Half-face statue in the British Museum. Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: this half-head of a statue on display in the British Museum. Link...

Radio troll "Filipino Monkey" may have transmitted in Strait of Hormuz. The threatening message received by a US Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a notorious radio troll known to seasoned skippers as the "Filipino Monkey." Indeed, the voice in the audio sounds different from the one belonging to an Iranian officer shown speaking to the cruiser Port Royal over a radio from a small open boat in the video released by Iranian authorities. He is shown in a radio exchange at one point asking the U.S. warship to change from the common bridge-to-bridge channel 16 to another channel, perhaps to speak to the Navy without being interrupted... ╲For 25 years thereâ•˙s been this mythical guy out there who, hour after hour, shouts obscenities and threats,╡ he said. ╲He could be tied up pierside somewhere or he could be on the bridge of a merchant ship.╡ And the Monkey has stamina. ╲He used to go all night long. The guy is crazy,╡ he said. ╲But who knows how many Filipino Monkeys there are? Could it have been a spurious transmission? Absolutely.╡ Link (Thanks, Bill!)...

RIP: "Vampira," Maila Nurmi.. Over at Blogging.la, Ruth Waytz writes: With a heavy heart I deliver the sad news that our friend Maila Nurmi, famous for her portrayal of Vampira, has passed at age 86. Maila passed away peacefully in her sleep at home. Funeral arrangements are pending legal steps as Maila had no relatives. Her friends are trying to get her a spot at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and will likely plan some sort of hearse procession for her.Link....

Army Seeks "Professional Celebrity Rock Music Band". Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room blog writes, It's not completely surprising that the Army wants to hire a band to tour its bases jn Afghanistan and Kuwait.  The armed services get all kinds of folks, to entertain the troops.  "But it's the way that they solicit for rock bands that makes the whole thing hilarious," Stephen Trimble notes.  First, a summary of what the Army is seeking:Professional Celebrity Rock Music Band, group not to exceed seven people for tour of FOB's [forward operating bases] in Kuwait and Afghanistan for February 4-13 2008. The band should be an active rock band, with a music genre consisting of Southern Rock, Pop Rock, Post-Grunge and Hard Rock. At least one member of the band should be recognizable as a professional celebrity. Protective military equipment, such as kevlar, body armour, eye and ear protection will be provided when the group is travelling on military rotary or fixed wing aircraft. Oh, and it gets better. Link....

Web Zen: pimp my zen. ride cup snack laptop safari firefox paper name CC-licensed image from Flickr user c h e e s e roc's photostream: Link. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)...

Kenya in crisis: analysis around the web. Snip from an article on AllAfrica.com: "It is the Kenyan People Who Have Lost the Election," headlined Pambazuka News in its special Kenya election edition on January 3. "But the real tragedy of Kenya," the editorial continued, is that the political conflict is not about alternative political programmes that could address ... landlessness, low wages, unemployment, lack of shelter, inadequate incomes, homelessness, etc. ... [instead] it boils down to a fight over who has access to the honey pot that is the state. ...[citizens] are reduced to being just being fodder for the pigs fighting over the trough." Commentaries of particular interest from the U.S.include an op-ed in the Washington Post by Caroline Elkins, "What's Tearing Kenya Apart? History, for One Thing," a statement by Africa Action stating that U.S.-Kenya policy should support "robust democratic processes" rather than be defined by "a narrow agenda of the war on terror and international business", and a statement by the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars highlighting "the role of the U.S. government -- far from a neutral player -- both before and after the elections" and the danger that U.S. involvement will be biased by its close military relations with the Kenyan government.. More on current events in Kenya at AllAfrica.com: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3. (via Ned Sublette)...

Hollywood's Hellfire Club event in Los Angeles. A special event for the release of the terrifically entertaining new Feral House book, The Hollywood Hellfire Club (with a beautiful cover by Drew Friedman), will be held on January 15 at The Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles at 8pm. They made fans go crazy and censors apoplectic, spent fortunes faster than they made them, forged Rembrandts and hung them in major museums, went on trial for committing statutory rape with necrophiliac teenage girls, reinterpreted Hamlet as an incestuous mamaâ•˙s boy, and swilled immeasurable quantities of spirits during week-long parties on wobbly yachts. They were ╲The Bundy Drive Boys,╡ and they made the Rat Pack look like Cub Scouts. The last thing one might expect from the tony street north of Sunset Blvd. in Brentwoodâ•˙s Bundy Drive would be a clan of obstreperous dipsomaniacs, but this was the '30s and '40s, when cocktail hour was a patriotic imperative, and the studio system was an autocratic lunacy to rebel against. (Well, some things never change.) This evening weâ•˙re celebrating the release of Feral Houseâ•˙s Hollywoodâ•˙s Hellfire Club: The Misadventures of John Barrymore, W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn and ╢The Bundy Drive Boysâ•˙ by screening the amazing early talkie Svengali starring John Barrymore as the piercing-eyed hypnotic music master and Marian Marsh as the mesmerized underage beauty Trilby. Also showing: W.C. Fieldsâ•˙ dirty short "The Dentist" and rare clips from Barrymore and Errol Flynn home movies. Weâ•˙ll also be displaying original art by John Decker, the man who collaborated on a West Hollywood art gallery with Errol Flynn, drew the notorious Barrymore Death Bed Sketch, and whose forgeries now hang in museums across the country, including Harvardâ•˙s Fogg Museum. Authors Gregory William Mank, Charles Heard and Bill Nelson will be available to sign copies of their celebrated book. Tickets - $10 Link Sample chapter 1 | Sample chapter 2...

City made of shiny disposable plastic objects from $0.99 stores. Dan sez, "Since you liked Chu Enoki's garbage city, you might like Chris Harvey's Mandala of Perfect Happiness, a sculpture made entirely from cheap plastic objects, many of them from 99 cent stores. Here are some pictures of it in my Flickr." Link (Thanks, Dan!)...

SimCity goes free software. SimCity has just been released as free software under the GPL version 3 license (though the name has been changed to Micropolis for trademark reasons; it was the original working title). This was precipitated by the inclusion of SimCity on the One Laptop Per Child XO machines, but no reason the kids should have all the fun. Can't wait to see the SimCity hacks that emerge now: The "MicropolisCore" project includes the latest Micropolis (SimCity) source code, cleaned up and recast into C++ classes, integrated into Python, using the wonderful SWIG interface generator tool. It also includes a Cairo based TileEngine, and a cellular automata machine CellEngine, which are independent but can be plugged together, so the tile engine can display cellular automata cells as well as SimCity tiles, or any other application's tiles. The key thing here is to peek inside the mind of the original Maxis programmers when they built it. Remember, this was back in the day when games had to fit inside of 640k so some "creative" programming techniques were employed. SimCity has been long a model used for urban planning and while it's just a game, there are a lot of business rules, ecosystem modeling, social dependencies, and other cool stuff going on in this codebase. It may not be pretty code but it's content sure is interesting to see. In any case, it's out there for you to grab and have fun with. It was originally written in C and of course is old (created before 1983 which is ancient in Internet time). Don spent a lot of time cleaning the code up (including ANSIfying it, reformatting it, optimizing, and bullet-proofing it) as best he could. Don ported the Mac version of SimCity to SunOS Unix running the NeWS window system about 15 years ago, writing the user interface in PostScript. A year or so later he ported it to various versions of Unix running X-Windows, using the TCL/Tk scripting language and gui toolkit. Several years later when Linux became viable, it was fairly straightforward to port that code to Linux, and then to port that to the OLPC. Link (via /.)...

Office tool crossed with a leatherman. The "5-in-1 Office Tool" is basically a leatherman whose body has been replaced with a pocket calculator. It sports a stapler, scissors, measuring tape, and paper-clip holder. Link (via Dvice)...

One million bilked in Chinese ant farming scheme. In a fascinating article, the LA Times reports that as many as one million working-class people in China have been fleeced of their hard-earned savings in an ant farming pyramid scheme run by a company with close ties to the Chinese government. These ants were far more than uninvited picnic guests, [investors] were told. When ground into a powder, they become an aphrodisiac, a kidney purifier and general cure-all, the Yilishen Tianxi Group declared. The ants would earn them a 30% annual return. In reality, critics say, the ants apparently were little more than the bait for a vast pyramid scheme. Over an eight-year period, the company recruited as many as 1 million would-be ant farmers, collecting about $1.2 billion. In mid-December, it filed for bankruptcy. ... The company hired as its spokesman Zhao Benshan, a famous comedian and actor who specializes in playing a hick. He has since dropped out of sight. The boxes at the heart of the ant farming business are made of cardboard with a 2-inch-square plastic window and a small feeding hole framed so badly with duct tape that they look like the work of a careless teenager with a box cutter. In return for their money, ant farmers were given the boxes, ants and a list of strict instructions: The ants need a spritz of water mixed with white sugar or honey at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day. They should be fed cake and egg yolks every three to five days. And they should be kept indoors. In return, the company would come and pick up dead dried ants every 74 days. Under no circumstances were the ant farmers to open their boxes and look inside, they were told, to ensure that the special Yilishen ants weren't mixed with inferior ants. Link UPDATE: The chairman of the company has been sentenced to death....

Hairy Rockers in Amsterdam. Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: these hairy parody rockers who showed up in the back of a truck after one of the sessions at last year's Picnic conference in Amsterdam, all spandex and Cousin It wigs. Link...

Shiny metal garbage city: Chu Enoki's RPM 1200. Sculptor Chu Enoki made this beautiful cityscape, entitled "RPM 1200," out of highly polished metal drill bits, junk and garbage. Link (via io9)...

Bent Objects: whimsical, emotional wire sculpture. Terry Border is a sculptor who uses wire and household objects to make whimsical, funny and emotional little sculptures that entertain the hell out of me. His blog notes that he has a book coming out, too. Link (via Neatorama)...

Chocolate chip cookie stink makes us buy sweaters. Researchers at the National University of Singapore have published a study that shows that photos and smells of delicious food cause us to make bad risk analysis and make impulse purchases: In the first experiment, Li asked participants to act as "photo editors of a magazine" and choose among either appetite stimulating pictures of food or non-appetite stimulating pictures of nature. A control group was shown no pictures at all. All were then asked to participate in a lottery that would either pay them less money sooner or more money later. Those who had been exposed to the photos of food were almost twenty percentage points more likely to choose the lottery with the chance of a smaller, more immediate payoff than those who were exposed to the photos of nature (61 percent vs. 41.5 percent) and eleven percentage points more likely to choose the short-term gain than those who had not been exposed to any stimulus (61 percent vs. 50 percent). Similarly, another experiment used a cookie-scented candle to further gauge whether appetitive stimulus affects consumer behavior. Female study participants in a room with a hidden chocolate-chip cookie scented candle were much more likely to make an unplanned purchase of a new sweater -- even when told they were on a tight budget -- than those randomly assigned to a room with a hidden unscented candle (67 percent vs. 17 percent). Link (Image: Bake at 325..., a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Clearly Ambiguous's Flickr stream)...

Jonathan Taplin's blog: smart reading about the economy, politics, media and communications. For the past couple weeks, one of my favorite blog-reads has been Jonathan Taplin's blog. I got to know Jon when I lived in LA last year when he was co-faculty with me at the USC Annenberg Centre: he's a smart polymath with a background as a music and film producer (Bob Dylan, Mean Streets, others), Democratic party shaker, financier, high-tech startup entrepreneur, and good thinker on diverse issues related to media, politics and technology. Taplin's blog is as eclectic as he is, a straight-up analysis blog that rips into the headlines, illuminating everything from economic news to the writers' strike to heavy weather to democratic politics. I keep finding myself returning to Taplin's posts as I read the news and talk with friends. Hollywood is caught in "The Prisoner's Dilemma", a classic bit of game theory that is behind such notions as a nuclear arms race. It would be in the financial and security self interest of both India and Pakistan to not spend billions on nuclear weapons, but because they don't trust each-other, they continue to do so, instead of feeding their poor. Hollywood moguls, caught up in the useless notion of "Market share", don't trust each-other to not make more movies to grab greater share. The notion of market share of the box office never entered Hollywood's lexicon until the Coca Cola company bought Columbia Pictures in 1982, bringing their supermarket shelf space POV to the movie business. Market share with a commodity product like sugar water is a fine notion. Market share with a one-off variable cost product like a movie is financial suicide. Coke quickly figured this out and in 1987 unloaded Columbia to Sony, desperate to own content so it didn't get screwed in the DVD wars to come as it had in the Betamax disaster. Of course Sony's guess turned out to be wrong as well, as their ownership of content has not helped BluRay's High Definition player succeed in a similar Prisoner's Dilemma stand off with Toshiba's HD DVD. The excess movie output problem is further complicated by the role of A list talent, who's only objective is to secure as many multi-million dollar fees per year as possible. They always believe their film will rise above the crowd, and when this does not happen, they have no penalty for the failure. No one ever asks Tom Cruise or Joel Silver to give back their fees on a bomb. With the hedge funds that fueled much of this madness now licking their wounds from the sub prime meltdown, perhaps some sanity may return to the business. Without crossing the anti-trust fine line, perhaps the majors and their equally guilty specialty divisions might make a New Year's resolution to cut back production. After all, the mark of a good business is not market share but Return on Investment. Link...

Sky Commuter vehicle prototype for sale. A concept "Sky Commuter aircraft" that absorbed $6 mil in startup capital is for sale on eBay. The seller appears to be one of the engineers, and the long description associated with the listing is a heartbreaking (and eccentrically punctuated) story of a beautiful, dashed dream: The development of this advanced technology and project started back in the mid 1980's. Design and engineering was created by Boeing engineer's in Arlington Washington. Some 60 investors and well over $6,000.000.00 in R&D and production yielded only (3) concept test ships before the plant was shut down for reasons not listed here. The sad end was all and anything that was in the hangar was taken and or destroyed. This sole example of this technology, Advancements and investments are present and was saved in this single craft. The ship was not at the base location at the time or it to would have been destroyed... In a brief description of the ship: It has a operational electric gas assisted lexan bubble canopy. Electric controled directional driving and landing lights. Electric Joystick and two foot pedals on both side and the craft was meant to be controlled from either seat. Advanced front dash shell made of Carbonfiber and Kevlar. Rear engine and electronics bay accessible by tilting seats forward and removing the back panel. (3) huge 3 foot lifting fans CCW/CW rotation. This was made to take off in vertical fight and land. It can be landed on water and float like a boat and take off of water. The targeted dream was to lift above it all and not deal with the daily gridlock traffic. Nearly at the finish line it all came to a abrupt stop and all the years and investment and R&D and production, Remains in this one craft shown here. Link (Thanks, Bill!)...

Virtual Artists, Inc: writers and geeks team up to bypass the studios. Hollywood writers and Silicon Valley geeks are teaming up to create startups like Virtual Artists modelled on the original United Artists, in which artists own and operate the studio: Some writers are now taking matters into their own hands, using their downtime to meet with venture backers, other writers and technologists. "We should show the studios some gratitude for getting us together," said "Rain Man" coauthor Ron Bass, a member of the WGA's negotiating committee and an investor and director of Virtual Artists. "This is not just an Internet play, but the beginning of what the future is going to look like." About 20 entertainment and software writers are investing an average of $10,000 for a chunk of Virtual Artists. Co-founded by Aaron Mendelsohn, a screenwriter who created "Air Bud," Virtual Artists plans to fund projects as varied as shorts and feature-length movies. Its other investors include star television writer Tom Fontana of "Homicide" and "Oz"; "Hotel Rwanda" co-writer and director Terry George; "Chicken Run" screenplay author Karey Kirkpatrick; and John Logan, writer of "Sweeney Todd" and "The Aviator." Susannah Grant, who wrote "Erin Brockovich," and Warren Leight, who runs the TV show "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," also have agreed to invest. Link to LA Times story, Link to Virtual Artists, Inc (Thanks, Henri!) See also: Striking writers talk of launching web startups...

Using rabies to deliver drugs directly to the brain. Marilyn sez, "Harvard Medical School researchers have developed an ingenious way to deliver drugs directly to the brain (in order to kill a tumor, for example), that uses the virus that causes rabies, which is extremely effective in infiltrating the blood brain barrier that blocks most other kinds of molecules." In this study, the drug was injected into the tail of the mice, targeting the blood vessels. Using small interfering RNA (siRNA) as a drug treatment for many diseases has been powerfully successful in other animal models, but the problem has always been the process of making it a practical drug for clinical application. Therefore, this new technology developed by Kumar et al sheds light into a new, non-invasive and feasible way to deliver siRNA specifically to the brain. siRNA is gaining popularity as a preferred drug treatment method since its early conception in the past seven years. It takes advantage of the cellâ•˙s ability to stop its own protein production as soon as a short RNA sequence corresponding to the protein is detected outside of the cellâ•˙s nucleus. This triggers a powerful protein synthesis arrest, which can be harnessed to modulate or treat diseases such as diabetes, Hepatitis C, and even transplant rejection. Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)...

Free muni WiFi forces local monopoly to improve. Competition from a free municipal WiFi network in Lawrence, KS (a one-ISP town) has forced the local monopoly into providing a competing free service: Lawrence has been touted nationally as the "land that anti-trust forgot". It is one of the few cities in America where one company owns the cable provider, cable news channel, daily newspaper, online news journal, weekly independent and most popular website. What keeps this media machine running smoothly? Broadband Internet revenue. According to Ralph Gage, former Chief Operating Officer of The World Company, 53 percent of the World Companyâ•˙s annual revenue was generated by broadband Internet access. "What better place to start a municipal WiFi project," jokes Joshua Montgomery, founder of the Lawrence Freenet Project and CEO of the organizationâ•˙s for-profit service provider, "I mean what could possibly go wrong?" The Lawrence Freenet municipal WiFi project was launched in April of 2005 by a small group of local geeks. "Mostly we just wanted to see what we could do with Wi-Fi," says Montgomery, "we started off with a $50 WiFi access point and a DSL connection. Now the organization has one of the largest mesh networks in the nation and serves over 1,100 members with broadband Internet access â•„ all without a single dime of tax payer money." Link (Thanks, Offlogic!)...

Sculptural "noisy instrument" -- abstract seashell that fits your ear. Jun Murakoshi's "Noisy Instrument" is a hollow sculpture that fits into your ear and exploits the same dynamics that make the oceanic seashell noises to create a unique set of sounds: What has not been done by using rapid prototyping technique? My answer is making sounds. It must be difficult to make music but it could be possible to make noise. When you put a seashell on your ear, you can hear something strange noise. It is noise but it makes us feel good. This product is a wearable instrument for listening the noise like seashell makes. Link (via Dvice)...

Nature NeuroPod visits SfN megaconference.

Nature Neuroscience's NeuroPod podcast has a special on the recent Society for Neuroscience annual megaconference that picks up on some of the more interesting new developments.

There's loads of fascinating new findings in there, but don't miss the last few minutes of the podcast where Prof Eleanor Maguire talks about ongoing work with London Taxi drivers.

McGuire's team famously discovered in 2000 that London Taxi drivers have bigger than average hippocampi, a brain structure known to be heavily involved in learning routes and spatial representations.

The study found that the size of the hippocampus correlated with the length of time being a taxi driver, suggesting that the extensive training and navigational experience may change and develop the hippocampus.

The study won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003 for research "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced" but was actually one of the first studies to show likely experience-related changes to the structure of the human brain.

In the podcast Maguire discusses a new study which updates the findings and suggests that the taxi drivers' pumped hippocampi come at a cost.

While their navigational abilities were increased, their ability to learn new associations between things (another function of the hippocampus) was poor, and the size of the anterior hippocampi (a more forward area) was actually smaller.

This suggests that overdevelopment in one area of the hippocampus may actually reduce development in another.

mp3 of NeuroPod special at SfN 2007 conference.
Link to NeuroPod index page.
pdf of Eleanor Maguire's Taxi driver update study.

Fighting over inner experience.

Salon has an entertaining review of the new book Describing Inner Experience which is sort of a combination of an argument and a self-consciousness showdown between philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel and psychologist Russell Hurlburt.

Schwitzgebel is sceptical that we can accurately describe our inner thoughts and experiences, while Hurlburt feels that we are capable of doing so, when properly directed.

If you think that it's obvious we can describe our inner mental states, start by reading the review and you'll get a flavour of what the problem is.

At the beginning of the book's central section, Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel meet their volunteer. Her pseudonym is Melanie. She is in her 20s, and she has an interest in psychology but no experience in these debates. Hurlburt explains the rules to her: She will simply tell them what was on her mind just before each beep, and they will try to figure out if her reports are accurate.

Hurlburt handles the direct questioning, then turns her over to Schwitzgebel for cross-examination. They have six sessions, each about an hour long. And over the course of these sessions, something unexpected happens, a novelistic twist that is subtle, hilarious and hard to describe. A battle for interpretive credibility emerges, as the doubt Schwitzgebel casts upon Melanie's self-understanding rebounds upon himself.

The preface and first chapter of the book are freely available online if you want to learn more, and the book itself has just been published.

Link to Salon review.
Link to details of book and sample preface and chapter.

Im Anflug. Quelle: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of WashingtonGestern Abend war auf den Bildern aus zwei Mllionen Kilometern Entfernung noch nichts zu sehen. Aber morgen Nachmittag wirds dann ernst: Messenger richtet seine Instrumente auf den Merkur und wird in den nÀchsten 55 Stunden insgesamt 700 Megabyte Daten, darunter 1200 Bilder, sammeln.Das wird der erste [...]

Weihnachtspause. Ich gebs zu, ich geh̦re eigentlich nicht zu den Leuten, die sich leichtfertig mit Weihnachtsstimmung anstecken lassen. Aber irgendwann kann man sich dem einfach nicht mehr entziehen, und deshalb legt Michaels Weblog jetzt eine kleine Feiertagspause ein.Ich w̹nsche allen Lesern und Besuchern sch̦ne und erholsame Feiertage und vorsorglich schonmal einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!

Rot. (Eigenartigerweise habe ich jetzt Appetit auf Johannisbeermarmelade.)

Winteriges.

Mit Sicherheit Ãπberwacht. Unter dem Stichwort "Krieg gegen den Terror" dringen Geheimdienste und Strafverfolger immer tiefer in die PrivatsphÀre auch unbescholtener BÃπrger ein. Der Schutz der BÃπrgerrechte und demokratische Prinzipien wie die Gewaltenteilung werden von den Regierungen allzu hÀufig dem Sicherheitsdenken geopfert.

Die IT-Woche im Ã˛berblick. In Las Vegas ist mit der Consumer Electronics Show [CES] die weltgröÃte Messe fÃπr Unterhaltungselektronik Ãπber die BÃπhne gegangen, die ganz im Zeichen von High Definition stand. Das war die Woche von 7. bis 12. JÀnner.

