Saturday, July 17, 2004

Incidentally has anyone here ever painted any really old woodwork in a house?
I've never worked on intricate mouldings (never lived in a house with 'em) but it sounds like you could go over them once or twice with a good citrus thinner, which acts as a great cleaner. I don't know about sanding them though since I don't know much about moudings, maybe a light sandblast? The wood sounds old so it probably needs some oil to revitalize it. I have used Danish oil as a combined oil/finish and it works wonderfully. You could also varnish it with a thick oil-based varnish or a polyurethane coating.

As far as driving... it is almost a necessary evil in Canada as everything is very far apart. One of the big things I noticed in England is that the cities and towns are built on a human scale that is fit for walking or cycling. Cities in western North America are built massively for automobiles. Driving is especially necessary if, like me, you live in a small town outside the major city and have to commute to school every day (this gets particularily difficult during our crappy winters). I drive a '93 Saturn sl1, which is a GM-made half-import half-domestic car. It is a pain in the ass as all the parts are expensive and my car has quite a bit of mileage (240000+ km). I seem to spend $500 or more on it every summer. That should be a good indication of the quality of these cars (*ahem*). It's decent on gasoline though...
Speaking of the car, a week ago today I was driving down the highway when a car ahead of me experienced some trouble. Shortly after the window on the rear driver's side door EXPLODED. That was exciting. Still driving with a garbage bag taped in place...

The new Blogger interface does not work at all in Camino 0.8. The whole interface displays fine but is crippled and useless. Pity!
posted by Barrie , 9:10 PM Þ 

Hello all,
 
It is madness here, I cannot believe there are so many people and that they all have cars and it seems there are more freeways and strip malls than I ever thought possible. We are heading into NYC tomorrow to fly home, after a wedding in Asbury Park, 4  days in Ocean City, and a stretch of time in wee Chester Springs. I am in a 200 year old library answering emails, and if course, had to check in with you lovelies. Will give more feedback on the good ol' US of A on my return ...
 
Josh, I will phone you shortly, would you like to meet tomorrow for coffee? That would be a trip!
 
loves
posted by mary13 , 8:45 PM Þ 

Jane Barbe Collection

A collection of recordings that are representative of the late Jane Barbe, known unofficially as "The Telephone Lady". Mrs. Barbe, who died in July 2003, had produced many telephone company intercept recordings, as well as lent her voice for used in automated intercept systems, operator assisted dialing systems, and voice mail systems. This collection is representative of the period from 1973 to 1985.

Interview with Jane Barbe (March 2002)


An interview of Jane Barbe on the NPR (National Public Radio) program "Wait.. Don't Tell Me". Jane was a guest on the segment called "Not My Job".

http://www.dmine.com/phworld/sounds/misc/

[...]

I was looking through some of my old bookmarks and hit some of my telepone links. Have a listen to the incredible Jane Barbe interview above.
 
This voice sounds VERY familiar. Now we have a name and face to put to one of the voices behind a Numbers Station, though Jane Barbe's voice will have certainly been used in many different places without her direct knowledge. You can hear an example of the station that used this voice here from Simon Mason's appeal page.

Jane Barbe retired in February 2003, and passed away on July 18, 2003.
 
I wonder if ETC was a government contractor providing equipment to power CIA Numbers Stations? Hmmmmm!
posted by Irdial , 6:48 PM Þ 

Who drives here, and what do you drive?

I drive an old Renault 5.

Incidentally has anyone here ever painted any really old woodwork in a house? I am renting a new pad and need to paint the window frames. But they are very grimy and yellow indeed and intricately moulded, so I was thinking oil based undercoat and liquid gloss. I'm hesitant to blast in there with the latest out of town diy superstore one-coat offering as I am sure they need some preparatory TLC - sanding/scraping clues anyone?


