legalization of mandated toxicity and under-nutrition.”

"Ever heard of the Codex Alimentarius? It’s one of the best-kept “open secrets” of the U.S. government. It’s scheduled to take effect on December 21, 2009, and it may present the greatest disaster for our food supply—and thus for our health— the world has ever seen."

It seems the Pharmaceutical and oil industries will finally get their way to keep us all in line and dependent on their wares. Unless we act now it appears that we will loose the right to preventative medicines, vitamins, herbs, and minerals will be banned at any therapeutic dose allowable only at a dose of 100th of their "safe" levels. We will lose the right to choose non GM foods. We will loose the right to use newly polarised 'ancient foods' and herbal medicines will be banned by changing them from a food category to a drug category - many herbal remedies used successfully for thousands of years may be lost.

World Health Organisation - codex alimentarius

CODEX AILIMENTARIUS:

www.healthfreedomUSA.org

Video of Talk by Dr Riba Laibow

Video Narrated by Dame Judi Dench

More about → CODEX AILIIMENTARIUS

Concept ships by Brett Bean

More concept artwork from Brett at 2dbean.com.









Keywords: concept spaceship art design by brett bean concept artist at slipgate ironworks space time studios zipper interactive sony computer entertainment of america digiPen institute of technology

More about → Concept ships by Brett Bean

List Open Files of a Process

lsof -p `pifof process`

provides an exhaustive list including libraries.

ls -l /proc/`pidof process`/fd

provides a list of only the "plain" files.

More about → List Open Files of a Process

What!? A Saturday post?

Yep,
I've found this interview (through technorati) with Lou Anders on the deadoftheday blogspot.



Check out paragraph number 9.
It reads: How/where do you meet/hire most of the illustrators you work with?

It varies. I hate to disappoint, but almost never have I hired someone who approached me unsolicited in email. I tend to see works that speak to me on other book covers and pay attention to who the illustrators are. Other art directors make recommendations and put me in touch with artists. I met John Picacio in 2001 at a convention, when writer Graham Joyce introduced us. I believe Irene Gallo (Tor’s art director) put me in touch with Stephan Martiniere and Dan Dos Santos. Picacio introduced me to Caniglia, Bob Eggleton, Dave Seeley, Todd Lockwood and Dominic Harman. I engaged Chris McGrath after his agent approached me on another client’s behalf. Recently, I’ve begun to work with Benjamin Carre, after Mark Newton – and editor at Solaris but an author with a book forthcoming from Tor in the UK – put him on my radar. I met Dave Palumbo at a convention. I also follow Irene Gallo’s blog, Gorilla Artfare, Conceptart.org and (now) ConceptShips.org. (Interesting, I’ve posted compliments on artists’ works on some of these art showcase blog sites, but not once have any of them followed me back to see if I was interested in them professionally. Hmmm.) But looking at all this, it seems like the best way to get on my radar is to befriend John Picacio, doesn’t it?

So hard to believe this blog is mentioned along side of those other heavy-weights and only after a little over a year of hustlin'... Amazing!

Please reply or shoot an email my way if you get "discovered" from this joint and actually score a paying gig. I'd love a conceptships success story... Later!

More about → What!? A Saturday post?

Intro to Linux Virtual Memory

LinuxPlanet has a really good article explaining how the Virtual Memory System works in Linux. I think it's nicely done and considering the subject it's a pretty easy read.

More about → Intro to Linux Virtual Memory

Introduction to SSH

LinuxPlanet has a nice short intro to ssh. I have her on one point, though:

The example ssh terry@host2 ls ~ is just badly quoted/escaped. There's no need to use /home/terry if you correctly escape the tilde by putting it all in quotes: ssh terry@host2 "ls ~".

This lets your shell know it's not supposed to resolve the "~" so that the shell on the other side of the ssh line will do so. See the e.g. EXPANSION section in man bash for more.

More about → Introduction to SSH

Sed One-Liners

Catonmat has a nice overview of sed one-liners.

More about → Sed One-Liners

Fred Gambino on concept ships

Fred Gambino!














Fred Gambino conceptships weekly header #36 November 21st - November 28th, 2008

Keywords: Fred gambino professional entertainment video movie film concept artist concept ship spaceship art cosmonauts astronauts alien planet launching saturn concept book covers illustrated artwork

More about → Fred Gambino on concept ships

How To Use Newspaper for Mulch

How To Use Newspaper for MulchReduce. Reuse. Recycle. That's what many of us try to do to make a light footprint on mother earth. If you buy and read a newspaper, whether daily or even just once weekly, you can reuse them in your garden as a mulch to keep down weeds. Newspapers are best used under another natural mulch when used in garden beds. Not only are they somewhat unsightly when used alone

More about → How To Use Newspaper for Mulch

Concept ships by Ryan Demita

Ryan's blogspot.