Computermaus misst den Blutdruck. Werte werden im Logbuch gespeichert

Galileo-Kosten weit h̦her als geplant. F̹nf bis zehn Mrd. Euro Investitionen n̦tig

Kunststoff l̦st die Glasfaser ab. Statt der teuren Glasfaser sollen k̹nftig Lichtwellenleiter aus Kunststoff f̹r hohe Breitbandgeschwindigkeiten in Europas Heimnetzwerken sorgen. Die optischen Polymerfaserkabel sind kosteng̹nstig, flexibel und sțrstromunempfindlich.

Was war. Was wird.

Gentoo-GrÃπnder Robbins will Eisen aus dem Feuer holen

Fliegender Untersatz fÃπr Hinterntattoo

EU-Behörde erklÀrt Lebensmittel aus geklonten Tieren fÃπr sicher

Britische Schulbehörde rÀt von Migration auf Microsofts Vista ab

MP3sparks.com macht gemeinsame Sache mit Cybercrime-Hoster â•„ und wird geblockt [Update]

Hohe Strompreise: Hunderttausende wechseln den Anbieter

Schwachstelle in IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Express

Galileo-Projekt wird noch teurer

Èsterreichisches Urteil gegen Abzocker mit "Gratis"-Diensten

Bericht: Universal kÃπndigt Exklusiv-Vertrag mit HD DVD [Update]

Knob Creek. Bottled at 100 proof (higher than the standard 80) and aged for 9 years. It comes in a rectangular bottle with a corked and wax-sealed top. The bottle itself is reminiscent of the older style whiskey flasks. The wrapper is also a reminder of days past when the distiller would wrap the bottles in newspaper before shipping. The bourbon itself has a dark, golden-brown color. The flavor is fairly distinct due to its light sweetness. According to the Small Batch company, this is due the long aging process, during which it absorbs more sugar than usual. It is aged near the center of the rackhouse due to the warmer temperatures which are needed to produce a higher quality bourbon. Like most bourbons, it is commonly drunk straight/neat, over ice, or mixed with cola, water, or other mixers.

Pinball Number Count Revisited. In one of the earliest posts on [blog] Fong Songs, I focused on a funky little ditty known as the Pinball Number Count (YT, 02:42), which we should all fondly remember from our collective childhood memories of Sesame Street.    Since that original post, the song has been covered several times, parodied on Family Guy, released on DVD(s), gotten its own Wikipedia entry, inspired clocks, and much more...    Cover versions of -- and musical tributes to -- the original tune written by Walt Kraemer and performed by the Pointer Sisters.    [free music]    [cc: blogs & zines, the good ol' days]

Filler. In Filler, your goal is simple: fill 2/3 of the level. To create a filler ball, press down. It will grow until you release the mouse button, it hits another filler ball, or a bouncing ball runs into it.    Mouse down to create a filler ball. Release the mouse to freeze it. You have a limited number of lives and balls each level...    (Flash)

And Then There Was One. Discovery of a lone survivor of an unknown Indian tribe in Brazil set off accusations of murder and a struggle over ownership of one of the world's last great wilderness areas    The rumor was a wild one, and it seized Marcelo dos Santos with the power of a primary myth.    There's an Indian living in the woods around here, some local ranch hands were saying in 1996. He wears no clothes. Get near him, and he vanishes. He is utterly alone.    Marcelo knew a lot about elusive Indians -- more than just about anyone. He was a sertanista, a uniquely Brazilian profession that is part jungle explorer, part ethnologist and part bureaucrat. As a member of Funai -- the Brazilian government agency charged with protecting indigenous interests and cultures -- Marcelo's specialty was "uncontacted" Indians, those tribes that remain isolated from modern man. His territory was Rondonia, a heavily forested area that had been largely undeveloped before the government declared it a state and opened it to agriculture in the early 1980s. After that, loggers and ranchers began streaming in, and Marcelo blamed them for the denuded pastureland that was eating into the forest from all sides.    Just a few months earlier, Marcelo and his tracking partner Altair Algayer had made first contact with an isolated tribe of Kanoe Indians that had been reduced to five survivors. Shortly after that, they found another tribe, the Akuntsu, with only six members living several miles from the Kanoe. They'd gotten the land for those tribes declared off-limits to development. And for that, the loggers and ranchers who wanted a piece of that land for themselves viewed Marcelo and Altair just as suspiciously as those two viewed the loggers and ranchers.    But this rumor, of a single Indian on his own in the jungle, was too compelling to ignore, even if it meant spending time among the kind of people that Funai explorers generally tried to avoid...    [e-mail and password: spammy@gmail.com]    Related LF post

Cult Sirens. The term "Scream Queen", if I recall correctly, was created somewhere in the early eighties, by someone in the media covering cinematic fantasy. That way, it helped categorize and recognize the numerous actresses frequently hired for horror pictures. More often than not, these women worked in awkward conditions and portrayed characters in mainly decorative roles. The principal goal of this site is to honor some of these brave souls, famous or not, and give some deserving web space to more undeservedly obscure actresses. Are there many sites are devoted to Jennifer Love Hewitt or Sarah Michelle Gellar? Many. Why can't we find the same amount of quality information on Edwige Fenech, Daria Nicolodi or Laura Gemser...? I have no clue. So, I'll try my best here. And I named them Cult Sirens, since the term "Scream Queen" was probably copyrighted long ago. That way, we can cover horror, sci-fi, euro-trash, B-movies, Z-movies, fantasy, etc...    With link to blog.    Let's say it's...

Storm porn: Has the weather gone Hollywood?. In an effort to grab higher ratings and boost advertising in a fiercely competitive market, some television stations are being accused of exaggerating, dare we say hyping, their weather forecasts.    Crippling ice storms, devastating tsunamis and powerful hurricanes enthral viewers like a drawn-out O.J. Simpson trial or the heart-wrenching coverage of 9/11. Hurricane Katrina had us mesmerized for weeks â•„ and the ad revenue flowed.    It used to be that weather forecasters were criticized for getting it wrong. Now, in true Chicken Little style, it's being suggested they're consistently overstating their predictions â•„ the depth of snow, the severity of wind-chill factors â•„ urging the audience to brace for the worst.    David Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada, calls it "storm porn."

Should do this. We all have ideas for making things better. Ideas to improve a product, a company, your city, or just about anything in the world. Should Do This is the  best suggestion box for getting your ideas heard. Suggest improvements for the world around you, see what others are suggesting and join the dialog of  thinkers and tinkerers. Let people know what you think would make just about anything, better. From the same people who developed 43things.  

[video] How To Make Fire Balls. Tutorial on how to make a fireball that you can hold in your hand, toss around, and amaze (not ignite) others with.    (Flash, 03:32)

PETA Killed 97 Percent of 'Companion Animals' in 2006. An official report from People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), submitted nine months after a Virginia government agency's deadline, shows that the animal rights group put to death more than 97 percent of the dogs, cats, and other pets it took in for adoption in 2006. During that year, the well-known animal rights group managed to find adoptive homes for just 12 pets.    The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is calling on PETA to either end its hypocritical angel-of-death program, or stop its senseless condemnation of Americans who believe it's perfectly ethical to use animals for food, clothing, and critical medical research.

REAL ID postponed 5 more years, required in May for flights. The Bush administration hit the brakes Friday on a controversial law requiring Americans to carry tamper-proof driver's licenses, delaying its final implementation by five years, until 2017.    A number of states have balked at the law, objecting to it largely over cost and privacy concerns. But under the administration's new edict, states that continue to fight compliance with the law face a penalty: Their residents will be forbidden from using driver's licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings as of May 11 of this year.    Congress passed the Real ID law in 2005 to address security flaws spotlighted by the 2001 terrorist attacks. But 17 states, including Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, have passed legislation calling for its repeal or opposing its implementation.    "Come May 2008, [their] citizens . . . will feel the consequences" of the states' resistance, Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke said Friday. To board a plane or enter a federal building, those residents will have to use a passport or other form of accepted identification, he said.

Robbie Williams 'goes on strike'. Robbie Williams will refuse to make another album for his record label EMI, according to a report.    The singer is still under contract with EMI, but is unhappy after the label was taken over by private equity firm Terra Firma, his manager has told The Times.

Charlie Wilson's brother in arms. Charles Nesbitt Wilson is not the sort of all-American hero that Hollywood tends to celebrate. The controversial former congressman had a string of affairs, took a belly dancer with him on government trips overseas, and was accused of snorting cocaine with strippers in a casino whirlpool bath.

Vampira Dies of Natural Causes. You can stop the whole „did Elvira rip-off Vampira‰ debate because it doesn‚t matter anymore. Maila Nurmi aka Vampira passed away in her sleep at the age of 86 due to natural causes.

Fav.or.it. fav.or.it is our answer to the current separation of feed reading and commenting. We have built a web interface that lets you  read all your favorite content and at the same time take part in an interactive community. fav.or.it is also a blogging platform letting  you write your own blog posts and publish them out onto the internet. On top of this you can republish any content within fav.or.it  to build up new and exciting mashups. Site allows you to filter posts by catigory, tag, rank or a combination of the 3.  

California Seeks Thermostat Control. Next year in California, state regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.

Es liegt was in der Luft…. Die Spannung steigt - die ersten Banner aus SF

Shift Linux pre 0.6 KDE4 release. We are happy to announce that we have released a Shift Linux pre 0.6 KDE4 version for you to try. KDE4 was just released on the 11th, and we wanted to try this new desktop version with our distribution. We have based this test version on Ubuntu and have incorporated all of the latest packages. It has not been branded, but it does contain a working installer.

We have also included all of the packages that we have had with previous versions of Shift. Please feel free to give it a try. Bugs may be posted on the Shift Linux subforum.

View: Shift Linux Website
View: Shift Linux Forum

This is BETA software!, please use caution when installing it on your system
Download: Download Shift Linux pre 0.6 KDE4 release

Read full story...

Creative Labs plans a high-end PCIe card. Creative Labs is in the process of designing a new high-end sound card based on an X-FI design, but this time it plans to launch a high-end card. It will launch something similar to the Elite Pro edition or a Fatal1ty-based product with the high-end bundling package and the external unit ,but this time around it will finally fit into a PCIe slot. Creative doesn’t need more than PCIe 1X as this is enough bandwidth for a sound card.

News source: FudZilla

Read full story...

Tiger Direct: HD DVD Player for $129. The past two weeks have been rough for the HD DVD camp: Warner has defected to Blu-ray and there are strong rumors that Universal and Paramount are going to defect as well. It is no surprise then that we are starting to see heavily discounted HD DVD players. Tiger Direct is now selling the A3 for $129. It's a good idea to flood the market with your inexpensive players.

Screenshot: Tiger Direct has the A3 for $129
View: Product Page

Read full story...

Warning on stealthy Windows rootkit. Security experts are warning about a stealthy Windows rootkit that steals login details for online bank accounts. In the last month, the malicious program has racked up about 5,000 victims - most of whom are in Europe. Many are falling victim via booby-trapped websites that use vulnerabilities in Microsoft's browser to install the attack code. Experts say the virus is dangerous because it can avoid detection by burying itself deep inside part of a computer's hard drive called the Master Boot Record (MBR). This is where a computer looks when it is switched on for information about the operating system it will be running.

"If you can control the MBR, you can control the operating system and therefore the computer it resides on," wrote Elia Florio on security company Symantec's blog. Mr Florio pointed out that many viruses dating from the days before Windows used the Master Boot Record to get a grip on a computer. Once installed the virus, dubbed Mebroot by Symantec, usually downloads other malicious programs, such as keyloggers, to do the work of stealing confidential information.

View: Full story @ BBC News

Read full story...

The 50's in Germany.. I guess this is one of the best websites around. Fab. Many thanks to M. Kranz for the link.

Kuomintang gewinnt haushoch - Handelsblatt.

Zisch

Kuomintang gewinnt haushoch
Handelsblatt - vor 15 Stunden gefunden
Die oppositionelle Nationale Volkspartei (Kuomintang) hat die Parlamentswahlen in Taiwan klar gewonnen. Das Ergebnis dÃπrfte eine starke Wirkung auf die demnÀchst anstehende PrÀsidentschaftswahl haben. Erste Konsequenzen hat PrÀsident Chen Shui Bian, ...
Opposition gewinnt Wahl in Taiwan Netzeitung
Haushoher Wahlsieg fÃπr Taiwans Opposition WELT ONLINE
Financial Times Deutschland - Reuters Deutschland - RP ONLINE - Spiegel Online
und 212 Àhnliche Artikel

VdK fordert bessere Riester-Bedingungen fÃπr Geringverdiener - Reuters Deutschland.

Aufgehoben, nicht freigesprochen - WELT ONLINE.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Aufgehoben, nicht freigesprochen
WELT ONLINE - vor 10 Stunden gefunden
Wenige Wochen vor dem 75. Jahrestag der Brandstiftung im Berliner Reichstag am 27. Februar 1933 hat die Bundesanwaltschaft das Todesurteil gegen Marinus van der Lubbe aufgehoben. Es war am 23. Dezember 1933 nach dem bis dahin spektakulÀrsten Prozess ...
Urteil 74 Jahre nach Hinrichtung aufgehoben Focus Online
Marinus van der Lubbe rehabilitiert sueddeutsche.de
Spiegel Online - Reuters Deutschland - n-tv - taz
und 38 Àhnliche Artikel

Kenan Kolat plant "Verhaltens-Kodex" fÃπr Debatte um Jugendgewalt - Spiegel Online.

POLIXEA Portal

Kenan Kolat plant "Verhaltens-Kodex" fÃπr Debatte um Jugendgewalt
Spiegel Online - 11. Jan. 2008
Vorstoà aus der TÃπrkischen Gemeinde in Deutschland: Der Vorsitzende Kenan Kolat will einen Verhaltenskodex fÃπr die Debatte um Jugendgewalt entwickeln. Politiker und Verbandsvertreter sollten sich damit dazu verpflichten, sich "nicht mehr ...
CDU-Politiker: Kolat soll zurÃπcktreten Tagesspiegel
Rassismus-VorwÃπrfe â•ıKoch fÃπr DeutschtÃπrken nicht wÀhlbar╲ Focus Online
POLIXEA Portal - WELT ONLINE - Financial Times Deutschland - Derwesten.de
und 69 Àhnliche Artikel

Ein sonniger Sonntag - Netzeitung.

Donnerwetter.de

Ein sonniger Sonntag
Netzeitung - vor 45 Minuten gefunden
Viel Sonne wird es an diesem Sonntag geben, nur an der Nordsee wird etwas Regen erwartet. Auch die Temperaturen lassen nichts zu wÃπnschen Ãπbrig und runden einen fÃπr die Jahreszeit milden Tag ab. Am Sonntag bleibt es in Deutschland weitgehend trocken, ...
Am Sonnabend zeitweise Sonne - meist trocken WELT ONLINE
Es bleibt wechselhaft und mild Handelsblatt
Europaticker - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Donnerwetter.de - Kölnische Rundschau
und 28 Àhnliche Artikel

Banken drohen neue Milliardenabschreibungen - WELT ONLINE.

Das Zukunftsformat ist bald schon wieder Vergangenheit - sueddeutsche.de.

MSN Computer & Technik

Das Zukunftsformat ist bald schon wieder Vergangenheit
sueddeutsche.de - 11. Jan. 2008
Von Thorsten Riedl Es sind solche Reaktionen, die zeigen, wie die Börse tickt: Vor wenigen Tagen hat der US-Medienkonzern Time Warner bekannt gegeben, dass er von Mai an Filme nur noch auf sogenannten Blu-ray-Medien veröffentlicht. ...
Bericht: Universal kÃπndigt Exklusiv-Vertrag mit HD DVD Heise Newsticker
Auch Constantin-Film setzt auf Blue-ray ZDFheute.de
Spiegel Online - Golem.de - NZZ Online - IT-Times
und 98 Àhnliche Artikel

Merkur heizt "Messenger" auf Pizzaofen-Temperatur - Spiegel Online.

AstroNews

Merkur heizt "Messenger" auf Pizzaofen-Temperatur
Spiegel Online - vor 20 Stunden gefunden
Von Guido Meyer Die Nasa-Sonde "Messenger" erreicht den Merkur - den heiÃesten Ort im Planetensystem. Astronomen hoffen, endlich einige seiner Geheimnisse aufklÀren zu können: Wie sieht zum Beispiel die mysteriöse SÃπdhalbkugel aus? ...
Messenger fliegt vorbei Besuch beim Merkur n-tv
Besuch beim kleinsten Planeten Tagesspiegel
wissenschaft.de - Wissenschaft-Online - FR-online.de - grenzwissenschaft-aktuell.de
und 15 Àhnliche Artikel

Marion Jones Die groÃe LebenslÃπge - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Yahoo! Eurosport

Marion Jones Die groÃe LebenslÃπge
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - vor 33 Minuten gefunden
Von JÃπrgen Kalwa, New York 13. Januar 2008 Der Gang ins GefÀngnis wÀre Marion Jones vermutlich erspart geblieben. Doch die amerikanische Leichtathletin hatte eben zu viele Haken geschlagen, zudem ein paar Gesetze Ãπbertreten. Und dann stand sie mit den ...
Marion Jones muss ins GefÀngnis WELT ONLINE
Sechs Monate Haft fÃπr Marion Jones Financial Times Deutschland
Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger - Sport1.de - NZZ Online - Derwesten.de
und 144 Àhnliche Artikel

Michael Greis Erster Saisonsieg fÃπr Olympiasieger - Focus Online.

sportgate

Michael Greis Erster Saisonsieg fÃπr Olympiasieger
Focus Online - vor 17 Stunden gefunden
Der dreimalige Biathlon-Olympiasieger Michael Greis kommt drei Wochen vor WM-Beginn in Schwung und hat in Ruhpolding den Sprint-Weltcup gewonnen. Der Nesselwanger gewann am Samstag vor 18 000 Zuschauern in Ruhpolding den Weltcup-Sprint Ãπber 10 ...
Biathlon-Weltcup: Greis holt seinen ersten Saisonsieg Die Zeit
Erster Saisonsieg fÃπr Greis derStandard.at
Financial Times Deutschland - Stern - n-tv - Tagesspiegel
und 91 Àhnliche Artikel

Findet die Golden-Globe-Gala doch statt? - Stern.

Elbenwald

Findet die Golden-Globe-Gala doch statt?
Stern - vor 18 Stunden gefunden
Neue Wende im Hollywood-Drama um die Golden Globes: Nachdem es schon fast so aussah, als ob noch nicht einmal die Pressekonferenz im Fernsehen Ãπbertragen wird, könnte jetzt doch die Gala einigermaÃen stilvoll Ãπber die Runden gehen. ...
Golden Globes jetzt offen fÃπr alle Medien WELT ONLINE
Kein Protest bei Vergabe der Golden Globes geplant derStandard.at
Max Online - Basler Zeitung - Bieler Tagblatt - OÈNachrichten
und 277 Àhnliche Artikel

Gaby Köster in Klinik eingeliefert - Spiegel Online.

oe24.at

Gaby Köster in Klinik eingeliefert
Spiegel Online - vor 21 Stunden gefunden
Comedy-Star Gaby Köster ist einem Zeitungsbericht zufolge schwer erkrankt. Die 46-JÀhrige soll einen Hirninfarkt erlitten haben und seit Mittwoch in der neurologischen Abteilung einer Kölner Klinik liegen. Hamburg - "Sie wird auf der Intensivstation ...
Comedy-Star Gaby Köster schwer erkrankt Focus Online
Gaby Köster mit Hirninfarkt in Klinik Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger
RP ONLINE - AFP - die-news.de - Tirol Online
und 29 Àhnliche Artikel

Unions- und SPD-Politiker fordern Stopp des Gesundheitsfonds - AFP.

̳rzteverband fordert Konsequenzen aus britischer Datenpannen-Serie - Heise Newsticker.

DGB fordert Stopp der Gesundheitsreform - Reuters Deutschland.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

DGB fordert Stopp der Gesundheitsreform
Reuters Deutschland - vor 17 Stunden gefunden
Die groÃe Koalition sollte den Gesundheitsfonds und damit auch die ZusatzbeitrÀge aussetzen, sagte der DGB-Chef Michael Sommer der "Bild am Sonntag". Stattdessen mÃπsse eine "echte Finanzreform des Gesundheitswesens" in Angriff genommen werden. ...
Regierung soll laut DGB Gesundheitsreform aussetzen WELT ONLINE
DGB-Chef fordert Stopp der "missglÃπckten Gesundheitsreform" AFP
Ad-Hoc-News (Pressemitteilung) - PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung) - Epoch Times Deutschland - MVregio
und 32 Àhnliche Artikel

Grandseigneur und Steuermann - Jobst Plog nimmt Abschied - NDR Online.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Grandseigneur und Steuermann - Jobst Plog nimmt Abschied
NDR Online - vor 22 Stunden gefunden
Einer der mÀchtigsten MedienmÀnner Deutschlands nimmt Abschied: Jobst Plog. 17 Jahre stand er an der Spitze des Norddeutschen Rundfunks und scheidet nun als dienstÀltester Intendant der ARD aus dem Amt. Mit ihm geht einer der markantesten und ...
Abschiedsempfang mit prominenten GÀsten WELT ONLINE
"Das Leben geht weiter" Stern
Holsteinischer Courier - Hannoversche Allgemeine (Abonnement) - PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)
und 48 Àhnliche Artikel

Bush in Kuwait und Bahrain: Warnung an Iran und Syrien - derStandard.at.

Zisch

Bush in Kuwait und Bahrain: Warnung an Iran und Syrien
derStandard.at - vor 15 Stunden gefunden
Manama/Bagdad - US-PrÀsident George W. Bush hat den Iran erneut aufgefordert, die UnterstÃπtzung von Extremisten und Terroristen im Irak zu stoppen. Auch Syrien mÃπsse den "Strom der Terroristen" in das Nachbarland unterbinden. ...
Bush sieht Trendwende bei Sicherheitslage im Irak Reuters Deutschland
Bush lobt Bush sueddeutsche.de
EuroNews - SF Tagesschau - AFP - Kurier
und 110 Àhnliche Artikel

Heftige VorwÃπrfe gegen das Jugendamt - Stern.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Heftige VorwÃπrfe gegen das Jugendamt
Stern - 10. Jan. 2008
Die fÃπnfjÀhrige Lea-Sophie aus Schwerin ist möglicherweise auch verhungert, weil das zustÀndige Jugendamt versagt hat. Interne Notizen der Behörde dokumentieren deutliche VerstöÃe gegen die eigenen Vorschriften zum Kindeswohl. ...
Jugendamt ignorierte offenbar viele Hinweise WELT ONLINE
Schwere VorwÃπrfe gegen Jugendamt Spiegel Online
Topnews - Tagesspiegel - T-online Lifestyle - MVregio
und 22 Àhnliche Artikel

Watch TV with Miro. Miro, free and open source, lets you view free internet video channels and play any video file, such as mariposaHD.