Incidentally I appear to have the new interface in this home copy of Mozilla 1.7. And Picasa is great but on opening for the second time it has tried to register me with "details of (my) computer hardware". Hmmm...
posted by captain davros , 6:33 PM Þ 

Unless you count burning CDs. And who does that?

a cutesy track about it by someone called stark effect
posted by meau meau , 3:58 PM Þ 

Liar backs down on WMD

Tony Liar says he was wrong about a key argument he put forward 18 months ago on the behaviour of Saddam Hussein.

"It used to be thought that once a Liar had fallen into a black hole it was gone and lost forever and the only information that remained was its mass and spin," the Lucasian Professor of THX-1138 at Cambridge told al-Qintetiqa.
posted by meau meau , 3:50 PM Þ 

Spectators attending the Athens Olympics could be forcibly removed from stadiums if they wear clothing bearing "obvious logos of competitive companies to sponsors," according to rules released by games organisers.

The restriction will extend to hats, T-shirts, bags and other "commercial items".

The Guardian reports this blatently corpo-fascistic attitude of the Olympic body. Mind you given that every 'sportswear' manufacturer is likely to be advertising it's a wonder they don't just get rid of people who haven't their 'mit drei streifen', swoosh-a-roo, polyviscose-nylons on.

Advertise and be damned.
posted by meau meau , 3:41 PM Þ 

Whoopi Loses Gig for Bashing Bush

Sat, Jul 17, 2004, 12:07 AM PT

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) -- Outspoken actress Whoopi Goldberg lost her
Slim-Fast gig for agreeing to speak at a Democratic fundraiser.

Goldberg reportedly used the president's name as a sexual reference
at a fundraiser for presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Goldberg has endorsed Democrats many times in the past and is
known for her political views in her comedy routines. The actress
released a statement saying, "While I can appreciate what the Slim-Fast
people need to do in order to protect their business, I must also do
what I need to do as an artist, as a writer and as an American -- not
to mention as a comic. It's unfortuate that, in this country, the two
cannot mesh."

The diet company Slim-Fast is located in Florida, where the last election was ultimately decided.

The company's official statement is: "We are disappointed by the manner
in which Ms. Goldberg chose to express herself and sincerely regret
that her recent remarks offended some of our consumers."

The fundraiser earned $7.5 million, but it's not clear how much weight Goldberg lost with Slim-Fast. [...]

http://www.zap2it.com/

If I were a shareholder in Slim-Fast, I would call for the resignation of the person who took this decision. Think about it:

Dirty tricks in Florida helped steal the election. Disney tried to kill F911 at the request of someone in Florida. Now Slimfast, based in Florida, is chiming in on the dirty business.

This action tarnishes the reputation of Slimfast, and puts it into the basket of corrupt, undemocratic, free speech supressing, election stealing criminal groups.

Anyone who was not aware that this would be the effect of such a sacking should
not be in charge of a forklift at Slimfast, much less PR and advertising.

Honestly, how stupid can they be?!
posted by Irdial , 10:34 AM Þ 
Friday, July 16, 2004

allowed to remain enlightened

They certeainly have every big software company in the world against them, and also a couple of misguided privacy advocates. It will be a battle for sure.
posted by Irdial , 9:39 PM Þ 

I dont think that Blogger is going to be the document editing part of Googles plans

Maybe not a fully fledged word-processor for printed matter (after all who wants that?!?) but the formatting features are all but adequate (tabs/spacers and a few more fonts would seal it) for creating most documents most people would want to create for non-business purposes.
You then have the instant choice of publishing your document to
  1. Your Hard Drive (or printer if you must.)
  2. Your spare Gmail space
  3. Your blog
  4. Your Instant Messager (is IM for communal blogs realistic?)
  5. Sending your document as an email via Gmail
All from the same window. Without looking at a piece of code.

I dont think that they will need to charge directly for any of these services

You don't need to do anything, it's a question of whether Google is allowed to remain enlightened

Google will remain a communication based company rather than a document based company I'm sure.
posted by meau meau , 7:28 PM Þ 

Shock over missing U2 album songs

The Edge and Bono
The CD belonged to U2 member Edge (l)
U2 have spoken of their dismay after a rough-cut of their new album went missing during a photo shoot in France.

