Showing posts with label social. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social. Show all posts

Friday, January 19, 2007

too good to be true ?


Suppose these guys are right ...
Suppose they get the funding (Bill, this is were your truckloads of money would come in handy) ...
Suppose it turns out to work ...

Just imagine the revolution!


It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.


Wednesday, January 17, 2007

island in the sun

With all the talk lately about Piratbyrån (founders of the Pirate Bay) wanting to purchase Sealand in order to find a safe haven for their servers, I would suggest them to just buy an island themselves. Just compare where you would rather be.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Skype TV (3)


Where the project previously ran under the name "The Venice Project" the child now has a new name :

Joost


I'm curious whether they managed to solve the upload hungriness of the program.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

about foo-fu


Sunday being my day of rest and thinking things through, I considered it a good moment to give a bit more explanation about "foo-fu" and what it means for me.

Let's look at the two parts of foo-fu: foo and fu.

On itself foo is generally known as a metasyntactic variable, especially in programming examples like "if foo=1 then ..." .
This is even specified in its own RFC (RFC 3092)!

Foo is also a type of chinese dog.
Well more correctly, "foo" carries the connotation "lucky" in Standard chinese. Therefor you have the dogs guarding a doorway called foo-dog as they're intended to bring luck or to conserve luck for those behind this door.

Although sometimes considered an alternative method of writing of the word "foo", in itself "fu" has an other meaning which also happens to be the one I intended for this blog which is "expertise".
This is especially through if you look at martial arts where the pupil will obtain a certain level of "fu" from his master or through his/her learnings.
Although a bit "Karate Kid"-esque, it relates to real life, in a sense that, through trial and error, you grow skills and learn to master the art of living your life.

"Fu" is also an extention regularly added to wordt to describe the mastering of something. Mostly in a joking way. A very popular version of this is animefu, an anime enthousiasts site.

Thursday, January 4, 2007

stupidoverload


While copying the link of the famous "Look at me I'm an attention whore" I noticed the main site this image resides on.
And off course as there is a collector of wisdom in the form of Wikipedia, there should be a counterpart or this would not be the internets.

Ladies and gentlemen ...
I present you ...
The Encyclopedia Of Stupid !
(which is exactly what it's name says, just look at the picture with this post which was the first one I got to see on this site ... need I say more ?)


Enjoy a good reading!

Friday, December 29, 2006

frist postH^^^^ photo


Inevitably I now created a flickr account to post my photos.

The camera in itself is quite intuitive and insofar as I could check at this time of day (night photography is not my best) the picture quality is good.

Anywho : here's my flickr account and my 2 first photo's.

tux mania


Get your children to work (or your inner child) and head over to this site.
After first admiring the wonderful history of Tux, you can find a DIY cut out version here.

Download, print, cut out and start getting messy with the glue.

for the more advanced crafts(wo)men among us, there is also the Free Penguin Project, complete with downloadable Tux sewing patterns.

update : forgot to check the links, it seems http://www.premiumink.com/penguin/ no longer exists so you' ll have to do with the more advanced sewing version.

no good deed


Following the outrage these last days when some bloggers announced microsoft gave them a shiny new laptop (apparently the new Acer Ferrari is the only machine apt to run vista at a decent speed) pre-packed with vista, it seems it's now time for a big 180.

After Laughing Squid announced they would auction of the laptop and send the money over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
Marshall Kirkpatrick, one of those lucky being on the receiving end of one of these "demo-models", mentioned he got a follow-up message from microsoft telling him - contrary to the original letter joining the laptop gift - to either give it away or send it back.

After all ... "I strongly recommend you disclose that we sent you this machine for review, and I hope you give your honest opinions."


(via slashdot)

Sunday, December 24, 2006

last.tv


Asked if they could outdo Microsoft they answered with a full blown "yes !" and delivered.
Eelke Dekker and Alper Çugun created a site that combined 2 of the most popular web 2.0 applications : last.fm and youtube and created last.tv.
The idea is to log on with your last.fm profile and the site retrieves video clips from youtube for the bands and songs in you last.fm profile (included suggested artists and songs)

Here is what you get when you log on with my last.fm id.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

librarything


Now that I found a nice home for my music habbits, next thing on my list is my collection of books.
While searching for a last.fm for books I stumbled upon www.librarything.com, which I will give a try.
The fact that they intend to charge money for this service may be a drawback, but the initial 200 books you can load for free should give you a headstart with a modest collection like mine.

update: et voila! Here is my profile and here my catalogue (at least the first 67 ones, the rest will require some manual entry)

Skype TV


The long announced IPTV /VoD /webTV /whateveryouwantocallit project of the Skype founders - the venice project - has announced it's full beta stage.

You can now apply for beta-tester status, probalby among a crowd as this is currently headlining on about any tech site out there.

If succesfull this may well be a shot across the bow of all those in pursuit of IPTV happiness.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

oops we did it again

Surprise, surprise!

We are getting used to the written press lagging severely versus the internets, but Time magazine manages to get it entirely too late.
They probably discovered half of their readers fled to the online world and decided to go out an find out why they went there.

Well, they found out and now proudly announce it.

circular sarcasm


This woman definitely gets the point, although she rather spoils the plot by posting the clue to the story.
Try grasping the point without reading her explanation. If you don't get it straight away, this video may well be addressed to you.

For those who got it : here she is her lovely self.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

lost.fm ?


As you maybe noticed, I recently joined the music tracking site last.fm .
Going the whole yard, I off course added a tracking chart to this blog.
However what I wonder about the most, is my own music listening habits. Are my favourite groups indeed my most listened to? Maybe I find some hidden gems in my ever growing collection?

And now I'm going to try and figure out how to upload your iPod playlist or most played songs, if this is possible at all.

Friday, December 15, 2006

simple project management


I wish all those project owners would take a little time to read this one through.
Although no shocking new ideas come up, it contains a clear an concise explanation on how to run a project and not run it into the ground from step one.


An excerpt about communication :
Being a good, clear and consistent communicator is the one thing that will give you the most bang for your buck when it comes to project management.
Give weekly updates and make sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing at all times.
Make yourself available for questions and concerns.
By simply taking the time to communicate well and on a regular basis you’ve one half the battle.

(via Lifehacker, image a shameless rip from some project software site)

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

photolicious


Two colleagues of mine have a talent for photography.
Both have their own stile and techniques :
Gerard Maas & Marion Kahane
Bonus points for those who find the third colleague.

Saturday, December 9, 2006

amazed ?

Frequently people do get really upset about other peoples actions, crying in outrage over the injustice done to them in person or to society as a whole.
Next thing we know it appears like everybody clean forgot what happened and the great perpetrator is reintroduced to his or her previous position in society (or even promoted).

While these are the same people that decide this reintroduction is the most normal of things, they still seem to find a way to be amazed about this reintroduction happening at all.
On the one hand they question the lack of punishment or justice served, yet they themselves are the driving factor behind this reintegration.

I guess this is part of what makes people people : being blatantly inconsequent, which means there is still hope for me ...