Rocky Oliver: Announcing Lotusphere Idol!. We're going to give you the opportunity to earn a prestigious session slot, as a speaker, at Lotusphere! ... But before you submit, there are some requirements. First, you must NOT have spoken at Lotusphere in the last 3 years, if ever. This is for those people who have never ...

BlackBerry vs iPhone

Americans and Europeans Raised in Prejudice and Ignorance By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

Georgia's Election: Article Roundup By nospam@example.com (Kyle Atwell).

Huckabee: United States Does Integration Better than Europe By nospam@example.com (Kyle Atwell).

French Conservative: "Union of the West" will Sustain Western Dominance By nospam@example.com (Kyle Atwell).

Obama's Popularity in Germany: The New Kennedy By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

Does Turkey See the United States or Europe as a More Reliable Partner? By nospam@example.com (Kyle Atwell).

Barack Obama's Lack of Real Interest in Transatlantic Cooperation By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

"Terrorists on Honeymoon" in Lower Saxony By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

Exaggerating Anti-Americanism By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

New Year's Eve: Silly or Serious? By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

"The Strongest Trans-Atlantic Relations..." By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

G8 Finances 70 Projects to Improve Afghan-Pakistan Cooperation By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

Europe has no Pakistan Policy, US has a Bad One By nospam@example.com (Kyle Atwell).

The Video and Food Round Up By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

Contemplating Germany with Nukes By nospam@example.com (Joerg Wolf).

The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry. After suffering bumps in the road to development, Apple's iPhone takes the wireless industry by storm, and turns a power structure between carriers and manufacturers on its head in the process.

Crowds Converge on 2008 Consumer Electronics Show.

New Year's Eve Glitches Underscore Limitations of Texting, Mobiles. The world didn't end and most calls and messages got through, but the high volume of texting and cellphone calls resulted in a lot of bounce-backs. In a real crisis, this could mean real trouble.

A New Attempt to Make S.F. a Truly Wireless Town. Google and Earthlink tried, and failed, disappearing in a sea of bureaucratic red tape. Now a startup hopes to persuade San Franciscans to voluntarily put radio repeaters on their rooftops. Good luck with that.

CES Preview: Phonemakers, Carriers Take Aim at iPhone Magic. Phonemakers and carriers are counting on the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show as a chance to recover from the 2007 CES, when Apple's announcement of the iPhone eclipsed anything debuted in Las Vegas.

From Cellphone to Sell Phone: Can the Marketers Be Stopped?. All that stands between you and seeing your cellphone turned into a conduit for endless sales-pitch intrusions is your mobile provider, who, for now at least, is skittish about violating any privacy laws. That could change, however.

Mobiles Eclipse Landlines As the Voice of the Land. The year ending looks like it will go into the books as the first year in which Americans spent more money on cellphone services than traditional landlines, the industry reports.

Whatever Happened to the Other iPhone?. Linksys has an iPhone too, announced well before Apple's product of the same name. It's a phone to use with VOIP services, so why don't they call it something else?

iClone: The Very Best iPhone Imitators.

Western Electric 500: The Iconic Image for All Telephones. Like Ford's Model T, the Western Electric 500 is the iconic image of a telephone in 1949, the year of its debut.

Will Microsoft Windows be next on System z?. Anyone paying attention to the Sine Nomine demo, two weeks ago, now knows that Solaris is inevitably coming to System z. In the wake of all of this, I have heard from a number of you â•„ and people throughout...

Did You See the SDF III Announcement? :-). Some blog readers might know Screen Definition Facility II (SDF II). This IBM tool helps developers create common, easy-to-use 3270 user interfaces more quickly. SDF II has been around for at least two decades, and that greatly exceeds my professional...

Solaris is coming, Solaris is coming.....to System z. Wow....I felt the earth shake just now....IBM and Sun have announced a live demo of Solaris on System z. Experts at Sine Nomine â•„ the same folks who were at the epicenter of the Linux on the mainframe movement â•„...

Give and take. Did a webinar the other week based on a whitepaper I wrote on give and take between the mainframe and the trendy new youngsters. Details here.

the greaterIBM connection. One of the many innovations Sam Palmisano has spearheaded at IBM is the idea of reaching out to "alumni". The first initiative was a few years ago when he hosted a reception for a group of former executives of the...

Mainframe on YouTube - the sequels are in!. For all of you "Mainframe: Art of the Sale" fans, there are three brand new installments available now. Bob's protégé is ready for his first sales call - but can he close the deal? You'll have to see for yourselves....

Big Blue Going Green. When you click on a link, a server in a datacenter somewhere gets the job of finding the web page or process you requested and delivering it to your browser over the Internet. One user on the Internet and one...

Today's Potpourri. 1. If you were lucky enough to visit Palo Alto, California, last week, Charles Webb delivered a presentation to the HOT CHIPS 19 technical conference at Stanford University. The title: "The Next-Generation Mainframe Microprocessor." 2. GUIDE SHARE Europe sponsors their...

Introducing the 6th IBM Mainframe Operating System: Solaris?. The Associated Press reports on IBM and Sun's new collaboration announcement concerning the Solaris operating system. Sun's CEO Jonathan Schwartz called this announcement "a tectonic shift in the market landscape." As most of you know, the IBM mainframe currently has...

What would you do with an extra $250 million?. The mainframe wins yet another a new customer: IBM. The company anticipates $250,000,000 in hard dollar savings over 5 years by collapsing 3,900 distributed servers in its major data centers onto 30 only partially full System z machines.

Free Transit For All?. Erica Barnett: A group called the Nurture Nature Foundation, founded by New York labor lawyer and negotiator Ted Kheel, will soon release a study showing how...

Wired, Backstories and the Winnowing of Green Media. Alex Steffen: Chris Anderson, of Wired, made some bold claims the other day. He looked at Wired's activities, and claimed that it was more sustainable to publish...

How Do We Share Design Innovation in Cities?. WorldChanging Team: By Justus Stewart To walk down the streets of a major US city is to experience the impacts of decades of bad design, in streets...

What do you no longer believe? What do you now believe?. Alex Steffen: John Brockman has a new question: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Here are some interesting answers: LAURENCE C. SMITH Professor of Geography,...

Western States Lead the Way On Emissions. Erica Barnett: There are some great state and local ideas in the works to reduce transportation emissions in the United States, and they're moving forward, increasingly,...

Water Saving Hero. Alex Steffen: We write a lot about water, indeed, it's one of our content categories. With water shortages emerging all around the globe, the water supply we...

Ecological Strategies in Today's Art (part 2). Regine Debatty: Ecomedia - Ecological Strategies in Today's Art, currently running at the Edith Russ Haus in Oldenburg, presents projects founded on progressive ecological models and conceive...

Peer Assist Groups. Alex Steffen: Dorine RÃπter brings us an explanation of the new tool of Peer Assist Groups used in the Netherlands: Over the last years, many people in...

Hyper-Border. Regine Debatty: Hyper-Border: The Contemporary U.S.-Mexico Border and Its Future, by architect Fernando Romero Publisher Princeton Architectural Press says: Roving vigilantes, fear-mongering politicians, hysterical pundits, and the...

Banning Plastic Bags, Helping Marine Life. WorldChanging Team: Chinaâ•˙s surprise crackdown on plastic bags, announced on Tuesday, will prohibit the production and distribution of ultra-thin bags beginning June 1. The ruling bans the...

Doris Obermair Interview in Spanish. Alex Steffen: For the Spanish speakers in the crowd, here's Doris Obermair's recent interview with me: «Las empresas son la ênica fuerza que puede producir la transformaciÓn...

DRM on Music Falls: Paving Information's Rocky Road to Freedom. Craig Neilson: Sony BMG have moved to sell some of their music catalog as digital files without digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. The notable change here is...

Indian Women Form Political Party; the Year in Indian Women's Health. Erica Barnett: Deepali Gaur Singh over at RHReality Check has a roundup of the past year's news in Indian women's health, and--as might be expected--it's a...

Biking for Development in Cambodia. Mara Hvistendahl: It started simply enough. In early 2005, Daniela Papi was finishing up a three-year stint as a English teacher in Japan and looking for a...

Using Swiming Pools to Reflect Needed New Thinking. Alex Steffen: A clever idea from the world of advertising....

Pinball Hall of Fame in Spirit Magazine. Southwest Airline's Spirit Magazine is my favorite of the in-flight magazines. Every time I flip through an issue, there's always at least one or two articles that are right up my alley. This month, there's a nice, long feature on the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. From Spirit Magazine (photo by Phil Torrone of MAKE:): ╲My brother and I learned to fix the machines using the Machineryâ•˙s Handbook,╡ (museum founder Tim Arnold) says. ╲Back then, in the early â•˙70s, you could buy a broken-down machine for 50 or 100 bucks, fix it up, nurse it back to health, and make 20 bucks a week off it. We ended up renting an 800-square-foot storefront in East Lansing. There were some minor details: Pinball was still illegal in Michigan, and we were under 18. We were putting machines in bars we werenâ•˙t supposed to be allowed into. My brother and I saw ourselves as bandits. It was organized crime, except that we werenâ•˙t very organized.╡ This was an impressive bit of technical entrepreneurship when you consider that the average college graduate in electrical engineering needs two years of tutelage under a skilled repairman to master the art of fixing old games. Now all the games are beginning to bear the patina of yesterday. At the height of the pinball era in the early â•˙90s, the industry produced about 100,000 machines a year. Today only one company, Stern Pinball, remains, and it makes about 10,000 machines a year. ╲We have a saying: The last ice man makes the most money,╡ Arnold says. ╲Back in the â•˙20s, you had thousands of ice men in every city, delivering ice to every home. Then refrigeration came along, and nearly all the ice men went out of business. Nearly all. You still have a guy delivering ice to bars and restaurants. Thereâ•˙s room in every town for one ice man. Thatâ•˙s what the Hippie and I are.╡ He peered at me through his aviator glasses. ╲Weâ•˙re the last of the ice men.╡ Link to Spirit Magazine article, Link to PT's photo post on MAKE:...

Teenager hacks public train control system. A 14-year-old boy in Lodz, Poland allegedly hacked a TV remote control so that he could control parts of his city's tram system. Sounds like he identified the infrared pulses used to override the track switching. Four trams were derailed but nobody and 12 people were injured. From The Register: "He had converted the television control into a device capable of controlling all the junctions on the line and wrote in the pages of a school exercise book where the best junctions were to move trams around and what signals to change," (said Lodz police spokesman Miroslaw Micor.) "He treated it like any other schoolboy might a giant train set, but it was lucky nobody was killed...The youth, described by his teachers as an electronics buff and exemplary student, faces charges at a special juvenile court of endangering public safety. Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)...

Unknowing twins married. It's come out in the British House of Lords that a pair of twins, who didn't realize they were siblings, were married. Once the couple found out how close they really were, the marriage was annulled. The matter was discussed during a debate on the legislation surrounding human fertility and embryology. From CNN: "They were never told that they were twins," (a senior British lawmaker) said during the Dec. 10 debate... They had been adopted by separate families and "met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation." No further details about the couple have emerged, and it is not known when the marriage took place or how long they were together before they discovered the truth. Adoption groups said Friday the case proves the need for openness and transparency during the adoption process. Link (Thanks, Mark Pescovitz!)...

Unicorn Chaser. UK unicorn club girl by photographer Alistair Allan, via fashionista.com (thanks Susannah Breslin)....

Waterboarding in Cambodia. Søren Ragsdale has been traveling through Asia and sharing some interesting video and photos with friends. He also happens to be one of the folks behind waterboarding.org. He writes: While we were in Cambodia this winter I visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng is one of the few places where you can see a real actual waterboard in the room where it was used to torture prisoners. I've created a 'waterboardingdotorg' Flickr account and put a link up here. Nice to know America has something in common with the Khmer Rouge -- something that isn't torture, of course. Among the photos in that set, this chilling shot of a poster on the wall of the Khmer Rouge's chief of staff, now covered with graffitti -- and this sign reprimanding less-than-reverent visitors; "no laughing allowed." Previously:* What Waterboarding Feels Like * Senator Kit Bond: Waterboarding is "like swimming" * Waterboarding.org...

Robot Yoga. Noah Shachtman writes, Just before the holidays, I took a trip up to iRobot's headquarters, outside of Boston, to take a look at the machine that'll form the heart of the Army's $286 million "unmanned surge."  Along the way, I caught my first glimpse of robot yoga.Link....

It's America's 6th Gitmoversary.. Today, Friday, January 11th is the sixth anniversary of the opening of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay. The ACLU and a number of other organizations asked members today to "wear orange to protest this stain on America's reputation." Snip: Closing the prison and ending torture and indefinite detention without charge is a first step towards restoring our reputation in the world. 80 people in Gitmo-style orange jumpsuits were arrested today at the US Supreme Court, in a protest calling for the prison's closure: Link. Other similar protests organized by Amnesty International took place in other world capitals.There were also protests in Second Life: Link to screengrab-set by Taran Rampersad. (image: Matthew Good)....

Web Zen: animated zen. warner cartoon title cards moo! weapon of stick figure riba rabbit eastern europe clemens kogler ray patin acme catalog animated manhattan cartoon modern previously on web zen: animated zen 2007 animated zen 2005 Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)...

Penn Jillette's video rant show. Penn Says is a new short video series where Penn Jillette turns on his webcam and talks about stuff on his mind, like time travel, gangs, and religion. From the press release: "Big badass Crackle has given me the chance to talk directly to you about anything I want, anytime I want. I mean anything. I mean any time. When something gets my goat, or I want to get someone elseâ•˙s goat or other farm animal, Iâ•˙ll flip on my camera and rave about it. Half-cocked, from inside my head, electronically to inside your head in minutes. No script, no thinking, so I might be wrong. Iâ•˙m counting on you to keep me honest with videos right back to me,╡ said Jillette. Link...

TSA's no-bid, data-leaking website was a complete screw-up: House Oversight Committee. The TSA's Traveler Redress Website was created by a no-bid crony contractor, leaked giant amount of personal information from hundreds of travellers (who had already been screwed over by the agency and were writing in for justice) and exposed them to identity theft. The House Oversight Committee concluded that the TSA totally, absolutely screwed up. They sure do a bang up job at stopping you from bringing water through the checkpoint though. That's gotta count for something. * TSA awarded the website contract without competition. TSA gave a small, Virginia-based contractor called Desyne Web Services a no-bid contract to design and operate the redress website. According to an internal TSA investigation, the "Statement of Work" for the contract was "written such that Desyne Web was the only vendor that could meet program requirements." * The TSA official in charge of the project was a former employee of the contractor. The TSA official who was the "Technical Lead" on the website project and acted as the point of contact with the contractor had an apparent conflict of interest. He was a former employee of Desyne Web Services and regularly socialized with Desyne's owner. * TSA did not detect the website's security weaknesses for months. The redress website was launched on October 6, 2006, and was not taken down until after February 13, 2007, when an internet blogger exposed the security vulnerabilities. During this period, TSA Administrator Hawley testified before Congress that the agency had assured "the privacy of users and the security of the system" before its launch. Thousands of individuals used the insecure website, including at least 247 travelers who submitted large amounts of personal information through an insecure webpage. Link (Thanks, Bill!) Update: If you want to read the world's greatest "TSA have lied and cheated and lied and cheated" rant, check out our Teresa's post in the comment thread on the five year old whom the TSA thinks is a terr'ist....

Shadow Unit: award-winning sf writers create "fan site for a show that never existed". My pal Elizabeth Bear -- award-winning sf writer and all-round swell cat -- has just launched an exciting new publishing project with a gang of pals: Shadow Unit is, more or less, the website for a serial drama in internet form. Or possibly it's a fan site for a TV show that doesn't exist. Over the next couple of months, the site will be updated on a weekly or biweekly basis with new information, vignettes, character sketches, character bios, a community message board, and other exciting things. And starting in mid-February, there will be a series of novellas and novellettes, and one complete novel. Approximately one story every two weeks for sixteen weeks (though we are still tweaking the schedule), comprising the first season (of hopefully many) of a television show that doesn't exist. Some of the content will be free. Some will be by subscription. (Subscriptions will be extremely reasonable.) There will be DVD extras, deleted scenes, background information, character-based digressions, and I dunno what all else. The staff writers (as of today) are Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Sarah Monette, and myself. The Brilliant Web Ghoul and Fabulous Artist is Amanda Downum. The Technical Supergeek is Stephen Shipman. Link to announcement, Link to Shadow Unit) (Thanks, Bear!)...

Auction for a haunted house's worth of furnishings. Pasc242 sez, "Tom Sarris Orleans House, a fixture of Rosslyn, VA for over thirty years, is finally closing its doors. The resulting auction contains all the wrought iron, baroque furniture, and antique accoutrements that gave the place such a dark and gloomy atmosphere. This stuff screams haunted mansion; if you're looking for that kind of ambiance, look no further." Link (Thanks, Pasq242!)...

Compound reverses Alzheimer's in minutes. Researchers at the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) gave an Alzheimer's patient an injection of a compound called perispinal etanercept and noticed a "dramatic and unprecedented therapeutic effect" within minutes of the injection. ╲It is unprecedented that we can see cognitive and behavioral improvement in a patient with established dementia within minutes of therapeutic intervention,╡ said [Sue Griffin, Ph.D., director of research at the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS)]. ╲It is imperative that the medical and scientific communities immediately undertake to further investigate and characterize the physiologic mechanisms involved. This gives all of us in Alzheimerâ•˙s research a tremendous new clue about new avenues of research, which is so exciting and so needed in the field of Alzheimerâ•˙s. Even though this report predominantly discusses a single patient, it is of significant scientific interest because of the potential insight it may give into the processes involved in the brain dysfunction of Alzheimerâ•˙s.╡ Link (Via Look at This)...

Heads up car nav system uses virtual cable to guide drivers. Virtual Cable is a car navigation concept that projects an image of a red cable on your windshield as you drive. All you have to do is follow the overhead cable to get to your destination. I don't think the technology is too far along, because the videos only show a simulation of the cable.Link (Via Presurfer)...

Video of people from 1 to 100 hitting a drum. "People in Order" is a 3-minute film that shows 100 people, from the age of one to 100, hitting a drum. It was made by Lenka Clayton and James Price. (Via Arbroath)...

Swedish MPs call for legalized file-sharing. Seven Swedish Members of Parliament from the Moderate Party have written a stirring call for the legalization of file-sharing: Decriminalizing all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution. Itâ•˙s the only solution, unless we want an ever more extensive control of what citizens do on the Internet. Politicians who play for the antipiracy team should be aware that they have allied themselves with a special interest that is never satisfied and that will always demand that we take additional steps toward the ultimate control state. Today they want to transform the Internet Service Providers into an online police force, and the Antipiracy Bureau wants the authority for themselves to extract the identities of file sharers. Then they can drag the 15-year-old girl who downloaded a Britney Spears song to civil court and sue her. Link (Thanks, Bruce!)...

Two views from an airplane window. Over at Museum of Hoaxes, Alex has posted two photos taken through airplane windows. He says: "One of these might be fake. Can you guess which?" Maddeningly, he hasn't told us which one is fake (by that, I am guessing he means there's no Photoshop trickery involved and that they are unretouched photographs). Perhaps neither one is fake. In the comments section, one reader says the giraffe is probably a cutout of a photo that's been taped to the window. The shadow cast by the giraffe is a giveaway, he says. And the other photo of the man with his legs sticking out of the engine might have been taken on the ground, says one reader. What looks like clouds could be snow on the runway. Link...

Octopus jealously guards his Mr Potato Head toy. A six-foot Giant Pacific octopus at Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall loves his Mr Potato Head toy and "turns aggressive" when anyone tries to take it away from him. 'He's fascinated by it,' said Matt Slater, of the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall. 'He attacks the net we use to fish the toy out every time we try to take it away.' Mr Slater added: 'Octopuses are very intelligent and they like to be stimulated and busy.' Link (Via Spluch)...

BBtv: Ape Lad: Hobo Life. Today on Boing Boing tv, another exclusive interview with Aloysius, the hoboist great-grandpappy of illustrator Adam "Ape Lad" Koford. The elder Koford shares never-before-known knowledge with us about what it was like to live la vida hobo while he developed that famous comic strip about cats. Previous BBtv episodes featuring Ape Lad and Aloysius are here, here, and here. Next, we feature some floating, mobile, hobo homes, in Walterrobot's short film Moon Avenue Box Man. Link to BBtv post with video and comments....

Dublin city council cancels free citywide WiFi: "Illegal under Euro law". Olly F writes, "This is sad stuff. A remote, unelected bureaucracy in Brussels dictates that city councils can't provide free wi-fi. By cities, I mean all those in 27 countries. The EU is not on the citizen's side. This is only the latest example." A plan to provide free wireless broadband throughout Dublin has been abandoned. Dublin City Council has decided the plan would be contrary to EU law on state aid, as well as not financially possible. The project is estimated to cost â≠¬27m. Link (Thanks, Olly!)...

Nintendo cross-stitches. These framed Nintendo "stitchies" (cross-stitches) are very good indeed -- something about the frame, gives 'em gravitas that nicely counterbalances the whimsy. Link (via Wonderland)...

Websites store. Today on my ongoing series of photos from my travels: the eBay and Websites store in Tarzana, a suburb of LA. These were everywhere a couple years back, but they seem to have died out. Love the idea of walking into a store and ordering a website! Link...

Chandler: free, open calendar with awesome sharing. For the last two months, I've been using Chandler as my sole calendaring app on my Ubuntu laptop. Chandler is a free, open calendaring program with a lot of innovative rethinking of how to do groupware right -- the web-based sharing technology is especially good. (I'm a very heavy calendar user and I really need industrial strength scheduling) It's still very early beta, and there's a lot of polish missing from the current builds, but in the short time I've been using it, I've seen it make massive improvements. I'm really looking forward to future releases -- give it a whirl, send 'em some feedback, or hack some code. Chandler gives you the flexibility to collaborate with others on projects at a variety of different levels. Take full advantage of all the Chandler Desktop features by collaborating with other desktop users in your office to share read-only or writeable calendars, tasks, messages, notes and keep track of priorities. You can also manage a shared task list or calendar with others who prefer to use their web browser directly with Chandler Hub, they don't even have to have an account on the server to access the information you share with them. Chandler Hub is a common connection to share your schedule and coordinate with other people. Chandler Hub supports you whether you're a committed everyday user or just 'dropping in' to leave a comment. Begin collaborating with other people today without all the commitments. Find flexibility in Chandler Hub--all the tools you'll need in work collaboration or to just simply keep yourself organized. Link...