Keywords: born in akron ohio technical industrial designer concept artist ryan demita studied at the university of cincinnati industrial design and fine arts

More about → Concept ships by Ryan Demita

Some early attempts at flight

These first two contraptions need the word "fail" on them somewhere:)





The Wrights did it right. Building kites, wind tunnels, inventing propellers and taking into account maneuverability & control.
It's hard to believe that the airplane was invented in 1903 and we were on the moon by 1969.



I think maybe only the invention of the telephone/internet trumps the advent of flight... If even that does.

Keywords: old vintage black and white film footage of early attempts at flight animated flash loops the wright flyer experimental airplane 1903 orville wilbur wright kitty hawk north carolina december 17 1903

More about → Some early attempts at flight

Animated concept ship model from Naked sky entertainment

Naked sky entertainment.



Keywords: 3D animated flash loop concept ship model from by naked sky entertainment independent game development studio based in Los Angeles 2007 Game Developers Choice Awards New Studio Nominee

More about → Animated concept ship model from Naked sky entertainment

Brain Training

The Linux Journal has a nice summary of open source brain training games.

More about → Brain Training

Blue submarine concept ship model from Taehoon Oh

Taehoon's portfolio.











Keywords: blue submarine concept spaceship underwater vessel model texturing lighting by taehoon oh original concept design by feng zhu modeling motif from richard buff's kraken submarine

More about → Blue submarine concept ship model from Taehoon Oh

More About Being a Good Citizen in an Open Source World

After looking into the source of Android, Metthew Garrett tells us about his disappointment with the underlying code. And with his example of iPhone vs. Android a heated debate was of course not far:

Who is the worse open source citizen, Google, Apple or nobody? And I posted a little comment as well:

Google is to blame for doing open source(Linux), but the wrong way(hotfix instead of a good solution).
Apple is to blame for doing open source(BSD), but the wrong way(bad or no community "backfeed").

What's worse is a matter of taste. I also think Apple is the worse open source participant. They give back so little to the community it makes me sad. (Then they restrict the app store in ways that prevents competition, etc.)

Google does not do much for the community, though it says it tries. But honestly, if you would put their effort into relation with what money they make through open source software, it's really very sad, too. And the companies PR departments would be silly if they wouldn't make sure it looks like a serious effort.

But they both gain a lot and give a little. Google may state what they wish - considering their resources they give little. They could employ at least a few expert kernel hackers pro bono. Otherwise they will get an identity crisis a little like Ubuntu currently: People want to know they are part of bringing things forward.

And this shows the problems with current open source licenses in my view: The companies still don't really have to give useful "back-feed" to the open source projects (far from being in relation with what they gain).

What if the EU would decide that every device must come with open source drivers? Or if someone wrote a license that requires at least 1% of the profits from the open source project to flow back into the project? It would of course be very good for the projects. But in a second step I am convinced it would be at least as useful from a macroeconomic point of view:

Less development effort would be duplicated and the code quality would constantly increase.

Of course the big problem with this approach is finding out how much money is made with a project. That would be the job for courts to decide. And currently I can't think of any really good measurement possibilites. But then with 1% of the profits I'm sure it would not hurt a company anyway.

More about → More About Being a Good Citizen in an Open Source World

NVIDIA Brings Fast GPU Video Acceleration to Linux

It's been a while. I've sat here on my chair for a long time and thought to myself: Hey, if you want to do it, video acceleration would be really easy to integrate into Linux software: It's mostly open source and the changed would be pretty specific to that part.

Then came XvMC and it was not really convincing, because the impact was not too fast and it only worked during playback Mpeg2 AFAIK, not during transconding.

Now came NVIDIA (admittedly a couple weeks after AMD, but therefore publicly and including patches for mplayer) and finally brought out really nice and efficient video acceleration for linux.

My favorite Linux Performance News Site Phoronix checked it out and you can see quite an improvement (CPU usage with first OpenGL, then XVideo and then Nvidia's "VDPAU"(Video Decode and Presentation API).

I hope AMD and Intel will finally come out with some progress in this area, too. Next I would like to see support for encoding, e.g. in Xvid and then maybe even tasks such as gzip, bzip2 (the latter ones didn't even show multi-core support in my tests).