The Irish rockers called in police after the CD, containing songs from their forthcoming album, disappeared.

They fear the songs may turn up on the internet where they could be downloaded illegally, months before the release.

Guitarist
Edge said: "A large slice of two years' work lifted. It doesn't seem
credible but that's what's just happened to us... and it was my CD."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3899947.stm


This is an interesting story. Did you know that Parmesan cheese is locked in a giant coffre at the factory? That is how valuable that cheese is.

Now.
You have one of the biggest groups in the world, whose next record
could be worth $100,000,000 dollars. Do you lock up the studio and post
round the clock security?

Do you fuck.

You let the guitarist take a CDR of it out of the studio on a photoshoot in the middle of the thief infested streets of Paris!

That
CDR was "worth" literally millions of dollars, in the fantasy world of
the monopoly and Edge, so why on earth would he treat a single object
with such value in such a cavalier way?
posted by Irdial , 7:08 PM Þ 

This brilliant flash thing from the ACLU gets it right. Of course, the fine people at BLOGDIAL know the alternatives to this story that are worse (is that possible?).

Someone steals your cellular phone. Deliberately. They order a pizza. The thief answers yes to all the questions just like the real Mr. Kelly does.

She goes through all of Mr. Kellys information, and hands it all to the thief, who can impersonate Kelly to his hearts content.

Even better. Someone steals your cellphone. The thief has a girlfriend that despatches pizzas.

OMG WTF AYBABTU.

I dont have to fill in the blanks do I? Good, cause I am a little under the weather today.

All databases must be compartmentalized, by law. It should be illegal to create databases of databases made from public records, so that the above ACLU Pizza scenario is illegal. Note I said illegal. That means that you and you alone will have the whole picture of who you are and what you do and do not do. Anything less than this will facilitate the creation of joined up government, joined up commerce and absolute surveillance.
posted by Irdial , 6:42 PM Þ 

how long all this remains free.

I dont think that Blogger is going to be the document editing part of Googles plans, though the development on the formatting tools will be recycled and used in the future for sure. When Google rolls out its online word processing app, it will blow all the others away.

Someone just bought that terrible Outlook looking (!) webmail company. Or should I say, that company that makes that terrible looking Outlookalike tool. Either way, they will fail it; Gmail is head and shoulders above everything out there.

I dont think that they will need to charge directly for any of these services. For example, when they release their word processing app, they will allow you to use it for free, and then charge you to fax docs to offline people. Think of Faxing as remote printing. Its the same as Picassa; they make money out of printing peoples photos. Google will probably sell adds on this word processing tool as well. They will very probably do something that no one expects.

By the way the market for printing out digital photos is exploding. Many people have thousands of photos in their computers, and have suddenly realiszed that while its great to be able to take unlimited numbers of photos without having to pay for processnig, there is still nothing like having and holding a real photo album.

Music being less personal in the family sense, will not suffer from this need. Unless you count burning CDs. And who does that? At least, who with a brain does that.
posted by Irdial , 5:36 PM Þ 

dav, have you tried a hard refresh ?

when i first viewed the new interface in firefox, i too was presented with the very bare bones from my cache ... all is present & correct in my mozilla version 1.7a
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 5:31 PM Þ 

One alleged victim of the checks-for-degrees scandal is 25-year-old Michael Trumbull, who purchased an art-history degree from the University of Michigan, making his first payment in January 2002. Trumbull currently works the front desk of a Lansing Comfort Inn.

"Not once has a customer asked me about the innovations of Edouard Manet, or whether politics and aesthetics make good bedfellows," Trumbull said. "They're much more likely to ask me to bring them a plunger or give them a wake-up call."

Trumbull, who owes more than $40,000 in student loans, added that he must use a calculator to perform even simple math.
posted by Josh Carr , 5:27 PM Þ 

Picassa off of the market, and of course, its not actually on the market, because its FREE.