Meraki free mesh WiFi network spreading across San Francisco. Evan sez, "Meraki makes it brain dead simple to share wi-fi and pushes it out to massive scale at super low costs. The result is free wi-fi across areas much bigger than previously feasible by individuals, and at much lower cost and subject to much lower red tape than previous municipal wi-fi projects." Free the Net is a community-built network. Meraki provides the technology, but we rely on people to help build and grow. There are a number of ways you can help: * If you can see the Free the Net signal, sign up for a free repeater to boost your signal. * Volunteer to host an outdoor repeater on your roof or balcony. The outdoor units help spread the signal throughout your neighborhood and are critical to the growth of the network. * Spread the word! Tell your friends and neighbors to sign up at http://sf.meraki.com. * Check out the network map and keep yourself up-to-date on our progress. Link to project, Link to map...

Death on holiday photoshopping contest. Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: "Death Takes a Holiday" -- images of death in holiday spots around the world. Link...

McDonald's UK CEO: kids are fat because of video games. Steve Easterbrook, the CEO of McDonald's UK, says that video games cause obesity -- not his nutritionally void, heavily sweetened, processed junk that's voraciously marketed to kids: But he made special mention of the popularity of games â•„ and said they have reduced the amount of time young people spend outdoors "burning off energy"... "Then there's a lifestyle element: there's fewer green spaces and kids are sat home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they'd have been burning off energy outside." Link (via Raph Koster)...

Chip with its own Peltier cooler. North Carolina's Nextreme has announced a chip with its own built-in Peltier cooler -- a cooling system that uses electricity to move heat from one side of a surface to the other. These are historically very expensive to use -- bulky and energy hungry -- but many overclockers swear by them to keep their PCs running cool. Nextreme proposes to use this to make self-cooling chips that spot-cool different places on a chip, shunting exhaust heat towards fans or vents. Ars Technica has a great article explaining the technology: But the Peltier coolers that Nextreme is touting are tiny╉so tiny, in fact, that they can be integrated into a chip's packaging and used to target specific "hot spots" on the chip for cooling. If Nextreme's technology works as advertised, it is to the traditional Peltier cooler what the integrated circuit is to the vacuum tube... Nextreme's big idea is to take those copper pillars and turn some of them into tiny Peltier coolers that can move heat off of small sections of the chip. (For a good, brief explanation of Peltier cooling, see the aforementioned Ars article.) As you can see from the diagram below, some of the copper pillars are still traditional power, ground, or I/O pads, while others would be there solely for the purpose of using the Peltier effect to move heat off of the chip. Link...

Sarkozy to abolish GDP, defend against sovereign funds and other predators. Buried at the end of an IHT article on French president Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to tax the Internet and raise levies on blank media is this doozy: abolishing gross domestic product in favor of a better metric of happiness, and defending the economy "sovereign wealth funds and other financial predators." In the 45-minute speech, Sarkozy declared the death of the 35-hour week, suggested that large companies may have to double or triple the part of their profit they are obliged to share with employees and vowed to replace gross domestic product with a more holistic indicator of economic welfare that he has commissioned from two Nobel laureates in economics, Amarthya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz. He also said that he would put a state bank in charge of defending French industry against sovereign wealth funds and other financial predators. Link (via Beyond the Beyond)...

Another five-year-old on the no-fly list: meet Sam Adams. Ted Adams -- the publisher of IDW comics -- named his little son "Sam Adams," a good, solid patriotic name. It's also a name on the TSA's no-fly list, and the five-year-old has spent his young life being harassed by airport security goons who think he's a terrorist. Saw the article you posted on Boing Boing about the five year old on the no-fly list. My son, also five, is on that same list and it's a nightmare. Every time we fly with him, we can't use the computer terminals to check in and the attendant has to call some never named government agency to make sure he's not a terrorist. Some attendants joke it off but some are insanely serious about it. His seat always goes unassigned (even if it was assigned when the reservation is made) which always causes problems. I've tried everything that anyone has suggested. There's a TSA form that you can fill out for this situation, which I did, but they won't tell you if they've removed your name. We got him a passport -- that didn't work. We've tried booking the tickets with his full name (including middle name), that didn't work. We tried booking the ticket under Master Samuel Adams, with still no luck. Yeah, and if you think that's funny, imagine this kid's life when he's an adult and Every goddamned flight he takes involves an extra hour of hassle, a search, no assigned seats, being turned away, being humiliated, being harassed... There's a special circle of hell that's being prepared for the domestic fear-mongers who've helped the terrorists make Americans so very afraid. Link (Thanks, Ted!)...

Hang your books from the rafters. Love this storage idea for sticking your books up in the rafters. I get rid of books as fast as I can, but I overflow my shelves all the time and end up colonizing the floor with tottering heaps. Better to colonize the ceiling! Link (Thanks, Alice!)...

Winterschlaf [Update]. Entgegen anderslaufender Vermutungen (die im Ãπbrigen jeglicher Grundlage entbehren) lebe ich durchaus noch. Es ist einfach so, dass ich im Moment offline mit anderen Sachen als Bloggen beschÀftigt bin, die ich gerne auch abschliessen möchte, bevor ich mich wieder etwas mehr ins online-Leben stÃπrze. Das muss jetzt einfach mal sein.Und, es ist erstaunlich erfrischend, mal [...]

What do you expect at Macworld 2008?. Macworld 2007 was huge. Many believe it was the best one so far. Will Macworld 2008 be able to top it? The expo is scheduled to debut on Tuesday January 15, with the first conference being held the day before. Among the record sales announcements and various statistics regarding Apple’s recent successes, what do you expect Steve Jobs to reveal at Macworld 2008? I would have to say that the event will be a big deal, but it will definitely be tough to beat all the crazy rumours that have been going around the blogosphere. Here’s a list of possibilities, ranging from completely ludicrous to extremely likely (more importantly though, I want to hear what your predictions are):


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Appeal Court rejects iPod levy. The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected a controversial levy that would have raised the price of MP3 players, cellphones and computers. The FCA, which released its decision Thursday, said the Copyright Board — a regulatory body that determines royalties for copyrighted works — did not have the authority to impose the levy on digital recorders. The levy, which was slated to be introduced in 2008, would have amounted to an additional $5 to $75 depending on the storage capacity of the recorder. "The Copyright Board erred in law when it concluded that it has the legal authority to certify the tariff that CPCC has proposed for 2008-2009 on digital audio recorders," the FCA said in its decision.


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Zune Online as a Social Networking Site. Channel 10 has posted a short 5 minute video interview with one of the member's of the Zune Team, detailing what exactly Robbie Bach was talking about during the Bill Gates keynote when he announced the Zune launch in Canada in Spring 2008. The Canadian offering this spring will first include Zune players (including Zune Originals), Zune software and Zune Social, with the Zune Marketplace online store coming later this year. In the clip, Channel 10's Laura Foy finds out about the new features on Zune marketplace and how much emphasis is being placed on perfecting Zune Online as a social networking site.

Video: iPod | MP3 | MP4 | WMA | WMV | WMV (High) | Zune
View: Zune Social at CES 2008 (Silverlight Required)


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French President wants Internet Tax. Never slow to burnish his reputation as an iconoclast, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed funding France's state-owned television stations by taxing an activity economists and communications experts have come to consider almost sancrosanct: the use of the internet. The announcement came Tuesday during Sarkozy's first full-blown solo press conference at the Elysée palace. As part of his plan for rationalizing the state's sprawling audiovisual empire, the President suggested "we consider the total suppression of advertising on public channels", and that income lost from the ad ban be compensated in part by "an infinitesimal sales tax on new communication methods, like internet access and mobile telephony." Freeing state television stations from ratings-sensitive advertising, Sarkozy said, would allow public TV to quit trying to match the popular but mind-numbing game shows and reality television that now dominate the schedules of private broadcasters for what Sarkozy called "purely mercantile" reasons.


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Facebook plans 'User Profile Clean-up' Tool. Don’t you just love how Facebook has an application for everything possible? Don’t you just love wading through your friends’ Facebook profiles with the simple goal of finding their Wall? Don’t you just love how Facebook is looking more and more like MySpace every single day? Fear no more, the Facebook Platform Team has a plan to unclutter profiles: a “profile clean-up” tool. Essentially, the tool will give users the option to move extra profile boxes to an “extended portion” of their profile. At the bottom of the profile page there will be a link to “Show Extended Profile” which expands the profile for viewing all of the user’s applications. This should mean a cleaner look, and faster loading pages. Personally, I would much prefer a “hide all 3rd party crap” feature, but this move seems to be a step in the right direction.

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Intel Core 2 Duo E7000 Set for a Q2 Launch. Intel is apparently set to begin transition the Core 2 Duo E4000 series with the new E700 series, which is based on the 45 nm Wolfdale core. According to reports, the company will launch the E7200 model with a clock speed of 2.53 GHz in Q2 of this year. The first chip will integrate a 1066 MHZ FSB, up from 800 MHz in the E4000 series, and a 3 MB shared L2 cache, up from 2 MB. The thermal design power remains at 65 watts, HKEPC.com reports. Overall, 45 nm processors will be rare sight on the market, as Intel expects only 5% of its total output to be 45 nm. The share is expected to climb to 20% in Q2 and to 50% in Q3. Meanwhile, first information about the E8000 series, the successor of the current Core 2 Duo E6000 models, begins to show up. Several media outlets are reporting that the 45 nm dual cores will be shipping in late January, while the Q9000 quad-cores are expected to follow with a few weeks of delay.

News source: Tom's Hardware

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MPA & RIAA continue Wrath into 2008. Only 10 days into the New Year and the two groups are at it again. On behalf of the major record companies, the Recording Industry Association of America has sent yet another (the twelfth) wave of 407 pre-litigation settlement letters to 18 universities nationwide. Each pre-litigation settlement letter informs the school of a forthcoming copyright infringement suit against one of its students or personnel and requests that university administrators forward the letter to allow the individuals the opportunity to promptly resolve the matter and avoid a lawsuit. Meanwhile, as part of the Motion Picture Association’s anti-piracy initiative Operation Blackout, which runs through the holiday season till the end of January 2008, a team of 22 officers from ECOTEC and MPA representatives raided two distribution centers and 11 retail outlets located in the notorious Banmor area in Bangkok. During the raid, over 25,000 optical discs were seized and five individuals were arrested.


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Cancer Group asks Women to be Brazen Online. Canadian women are being asked to bare their breasts online in a brazenly novel campaign meant to keep them cancer-free. Hundreds of women have already uploaded their images -- including at least 20 breast cancer survivors who have had visible mastectomies. "This is a creative, different, bold, a bit in-your-face way of getting young women's attention," M.J. DeCouteau, executive director at Rethink Breast Cancer told Reuters. "I wouldn't be surprised if we get a lot of women doing it." Rethink, a breast-cancer charity for young people, is launching the campaign to try to educate young women about breast cancer to make them more aware, but also to take some of the fear away.

View: Full Story @ Reuters

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Amazon MP3 to expand DRM-Free Music Store, Thanks to Sony. Amazon.com plans to make DRM-free MP3 music downloads from Sony BMG Music Entertainment available to customers on Amazon MP3 later this month, making Amazon MP3 the only retailer to offer customers DRM-free MP3s from all four major music labels (in addition to over 33,000 independent labels). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "Finally, a real iTunes competitor". Amazon's DRM-free MP3 digital music store, where every song is playable on virtually any digital music-capable device, prices songs from 89 cents to 99 cents.


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AT&T and Other ISPs May Be Getting Ready to Filter. For the last 15 years, Internet service providers have acted - to use an old cliche - as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet. But I.S.P.’s may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop. At a small panel discussion about digital piracy at NBC’s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and the telecom giant AT&T said the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level. Such filtering for pirated material already occurs on sites like YouTube and Microsoft’s Soapbox, and on some university networks.


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Tropical and Arctic Tropopause. Hans Erren observes:one other serious complication exists in the real world which we shouldn’t overlook. There are two stable tropopause heights observed in the atmosphere:Tropical tropopauseArctic tropopauseAt their boundaries (mid lattitude) the most intersting weather occurs, where most people live and where climate change affects the most people. What will happen with increased CO2, will [...]

More on Functional Forms: Wigley 1987. Over the last week or so, I’ve reported on my efforts to locate the provenance of the functional forms for the relationship between levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases and temperature. Lubo˚ has also chipped in on the topic from a different perspective proposing a derivation of a log formula from first principles. We’ve [...]

Inside the HO83 Hygrothermometer. HO83 ASOS Hygrothermometer(temperature/dewpoint sensor)Much has been written about problems with artificially high temperature readings due to the HO83 aspirated air temperature/dewpoint temperature sensor used on NOAA Automated Surface Observing Stations (ASOS). The most famous problem occurred in Tucson, AZ in the mid 1980’s where a malfunctioning HO83 unit created dozens of new high temperature [...]

The IPCC “Simplified Expressions”. Reader DAV raised the following interesting question:The strange thing about 6..3.5 Simplified Equations that gets me is why should CO2, CH4 and N2O have different equational forms? And what would be the physical basis for raising something to the 0.75 or 1.52 power? The whole thing looks ad hoc as if someone was insistently forcing [...]

More Blog Management Matters. John A has briefly come out of retirement and set up a CA bulletin board, see here for prototype - which I’m hoping will resolve some blog operating issues. The Bulletin Board presently has 4 main forums and provides for threads within a forum like other boards. I can see a couple of advantages to [...]

Energy Balance at the Tropopause. The IPCC defines radiative forcing at the tropopause. However, nowhere do they provide a diagram showing energy balances above the tropopause and below the tropopause - something that seems like one of the first things to do. Instead, they show the Kiehl and Trenberth cartoon which treats the atmosphere as a whole without distinguishing [...]

Reno’s USHCN station. Last summer I attempted to do a survey of Reno’s USHCN official climate station. But I was thwarted by its placement at the Reno International Airport due to security and lack of accessible photographic vantage points. Reno’s USHCN station is particularly important due to it being part of the test cases of stations in the [...]

IPCC Review Editor Comments. David Holland has written in raising an excellent point about the failure of IPCC WG1 to release the Review Editor comments. In our examination of specific issues e.g. the Briffa truncation, the handling of trends, etc., the Author Responses (online through an earlier CA initiative) show that the IPCC authors often made unconvincing [...]

Role of the IPCC. Readers have written in to say that it was not the job of the IPCC to provide a self-contained exposition of the scientific issues pertaining to increased CO2. I’ve looked at a couple of statements of the role of the IPCC and there’s certainly nothing that prohibits them from providing a coherent explanation. [...]

Sir John Houghton on the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect. Yesterday I collated IPCC AR3 and AR4 “expositions” of the enhanced greenhouse effect, observing that, in my opinion, they were so baby food as to be essentially useless to a scientist from another discipline. Today I’m going to drill a little deeper in the expositions, going to a 1995 journal comment by Houghton and [...]

Uncertainty, noise and the art of model-data comparison. Gavin Schmidt and Stefan RahmstorfJohn Tierney and Roger Pielke Jr. have recently discussed attempts to validate (or falsify) IPCC projections of global temperature change over the period 2000-2007. Others have attempted to show that last year's numbers imply that 'Global Warming has stopped' or that it is 'taking a break' (Uli Kulke, Die Welt)). [...]

New rule for high profile papers. New rule: When declaring that climate models are misleading in a high profile paper, maybe looking at some model output first would be a good idea.This is a reference to an otherwise interesting paper in Nature this week (Graversen et al) on the vertical structure of heating in the Arctic in recent decades. One of [...]

The Forecast in the Streets. The physical impacts of the global warming forecast can be bracketed with some degree of statistical confidence. Biological effects are more difficult to gauge, except in special cases such as the likely demise of polar bears that would result from the demise of Arctic sea ice. The societal effects, however, are nearly uncharted [...]

A barrier to understanding?. People don't seem to embrace global measures of temperature rise (~0.2ªC/decade) or sea level rise (> 3mm/yr) very strongly. They much prefer more iconic signs - The National Park formerly-known-as-Glacier, No-snows of Kilimanjaro, Frost Fairs on the Thames etc. As has been discussed here on many occasions, any single example often has any number of [...]

Books ‘07. We have a minor tradition of doing a climate-related book review in the lead up to the holidays and this year shouldn't be an exception. So here is a round-up of a number of new books that have crossed our desks, some of which might be interesting to readers here.First off, Kerry Emanuel's little primer [...]

Les Chevaliers de lâ•˙Ordre de la Terre Plate, Part II: Courtillot's Geomagnetic Excursion. This article continues the critique of writings on climate change by Allègre and Courtillot, started in Part I . If you would like to read either post in French, please click on the flag icon beside the post title above.Prelude: It's the physics, stupid…which of course is a paraphrase of Bill Clinton's famous quote regarding [...]

Rolling up the circus tent: Dispatch #7. There's always a feeling of tristesse when they start pulling down the circus tents and loading the last of the elephants into their trailers. The last day of AGU feels a bit like that. AGU puts one much in mind of those medieval faires, or the Jokkmokk Vintermarknad, where people gathered [...]

Live (almost) from AGUâ•„Dispatch #6. Today was the all-Union session on Tipping Points, and several people have asked for comments on what went on there. I suppose this session might have been useful for people who had to miss the more detailed discussion in specialized sections, but I don't have much to say about most of the talks, since [...]

Notes from The Gathering #5: Arctic sea ice: is it tipped yet?. The summer of 2007 was apocalyptic for Arctic sea ice. The coverage and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic has been declining steadily over the past few decades, but this year the ice lost an area about the size of Texas, reaching its minimum on about the 16th of September. Arctic sea [...]

Live (almost) from AGUâ•„Dispatch #4. Ptarmigans are Back! Fans of the Sheep Albedo Feedback will remember these little fellows over on the right (photo credit: Ken Tape) from the immortal paper by Squeak and Diddlesworth on the influence of ptarmigan populations on the Laurentide Ice Sheet. In Session C33A on Wednesday, Ken Tape of the University [...]

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The art of first impressions.

Frontal Cortex has found an absolutely fantastic video art piece that explores the psychology of first impressions.

It really brings home the fact that first impressions vary so much between individuals and can be vastly wide of the mark as character judgements.

The piece is by film-makers Lenka Clayton and James Price.

The pair also created the fantastic short film People in Order, another very simple premise which is a perceptive look at how people change as they age, and New Love Order, which briefly introduces us to couples arranged in the order of the length of their relationship.

All insightful pieces that are alternately, challenging, poignant, funny and original.

2008-01-11 Spike activity.

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:

A neuroimaging study on ESP! The Neurocritic looks at a recent study that investigated parapsychology using brain scanners.

Drug companies approximately spend $30 billion dollars promoting drugs in the US - twice as much as they spend on research and development, according to a new study in PLoS Medicine.

Scientific American reviews the year in robots. To the bunkers!

Sociologist Laura Maria Agustin argues that double standards in how we think about rich and poor people who cross borders is clouding the debate on 'sex trafficking' in Reason magazine.

Harvard Magazine has an article on the genetics of autism and why the condition is being increasingly thought of a spectrum of traits rather than a cut-and-dry diagnosis.

Mirror Neurons - Rock Stars or Backup Singers? Neuroscientist Gregory Hickok argues against the mirror neuron hype on SciAm's Mind Matters blog.

Professor of Robert Sylwester is interviewed on Sharp Brains on the cognitive science of learning.

Could a computers have a conscience? The Buffalo News ponders the possibilities.

BPS has a full programme and website on the debate over the increasing trend for medicating children with psychiatric drugs.

An article in Wired argues that the next victim of climate change will be our minds.

New hope for tinnitus sufferers as BBC News article discusses some new treatments in the pipeline.

Intelligence and working memory may be the key to identifying the genes for schizophrenia, suggests new research.

Furious Seasons has a careful analysis of one of the most important studies of treating depression yet completed.

How do we know we're not dreaming? Eric Schwitzgebel looks at the possibilities.

Cognitive Daily has a fascinating article on whether your name affects your performance and preferences (something known as nominative determinism).

Cary Grant on LSD.

Film star Cary Grant talks about his experiences with LSD in an excerpt from his autobiography.

Grant was one of the few people who were medically treated with LSD-assisted psychotherapy when it was still legal in 1960s America, and he claimed he benefited greatly from it.

The feeling is that of an unmarshaling of the thoughts as youâ•˙ve customarily associated them. The lessening of conscious control, similar to the mental process which takes place when we dream. For example, when youâ•˙re asleep and your mind no longer concerned with matters and activities of the day, your subconscious often brings itself to your attention by dreaming. With conscious controls relaxed, those thoughts buried deep inside begin to come to the surface in the form of dreams. These dreams, since they appear to us in symbolic guise, are fantasies and, if you will accept the reasoning, could be classified as hallucinations. Such fantasies, or hallucinations, are inside every one of us, waiting to be released, aired and understood. Dreams are really the emotions that we find ourselves reluctant to examine, think about, or meditate upon, while conscious.

Under the effect of LSD 25, these dreams or hallucinations, if you wish, are speeded up, and interpreted, when properly conducted ba a psychiatrically orientated doctor who sits quietly by, awaiting whatever communication one cares to make ╉ the revealing of a hidden memory seen again from an older, more mature viewpoint, or the dawning of new enlightenment. Then, if the doctor is as skilled as mine was, he carefully proffers a word or key, that can lead to the next release, the next step toward fuller understanding.

Link to Grant on LSD, from his autobiography (via MeFi).

The psychology of the politics of fear.

Newsweek has a fantastic article on the psychology and neuroscience behind the politics of fear which draws directly on examples from the current and past US elections.

American politics in particular it seems, has, in recent years, used fear as a way of trying to motivate voters and support particular candidates.

The Newsweek article looks at why fear is such a potent force in decision-making and what psychology research has shown us about how invoking concepts of death or threat actually affects our reasoning and desires.

"When we're insecure, we want our leaders to have what's called an 'unconflicted personality'," says political psychologist Jeff Greenberg of the University of Arizona. "Bush was very clear in his beliefs and had no doubts, but Kerry was painted as a flip-flopper...

That real-world observation has been replicated in lab studies. In one experiment Greenberg and colleagues ran during the 2004 campaign, volunteers who completed a questionnaire that reminded them about their own inevitable death (how thoughts of their own death made them feel and what they thought would happen to them physically after they died) expressed greater support for Bush than voters of similar leanings who were not reminded of mortality. The researchers also found that subliminal reminders of death increased support for Bush (and decreased support for Kerry) even among liberals. It's not clear if such responses in the lab would endure in an actual voting booth. So perhaps one should not be too cynical about the decision by the Department of Homeland Security to raise the terror-threat level on Election Day 2004. "Political use of fear is not something new," says NYU's LeDoux. "But certainly the ante has been upped. We've gone from 'vote for me or you'll end up poor' to 'vote for me or you'll end up dead'."

Documentary maker Adam Curtis argued in his three-part series The Power of Nightmares (video: parts one, two, three) that since the cold war politicians across the globe have been attempting to promote the idea of foreign threats so they can then promise to deliver us from them.

Curtis is by no means a neutral commentator, but as he's demonstrated with a number of his documentaries, his analysis of politics as an essentially psychological process is an interesting take on world affairs.