More about → NVIDIA Brings Fast GPU Video Acceleration to Linux

Customized Linux Message Notification, I Wish I Had

After writing an alias that shows me what's currently going on in my system (tail -f /var/log/..., ~/.xsession-errors, ...) I've wondered:

A. Why the information is not all going through syslog (almost is, but not e.g. the users errors).

B. And more importantly: Why isn't there a nice interface to syslog that shows me what I want to know, e.g. as a plasma applet for kde4, configurable but with low resource consumption nice&pretty on my wallpaper?

That'd be nice, wouldn' it? Maybe I'll write that myself one day...

More about → Customized Linux Message Notification, I Wish I Had

Junk Food Pizza Challenge Tossed Up By London Nutritionist Foods For Life - EWORLDWIRE

Junk Food Pizza Challenge Tossed Up By London Nutritionist Foods For Life - EWORLDWIRE

Pizza Hut have announced it is changing its name to Pasta Hut. Nutrient-stripped white carbohydrates are the last thing we need. Research suggests we eat too much saturated animal fat and not enough essential fats, too much junk starch and sugar and not enough whole grains, too much meat and dairy and not enough fibre-rich, mineral-rich plant-based proteins. All these imbalances have led to a modern plague of preventable chronic diseases

More about → Junk Food Pizza Challenge Tossed Up By London Nutritionist Foods For Life - EWORLDWIRE

How to Scroll Back in Screen

Ctrl + a + [ + j/k
Or Ctrl + a then Esc and then use the cursor keys. Esc to leave the mode again.

More about → How to Scroll Back in Screen

Stevia, die natürliche Süße ohne Kalorien.

Stevia, die natürliche Süße ohne Kalorien.
Stevia, Stevia rabaudiana, ist eine aus dem Hochland Paraguays stammende Staude, die schon seit hunderten von Jahren von den Indianern Südamerikas als natürlicher Süßstoff verwendet wird. Und nicht nur das. Stevia wird von den Ureinwohnern zusätzlich noch als Heilmittel eingesetzt.

Je nach Klimabedingungen und Gebiet kann das Blatt der Stevia Pflanze 10-30-mal so süß sein als gewöhnlicher Zucker. Die gewonnenen Extrakte des Blattes sind außerdem kalorienfrei und können eine Süßkraft erreichen die raffinierten Zucker um das 400fache übertreffen.
Auch Diabetikern ist es möglich die Stevia Pflanze zu verwenden, da sie im Gegensatz zu Zucker den Blutspiegel nicht negativ beeinflusst. Außerdem unterbinden die Extrakte eine Kariesbildung, was den enormen Vorteil zu normalem Zucker wiedergibt.

Gewonnen werden die absolut kalorienfreien und wertvollen Inhaltsstoffe der Stevia Pflanze aus deren Blättern.
Sie liegen dann in Form von getrocknetem Blättern, Pulvern oder Extrakten aus den Pulvern vor. Es lässt sich außerdem ein reines weißes Pulver gewinnen, das gesundheitlich zwar unbedenklich ist, aber als raffiniertes Produkt nicht mehr die enorme Intensität an gesundheitlichen Vorzügen besitzt.

Das Pulver lässt sich dann in jeder Art von Speise oder Getränk verwenden.
Auch in höheren Konzentrationen schmeckt Stevia wie Zucker. Auch beim Backen lässt sich Stevia unbegrenzt einsetzten, da deren Wirkstoffe eine Erhitzung von bis 200 Grad Celsius aushalten. Durch die enorme Intensität des Süßstoffes ist auch ein niedriger Verbrauch der Stevia Pflanze, im Haushalt gewährleistet. Vor allem aber lässt sich Stevia, hauptsächlich in getrockneter Form, sehr lange im Haushalt lagern, da sie nicht schimmeln oder gären kann.

1887 erstmal entdeckt, setzt sich Stevia zurzeit auch in den Industrieländern durch.Hauptsächlich die Japaner setzten auf die positive Wirkung von Stevia und haben es schon vielen Lebensmitteln beigesetzt, um Zucker zu sparen. Aber nicht nur als Ergänzung für Lebensmittel wird Stevia verwendet. Auch als Heilpflanze für Hautprobleme lassen sich die Extrakte äußerst erfolgreich anwenden. So klingen Blutungen der Haut, einmal mit Steviapulver bestreut, schnell wieder ab. Auch Akne, Schuppenflechte und andere Hautprobleme lassen sich erfolgreich behandeln.

Die Enzyme, die essentiellen Öle, das Vitamin C und das Chlorophyll der Blätter erzielen wahrscheinlich diese heilende Wirkung. Stevia wirkt entzündungshemmend, antibakteriell und anti-rheumatisch und kann auch noch bei anderen gesundheitlichen Störungen eingesetzt werden.