And Picassa, now that they have the power of Google behind them cannot do anytyhing but get better and better. The software business is really very interesting!

It's interesting that google is making such impressive strides to create an online working environment:
  1. Blogger has the functionality most people require from word
  2. It is aquiring 'desktop tools' with the intuitive UIs of an apple product
  3. Google Groups setting out to tame usenet
  4. Gmail will kill hotmail - especially when they integrate blogger and gmail into a single web based communications interface
just before its flotation and nasdaq listing doing wonders for the valuation of its stock, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the small investors to be bought out and how long all this remains free.
posted by meau meau , 5:20 PM Þ 

Picassa is a very small app. It installs fast. It scanns your image folders fast. It feels like a next gen photo management app. It scrolls beautifully, with momentum preservation and braking, and as you are importing your thousands of photos, you can start using it immediately.

Its interface is intuitive; the instant you start using it you know what everything does.

It doesnt suffer from the bloated feeling that you get from Photoshop Album, with its opaque tools and sluggish response to any click. If I worked at Adobe, I would have gobbled up this company just to keep Picassa off of the market, and of course, its not actually on the market, because its FREE.

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!

And when you click on "Timeline" something REALLY cool happens. Ill leave you to try it out! The slideshow feature is much better than Adobe Photoshop Albums's, smoother transitions on my machine (over a gig of memory btw) and it acts the way you expect it to act. Thats nice.

What is also deeply satisfying is when you rotate a photo, it doesnt just jump 90° it transitions! Oh dear thats nice!

Adobe Photoshop Album; RIP. And Picassa, now that they have the power of Google behind them cannot do anytyhing but get better and better. The software business is really very interesting!
posted by Irdial , 4:18 PM Þ 

Dav, maybe you should switch to FireFox? As you can see from my screen grab below, the blogger interface looks the same in Firefox 0.92 and IE6 on my work XP machine.
posted by Josh Carr , 4:11 PM Þ 

Sounds like someone in the marketing department was thinking back to '88 and passed on to the branding and sanitisation department....

And in the end, they are simply playing rock music; more dull as dishwater 40 year old music made by people who dont know any better and when they do know better they dont care stupid idiots just out of the hatchery hang em all I say.

88 House music meet up at Clapham Common Centerforce "Mental Mayhem" was full of NEW music, awesome thrills, fun, peace optimism.

It is probably a witness to Biology, Energy, Sunrise, "and all that" that has cooked up this rubbish.

No; FUCK YOU!
posted by Irdial , 3:51 PM Þ 

Free Download!
Free Download
Free Download		 File Size: 3.6MB
Estimated download time: Approx. 10-12 minutes on 56k connection.
Picasa. Everything you need to enjoy your digital photos in a single software product:
  • Auto-transfer photos from your digital camera.
  • Organize and find pictures in seconds.
  • Edit, print, and share photos with ease.
  • Create slideshows, order prints and more!

The download itself contains only the Picasa software. Picasa will not uninstall other programs or add any non-Picasa programs or files to your computer.

This software is Windows® compatible -- see system requirements.

Picasa works with the digital photo files on your PC to create a better, more organized viewing and editing experience. Picasa will not delete or move the location of pictures saved on your PC. [...]

This looks interesting; Adobe Photoshop Album is good put less than perfect.
iPhoto is mac only.
Lets see how this app deals with 8,000 + images.

Google is shopping is it not?
posted by Irdial , 3:44 PM Þ 

Just checked; the interface is about 7000 times different in IE than it is here in Moz 1.7. It's got the Word-like features in IE and hardly anything in Moz. Hmmm.
posted by captain davros , 3:25 PM Þ 


(caffeine + sugar + grease)*
posted by Irdial , 2:46 PM Þ 

guardian reports that...

The guerrilla gig is rock music's latest trump card. The basic premise is that the band rocks up in an unlikely spot and plays furiously until they are evicted. It is a little risky, utterly thrilling, and entirely free. On previous occasions, the Others have performed ad hoc sets in a Tube station and on London Underground's Circle line. News of the impending gig is spread by word of mouth, websites and mass text-messaging among fans.