My only reservation about the Newsweek piece is that it takes the somewhat simplistic line that the amygdala equals fear in the brain.

The amygdala must have the worst PR of all of the brain structures, but to set the record straight, there's more to the amygdala than fear, and more to fear than the amygdala.

Neurophilosophy has a guide to the neurobiology of fear if you want an overview of the wider fear circuits in the brain, and Current Biology has a freely available article which is a primer on the amygdala.

You may be interested to know that this almond shaped brain area is also involved in a range of positive emotional states, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Link to Newsweek article 'The Roots of Fear' (via Schneier).

Opinion leaders impotent in ideas economy.

Science News has a remarkably clear and concise article on a study that looked at how ideas spread through social networks. It found that under most circumstances a critical mass of more easily influenced people, not 'opinion leaders', are key to making ideas popular.

One of the major theories in marketing is that new ideas are taken up by the wider population because they are adopted by 'opinion leaders' - respected individuals who others listen to.

The theory goes that when opinion leaders adopt an idea, lots of other people quickly follow. Sort of like a 'leader of the pack' theory.

Researchers Duncan Watts and Peter Dodds wondered whether this was really the case, or whether instead, large numbers of people would embrace a particular idea when a certain number of their more easily influenced peers started to champion it. More of a 'birds of a feather' theory.

Watts and Dodds research how the mathematics of networks can tell us about how social systems work, and so they created various simulated social networks, set up some rules, and then ran the experiments to see how easily ideas would spread.

They simulated individual differences in the model by making each person more likely to adopt an idea if a certain percentage of their social network already believed it.

As some people are more easily influenced than others, the 'people' in the network varied in what percentage of their peers were needed to influence them - in effect, a mathematical simulation of individual scepticism.

The researchers compared how far an idea would spread depending on whether it started with a random individual or with an influential individual who was connected to a lot of other individuals. They found that highly influential individuals usually spread ideas more widely, but not very much more widely. For example, if an individual had three times as many connections as the average person, ideas espoused by that individual almost always spread substantially less than three times as far as the ideas of an average individual. Sometimes, the researchers found, the difference wasn't even measurable...

More important than the influencers, the researchers found, were the influenced. Once an idea spread to a critical mass of easily influenced individuals, it took hold and continued to spread to other easily influenced individuals. In some networks, it was far easier to get an idea established this way than in others. The entire structure of the network mattered, not just the few influential people.

The full-text of Watts and Dodds' paper is available online as a pdf if you want to read the study in more detail, but the Science News article is a great summary.

Link to Science News on 'The Power of Being Influenced'.
pdf of study 'Influentials, Networks, and Public Opinion Formation'.

'Stress': from buildings to the battlefield.

Sometimes we don't realise how much the vocabulary of psychology has become part of everyday language.

I was surprised to learn that the use of the term 'stress' to mean psychological tension, rather than just physical pressure, has only been with us since the mid-1930s and was popularised by the major wars of the 20th century.

And it turns out, the person who coined the new usage did it by accident, owing to a mistaken translation.

Akin to 'distress', 'stress' meant 'a strain upon endurance', but it was also used in a more specialist way by engineers to denote the external pressures on a structure - the effects of 'stress' within the structure became known as 'strain'.

Then in 1935 the Czech-Candian physiologist Hans Selye began to promote 'stress' as a medical term, denoting the body's response to external pressures (he later admitted that, new to the English language, he had picked the wrong word; 'strain' was what he had meant).

Academic physiologists regarded the concept of stress as too vague to be scientifically useful, but Selye's determined self-promotion, coupled with the upheaval and distress brought by the [Second World] war to many millions of ordinary people, popularised the term.

By the time of Vietnam, 'stress' had become a well-established part of military medicine, thought to be a valuble tool in reducing 'wastage'. In the military context, it was an extension of the work done at the end of the First World War on the long-term effects of fear and other emotions on the human system...

'Stress', writes the historian Russell Viner, 'was pictured as a weapon, to be used in the waging of psychological warfare against the enemy, and Stress research as a sheild or vaccination against the contagious germ of fear.'

From p349 of A War of Nerves, a book on the history of military psychiatry, which we covered previously.

A phobia of bridges.

The New York Times has a short but interesting piece on people with gephyrophobia, a morbid fear of bridges.

Phobias are often described as an irrational fear, but most have a reasonable basis to them, as reflected in the fact that phobias most commonly concern things that have an element of danger or risk - such as heights, dogs, spiders or water.

However, the fear gets exaggerated so the perceived danger vastly outweighs the actual danger.

Often the disabling aspect is not the fear itself, but how people begin to restrict their lives to avoid the fear. In a sense, people can become driven by a fear of fear.

Mrs. Steers, 47, suffered from a little-known disorder called gephyrophobia, a fear of bridges. And she had the misfortune of living in a region with 26 major bridges, whose heights and spans could turn an afternoon car ride into a rolling trip through a haunted house.

Some people go miles out of their way to avoid crossing the George Washington Bridge ╉ for example, driving to Upper Manhattan from Teaneck, N.J., by way of the Lincoln Tunnel, a detour that can stretch a 19-minute jog into a three-quarter-hour ordeal. Other bridge phobics recite baby names or play the radio loudly as they ease onto a nerve-jangling span ╉ anything to focus the mind. Still others take a mild tranquilizer an hour before buckling up to cross a bridge.

Link to NYT article 'To Gephyrophobiacs, Bridges Are a Terror'.

Composing, by brain waves.

Mick Grierson has been hacking some applications for a brain-computer interface that uses EEG to convert the brain's electrical signals into a thought-driven synthesizer control mechanism.

The kit is just in a test stage at the moment, but there's a YouTube video of him being able to trigger specific notes from his EEG signals.

OK. So Iâ•˙ve had my EEG for about a month now. Within a few days, Iâ•˙d successfully run a project that allowed me to spell words with my thoughts. This took some practice, and the algorithms are really elementary at the moment. However, itâ•˙s nice to be on the edge of what is possible. Iâ•˙ve just spent a few days integrating a fairly obvious matching algorithm - basically an algorithm that detects unconscious responses to stimuli on a simple level - into a synthesiser built in max/msp. This took quite a lot of effort. Anyhow, this system is a variation of those which you may have been hearing about on and offâ•œ.my system now allows me (with a bit of work) to control the pitch of the synthesiser with my thoughts in real-time. This reliably allows me to play tunes - slowly. I often ╢hitâ•˙ wrong notes, but it sort of works. Has anyone else done this yet?

Can't wait to see how the project advances. The first jam session will be quite a sight (and sound!), I'm sure.

Link to video of BCI synthesiser (via DevIntel).
Link to Grierson's blog.

Knock, knock, room service.

NPR has a short piece on a fascinating study where the researchers informed hotel maids that their normal work counted as exercise, which had the effect of making them more physically fit, despite them not seeming to change their activity levels.

Unfortunately, the NPR segment seems to suggest that the study 'challenges the placebo effect', based on the faulty assumption that the placebo effect only alters 'subjective perception'.

In fact, placebos are known to affect outcome in a range of physical illnesses (and even produce placebo 'side-effects - known as the nocebo effect), and they have been shown to directly stimulate the same brain circuit when they are used to replace a drug to treat Parkinson's disease.

Furthermore, the study itself [pdf] claims to demonstrate the placebo effect in a new domain.

Despite this, it's a fascinating study and raises a number of intriguing questions, such as whether the placebo effect is directly affecting body metabolism, or whether the information given to the maids just made them behave differently, and actually do their work in a way to give more health benefits.

Link to NPR piece on the study.
pdf of full-text of study.

Buy your own brain surgery tools, online.

I've just found a page with some beautiful pictures of antique neurosurgery tools, including these trephining or trepanning tools for cutting holes in the skull. Can you imagine the elbow work needed to get the job done?

After a bit of a search I discovered that there's a healthy market in neurosurgical tools on the net, old and new.

Advances in the History of Psychology discovered an antique trepanning brace that's currently for sale for a cool $1900.

One antique dealer even has a receipt for a trepanning operation from 1814. It turns out you could get your head drilled for $20 in early 19th century Massachusetts.

If you're after some more modern kit, it turns out you can pick up quite a few contemporary surgical tools on eBay.

Including this VectorVision2 BrainLab system, a snip (excuse the pun) at $15,000.

The VectorVision2 is an 'augmented reality' image guidance system (sometimes called frameless stereotaxy) that allows the surgeon to see where his tools are in relation to both the patient and a matched brain scan image - while the operation is in progress.

While the tools can be bought and sold>Link to pictures of antique neurosurgery tools.
Link to VectorVision2 for sale on eBay.

Castration anxiety, of a non-Freudian kind.

This interesting study published in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine compared the psychological effect of castration on two quite different groups of people: on people with prostrate cancer for whom the procedure was a medical necessity, and for people who wished to castrate themselves on a voluntary basis.

Motivations for voluntary eunuchs vary, but in certain forms the condition is thought to be related to apotemnophilia or 'body integrity identity disorder' - where individuals have a pathological desire to have a limb amputated, often taking quite severe and damaging measures to achieve their aim.

However, eunuchs have had a long and complex social and symbolic role in history that belies the simple fact of the operation.

In fact, there is quite a large online eunuch community, who share an interest in the procedure, whether they're personally motivated to have it, or whether they're just interested in it for, well, whatever reason sparks your interest I suppose.

Modern-day eunuchs: motivations for and consequences of contemporary castration.

Perspect Biol Med. 2007, 50(4), 544-56.

Wassersug RJ, Johnson TW.

This article compares the motivations for, and responses to, castration between two groups of males: prostate cancer patients and voluntary modern-day eunuchs with castration paraphilias or other emasculating obsessions. Prostate cancer patients are distressed by the side effects of androgen deprivation and typically strive to hide or deny the effects of castration. In contrast, most voluntary eunuchs are pleased with the results of their emasculations. Despite a suggested association of androgen deprivation with depression, voluntary eunuchs appear to function well, both psychologically and socially. Motivation, rather than physiology, appears to account for these different responses to androgen deprivation.

Probably not quite the literal form of castration anxiety Freud had in mind when he invented the psychoanalytic term.

Link to abstract of study on PubMed.

Milgram's notorious conformity experiment replicated.

The Situationist has a fantastic post on a recent replication of Stanley Milgram's (in)famous conformity experiment which is usually always described as being 'too unethical to perform today'.

In Milgram's original study, participants were asked to give increasingly severe electric shocks to someone supposedly trying to learn a series of word pairs.

In fact, the 'learner' was an actor and no shocks were given, but they screamed as if they were in increasing amounts of pain, while the experimenter ordered the participant to increase the voltage.

The experiment tested how far someone would go in giving pain to another human being when being ordered by an authority figure. 65% of participants continued despite indications that the 'learner' might be unconscious or dead.

It's been a hugely influential study, but was thought to be so stressful for the participants, that it has never been replicated in real life and it was assumed it would be impossible to do so.

However, this replication was carefully designed by Prof Jerry Burger to be as close as possible to Milgram's original study while being modified so it could be fully ethically approved by a research ethics committee (the mark of all good research).

I went to great lengths to recreate Milgramâ•˙s procedures (Experiment Five), including such details as the words used in the memory test and the experimenterâ•˙s lab coat. But I also made several substantial changes.

First, we stopped the procedures at the 150-volt mark. This is the first time participants heard the learnerâ•˙s protests through the wall and his demands to be released. When we look at Milgramâ•˙s data, we find that this point in the procedure is something of a ╲point of no return.╡ Of the participants who continued past 150 volts, 79 percent went all the way to the highest level of the shock generator (450 volts). Knowing how people respond up to this point allowed us to make a reasonable estimate of what they would do if allowed to continue to the end. Stopping the study at this juncture also avoided exposing participants to the intense stress Milgramâ•˙s participants often experienced in the subsequent parts of the procedure.

Second, we used a two-step screening process for potential participants to exclude any individuals who might have a negative reaction to the experience. . . . More than 38 percent of the interviewed participants were excluded at this point.

Third, participants were told at least three times (twice in writing) that they could withdraw from the study at any time and still receive their $50 for participation.

Fourth, like Milgram, we administered a sample shock to our participants (with their consent). However, we administered a very mild 15-volt shock rather than the 45-volt shock Milgram gave his participants.

Fifth, we allowed virtually no time to elapse between ending the session and informing participants that the learner had received no shocks. Within a few seconds after ending the study, the learner entered the room to reassure the participant he was fine. Sixth, the experimenter who ran the study also was a clinical psychologist who was instructed to end the session immediately if he saw any signs of excessive stress.

Although each of these safeguards came with a methodological price (e.g., the potential effect of screening out certain individuals, the effect of emphasizing that participants could leave at any time), I wanted to take every reasonable measure to ensure that our participants were treated in a humane and ethical manner.

Interestingly, the study found that levels of obedience were about the same now, as they were in the early 1960s when the original experiment was first run.

This is not the first time that someone has tried to replicate Milgram's experiment. The BPS Research Digest reported on a virtual reality version of the study (admittedly, not a true replication), the full-text of which is available online.

The Situationist post also includes a embedded video of a TV documentary on the replication and notes some disturbing examples where the experiment has been inadvertently replicated when a prank caller directed staff to give shock to two emotionally disturbed teenagers.

Link to Situationist on Milgram replication (thanks Tom!)
Link to Wikipedia page on Milgram's original study.

17th century brain surgery, digitally recreated.

A reader of neuroscience blog Retrospectacle wrote in to say they'd created a video simulation of how a 17th century brain surgery tool would work, and it's a wonderfully vivid, if not somewhat gruesome, animation of the tool in action.

The tool was the elevatorium biploidum and was described by the pioneering Dutch surgeon Cornelius Solingen in his book Manuale Operatien der Chirurgie.

Boerhaave Museum describes the use of the tool:

Bullets from seventeenth-century guns had slightly less velocity than the bullets of today. The damage they caused, particularly if you were hit in the head, was consequently sometimes less serious than might have been expected. Not every bullet penetrated the skull, but they often left a sizeable dent. Under the dent there might be haemorrhaging, because of the rupturing of local blood vessel as a result of the impact. In order to treat that bleeding and the associated pressure on the brain the Hague surgeon Cornelis Solingen (1641-1687) has developed a sort of 'corkscrew', with which you could raise the dented cranium again.

The tool obviously had (if you'll excuse the pun) quite an impact at the time as it is featured on the front page of the museum's website. Indeed, similar surgical techniques are still in use today.

Link to video animation of the elevatorium biploidum.
Link to Retrospectacle post.
Link to Boerhaave Museum page on the tool.

Dreamy panic mashup.

ABC Radio National's All in the Mind recently broadcast a beautifully produced edition on the cultural history of panic.

Curiously, it inspired a student of one of the sociologists interviewed on the programme to create their own retro video mashup using some of the audio.

It's a wonderfully atmospheric, dreamily paranoid and a striking accompaniment to the programme.

Whoever thought panic could feel so ambient?

Link to AITM on a cultural history of panic.
Link to video of dreamy panic video (via AITM blog).

Endlich wieder Freitag....

Sorry, das die Posts heute nur so reintröpfeln. Aber da ich letzte Woche mit dem Hundebild geschwächelt hatte, wollte ich Euch heute ein besonders schönes Video spendieren. Ich vergaß aber, wie quälend langsam alles läuft, wenn man unter ADSL versucht, auch nur ein kleines Video im Hintergrund hochzuladen (jawohl, daraus dürft Ihr schließen, daß meine VDSL-Leitung mal wieder seit Stunden tot ist...).

[Video]

Wie dem auch sei, hier ist ein Video, das Zebu und mich beim Agility-Training im Schnee zeigt. Doch trotz des leicht sportlichen Charakters des Videos gibt es an diesem Wochenende keine hundsportliche Veranstaltung. Trotzdem werde ich mit Hundeschule und Training und Lesen und Spazierengehen so beschäftigt sein, daß es vermutlich vor Montag früh kein Update geben wird. Daher wünschen wir Euch allen da draußen ein schönes Wochenende... [Aufnahme: Sonja Kühn]

Technorati-Tags: Agility

Boyz need Toyz 2.0.

Review: Sony PCM-D50 Portable WAV Recorder: »Sony's newest digital audio recorder boasts many of the exotic features of the flagship PCM-D1 for a third of the price. Once again, guitarist Mark Nelson renews his quest for the perfect handheld recorder — and it looks like the sixth time may be the charm.« Ausdrucken!

Ist nicht bald wieder Weihnachten? [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: O'Reilly Network]

Technorati-Tags: Audio Recording WAV MP3 Sony

Ich hatte schon lange keinen SVG-Link mehr.

SVG-Toolkit Batik in Version 1.7: Mit Version 1.7 ihres in Java geschriebenen SVG-Toolkits Batik haben die Entwickler die Unterstützung der  SMIL-Animationen annähernd vervollständigt und einige  SVG-1.2-Eigenschaften eingebaut. Neu in 1.7 ist beispielsweise ein verbessertes Fenster für den DOM Viewer. Außerdem ein Extra für Mac-OS-X-Benutzer: der SVG-Browser Squiggle als Anwendung. [heise online news]

Technorati-Tags: Batik SMIL SVG

Der Google des Tages.

Medienimpotenz. Machte meinen Morgen... (auch wenn Google das Wort bisher noch nicht kennt.) [bluelectric.org]

Technorati-Tags: Medienimpotenz

Neu an Googles Sternenhimmel.

Google Sky frisch renoviert: Google hat den in seinen virtuellen Globus Google Earth integrierten Sternenhimmel »Sky« verbessert. Wie das Unternehmen am Mittwoch mitteilte, sind über die Oberfläche des Programms nun auch Podcasts zu Astronomiethemen abrufbar.

Auch historische Himmelskarten, aktuelle Ereignisse am Himmel und Aufnahmen verschiedener Observatorien sind nun als eigene Schichten abrufbar. Sky verfügt nun auch über eine Programmierschnittstelle (API), über die andere Anbieter die Daten des virtuellen Sternenhimmels für eigene Anwendungen nutzbar machen können. Mehr im Google Earth Blog. [futurezone.ORF.at]

Technorati-Tags: GoogleEarth GoogleSky Astronomie Geschichte

Boyz need Toyz.

Mein neues Spielzeug... Schaun wir mal, was man damit alles anstellen kann.

Alleine die Verpackung finde ich ja schon genial.

Technorati-Tags: iPhone

Fehlerbereinigung(en).

Strato, von mir immer spöttisch »Spielzeugprovider« genannt, bekommt heute ein dickes Lob: Gestern abend traf noch eine Email des Strato-Supports bei mir ein, die meine Probleme mit dem DokuWiki bestätigten, sagten, daß sie sie behoben hätten, und sich für die Unannehmlichkeiten, die sie mir bereitet haben, entschuldigten. Und tatsächlich, mein Wiki läuft wieder wie geschmiert (was nicht heißt »schnell«, das war es noch nie ). Danke, Strato!

An der VDSL-Front hat sich noch nichts Wesentliches getan: Gestern abend ging gar nichts und heute früh mußte ich meinem Speedport einen Reset verpassen, damit er mich wieder ins Netz ließ. Aber da mit diesem Problem ja nun schon eine ganze Menge von Menschen beschäftigt ist, findet eine davon vielleicht die Lösung.

  Stil diggin'!

Technorati-Tags: Strato DokuWiki

Die Tage werden langsam länger....

heute scheint dazu endlich mal wieder die Sonne und der Wunsch nach neuen Wanderungen wird in mir wach. Für die Vorplanung hilft vielleich das Buch Jüdisches im Grünen, ein Reiseführer zu Orten einstigen jüdischen Lebens im Berliner Umland. Aus der Verlagswerbung: »In der Umgebung Berlins gibt es viele Orte, in denen Jahrhunderte lang, bis zum Nationalsozialismus, Juden lebten - Orte, die eine jüdische Geschichte haben und in denen es noch heute Spuren jüdischen Lebens und des einstigen Nebeneinanders von Juden und Christen zu entdecken gibt. Mit diesem Wegweiser soll angeregt werden, einige dieser Plätze, die mit der S- oder Regionalbahn, mit dem Fahrrad oder dem Auto bequem zu erreichen sind, zu erkunden.«

Und hier noch eine Besprechung in der Berliner Zeitung: »In dem außergewöhnlichen Reiseführer, der auch Platz hat für »normale« touristische Hinweise, geht es allgemein um Spuren jüdischen Lebens in Brandenburg. In 21 Orten - darunter Bad Freienwalde, Müncheberg, Luckenwalde und Storkow - suchen die Autorinnen nach Zeugnissen des Judentums. Es geht nicht nur um Pogrome, Verfolgung und Vernichtung, sondern auch um mehr als fünf Jahrhunderte mit großen Leistungen des jüdisches Handwerks, des Handels und der Künste.« Haben wollen!

Technorati-Tags: Brandenburg Geschichte

GIMP: Es muß nicht immer Photoshop sein.

Wilber loves Apple ist ein Paket, das GIMP per Drag-n-Drop auf den Mac bringt. Hugo meint es wäre besser als GIMP.app. Auch testen! [powerbook _ blog]

Technorati-Tags: GIMP MacOSX

Web-Datenbank.

Das ist das, was Googles Texte und Tabellen noch fehlt: Zoho Creator »is an amazing (and free) web database application that is part of the web Zoho Office suite.« Notiz an mich: Testen! [MacDevCenter.com]

Technorati-Tags: Zoho Datenbank

Leda und der Schwan.

Auch heute wollen wir unseren Protest gegen die Zensur bei flickr mit einem Bild aus der antiken Mythologie, das Ihr dort nicht mehr sehen dürf, fortsetzen: Heute Leda und der Schwan von Léon-François Comerre (1850 - 1916), einem französischen akademischen Maler des Symbolismus.

 Leda war die Tochter des Thestios und der Eurythemis und die Gemahlin des spartanischen Königs Tyndareos. Der Gott Zeus verliebte sich in sie, verwandelte sich als Schwan und schwängerte sie in dieser Gestalt. Doch auch Tyndareos schlief in dieser Nacht mit ihr. Leda gebar alsdann zwei Eier mit vier Kindern - von Zeus die Helena und den Polydeukes, von Tyndareos die Klytaimnestra und den Kastor. Eine andere Version besagt, daß das göttliche Ei von der - dem ganzen spartanischen Königsgeschlecht der Atriden alter Greuel wegen feindlichen - Rachegöttin Nemesis unterschoben worden war und Leda somit nur die Milchmutter der Helena gewesen sei.

Technorati-Tags: Zensur Flickr Antike Akt Erotik Leda

Da gehen sie hin, Eure Daten....

Deutsche Unternehmen mißbrauchen Kundendaten für Testzwecke: Laut einer Untersuchung des Ponemon-Instituts gefährden mehr als drei Viertel der deutschen Unternehmen vertrauliche Kundendaten, indem sie diese in Anwendungsstests oder bei der Softwareentwicklung benutzen. [heise online news]

Technorati-Tags: Privacy Datenschutz

Musik hören mit Yahoo!.