Noch sind die Stevia Produkte auf dem europäischen Markt als Lebensmittel nicht zugelassen, auch in den USA werden die Produkte nur "NUR" als NE, Mikronährstoffe, ohne Hinweis auf die Süßkraft, verkauft.
Allerdings kann man Stevia über den Versandhandel aus dem Ausland beziehen. Quelle

Gesundheit unerwünscht Wirtschaftslobby gegen Gesundheit?

http://www.videogold.de/gesundheit-unerwuenscht-wirtschaftslobby-gegen-gesundheit/


Stevia Süßstoff wird in Deutschland verboten - Korruption der Zucker und Süßmittel Industrie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIN6NRhhHr4


Welche Süße schmeckt Ihnen besser?

LG

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

Garantiert mehr Lebensqualität:
Egal, was hier steht, Sie wollen etwas ändern?
Unsere Lösung, auch wenn es NICHT GLEICH verständlich ist ..., ist ganz einfach, Zahnbürste/Lotion bestellen im Gesundheitsshop (neu) und weitere Infos bei Job Gesundheit Freizeit und Unterstützung von uns anfordern!

INFORMATION !!!

Videofilm: Gesundheitshinweise
---------------------------------------------------------------
Fragen zur Anwendung und Selbsthilfe beantwortet unser internes Gesundheitsnetzwerk. Positives Feedback
zu http://jobwegweiser.info/

More about → Stevia, die natürliche Süße ohne Kalorien.

A tribute to NASA's space shuttle program on concept ships

The best ship(s) EVER!

Endeavour is scheduled for lift off today (Friday 14th, 2008) at 7:55 p.m. Eastern time from launch pad 39A to deliver equipment to the International Space Station that will enable larger crews to reside aboard the complex... STS-126 is the 27th shuttle mission to the I.S.S.

Some space shuttle art from the book NASA and the Exploration of Space: With Works from the NASA Art Collection





Ron Cobb


Attila Hejja


Ren Wicks


Karen Chandler


Nixon Galloway





Space Shuttle conceptships weekly header #35 November 14th - November 21st, 2008

Keywords: space shuttle columbia challenger discovery atlantis endeavour enterprise concept illustrated space ship art nasa i.s.s. international space station missions National Aeronautics and Space Administration engines thrusters animated flash loop close up

More about → A tribute to NASA's space shuttle program on concept ships

Concept ship art by Daniel Iulian Vijoi

Daniel's CG portfolio.



Keywords: digital concept spaceship grand space opera entry art from daniel iulian vijoi a.k.a. techart lead texture artist AMC studio bucharest romania

More about → Concept ship art by Daniel Iulian Vijoi

How To Fix a Garden Hose Pinhole Leak

How To Fix a Garden Hose Pinhole LeakEver have a garden hose spring a leak at the peak of your garden season? Well now you can fix that pinhole leak in your garden hose with two, yes just two, pieces of material that most folks have stashed away in either a drawer or their garage. There's no need to make plans to go to the garden center to pick up another hose, especially if money is tight. Just

More about → How To Fix a Garden Hose Pinhole Leak

Richard Dumont concept ships

See more of Richard's work.



Keywords: concept hovering vehicles in futuristic city street digital concept art by richard dumont a.k.a. kraull montreal canada artificial mind and movement concept artist

More about → Richard Dumont concept ships

Google Finds the Flu

Google just released a tool to track the spread of flus by statistical analysis of their search data. And it seems to work, too.

More about → Google Finds the Flu

Concept ships from Alexandre Bonvalot

Alexandre's website and portfolio.






Keywords: digital concept spaceship artwork from by alexandre bonvalot grand space opera entry image contest for cg society challenge

More about → Concept ships from Alexandre Bonvalot

Moon Zero Two (1969)

Promo poster for Moon Zero Two. Has anyone seen this? I'll probably notice it on cable one of these days, now that I've posted it. Pretty nice illustration though.



Keywords: moon zero two promotional poster illustrated image directed by roy ward baker

More about → Moon Zero Two (1969)

Is Animal Testing Valid?

Hypocrisy on animal tests - Scotsman.com

Scotsman - Published Date: 07 November 2008
Dr Simon Festing (Letters, 5 November) accuses David Martin, MEP, of regurgitating misleading propaganda, while doing precisely that himself.

Dr Festing claims that experiments on monkeys have led to treatments for conditions such as stroke and Parkinson's disease, but this is not true. In fact, scientists acknowledge that one of the main reasons for our lack of effective stroke treatments is that tests in animals, particularly monkeys, have been so misleading.

Everything we know about Parkinson's disease has been learned from human patients, not monkeys. It is by studying humans and their tissues that we will find the answers to these terrible diseases.