-

Sounds like someone in the marketing department was thinking back to '88 and passed on to the branding and sanitisation department....


-
The image ?http://website.lineone.net/~rfaith/220wm.jpg? cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.The image ?http://website.lineone.net/~rfaith/220wm.jpg? cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

cool - you can rescale images with the anchor points after dragging and dropping (edit - Publishing this gave my mac a kernel panic)
posted by meau meau , 2:17 PM Þ 

PIA06100: Saturn's Two-Face Moon
[Catalog Image of PIA06100]
Target Name: Iapetus
Is a satellite of: Saturn
Mission: Cassini
Spacecraft: Cassini Orbiter
Instrument: Imaging Science Subsystem - Narrow Angle
Product Size: 442 samples x 442 lines
Produced By: CICLOPS/Space Science Institute
Primary Data Set: Cassini
Full-Res TIFF: PIA06100.tif (46.71 kB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA06100.jpg (4.844 kB)
Click on the image to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original).

Original Caption Released with Image:

The moon with the split personality, Iapetus, presents a puzzling appearance. One hemisphere of the moon is very dark, while the other is very bright. Whether the moon is being coated by foreign material or being resurfaced by material from within is not yet known.

Iapetus' diameter is about one third that of our own moon at 1,436 kilometers (892 miles). The latest image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 3 million kilometers (1.8 million miles) from Iapetus (pronounced eye-APP-eh-tuss).

The brightness variations in this image are not due to shadowing, they are real. The face of Iapetus visible was observed at a Sun-Iapetus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of about 10 degrees. The image scale is 18 kilometers (11 miles) per pixel. The image was magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility. [...]


Interesting. This is how it looked originally:



Some of the tables are lost, manking the white fonts dissapear...its still quite a surprise. Certainly it means copying images and links is now much easier.
posted by Irdial , 1:19 PM Þ 

Japan detains ex-chess champion
A photo from 1992 of US chess champion Bobby Fischer
Mr Fischer has remained elusive since the 1992 chess match
An elusive American former world chess champion, wanted by the US for over a decade, has been detained in Japan.

Bobby Fischer is accused by the US of breaking international sanctions when he travelled to Yugoslavia in 1992 to play against a Russian arch-rival.

Mr Fischer, an American citizen, won the match but disappeared when the US authorities announced they wanted to prosecute him.

The 61-year-old says he will appeal against the extradition order.


[...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3900205.stm



OMG. I just cut this from the BBC and pasted it into the Blogger window, and it retained all of the formatting, the picture and....everything. All in Mozilla. Gaaaa!

Oh, yes, and Bobby Fischer arrested. SHAME!

posted by Irdial , 12:52 PM Þ 

Nearly 50% of the carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the atmosphere over the last 200 years has been absorbed by the sea, scientists say.

Consequently, atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas are not nearly as high as they might have been. Qinetiq reports

As well as the detrimental effect on sea life stated in the article it means that when the maximum CO2 levels the oceans can ignore (I don't know why i wrote ignore it should be 'absorb') have been reached then the atmospheric levels are going to sky rocket and then you'll notice the effects of your dastardly polluting.
posted by meau meau , 12:36 PM Þ 

Preview button is under the compose tab in the top right hand corner. Now it's just a link where, if memory serves me right [which it doesnt and usually deserts me at the earliest opportunity], it did used to be a button.

[edit..] when I just posted this it froze when publishing. It usually takes a while to publish as it is.
posted by chriszanf , 12:00 PM Þ 

By the way, is it me or has the preview button/link disappeared from Blogger in Mozilla?

And safari, also they've taken images off the edit/manage posts section

-
  1. Edit
Just signed in with firefo
x, looks like safari is in 'basic mode' again
posted by meau meau , 11:10 AM Þ 

*Excellent*

By the way, is it me or has the preview button/link disappeared from Blogger in Mozilla?
posted by captain davros , 10:44 AM Þ 

Picture with image to teh edge, border = 7
Picture as link, border = 7
Picture wider than blogdial, border = "100&"
Picture with subject cut out, no border

Have you seen the new blogger interface? They have been working HARD!