MP3-Player in die eigene Webseite einbinden: Yahoo! hat ein Verfahren vorgestellt, um ganz bequem einen MP3-Player in eine beliebige Webseite oder ein Blog einzubinden. Dadurch lassen sich MP3-Dateien im Browser wiederzugeben, ohne dass der Nutzer ein externes Abspielprogramm starten muss. Noch befindet sich das Konzept in der Erprobungsphase und funktioniert im Safari auch nicht wirklich. [Golem.de]

Technorati-Tags: Yahoo! Audio MP3

Stairway to Heaven.

Jetzt weiß ich endlich, warum die hochgeschätzten Bloggerkollegen »Stairway to Heaven« so lieben:  Jimmy Page und majo haben am gleichen Tag Geburtstag! Da muß sich ja eine Seelenverwandschaft einstellen.

Also hier als nachträgliches Geburtstagsgeschenk für Beide: Jimmy Page spielt sein wohl berühmtestes Solo.

And as we wind on down the road

Our shadows taller than our soul.

There walks a lady we all know

Who shines white light and wants to show

How everything still turns to gold.

And if you listen very hard

The tune will come to you at last.

When all are one and one is all

To be a rock and not to roll.

Technorati-Tags: Rock

I love RSS.

Und daher ist diese Meldung höchst erfreulich für mich: NetNewsWire 3.1 ist draußen! Und jetzt frei wie Freibier. Es gibt keine Lite-Version vom beliebtesten Feedreader unter MacOS X mehr. Mußte ich natürlich sofort runterladen und einsetzen.

Das Update war kinderleicht, die alten Feeds und Einstellung von meiner bisherigen Lite-Version wurden automatisch übernommen. Was neu ist und was die Vollversion mehr kann, wird die Zukunft zeigen. Ich werde berichten. [Peter van I. per Email.]

Technorati-Tags: RSS Atom NetNewsWire FeedReader

VDSL: Die unendliche Geschichte.

Nachdem ich gestern morgen schon triumphieren wollte (den ganzen Vormittag über lief meine VDSL-Anbindung problemlos), ging dann aber gestern abend gar nichts mehr (was dazwischen war, weiß ich nicht, da war ich am Institut. Auch heute morgen war die Leitung bis vor wenigen Minuten tot, jetzt scheint jemand aufgewacht zu sein und sie steht wieder. »Stabil« nenne ich das aber nicht...

Technorati-Tags: VDSL Telekom

DokuWiki Down.

Seit gestern abend gibt es eine seltsame Fehlermeldung beim Aufruf meines Wikis: Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: open(/var/tmp/sess_v9c8umvvvachak8p6qa94t9076, O_RDWR) failed: File too large (27) in /mnt/web1/52/75/5212475/htdocs/cognitiones/ inc/init.php on line 102. Und mein Wiki sieht dann sehr seltsam aus und die Bilder werden auch nicht mehr geladen:

Es sieht nach einem Fehler beim Spielzeugprovider aus, zumal /var/temp/ ein Änderungsdatum von gestern hat und trotz 777 von mir nicht gelesen werden kann. Hat jemand damit schon einmal Erfahrungen gemacht und kann berichten?

Wie dem auch sei, ein Supportcall ist abgesetzt und DokuWiki und Strato sind der heutige »Google des Tages«.

[Update 8:20 Uhr]: Das ging aber schnell. Mein Wiki funzt wieder. Wer immer da was gedreht hat: Danke!

[Update ii 15:15 Uhr]: Zu früh gefreut, der Fehler ist wieder da...

[Update /// 16:00 Uhr]: War wohl nur ein kurzer Schluckauf, das Wiki ist jetzt wieder da. Werde die Angelegenheit weiter beobachten (was Anderes bleibt mir ja auch nicht übrig...).

Technorati-Tags: DokuWiki Strato

Friday Squid Blogging: Large Mechanical Squid. It's in France. Neat!...

Patrick Smith on Aviation Security. Excellent essay from The New York Times: In the end, I'm not sure which is more troubling, the inanity of the existing regulations, or the average American's acceptance of them and willingness to be humiliated. These wasteful and tedious protocols...

NSA Backdoors in Crypto AG Ciphering Machines. This story made the rounds in European newspapers about ten years ago -- mostly stories in German, if I remember -- but it wasn't covered much here in the U.S. For half a century, Crypto AG, a Swiss company located...

Consumer Reports on Aviation Security and the TSA. It's not on their website yet, and you'd have to pay to read it in any case, but the February 2008 issue of Consumer Reports has an article on aviation security. Much of it you've all heard before, but there...

Five-Year-Old Boy Detained by the TSA. His name is similar to someone on the "no fly" list: A five-year-old boy was taken into custody and thoroughly searched at Sea-Tac because his name is similar to a possible terrorist alias. As the Consumerist reports, "When his mother...

Privacy International's 2007 Report. The 2007 International Privacy Ranking. Canada comes in first. Individual privacy is best protected in Canada but under threat in the United States and the European Union as governments introduce sweeping surveillance and information-gathering measures in the name of security...

Swedish Army Loses Classified Information on Memory Stick. Oops: The daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, turned the stick over to the Armed Forces on Thursday. The paper's editorial office obtained the memory stick from an individual who discovered it in a public computer center in Stockholm. An employee of the...

Your Brain on Fear. Interesting article from Newsweek: The evolutionary primacy of the brain's fear circuitry makes it more powerful than the brain's reasoning faculties. The amygdala sprouts a profusion of connections to higher brain regions -- neurons that carry one-way traffic from amygdala...

Passport Fraud. Investigative report on passport fraud worldwide. Six years after 9/11, an NBC News undercover investigation has found that the black market in fraudulent passports is thriving. On the streets of South America, NBC documented the sale of stolen and doctored...

How Well "See Something, Say Something" Actually Works. I've written about the "War on the Unexpected," and how normal people can't figure out what's an actual threat and what isn't: All they know is that something makes them uneasy, usually based on fear, media hype, or just something...

Computerworld Australia Interview. I was interviewed by Computerworld Australia....

Hacking the Boeing 787. The news articles are pretty sensational: The computer network in the Dreamliner's passenger compartment, designed to give passengers in-flight internet access, is connected to the plane's control, navigation and communication systems, an FAA report reveals. And: According to the U.S....

Kurbelradio fÃπr Abenteurer. Mit Funk-Funktion, Sirene, Handyladekabel

Die Erben der Wiimote. Nintendos Spielekonsole Wii hat die Eingabe Ãπber Bewegung statt KnöpfedrÃπcken salonfÀhig gemacht, immer mehr Hersteller folgen dem Trend. In Zukunft könnten neben Handys auch Fernseher und Computer rein Ãπber Gesten gesteuert werden.

Open Access fÃπr Sozialwissenschaftler. Freies Publizieren als QualitÀtskriterium

Autobahnen sollen Ãπberwacht werden. Im Verkehrsministerium gibt es konkrete PlÀne, die auf Autobahnen installierten Kameras fÃπr die VerbrechensbekÀmpfung zu nutzen. Minister Werner Faymann [SPÈ] will das allerdings vorher diskutieren und gesetzlich regeln.

Chertoff: Neuer Anlauf zu "Real ID". Standardisierung von FÃπhrerscheinen und Identifikationskarten

FBI verschlampt Abhör-Rechnungen. Wegen unbezahlter Rechnungen sind der US-Bundespolizei FBI mehrfach Abhörleitungen gekappt worden. Ein Untersuchungsbericht des Justizministeriums wirft dem FBI zahlreiche VersÀumnisse bei der Handhabe seiner Zahlungssysteme vor.

Pirate Bay muss in Schweden vor Gericht. Staatsanwaltschaft bereitet Klage vor

Neuer Chef fÃπr Microsofts Business-Unit. Der lukrative GeschÀftskundenbereich von Microsoft mit Produkten wie Office bekommt einen neuen Chef.

Linux-Desktop KDE 4.0 fertig. Nach etlichen Verzögerungen wurde nun der Linux-Desktop KDE 4.0 freigegeben. Die erste Version der runderneuerten 4.x-Reihe richtet sich vor allem an Entwickler.

Hersteller rÃπsten sich fÃπr TV-Recycling. Die groÃen japanischen Elektronikhersteller bereiten sich auf einen in den USA anstehenden Massenaustausch bei Fernsehern vor. Wegen der Abschaltung der analogen Frequenzen 2009 werden bis dahin geschÀtzte 80 Mio. Fernseher weggeworfen.

Urteil gegen irrefÃπhrende Websites. OLG-Entscheid nach AK-Klage

Xing-Nutzer wehren sich gegen Werbung. Das b̦rsennotierte deutsche Soziale Netzwerk Xing wird nach Protesten k̹nftig bei zahlenden Nutzern auf Werbung verzichten.

Samsung: DRAM bleibt vorerst billig. "Talsohle fast erreicht"

OLPC: Doch kein Dual-Boot mit Windows. OLPC und Microsoft zu Negroponte

Online-Videos statt "Dr. House". Video-Websites wie YouTube und Co erfreuen sich weiter steigender Beliebtheit: Laut Pew Internet verdoppelte sich im letzten Jahr die tÀgliche Nutzung in den USA. Seit dem Autorenstreik in den USA hat vor allem YouTube enorm zugelegt, zeigen Zahlen von Nielsen.

Steampunks und Sicherheitspolizeigesetz. Am Sonntag im È1-Magazin "matrix"

Kartellverfahren gegen Intel eingeleitet. Staatsanwalt prÃπft Missbrauch der Marktmacht

Radiohead-CD in den USA auf Platz eins. Zum Start 122.000 Alben verkauft

TA-Tele2-Deal birgt Gefahren. Die Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde sieht die geplante Ã˛bernahme der österreichischen Tele2-Mobilfunkkunden durch die Telekom Austria [TA] kritisch.

Bundesrat stÃπtzt EU-Anti-Terror-PlÀne. Der Bundesrat hat mit den Stimmen der Regierungsparteien festgestellt, dass ein Vorschlag der EU zur Erweiterung des Rahmenbeschlusses zur TerrorismusbekÀmpfung nicht gegen die Prinzipien der SubsidiaritÀt und VerhÀltnismÀÃigkeit verstoÃe.

I Drink Your Milkshake. A fan site for There Will Be Blood.

Digacrusher. Big in. Small out. Whatever fits into the bucket will be crushed.

Mindomo: Online Mind Mapping Tool. Mindomo is a versatile Web-based mind mapping tool, delivering the capabilities of desktop mind mapping software in a Web browser - with no complex software to install or maintain.    Create, edit mind maps, and share them with your colleagues or your friends.    The Free version of Mindomo will let you save 7 private maps and an unlimited number of public maps...    Windows / OS X / Linux; requires Flash 9.

Transplant Comics: A Webcomic Community. You know all those ultra-smart, hip, cool, amazing "undiscovered" web comics that everyone else thinks are so amazingly clever, but you read them like 8 times and you're like "HUH??????"    If you want to continue feeling terminally unhip, there's a whole bunch of them here.    Then again, my advice is just to show a friend some of the comics on this page, point at some random panel, and say things like "Man, that's so fresh!", or "Isn't this just like the man?", or "Damn, I haven't seen vibes this tight since the Henry Rollins/Ani DiFranco thing at the Spit."    Get your "Toy Division", "Bean Men", "Crayon Box" and "Hockey Zombie" fix here, along with other sterling titles like "The Flowfield Unity", "Bear & Kitten" and the always fresh "Killer Spoons".    Your friends will be impressed.

Young IT workers disillusioned, hard to hold, survey says. Young IT employees pose a challenge to many managers who say the Millennial generation holds employers up to unrealistic expectations and makes unreasonable demands for their services.

Taking Children to PG-13 and R Movies. We all know what's right for our own children, and I'm not going to advise anyone to subject young eyeballs to the cruelty of "There Will Be Blood" (which isn't, until the very end, all that bloody) or the menace of "No Country for Old Men." But there are a lot of interesting movies to see with children right now, including many that are not marketed that way.    A very interesting essay by the NYT's lead movie critic.

My Lil Zombie. Who in the cemetary are we?  Identical twin sisters, Jaimie and Jessica Craddock have loved horror movies and puppets since before the egg split.  We decided what could the discerning puppet/horror fan want more than a huggable decomposing combination of the two?    What are My Lil Zombies?   * Quality hand-sewn, one-of-a-kind fleece zombie puppets.   * We also make zombie animal and classic horror puppets. Check in regularly to see what‚s new!   * You can buy existing puppets or pick and choose features to create your own zombie.   * More zombie puppets will appear as we make them, so get them before they‚re gone.   * We will also custom make any other puppets you may desire. Just for fun or production.  

Snuff Puppets. SNUFF PUPPETS are a giant puppet company based in Melbourne, Australia.    We combine the elements of puppetry, live music, visual and physical theatre to create a unique and idiosyncratic performance language; engineering puppet/audience collisions to leave both parties breathless. We create theatrical experiences that are visceral and accessible. All that is taboo in our society we tackle, with a vulgar, irreverent, gratuitously violent and comic sensibility. We call upon the laws of cartoon humour to take the place of gravity and conjure up the spirits of the dead to keep the living in line. We have an anarchic sense of fun and a splendid sense of tragedy that unite to portray the foibles and flaws of human nature. We arrive like a circus, parading through the town using our outdoor and roaming performances to entice audiences inside the theatre. We have expanded our possible audience to include performances at pubs, nightclubs, street events, festivals and rock concerts. All our work contains the trademark Snuff Puppet elements: a blackly dangerous humour, an incisive political satire, shamelessly handmade visual aesthetic; populist, free, joyous conflagration of art, audience and artist.

Cuba: Why tourism is no longer promoted. I decided after my last trip two years ago that I wouldn't be going to Cuba again in the near future. It was just too depressing -- nothing works, everything is falling apart, and the agony of the Cuban people and their day-to-day living are hard to tolerate on a constant basis.    That and Fidel Castro's new anti-tourism efforts, such as charging people 20 percent of the money they bring into Cuba, made that decision easy.

Dying to Lose In Vegas: The $3 Blackjack Death March. "I'm writing an article for a travel magazine about the $3 blackjack at the Sahara. Would it be possible to give us the $3 minimums anyway? We're going to see how long it takes to lose all our money."

Blog backup online. BlogBackupOnline is a web application that provides backup of your blog content. If you back up at all, trying to manually back up your blog is complex  and tedious. BlogBackupOnline allows you to register your blog with a few simple clicks, and then maintains a current copy of your blog content at all  times by backing up your blog daily. Basic accounts come with 50MB of storage.  

Nazi code rocks Netherlands. Barely six months after German violist Stefan Krah famously cracked a Nazi code that had eluded even the best cryptographers, a new challenge now holds the Netherlands in its grip. This time it is a coded document allegedly drafted by Hitler‚s secretary Martin Bormann.

Free Sex at Prague Brothel Tests Taboo: Reality Romp. If you want to watch Nick having sex with a prostitute, he's happy to let you.    The 36-year-old bank-security technician drove eight hours from his home in Metz, France, to Big Sister, a Prague brothel where customers peruse a touch-screen menu of blondes, brunettes and redheads available for free. The catch is clients have to let their exploits be filmed and posted on the Internet.    

Hubble finds double Einstein ring. A very rare phenomenon found with the Hubble Space Telescope may offer insights into dark matter, dark energy, the nature of distant galaxies, and even the curvature of the Universe, according to an international team of astronomers who are reporting at the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.

Grand Central. What is GrandCentral?    Get all the same calls, but in a whole new way.    GrandCentral doesn't replace your phones; we just link them together and help them do more. How do we do that? We give people One Number...for Life˙ - a number that's not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you.    With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it.    Now owned by Google. Currently in Beta. Invite required.    anyone tried this? looks intriguing

Struck bepöbelt Union - Koalition versinkt im Streit - Spiegel Online.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Struck bepöbelt Union - Koalition versinkt im Streit
Spiegel Online - vor 16 Stunden gefunden
"Die Union kann mich mal!" Der Streit in der GroÃen Koalition eskaliert: SPD-Fraktionschef Struck provoziert im Konflikt um die Jugendgewalt mit drastischen Worten - nachdem CDU und CSU ihn wegen eines Angriffs auf Koch als "infam, abstoÃend, ...
Jugendgewalt-Debatte Struck: â•ıCDU kann mich mal╲ Focus Online
Zwischen Union und SPD wird der Ton schriller WELT ONLINE
Stern - n-tv - Tagesspiegel - NDR Info
und 188 Àhnliche Artikel

Sir Edmund Hillary gestorben - Focus Online.

Zisch

Sir Edmund Hillary gestorben
Focus Online - 10. Jan. 2008
Der Erstbesteiger des Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary, ist im Alter von 88 Jahren gestorben. Die Todesursache ist noch nicht bekannt. Der NeuseelÀnder war seit Jahren gesundheitlich angeschlagen. "Sir Ed hat sich immer als durchschnittlichen ...
Mount-Everest-Bezwinger Edmund Hillary ist tot WELT ONLINE
Sir Edmund Hillary ist tot Financial Times Deutschland
Deutsche Welle - derStandard.at - Reuters Deutschland - Spiegel Online
und 368 Àhnliche Artikel

Geiseldrama in Kolumbien - n-tv.

Swissinfo

Geiseldrama in Kolumbien
n-tv - 10. Jan. 2008
Nach jahrelanger Gefangenschaft sind zwei Geiseln der linksgerichteten FARC-Rebellen in Kolumbien wieder freigekommen. Die beiden Frauen flogen sofort weiter nach Venezuela. Auf dem Flughafen von Caracas fielen die 44-jÀhrige Clara Rojas, ...
Kolumbien: Befreite Geiseln kehren zu ihren Familien zurÃπck Die Zeit
FARC lÀsst zwei Geiseln frei Netzeitung
Tagesspiegel - Reuters Deutschland - Europolitan - NZZ Online
und 303 Àhnliche Artikel

US-Vorwahlen - Die Zeit.

Die Zeit

US-Vorwahlen
Die Zeit - 10. Jan. 2008
Iowa und New Hampshire sind die Staaten, in denen als erstes gewÀhlt wird. Deshalb geht von ihnen eine Signalwirkung aus. In New Hampshire gibt es auÃerdem eine groÃe weiÃe WÀhlerschicht, die auch weiterhin eine wichtige Rolle spielen wird. ...
Hillary, das Comeback-Girl WELT ONLINE
Clinton feiert in New Hampshire unerwartetes Comeback Reuters Deutschland
Deutsche Welle - Handelsblatt - taz - Kurier
und 896 Àhnliche Artikel

Bush enttÀuscht die Hoffnungen der PalÀstinenser - WELT ONLINE.

Mittelbayerische

Bush enttÀuscht die Hoffnungen der PalÀstinenser
WELT ONLINE - vor 9 Stunden gefunden
Tel Aviv/Ramallah - KÀlte und Nebel empfingen den US-PrÀsidenten in Ramallah. George W. Bush war gezwungen, vom Hubschrauber in die Limousine umzusteigen, die durch eine leere Stadt unter Ausgangssperre zur Mukatta fuhr, dem Regierungssitz von ...
Bush in Israel n-tv
Bush erhofft Nahostfrieden noch dieses Jahr Financial Times Deutschland
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Reuters Deutschland - Handelsblatt - Spiegel Online
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Raucher-Shirts mit Judenstern im Netz angeboten - WELT ONLINE.

Stern

Raucher-Shirts mit Judenstern im Netz angeboten
WELT ONLINE - vor 15 Stunden gefunden
Eine Event-Agentur hat im Internet T-Shirts mit gelben Judensternen verkauft. Mit den Hemden solle gegen das Rauchverbot protestiert werden, hieà es auf der Webseite. Der Zentralrat der Juden nennt die Aktion "geistlos, hirnlos und geschmacklos". ...
"Geistlos, hirnlos, geschmacklos" Spiegel Online
Protest gegen Shirt mit Judenstern wirkt Stern
Hamburger Abendblatt - Focus Online - Netzeitung - Kurier
und 29 Àhnliche Artikel

Grass schieÃt gegen alle und die SPD hört brav zu - WELT ONLINE.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Grass schieÃt gegen alle und die SPD hört brav zu
WELT ONLINE - vor 17 Stunden gefunden
Vom "Demokratischen Sozialismus" Ãπber Urheberrechte bis zu Kinderarmut: Schriftsteller GÃπnter Grass hatte reichlich Themen fÃπr seinen Besuch bei der SPD mitgebracht - und eine Menge Wut. Er kritisierte unter anderem Lobbyisten, die Linkspartei und ...
GÃπnter Grass nennt Koch einen Demagogen Spiegel Online
Einflussnahme: Grass: Lobbyisten raus aus dem Bundestag Die Zeit
Focus Online - Tagesspiegel - FR-online.de - Linie1-magazin
und 23 Àhnliche Artikel

Hessen-SPD verkleinert RÃπckstand auf CDU - Financial Times Deutschland.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Hessen-SPD verkleinert RÃπckstand auf CDU
Financial Times Deutschland - vor 43 Minuten gefunden
Zwei Wochen vor der Landtagswahl in Hessen verkleinert die SPD einer Umfrage zufolge den Abstand zur fÃπhrenden CDU. Andrea Ypsilanti ist SPD-Spitzenkandidatin bei der Landtagswahl in Hessen. In einer Umfrage der Mannheimer Forschungsgruppe Wahlen fÃπr ...
SPD holt weiter auf hr online
Ypsilanti holt auf, aber Schwarz-Gelb bleibt vorn Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
WELT ONLINE - Spiegel Online - Hamburger Abendblatt - Netzeitung
und 145 Àhnliche Artikel

Bank of America kauft US-Baufinanzierer Countrywide - Reuters Deutschland.