Mr Martin calls for modern, effective research, but Dr Festing, who is paid to defend animal research, hypocritically accuses him of blocking progress.

(DR) MARGARET CLOTWORTHY
Safer Medicines Trust
PO Box 62720, London

More about → Is Animal Testing Valid?

Prepare JPG Files for Fax

This script prepares your scanned Jpgs for using them e.g. with the sipgate fax. Or you can simply join them together in a small (black&white) pdf. Of course you can change it.

#!/bin/bash
# (c) 2008 linux-tipps.blogspot.com
# published under GPL v. 3.0 or later.

which convert || echo Please install ImageMagick && exit 0;
which sam2p || echo Please install sam2p && exit 0;
which pdftk || echo Please install pdftk && exit 0;

mkdir tmp
cd tmp
ln ../*.jpg .
for i in *.jpg; do nice convert $i -unsharp 3x3 -monochrome $i.png; done
for i in *.png; do sam2p -pdf:b2 $i -pdf: $i.pdf; done
pdftk *.pdf cat output output.pdf
mv output ..
cd ..

rm -rI tmp

More about → Prepare JPG Files for Fax

"Begging the Software Gods"

"Begging the Software Gods" is an interesting read about what choices we make in Software and what they mean. A nice work of open source politics. I think I would not understate to say he is preaching open source ethics.

But I have one point to make: Unless you are (or employ) a mighty programmer, you are not as free as you feel after reading the article from your Linux system. ;-)

Update:
The point he makes is true and good. But in my view having a freedom is worth no more than you have the actual concrete ability to use it and gain direct benefit from it.

Now I think it should be made easier to actually do it, to benefit from that freedom. But e.g. finding a suitable programmer is often still complicated and not every open source project has a place to e.g. offer bounties. As he sais: it is not always an easy choice, but a worthy choice.

You have the freedom, but you can only really use it when you have someone with programming skills. And he did not mention that. (Of course that's not his point.)

The point I'm trying to make is that an infrastructure that enables the average non-programmer user (e.g. through money) to really take advantage of these freedoms (customize software) without much effort would have a positive effect for the open source community. It would give provide money to the programmers and help users in realizing the open source freedoms.

Now the other cool then is that you might actually get a programmer to write a feature for the same money you would have paid for a closed source software (esp. Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice). And when you do, everybody can profit from that. If more people would see that and act like it, the whole community would profit.

More about → "Begging the Software Gods"

TV International?

I still wonder why TV is not really international yet. We have endless countries with interesting TV channels. Especially US channels would probably get a lot of international viewers, as many people speak English and they often show things earlier than the TV stations in other countries.

But they don't broadcast their channels. At first they always claimed it would not be feasible technically, until Zattoo came along and proved what was clear before: Where there is a will, there is a way.

Now the TV stations claim they don't own the rights. Or they go online for some regions like hulu.com. And I still think: Where there's a will, there's a way. How long do we have to wait, until the Internet tears down the borders of TV stations?

How long until it will be possible to legally and comfortably watch your favorite TV series when it first aired.

More about → TV International?

How To Remove Pine Tree Sap from Clothes

How To Remove Pine Tree Sap from ClothesIf you've ever been unfortunate enough to get pine tree sap on your clothes then you know how hard it is to remove. That is until you know the secret to removing pine tree sap from clothes. Shhh... Don't tell anyone now. It's simply rubbing alcohol. Just dab some rubbing alcohol onto the tree sap stain, throw the piece of clothing into the washer and watch

More about → How To Remove Pine Tree Sap from Clothes

Setting up NX

A tutorial how to set up the IMHO best remote desktop connection: NX.

More about → Setting up NX

WPA Encryption Cracked

If you haven't already read about it, it seems to be true: The Wifi encryption protocoll WPA has been compromised. The method will probably published pretty soon.

That means many people will need a new router and a new setup for it. And for a long time many networks will remain open again. If you want a long term solution it more and more looks like a VPN solution is the only way to go.

And if I'm not mistaken he who managed it is Erik Tews from the German University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt.

Okay, it turned out the hack is not as bad as thought. It will probably still take some time and combination with other approaches to really become useful. But I think this might help around the current restriction that you can only decypher clients that connected after you were "listening" with WPA.

More about → WPA Encryption Cracked

Lego concept ships by Dasnewton

Check out these nice Lego builds from Rob Morrisseau.














Rob Morrisseau conceptships weekly header #34 November 7th - November 14th, 2008

Keywords: lego concept spaceships builds by dasnewton on flickr rob Morrisseau lego bricks flash turntables models animated lego concepts

More about → Lego concept ships by Dasnewton