I suppose now we have to have eFfnet IRC style prohibition on colors;

"you have been kicked by alex_t, colors, Banned."



Gheorghe Zamfir! (border="7", pizels to the edge)

Interestingly, in "compose" mode, blogger does not show border attributes, but in the preview mode, it does. Hmmmmmm.
posted by Irdial , 9:33 AM Þ 

posted by a hymn in g to nann , 8:51 AM Þ 

Wow, who made you the tape and what track did they put on it?

Tom Betts (of PAUSE_2 records) made the tape for me.

The song is "Where will you be this Xmas" located on side b inbetween Tystion (who I recollect where a Welsh-language hip-hop group) and Bomb 20.
posted by alex_tea , 12:11 AM Þ 
Thursday, July 15, 2004

Really?

Wow, who made you the tape and what track did they put on it?
posted by captain davros , 11:47 PM Þ 

mp3 icon
posted by alex_tea , 11:18 PM Þ 

Your computer is a lesbian
posted by alex_tea , 10:43 PM Þ 

From Lacunae:
please drop me an email if you happen to be able to get me in touch with the members of ... the Yummy Fur...

I fell asleep listening to Kinky Cinema last night. I woke up at 3:15 with the tape still playing. I sure that must have affected me pyschologically.

All this happened because I decided to look through my tape drawer. Loads of mix tapes from ex-girlfriends and pen pals from my adolescent days when email wasn't quite so vital. Very odd, the feeling of nostalgia, memories flooding back, faded like old photos. ANYWAY, I found a Spunkle track on one mix tape from about 1999 I reckon... Can't remember the name of the track, maybe I should go look...
posted by alex_tea , 9:36 PM Þ 

LaCuNaE: links clips notes etc.


the deal with the MP3s: They were all originally released on 7-inch vinyl in the '80s and '90s. They appear with the permission of the original artist. They will not be available for more than a couple of weeks. I like it when people comment on them.

A great site/blog by Douglas Wolk of WFMU and Dark Beloved Cloud fame where he posts interesting MP3s with permission from their creators (the likes of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, The Ex, and Alec Bathgate) and then writes some correlating tidbits.
posted by Josh Carr , 6:48 PM Þ 

posted by Alison , 3:16 PM Þ 

We can all rejoice in the fact the government has anounced a major policy 'initiative' to coincide with two by-elections which by all accounts are not going to be very good for the Labour party. But will it make the trains run on time?
posted by meau meau , 3:13 PM Þ 

xylophone and a 3-year-old notice the look in her eyes...

sun
bare skin
icecream

[I wish]
posted by Alison , 3:01 PM Þ 



Down with murder inc.

And so many more.

Does it make you.... sigh?
posted by Irdial , 12:53 PM Þ 

A futuristic gadget which disables suspect vehicles with radio waves could soon be used by police in car chases. It's their latest weapon in safely ending pursuits.

...

Developed by UK defence research firm Qinetiq, the X-Net is made from Dyneema, a fibre which is said to be eight times stronger than steel and is also used to make bullet-proof jackets.

And they say there are no adverts on the BBC

... unless the company has a 'chairman' that is one of the governors, naturally.
posted by meau meau , 12:42 PM Þ 

Six hours after Jamal Mirsaidov met with the British ambassador, the limp and mutilated corpse of his grandson was dumped on his doorstep. The body was battered and one arm appeared to have been immersed in boiling fluid until the skin had begun to peel off. Mirsaidov is a literature professor in the ancient city of Samarkand. His mistake had been to write a letter to Tony Blair and George Bush alerting them to the daily torture meted out to dissidents in Uzbekistan, their new ally in the war on terror.