Zisch

Bank of America kauft US-Baufinanzierer Countrywide
Reuters Deutschland - vor 14 Stunden gefunden
New York (Reuters) - Die Bank of America Ãπbernimmt den US-Baufinanzierer Countrywide. Amerikas zweitgröÃtes Geldhaus kÃπndigte am Freitag an, fÃπr etwa vier Milliarden Dollar den angeschlagenen Hypothekenfinanzierer zu kaufen. ...
GroÃbank springt ein n-tv
Bank of America will Countrywide retten Netzeitung
Financial Times Deutschland - NZZ Online - WELT ONLINE - ARD
und 168 Àhnliche Artikel

HeiÃe Debatte um "Monitor"-Beitrag - Stern.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

HeiÃe Debatte um "Monitor"-Beitrag
Stern - vor 13 Stunden gefunden
Von Lutz Kinkel "Problematisch", "unseri̦s", "eine Katastrophe": Der Beitrag des ARD-Politmagazins "Monitor" ̹ber die Riester-Rente hat harsche Kritik hervorgerufen. Die Macher wehren sich - und bezichtigen Ex-Arbeitsminister Walter Riester der L̹ge. ...
Private Rente - hilft auch dem Staat Spiegel Online
Riestern Sie noch oder ... n-tv
WELT ONLINE - taz - Tagesspiegel - Kölnische Rundschau
und 324 Àhnliche Artikel

Regierung plant Mindestlohn fÃπr alle Branchen - WELT ONLINE.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Regierung plant Mindestlohn fÃπr alle Branchen
WELT ONLINE - vor 9 Stunden gefunden
Der Mindestlohn kommt schneller als gedacht. Aus einem geheimen Gesetzentwurf des Bundesarbeitsministers Olaf Scholz geht hervor, dass die Regierung eine flÀchendeckende Lohnuntergrenze einfÃπhren will. Das bedeutet, dass in diesem Jahr jeder ...
GesetzentwÃπrfe fertiggestellt Scholz plant Mindestlohn fÃπr alle sueddeutsche.de
Scholz macht Druck beim Mindestlohn Reuters Deutschland
n-tv - Netzeitung - ZDFheute.de - Handelsblatt
und 143 Àhnliche Artikel

Skepsis bei Forscherkollegen - Focus Online.

MSN Nachrichten

Skepsis bei Forscherkollegen
Focus Online - vor 16 Stunden gefunden
Deutsche Wissenschaftler reagieren zur̹ckhaltend auf die Meldung, dass US-Forscher embryonale Stammzellen gewonnen haben, ohne den Embryo zu zersțren. Deutsche Forscher sind im Vergleich zu ihren britischen oder amerikanischen Kollegen per Gesetz sehr ...
Stammzelle gewonnen, Embryo intakt? Stern
Durchbruch in der Stammzellforschung WELT ONLINE
RP ONLINE - FR-online.de - n-tv - Wissenschaft-Online
und 90 Àhnliche Artikel

Manager verlassen Microsoft - neue GerÃπchte Ãπber Yahoo!-Ã˛bernahme - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Kopierschutz ist tot - Spiegel Online.

Zisch

Kopierschutz ist tot
Spiegel Online - vor 20 Stunden gefunden
Von Frank Patalong Jetzt macht auch Sony BMG mit, der letzte der vier groÃen Musikkonzerne: Amazon verkauft erstmals sein komplettes Liedangebot ohne Kopierschutz - und wird damit zum ernsthaften Rivalen von Apples iTunes. ...
Musik von Sony BMG ohne Kopierschutz auch bei Amazon.com Financial Times Deutschland
Sony BMG macht Amazon stark fÃπr iTunes-Attacke WELT ONLINE
Reuters Deutschland - ZDNet.de - Golem.de - maclife.de
und 147 Àhnliche Artikel

JÃπrgen Klinsmann im Zirkus der Alphatiere - WELT ONLINE.

affolternonline.ch

JÃπrgen Klinsmann im Zirkus der Alphatiere
WELT ONLINE - vor 37 Minuten gefunden
Mit den Kluboberen des Rekordmeisters hatte JÃπrgen Klinsmann zu aktiven Zeiten immer wieder Streit. Auch das VerhÀltnis des Bundestrainers Klinsmann zum FC Bayern war nicht immer das beste. Werden sich Beckenbauer, Rummenigge, Hoeneà & Co. dieses Mal ...
Klinsmann tut gut Stern
Bayern kauft sich die Klinsmann-Revolution Spiegel Online
n-tv - Focus Online - Handelsblatt - Tagesspiegel
und 632 Àhnliche Artikel

Tennis - ATP Kohlschreiber gewinnt ATP-Turnier in Auckland - Focus Online.

Yahoo! Nachrichten

Tennis - ATP Kohlschreiber gewinnt ATP-Turnier in Auckland
Focus Online - vor 55 Minuten gefunden
Philipp Kohlschreiber (Augsburg) hat den zweiten ATP-Titel seiner Karriere errungen und reist damit mit breiter Brust zu den am Montag beginnenden Australian Open in Melbourne. Der 24-JÀhrige, der bislang lediglich die BMW Open 2007 in MÃπnchen gewinnen ...
Finale und LosglÃπck fÃπr Kohlschreiber Financial Times Deutschland
MIXED ZONE Kohlschreiber im Finale, Rekordvertrag in der NHL Spiegel Online
Yahoo! Nachrichten - RP ONLINE - Sport1.de - n-tv
und 107 Àhnliche Artikel

Van der Vaart dementiert Kontakt zu Juventus Turin - Financial Times Deutschland.

Sportal.de

Van der Vaart dementiert Kontakt zu Juventus Turin
Financial Times Deutschland - vor 20 Stunden gefunden
Rafael van der Vaart vom FuÃball-Bundesligisten Hamburger SV hat Kontakte zum italienischen Rekordmeister Juventus Turin dementiert. Van der Vaart dementiert Berichte Ãπber einen Wechsel zu Juventus Turin. «Ich habe keinen Kontakt zu Juventus Turin», ...
Juve: Kein Interesse an van der Vaart Hamburger Abendblatt
Kommt Van der Vaart? n-tv
WELT ONLINE - RP ONLINE - Sport1.de - Topnews
und 111 Àhnliche Artikel

CASTING-FINALE BEI STEFAN RAAB LMAA - und ab ins Bett - Spiegel Online.

affolternonline.ch

CASTING-FINALE BEI STEFAN RAAB LMAA - und ab ins Bett
Spiegel Online - vor 23 Stunden gefunden
Von Christoph Cadenbach Carl hat Pippi in den Augen, Jochen findet alles "Hammer!" und Stefan ist elektrisiert von all der Geilheit. Und trotzdem: Bei Raabs Casting-Finale SSDSDSSWEMUGABRTLAD waren die Juroren zu nett und die Show zu öde - man sollte ...
Stefanie Heinzmann Musicheadquarter.de
Stefan Raab: Stefanie Heinzmann ist Superstar lifego Infotainment Magazin
Laut - Topnews - Yahoo! Nachrichten - Netzeitung
und 48 Àhnliche Artikel

RTL-Dschungelcamp Her mit den Stars, die lach ich aus - Focus Online.

Quotenmeter

RTL-Dschungelcamp Her mit den Stars, die lach ich aus
Focus Online - vor 51 Minuten gefunden
Nach dem Auftakt von â•ıIch bin ein Star â•„ holt mich hier raus╲ steht fest: Auch der dritte Aufguss des Promi-Schlammcatchens wird ein Erfolg. Von FOCUS-Online-Redakteur Jochen Krauà Mit der Neuauflage des Pritschenlagers in der grÃπnen Hölle Australiens ...
Dschungelcamp: Pointiert und mit Augenzwinkern Quotenmeter
Was uns im neuen Dschungelcamp erwartet RP ONLINE
Chart-King - Opinio - Netzeitung - news aktuell (Pressemitteilung)
und 80 Àhnliche Artikel

"Vanity Fair" kÃπnftig ohne Poschardt - Financial Times Deutschland.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

"Vanity Fair" kÃπnftig ohne Poschardt
Financial Times Deutschland - vor 16 Stunden gefunden
Er war angetreten, "der neuen Leistungselite Deutschlands" ein Medium zu schaffen, das Lifestyle-Magazin "Vanity Fair" war sein Baby. Jetzt tritt Ulf Poschardt als Chefredakteur zur̹ck. Sein Nachfolger steht schon fest. Wie der Cond̩ Nast Verlag am ...
«Vantiy Fair»-Chefredakteur schmeisst hin Netzeitung
"Vanity Fair" ohne Ulf Poschardt taz
Tagesspiegel - WELT ONLINE - Kurier - derStandard.at
und 33 Àhnliche Artikel

ROUNDUP/Merkel spricht Machtwort: Gesundheitsfonds kommt 2009 - Financial Times Deutschland.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

ROUNDUP/Merkel spricht Machtwort: Gesundheitsfonds kommt 2009
Financial Times Deutschland - 9. Jan. 2008
Im Streit um den Gesundheitsfonds hat Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel (CDU) ein Machtwort gesprochen. Die Kanzlerin habe in der Kabinettssitzung "unmissverstÀndlich" festgestellt, dass der Fonds wie im Gesetz vorgesehen zum 1. ...
Kanzlerin Merkel spricht ein Machtwort WELT ONLINE
Merkel gibt die Basta-Kanzlerin Spiegel Online
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - ZDF - RP ONLINE - Deutsches Ã≥rzteblatt
und 57 Àhnliche Artikel

Fonds unschuldig an steigenden BeitrÀgen - Stern.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

Fonds unschuldig an steigenden BeitrÀgen
Stern - vor 16 Stunden gefunden
Eine Studie, die steigende KassenbeitrÀge vorhersagt, hat zu einer kontroversen Debatte gefÃπhrt. Doch der Eindruck, die hohen BeitrÀge wÃπrden durch den Gesundheitsfonds verursacht, stimmt so nicht. Das stellt Studien-Autor GÃπnter Neubauer erstmals im ...
Zweifel am Gesundheitsfonds wachsen WELT ONLINE
SPD gegen versteckte Kopfpauschale taz
Hamburger Abendblatt - Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger - LexisNexis - Spiegel Online
und 243 Àhnliche Artikel

Weihnachtsbaum verursacht Explosion - Spiegel Online.

GlaubwÃπrdigkeit der wichtigsten Zeugin fraglich - WELT ONLINE.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

GlaubwÃπrdigkeit der wichtigsten Zeugin fraglich
WELT ONLINE - vor 13 Stunden gefunden
Monika K. ist angeklagt, ihren damals vierjÀhrigen Sohn vor 26 Jahren getötet zu haben. Eine Verwandte will den Mord beobachtet haben. Doch nun stellt sich heraus: Die Erinnerungen der Frau können zumindest teilweise nicht stimmen. ...
"Markus war nur noch am Zappeln" Stern
Video sorgt fÃπr Zweifel Morgenweb
RP ONLINE - Hamburger Abendblatt - Spiegel Online - Financial Times Deutschland
und 176 Àhnliche Artikel

CSU kÀmpft in Kreuth um Aufmerksamkeit - ZDFheute.de.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

CSU kÀmpft in Kreuth um Aufmerksamkeit
ZDFheute.de - 10. Jan. 2008
Kaum Medienbeachtung, kaum zÃπndende Botschaften: Die CSU-Klausur in Wildbad Kreuth ist dieses Jahr wenig spektakulÀr ausgefallen. Die Partei rettet sich in bewÀhrte Angriffe auf die SPD und verspricht Steuersenkungen. Die Botschaft fÀllt wenig ...
CSU rÃπstet sich in Kreuth schon mal fÃπr den Bundestagswahlkampf WELT ONLINE
Kreuther Teamgeist statt Donnergrollen Focus Online
Reuters Deutschland - Financial Times Deutschland - WirtschaftsWoche - Handelsblatt
und 170 Àhnliche Artikel

MÃπnchens BÃπrgermeister Ude Moralischer Tiefpunkt der CSU - Stern.

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)

MÃπnchens BÃπrgermeister Ude Moralischer Tiefpunkt der CSU
Stern - vor 13 Stunden gefunden
Ein CSU-Wahlkampfplakat zeigt Bilder des Ã˛berfalls auf einen Rentner in der MÃπnchner U-Bahn. Ein moralischer Tiefpunkt, sagt MÃπnchens OberbÃπrgermeister Christian Ude im stern.de-Interview. Ude attackierte auch Hessens MinisterprÀsident Koch: Dessen ...
Proteststurm gegen PrÃπgelplakat - CSU stellt sich stur Spiegel Online
Umstrittenes Plakat Bayern-SPD fordert Schmids RÃπcktritt Focus Online
Reuters Deutschland - Die Presse - Handelsblatt - Telepolis
und 34 Àhnliche Artikel

TV-Tipps zu Greenwash und Lobbyisten in Ministerien. Wir sind aus dem Winterschlaf zurÃπck ;-) und freuen uns Ãπber zwei FernsehbeitrÀge, die sich mit LobbyControl-Themen beschÀftigen und fÃπr die wir interviewt wurden:1) Heute abend bringt Monitor einen Beitrag Ãπber “Greenwash: Wenn das Image grÃπner ist als die Wirklichkeit”, um 21.45 - 22.15 Uhr in der ARD.Achtung, kurzfristige Korrektur: Wegen eines aktuellen Schwerpunkts zur [...]

Intransparenter Lobbyist gerÃπgt â•„ Lobbyistenregister nötig. Der Deutsche Rat fÃπr Public Relations (DRPR) beschloss letzte Woche eine RÃπge gegen Jan Burdinski wegen der intransparenten Lobbykampagne â•ıKoalition Pro-Patienteninformation╲. Interessant ist, dass Jan Burdinski auch Mitglied der Deutschen Gesellschaft fÃπr Politikberatung (degepol) ist, die nun Ãπber das weitere Vorgehen wegen des Verstosses gegen den freiwilligen Verhaltenskodex berÀt.Der Fall zeigt, dass auch in Deutschland ein verpflichtendes Lobbyistenregister notwendig ist, das die Lobbyisten zur Offenlegung ihrer Auftraggeber zwingt und dies mit wirklichen Sanktionen durchsetzen kann.

Termine Anfang 2008. Eine Tagung der Evangelischen Akademie in Tutzing zu Social Sponsoring und seinen Nebenwirkungen und ein nachhaltiger Aschermittwoch in Augsburg zum Thema Lobbyismus:Evangelische Akademie Tutzing, 18.-20. Januar 2008Wie sozial ist Social Sponsoring?Die Wirtschaft ̦ffnet sich zunehmend der Idee des Social Sponsoring und immer mehr gemeinn̹tzige Projekte sind auf Sponsorengelder angewiesen. Wir fragen nach dem konkreten Nutzen [...]

BÃπchertipps: Propaganda, Kranke GeschÀfte und soziale Bewegungen. FÃπr Weihnachtsgeschenke ist es vermutlich zu spÀt - aber fÃπr alle, die zwischen den Jahren Lust auf ein interessantes Sachbuch haben, hier drei Empfehlungen zu Propaganda und PR, der Pharmalobby und sozialen Bewegungen:Edward Bernays: Propaganda â•„ Die Kunst der Public Relations.Markus Grill: Kranke GeschÀfte. Wie die Pharmaindustrie uns manipuliert.Felix Kolb/ Bewegungsstiftung (Hrsg.): Damit sich was [...]

Finanzministerium blockt. Das Bundesfinanzministerium (BMF) hat unsere Anfrage zur Rolle der Stiftung Marktwirtschaft und der Bertelsmann-Stiftung bei der Unternehmenssteuerreform endgÃπltig abgelehnt. Wir hatten im April auf Grundlage des Informationsfreiheitsgesetzes Unterlagen angefordert und gegen einen ersten ablehnenden Bescheid Widerspruch eingelegt. Die BegrÃπndung: die Anfrage sei zu aufwÀndig und betreffe zudem den â•ıKernbereich exekutiver Eigenverantwortung╲, Ãπber den das Ministerium [...]

Lobby-Hinweise: Autolobby bis zu Schily…. … und anderes wie Du bist Deutschland 2 und die Klimaskeptiker in Bali. Schily schweigt weiter zu NebeneinkÃπnftenDer SPD-Bundestagsabgeordnete Otto Schily weigert sich weiter, die Einnahmen aus seiner NebentÀtigkeit als Rechtsanwalt offen zu legen. Dabei geht es unter anderem um einen Beraterjob fÃπr Siemens. Der Kölner Stadtanzeiger hat am Wochenende berichtet, dass laut fÃπhrenden SPD-Bundestagsabgeordneten [...]

Video zu Worst EU Lobbying Awards online. Leider wollte keiner der PreistrÀger der Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2007 den Preis in Empfang nehmen. Deshalb waren unsere hollÀndischen Kollegen bereits am Montag beim Daimler-LobbybÃπro in BrÃπssel, bei BMW- und Porsche-HÀndlern, beim LobbybÃπro von E.ON als Mitglied des Deutschen Atomforums und Foratom, dem Dachverband der Atomlobby in BrÃπssel, um zur Nominierung zu gratulieren. [...]

Bei BMW, Daimler und Porsche geht das Licht aus. Am Dienstag erhielten BMW, Daimler und Porsche den Worst EU Lobbying Award 2007 - und am Samstag gehen bei ihnen schon die Lichter aus. Ok, nur ein Scherz. Aber Fakt ist, dass sich die Porsche-Zentrale, Leipzig sowie die BMW-Welt MÃπnchen und das Mercedes-Museum Stuttgart (die beide u.a. zur Imagebildung fÃπr die Autohersteller dienen) an der [...]

Fernseh-Tipp zu Greenwash. Am Sonntag, 9. Dezember, bringt das ZDF-Umweltmagazin von 13:20 bis 14 Uhr eine Sondersendung zur Klimakonferenz in Bali. Darin gibt es auch einen Beitrag Ãπber Greenwash mit dem Titel “GrÃπnes Image dank guter PR” (siehe Vorschau auf die Sendung). Wir wurden dazu anlÀÃlich der Greenwash-Studie und des Worst EU Greenwash Awards auch befragt.

Die berüchtigte Stevenote 1997. Featuring Mr. Bill Gates as Big Brother

11. Januar - Schlagzeilen am Vormittag. majos Prognose zur MWSF + Alle großen Label bieten nun DRM-freie Musik bei Amazon

10. Januar - Schlagzeilen vom Tage. Photoshop Elements 6 + Geekbench-Test Mac Pro alt gegen neu + angeblicher Keynote-Plan in Wikipedia + Podcast Studio

If you’re going to San Francisco…. ... be sure to take an SFTaxi.de-Tour...!

Softe Hardware. Einfach bestrickend, dieser Knubbelmac...

Die unbekannte Geschichte des iPhones. Einzelheiten aus der Entwicklungszeit des iPhones von Wired

9. Januar - Schlagzeilen vom Tage. EU-Kommission stellt Verfahren gegen Apple ein + Apple gleicht iTunes-Preisstruktur in Europa an + Ankündigung der iTunes-Videothek am 15. Januar?

Neue Mac Pro: erste Details. Ergänzende Informationen, Kinderkrankheiten

Der Chef hat Geburtstag!. Der erste Feiertag des Jahres

8. Januar - Schlagzeilen vom Tage. Apple will EU-Vorwürfe entkräften + Warum Apple Mrs. Jung in den Aufsichtsrat berufen hat + Apple Stores down

Apple stellt schnellsten Mac und leistungsfähigsten Apple Server aller Zeiten vor. Quadcore-Mac mit bis zu 3,2 GHz; Xserve mit zwei Quad-Core 3,0 GHz-Prozessoren

CES: 45-nm-Doppelkerne, iPhone 2009. Apples Notebooks könnten von Intel-Penryns profitieren, neue Plattform für »iPhone-ähnliche Geräte«

7. Januar - Schlagzeilen vom Tage. Andrea Jung von Avon neu im Apple-Aufsichtsrat + Bill Gates geht + Sony verzichtet ebenfalls auf DRM + Sammelklage wegen angeblicher Monopolbestrebungen Apples

Gotham. Antiker Newton-Werbespot

Apple-Visionen 2008. Guten Morgen, liebe Fundamentalisten

Get a Mac: Referee. Ein neuer Werbeclip

Traumbilder 2008 (2). Fotomontage eines möglichen Mini-Macbooks

4. Januar - Schlagzeilen vom Tage. 70.000 iPhones in Frankreich verkauft + Rapper Jay-Z will zu Apple + Apple-Patent für frei konfiguierbaren OLED-Tastatur

3. Januar - Schlagzeilen vom Tage. iPhone demnächst mit Copy & Paste? + Patentantrag auf ein Display mit einschiebbarem Notebook + Bill Gates zieht sich zurück + Anteil der Mac-User im Web leicht gestiegen

Traumbilder 2008 (1). Fake? Nicht-Fake? Ein Bild spaltet die Nation...

So what.. Exactly. From my sketchbooks. The bowler hat is important.

Exactly what I need.. Yet another time-waster: twitter.com/cartoonist. All Konstantin's fault.

I really don't need this at all. However, it's nice to know that I've secured the twitter.com/cartoonist URL. Ha.

Oh, and apart from that, Haloscan has gone totally bonkers now. There's no sync whatsoever between Recent Comments on the right (the Navigation Bar) and the actual comments being made. Well, at least this isn't my fault.

Basil Says.. When reading a book in the dark, don't wear shades.

Distinct Characters.. Natalie D'Arbeloff is Trapped in Multiple Personalities.

The Pelican Project.. 6 decades of book design.

The Monks on German TV in 1966.. Wow. Via Ligne Claire.

Political links. Salon: "What Huckabee has lacked is a top-level adviser to layer some intellectual heft and policy realism onto the candidate's make-it-up-every-morning improvisational style."

NY Times: "The Democratic presidential primary in New York on Feb 5 is shaping up as the state's most competitive since 1992."

Amazon SimpleDB followup. I spent a few days over the last week trying to get a connection between Frontier and Amazon's SimpleDB.

I got connections going with: CreateDomain, DeleteDomain, ListDomains. They all use the same basic code to handle authentication, and all three work.

But I hit a dead-end with the PutAttributes call. At first I thought I had found a problem on their end, because their JavaScript scratchpad app (a life-saver) had exactly the same problem as my code. I got in touch with the Amazon people, they asked me to download a new version of the scratchpad app, and it worked, but of course my app still doesn't. I compared my parameter list to theirs, and except for the signature and time-stamp they are identical. So there's something wrong with my code, clearly.

Here's a link to a plain text listing of the code. All four of the interface routines use this code to call the Amazon web service. This is the place the problem almost certainly is.

And here's the interface for PutAttributes.

As often happens, the geeky readers of this blog may spot the mistake that I don't, so all suggestions are welcome. I really want to get past this and start building applications that connect with this new web service.

Update: Problem solved? I got an email from my contact at Amazon, he suggested maybe I wasn't sorting the parameters before generating the signature. I checked, he was right. At one point I had been sorting them, but in an attempt to solve another problem, took a different approach which left the parameters not-sorted. Had I taken another look at the docs I would have seen that the params must be sorted before generating the signature. When I re-coded it so that they were sorted, PutAttributes worked! Heh. So now I have to do some more testing to be sure I really have the answer, but it looks pretty good.

The debate about the worth of podcasting. There's a mini-debate going on about whether podcasting is a success or worth it, or whatever, I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, but it's framed this way --> if you can't get advertisers to hitch a ride on your podcast then podcasting is not worth much if anything.

I'm having a slow Friday so far, it's cloudy and chilly here in the Bay Area, we're in the January doldrums, so I thought maybe I could liven things up a bit by saying both sides of this argument are wrong.

Let me explain.

My phone doesn't have a business model. Neither does my porch. I still like having a phone and a porch because they help me meet new people and communicate with people I know. Same with my blog and podcast.

Meanwhile...

There's another mini-debate about bloggers playing pranks at CES. The Gizmodo guys ran around with some gadgets that turn TV sets off. At CES is this a big deal because much of what goes on there is TV. They were being assholes, interfering with people's ability to do their jobs and make a living. As a result bloggers get a bad rep.

The problem is that they're not bloggers, they're reporters and they work for a company that's not a blog, it's a publication. Publishing stuff on the web with blogging software says nothing about the people and what they write.

A blogger is person who has an idea, expertise or opinion who wants to convey that to other people. The unedited voice of a person. What makes a blogger interesting is that they do something other than writing a blog. If all you do is write a blog, and if you want or need to make money from your blogging, it's really hard to distinguish what you're doing from what professionals who don't use the web (are there any left?) do.

Same with podcasting.

I do a podcast from time to time because I want to say something. Whether I can run an ad on my podcast means nothing to me because I would never do it. And if I went crazy and let someone put an ad on there, it would only be to reciprocate for them having hosted the podcast, as a way of paying for the podcast itself (I'm contemplating doing exactly that right now so I had to include the disclaimer). I would never burden my podcasting with the task of supporting me. It's not why I podcast.

We keep having this argument. Amateurism is good and there's lots of it. Professional writers and broadcasters probably have a place, I don't know, it's not my problem. But let's be clear blogging and podcasting exist independent of a professional's ability to eek out a living using the tools of blogging and podcasting.

Now I'm going to try to get some work done.

Bob Stepno: "Podcasting lets people sing to each other again."

See also: Podcasting News, Mashable.

What if you had a $300,000 hole in your pocket?. Chris Brogan asks a question...

What if you had $300K to spend on a luxury, an impulse buy, not something you need, what would you spend it on?



I just answered -- I'd buy 30 full-page ads in the NY Times.

What would you buy?

FlickrFan update. I can see from the public list that a number of FlickrFans aren't updating. The most recent version is 0.41.

If you want to get current, click on this link on the machine the software is running on:

http://127.0.0.1:5337/photofan/updateNow

If there are subsequent problems, please post a comment here.

Still diggin!

Worth watching every so often.

What if our political process became conscious?. I think something pretty amazing may be happening with our political process that mirrors what's happening on the Internet, in the blogosphere. I've been talking about it on and off since the Howard Dean candidacy in 2003, which I think most people misread or misunderstood, seeing it only in the existing context of how it can be used to make a candidate more competitive in raising money to buy ads to run on TV. Perhaps that's what was going on from the candidates' point of view, but it was not what was going on from our side of the tube. What was happening was we were flexing our political muscles using a new tool for organizing, the Internet. We were waking up, saying Hello World to the candidates. One of them heard us, Dean, although he misunderstood what we were saying.

It's as if we, collectively were tapping a microphone and tentatively asking "Is this thing on?"

Anyway...

Let's summarize what's happened so far in the 2008 political process.

1. We had a long run-up of a year or so, with candidate debates, lots of punditry, two front-runners, one in each party, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

2. The Democrats outraised the Republicans for the first time in a long time. Obama actually raised more money than Clinton did.

3. Huckabee, a candidate who raised little money, and who was never considered a front-runner, won the Iowa caucus on the Republican side. Money didn't choose the winner in Iowa for the Republicans.

4. McCain, a candidate who in the end spent very little money and had almost no organization, who had long since been forgotten as a front-runner, won the Republican primary in New Hampshire. Again, money didn't choose the winner in NH for the Republicans.

Now, in the aftermath of New Hampshire, the pundits on TV, most notoriously Chris Matthews on MSNBC, are quickly snapping back with new crazy theories on why what happened happened, but we shouldn't believe them or pay much attention, because they don't see what's happening in the electorate. Neither does Clinton, but the Republicans may be beginning to get a clue (and Clinton will soon too).

My belief: The electorate is waking up. Maybe it's just my hope speaking. Can't tell yet.

The electorate doesn't need messages, just as Doc says there is no demand for messages. What the electorate needs is to hire someone to lead us for the four years between elections. It needs someone who will ground our collective behavior in something resembling reality, so we deal with the problems that are collectively in front of us: 1. The honor and prestige of our country (the equivalent of goodwill for companies, settle the wars we started, accept that we have to protect against terrorism, stop hyping it in terms of conventional warfare, that's insulting). 2. The integrity of our homes (everything from disaster response to changing behavior on a global level to respond to global warming). 3. Caring for ourselves (health, education, protecting the Constitution).

We've gone crazy in the last seven years. The 2004 election was amazingly crazy. The candidates appeared to be running for President of Iraq, that's all they talked about, what was good for the people of Iraq. The lunacy of the electorate is that we didn't throw it back in their faces saying "Let us know when you have something to say about the USA."

We need to communicate with each other and with the pols and pundits without going through the polling process. When they quote blogs on TV they're quoting people who used to be print columnists who now publish on the Internet. That changes nothing.

I'm not expecting very much from people who live "Inside the Beltway." I don't live there, never have, don't even like visiting the place. To me it's much like the arrogance of Silicon Valley. You can't pop out every four years get us to vote for you and then go back into your nest. Politics belongs to all of us, in this country, the people are the government. We really lost our way, now it's time to come back. It's the change that's happening in everything, decentralization, disintermediation. Obama speaks of a plurality, his campaign isn't about a mere election, it's about changing the way we do things.

My advice to candidates going back to Dean was and is to start implementing the change you seek before the election, while you have the full attention of the electorate. Ask us to give money, not to buy ads, but to buy health insurance for 50,000 uninsured people in a particular state, so we can see how powerful we are collectively, how we can do good, starting right now. We yearn for this, to feel our muscles flex collectively, and individually to make a difference, not just in your hype, but in real terms. Hillary Clinton could have gotten up yesterday and said "There's no time to waste. We can't wait until January 2009 to solve the problems. Let's start right now."

Maybe she won't get elected, but getting us organized now would make it more likely.

JFK: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

See how that works??

Ten red pens. I ordered ten red pens but they sent ten dozen. Oy.

Today's links. Flickr: My election return desktop.

Brian Bailey: Bloomberg wins New Hampshire.

Newsgator's RSS products are free now.

Podcasting News: Podcasting comes to TiVo.

Glued to the TV. For the last 24 hours or so I've been glued to the TV, watching MSNBC, Fox and CNN, listening to the pundits and campaign flacks, reading various articles on the web, and thinking a lot about what is happening. I'm glad I'm not at CES or in New Hampshire, I didn't want to miss this process, as I did in 2000 when I was in Europe during Iowa and New Hampshire, another period of a couple of weeks when things changed a lot.

At this point there's absolutely no doubt that the candidacy of Barack Obama is a movement. Whether it's like Martin Luther King or JFK, I can't say -- I am not old enough to remember those (I remember their deaths, but nothing else about them).

So if it's a movement, what is it about?

I think it's this -- there are a lot of Democrats and independents and even quite a few Republicans who feel that the Bush II presidency has been a disaster because of the war we started, the incompetent response to Katrina, the trampling of the Constitution, the cynicism, secrecy and arrogance of the government.

But it's not fair to just blame the Republicans, the Democrats must be punished too -- for their complicity. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards voted for the resolution authorizing the war. Neither of them spoke out against it as we were going to war. I do remember those times, and had they spoken out they would have been crucified, but when you're running for President that doesn't excuse you. While many of us didn't stand up and object either, we now have to choose someone to lead us, and we're not going with someone who compromised when it came to our national honor (the war), our homes (Katrina), and the integrity of our political system (the Constitution).

In a normal year, the Edwards plea to fight special interests would be welcome and enough, even radical, but in 2008 it is not radical enough. True, the war was started because both parties are owned by the defense industry, Edwards claims he doesn't receive their money, implying that Clinton does (and Obama?). The hypocrisy of Support the Troops really translates into Pay off the Defense Contractors. We must place part of the blame for the Iraq debacle on the defense contractors, who fund all our politicians, of both parties.

So Obama may not in fact be the leader we're looking for, but the voters of New Hampshire and Iowa have annointed him anyway. He may have waffled on whether he would have voted to support the war, but it may have been, as he says, not wanting to make trouble for Kerry and Edwards in 2004. He may have received money from the defense industry, if so, that had better stop right now.

Obama, like Carter in 1976, may be our pennance for having re-elected Bush in 2004. We're taking the medicine we deserve for having been crazy enough to re-elect someone who was so bad for us. The only president of the past even remotely in Bush's league was Nixon, who we followed with a smiling preacher who didn't accept the ways of Washington. We didn't like him either, it turns out.

Obama is also, apparently, the medicine that the 20-somethings are forcing the elders to take. I confessed to a friend that my discomfort with Obama comes not only from not trusting his record, but also what it says about me. If elected, he will be the first President who is younger than I am. Thus begins yet another step in the long decline. As I said the other day, our choice of president is someone who most closely validates our view of ourselves relative to the country and the world. Obama is dissonant to me, because in my mind, the President is older than me. Maybe not any more.

We could do worse, much. And maybe those who say that Obama is easy prey for Karl Rove and his brothers, lurking in the shadows, waiting for someone to work for, are right. Maybe for that reason those of us who will vote Democratic this time should hope for McCain over Romney or Giuliani. It's hard to imagine McCain using the tactics of the Swift Boaters, but hard to imagine the others not using them. Huckabee? Interestingly he says the Republicans shouldn't be so quick to attack Obama, because he represents something good about the people. That is a refreshing idea -- a political leader focusing on the wants of the people. I still think Huckabee may be the first DIY candidate, the first one who embraces the 21st Century VRM model for co-existing with your customers (pols call it their "base.") Even Obama isn't so eloquent about the people.

This week things are changing. Things were pretty bad before, so change must be good, right??

New FlickrFan feature. 1. Be sure the OPML app is running.

2. Update to get version 0.40 of FlickrFan.

3. Now, when you upload a picture using the drop folder a web page will display with HTML text that you can copy/paste into a blog post or other web page. Screen shot.

4. You can disable this feature on the Drop Folder prefs page. Screen shot.

If you have any questions please post a comment here.

Why Yahoo should buy or merge with a TV network. As I said above I'm glued to the TV, but I'm also on Twitter, and blogging, and email, and IM and I'm subscribed to hundreds of RSS feeds, and I've been noticing that slowly the TV news organizations are integrating new Internet services with their TV offerings. They're all getting started, and eventually I'm pretty sure they'll be where Yahoo is now. The thing is, it works. For example, newmediajim is a cameraman for NBC News and he's on Twitter and sometimes I'm watching the other side of his camera on MSNBC and twittering with him before and after. A guy named creepsleepy is a radio guy in Manchester, interviewing presidential candidates, wouldn't it be great if I could listen to his interviews while he twitters his progress? Well, there's no doubt that soon we'll be doing that.

We're finally really at the convergence so many have predicted for so long. With the help of a few members of the community Yahoo can get there first.

BTW, I read on the NY Times site that Yahoo is going to open up more to developers. Hmmm. If you want to impress end-users and shareholders run it in MSM. If you want to get through to developers, use the developer blogs. Let us have the story first, otherwise you don't seem very serious about it.

Why it's the last possible moment for Netflix to open up. Comcast announced a service at CES that sounds an awful lot like Netflix. I already pay Comcast over $100 a month for various services. I pay Netflix $20 per month, and what Comcast is proposing is even more useful and easier than what Netflix offers. If it actually is, it would be easier to turn off the Netflix service.

Netflix has a unique opportunity with X years of preference data for users that they still have active relationships with. Open the service up so that other websites can integrate their services with yours, the prototype being a dating site that matched people with others who like the same kinds of movies. Build a network of utility to lock users in with a feather instead of a deadbolt.

The uniqueness of Netflix is about to go poof. Time to build a new kind of uniqueness. It might be too late, but let's hope it's not. I don't really expect Comcast to share data with other service providers. It's not in their nature. Netflix -- zig while they match your (old) zag.

Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Scott's next book. Berkeley neighbor Scott Rosenberg announced yesterday that he has a contract now for a book on the story of blogging. I've known he wanted to work in this area for a while, now I'm glad he's got a publisher and a contract. I have no doubts it will be a great book, and a foundation for future work.

Future-safe archives in the Guardian. Charles Arthur: "You can meet Major Olmsted in death as you could in life. The blog, and his site, is still there."

CESgram. Scoble checks in via Twittergram from CES.

Prefs for Flickr desktop upload drop folder. This morning a new feature for FlickrFan users.

When you drop a picture into the desktop "drop folder" it's automatically uploaded to your Flickr account. Now you can set preferences for tags, the default description, access controls and content categories.

Change Note #24: Upload defaults.

Two FlickrFan change notes. Two new bits of news for FlickrFan users.

1. Change Note #22. If FlickrFan is opening in the wrong browser, there's a new preference that tells it to open the desktop website in the default browser, and not to bother launching a browser. You should use this feature if you find it annoying that FlickrFan launches Firefox or Safari. Eventually, if everything goes well, we'll phase out the feature. Didn't want to do it all at once because it's a dangerous place for breakage. One step at a time.

2. Change Note #23. If for some reason your copy of FlickrFan isn't updating, you can always get the latest version, quickly, without losing any of your data or prefs or downloading any pictures again. (Key point.)

ABC News/Facebook debate fiasco. The Internet doesn't have time zones, and while my colleagues in the blogosphere who happen to be located in the Eastern or Central time zones were watching the debate live on TV, we in the western states were left to either wait three hours, or DIY a Ustream webcast of the debate, which we did. About half way through we figured out how to make the local New Hampshire ABC affiliate webcast work on a Mac, and it was a little easier to understand what was going on.

In 2008, sixteen years into the web, there's no excuse for not broadcasting a political event live to the world. If ABC News hasn't got the ability to do it, then ABC News shouldn't be running it. That Facebook lent its name and reputation to this fiasco is amazing. Why didn't they speak up?

BTW, otoh, Charles Gibson was a great moderator and the format was, in every way, fantastic. What a shame we all couldn't experience at the same time.

Ein 500 Jahre altes Penrose Parkett?. Der Spiegel schreibt Ãπber Parkettierungen an alten Moscheen:

Kunstvolle geometrische Verzierungen haben in der islamischen Kultur eine lange Tradition. Wegen des im Islam geltenden Darstellungsverbots von Menschen konzentrierten sich KÃπnstler auch auf die Kalligrafie. Lu und sein Kollege Steinhardt hatten bei ihrer Analyse Tausender Ornamente festgestellt, dass etwa ab dem 13. Jahrhundert die KomplexitÀt der Muster plötzlich zunahm. Mathematik und Design hÀtten in der islamischen Welt damals einen groÃen Sprung gemacht, schreiben die Forscher im Magazin "Science"

Anscheinend wurden Muster entdeckt, die dem 1974 vorgestellten Penrose Parkett Àhneln:

Herkömmliche Muster, etwa Fliesen auf dem FuÃboden, bilden ein periodisches Muster. Ein periodisches Muster lÀsst sich stets um einen bestimmten Abstand so verschieben, dass jedes verschobene Element genau die Stelle eines gleichen Elements im ursprÃπnglichen Muster einnimmt. Das geht beim quasiperiodischen Penrose-Parkett nicht, ganz gleich, um welchen Abstand man das Muster verrÃπckt. Nur nach einer Drehung um 72 Grad bietet es wieder denselben Anblick - Mathematiker sprechen von fÃπnfzÀhliger Rotationssymmetrie.

Ausgerechnet ÂΣ Mathematik und Konkrete Kunst. Die Zeit zeigt einige Bilder der Ausstellung "Ausgerechnet ÂΣ Mathematik und Konkrete Kunst"...

Unsere Vorurteile Ãπber KÃπnstler und Mathematiker wurden bereits wÀhrend der Schulzeit gesÀt. Auf der einen Seite der kreative und intuitive KÃπnstlertyp, der nicht rechnen mag, und auf der anderen, etwas unscheinbareren Seite, der rationale und spröde Wissenschaftler, der allenfalls die Perspektivenzeichnung beherrscht. Seit Samstag gastiert die Ausstellung "Ausgerechnet ÂΣ Mathematik und Konkrete Kunst" im Museum im Kulturspeicher WÃπrzburg. Die Bilder, Objekte und Installationen zeigen, dass sich Kunst und Mathematik nÀher stehen als gedacht.

Paul Verhoeven. Wer hÀtte das gedacht: Der Regisseur Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instict, Starship Troopers, RoboCop) ist promovierter Mathematiker!

The sun is shining. Update: That was rather short. Only two hours later the sky is overcast towards the south. Still sunny north of here.

New poll: how many mobile phones did you own?. Once in a while I meet somebody with a really old mobile phone, typically a Nokia 6310. My mother uses my old 6110, Ute's father my 6210. However, since mobile operators subsidize phones here, people tend to get a new phone every two years. Looking back at my track record, ...

Thanks for reading. One of the things I need to do in order to keep the site alive and healthy is to keep a check on the amount of traffic it generates. That is why every other day I look at web server logs for traces of abuse. I remember very well when ...

Zitat des Tages. Der Taxifahrer hat aber zum Glück abgelehnt, Berliner Taxifahrer erfüllen nie Sonderwünsche. Um den Witz zu verstehen, braucht man etwas Kontext. :-) Update: Felix mag's auch. :-)

Open Sonos thread. A bunch of people around vowe's magic flying circus got a new Sonos for Xmas. I am wondering how you are liking it? Sound off. :-)

Sky over Darmstadt. Sent from iPhone

NetNewsWire 3.1 is now free, and so is FeedDemon. NetNewsWire is now free! You can get all the cool features of NetNewsWire at no cost. More > [via Wolfgang] Update: Yury is right. As Wolfgang has posted, FeedDemon 2.6 is now also free. Apologies that I sometimes forget there are still Windows users out there. NetNewsWire and FeedDemon are ...

Quote of the day. You are reading a lot about Sony BMG dropping DRM. I love John Gruber's summary of this non-event: Sony BMG, the dumbest of the dumb. Long version at John Scalzi >

Get Firefox - on floppy disk. More > [Thanks, Alper]

Interview with the creator of Planet Lotus. Julian and I interviewed Yancy Lent the creator of the new Planet Lotus blog aggregation site. Yancy tells us how the site came to be, how it was built and much, much more. We also talk about Lotusphere 2008 and where you can find Julian, Bruce and Yancy Lent. Taking ...

Erfolg steht Managern ins Gesicht geschrieben. Das Gesicht eines Chefs vermittelt einen Eindruck vom Erfolg seines Unternehmens. Entsprechende Resultate präsentiert ein amerikanisches Forscherduo im Fachblatt "Psychological Science". Allein anhand von Portraitfotos konnten ihre Versuchsteilnehmer abwägen, wie gut ein Manager seine Firma führte.

Kurzmeldungen am Freitag, 11.1.08. Heute in aller Kürze: In der warmen Kreidezeit könnte es eine massive Vereisung gegeben haben, lassen Mikrofossilien vermuten. Patienten mit schweren Blutvergiftungen werden häufig falsch behandelt, sagen Forscher aus Jena. Die Vogelgrippe fordert Opfer unter britischen Schwänen. Und: Heute vor 220 Jahren.Planktische Foraminiferen aus der Kreidezeit unter dem Rasterelektronenmikroskop. Bild: Universität Leipzig

Auch schlanke Galaxien haben es in sich. Ob im Zentrum einer Galaxie ein massereiches Schwarzes Loch sitzt, lässt sich nicht unbedingt an ihrer Figur ablesen. Entsprechende Resultate haben amerikanische Astronominnen bei Beobachtungen mit dem Weltraumteleskop Spitzer gewonnen. Von 32 studierten, sehr “schlanken” Galaxien dürften nicht weniger als 7 ein Schwarzes Loch mit einigen Millionen Sonnenmassen in ihrem Kern bergen.Illustration: NASA/JPL-CaltechLesen Sie [...]

Wie sich HIV abhängig macht. Das Immunschwächevirus HIV besitzt nur wenige eigene Proteine - für die meisten Schritte in seinem Lebenszyklus verlässt es sich auf die Wirtszelle. Wo genau dies der Fall ist, haben amerikanische Genetiker im Rahmen einer groß angelegten Studie ermittelt. Damit das Virus eine Zelle befallen und schließlich Kopien seiner selbst hervorbringen kann, braucht es demnach nicht weniger als 273 Wirtsgene.

Kurzmeldungen am Donnerstag, 10.1.08. Heute in aller Kürze: Deutschlands Imkern ist jede vierte Honigbiene verstorben. Das Supermarkt-Regal von morgen meldet, wann es aufgefüllt werden muss. Nur abbaubare Nanomaterialien dürfen als Transportmittel im menschlichen Körper eingesetzt werden, fordert das Öko-Institut. Und: Heute vor 434 Jahren.Foto: Olberto Mejia /Fotolia

Mars: Einschlag ausgeschlossen. Zu dem für Ende Januar erwarteten Asteroiden-Einschlag auf dem Mars wird es wohl nicht kommen. Das haben amerikanische Astronomen berechnet. Unter Berücksichtung neuer Beobachtungsdaten schätzen sie die Wahrscheinlichkeit für den Einschlag auf 1 zu 10.000.

Lächeln kann man hören. Ein freundliches Lächeln macht nicht nur optisch Eindruck, haben britische Psychologinnen im Rahmen einer kleinen Studie ermittelt. Ihre Versuchsteilnehmer konnten auf Tonaufnahmen nicht nur erkennen, wann der Sprecher lächelte - sie vermochten auch, verschiedene Arten des Lächelns zu unterscheiden.

Ein Platz für Panzerwürmer. Eine rätselhafte Gruppe von Fossilien scheint endgültig ihren Platz im Stammbaum der Tiere gefunden zu haben. Gut 150 Jahre nach der Entdeckung der rätselhaften "Schuppenröhren" hat ein internationales Forschertrio das erste Exemplar entdeckt, bei dem sich auch das Weichgewebe abzeichnet. Den borstenbesetzten Stummelfüßen nach zu urteilen, scheint es sich um einen gepanzerten Verwandten des Wattwurms zu handeln.

Mittelschwere Einzelgänger. In der Milchstraße könnte es einige Hundert Schwarze Löcher geben, die als Einzelgänger durch den Raum rasen. Zu diesem Schluss kommen amerikanische Astronominnen nach umfangreichen Computersimulationen. Wenn in einem Sternhaufen ein “mittelschweres” Schwarzes Loch heranwächst, wird es bei Kollisionen mit kleineren Vettern demnach auf hohe Geschwindigkeiten beschleunigt.Lesen Sie mehr bei Scienceticker Astro

Kurzmeldungen am Mittwoch, 9.1.08. Heute in aller Kürze: Kinder sollten Früchte essen, statt Säfte zu trinken. US-amerikanische Forscher wollen mit haarigen Pflanzen die Erde kühlen. Scheidungen schaden der Beziehung der Kinder zum Vater stärker als zur Mutter. Und: Heute vor 84 Jahren.Foto: Dominique Ducouret /iStockphoto