Mirsaidov and the ambassador, Craig Murray, doubt the letter was ever delivered but Murray ensured his message was. And though the local prosecutor concluded that the 18-year-old had died of a drug overdose, Murray is convinced he paid the ultimate price for his grandfather's dissent. "The professor has no doubt at all that his grandson was murdered in response to my visit. I wrestle with my conscience greatly over whether I caused that boy's horrible death."

Guardian
posted by meau meau , 12:37 PM Þ 

How could you NOT post the screenshot!!!!!!



Sailor Venus AND the Iraqi Flag.....what are the odds??!?!??!?
posted by Irdial , 12:30 PM Þ 
posted by Alun , 12:09 PM Þ 

Inkscape is an impressive Sodipodi relation which is worth checking out too.
posted by captain davros , 11:48 AM Þ 

Blinkx

Opinions? I have none as it's not available for mac yet.

More info on new entrants please. I dreamt about one last night. I knew him from somewhere....
Too much time at the console, me thinks.

Nikethamide: branded sports drugs, it's only a matter of time. (Who says Americans don't do irony)
posted by Alun , 11:07 AM Þ 

From Thomas, your new BLOGDIAL user.

Is he allowed to post his own?

Sodipodi looks a good GNU replacement for Illustrator. Barrie, why not try getting a second hand G4?
posted by meau meau , 10:34 AM Þ 

The conservative right in Canada is out to get Michael Moore. The site http://www.chargemoore.com/ has been launched by a young Campus Conservative to get Moore charged under Canadian Election laws. His crime? Discussing the Canadian election while in Canada in June. He compared Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative party, to George Bush. The opinion of the website is that this kind of talk violates the law that only allows "Canadian citizen[s]; or ... permanent resident[s]" to carry on like that.

It could just be sour grapes. The Conservatives lost the election.

From Thomas, your new BLOGDIAL user.
posted by Irdial , 10:16 AM Þ 

You will have some problems when you switch to Linux.

Fonts for one.

If you want to do DTP on Linux, you need this:

Scribus is a Page Layout program for GNU/Linux®, similar to Adobe® PageMaker, QuarkXPress or Adobe® InDesign, except that it is published under the GNU GPL.

With the release of Scribus 1.1.6, Linux and Unix desktop users have a user friendly, but powerful Desktop Publishing application capable of a broad set of DTP needs. Started with humble beginnings as a Python program to make menus, Scribus has been transformed into a young but rapidly maturing DTP application with numerous professional features, as well as some unique capabilities. Already, in use from everything to club newsletters to small newspaper production to animated interactive PDF presentations a la Power point. or Open Office Impress. Other uses are creating corporate stationery and brochures, small posters and other documents which need flexible layout and/or the ability to output to professional quality image-setting equipment. [...]

http://web2.altmuehlnet.de/fschmid/about.html
posted by Irdial , 10:05 AM Þ 

A Bittorrent Search engine:

http://www.bitoogle.com/

Bitorrent is taking over as the number one way to get movies, TVRips & stuff.

Kazaa is on its way down, which is hardly surprising. This search engine might be the thing that propels BT even faster.
posted by Irdial , 9:52 AM Þ 

A question for the linux users round here:
I have been seriously considering getting a new computer to replace my Mac. If I actually had a decent income I would get a Mac but since Apple prices somewhat steeply, I was thinking about putting together a very decent x86 box (probably Athlon64) for 1/3 the price of a base G5 model.
Would anyone reccommend switching to Linux, or would this be a disastrous path to insanity? All I actually do is web browsing, music listening/encoding, file serving, photoshop (GIMP is a good equivalent I have been led to believe) and InDesign type-setting/publishing type work. I have always wondered if there's an InDesign equivalent that is GPL...
Any advice/warnings would be welcome. Thanks...
posted by Barrie , 6:28 AM Þ 

Installed.... mmmmm
posted by chriszanf , 1:54 AM Þ 

Echo!
posted by Barrie , 12:52 AM Þ 
Wednesday, July 14, 2004

posted by chriszanf , 11:17 PM Þ 

posted by Claus Eggers , 10:30 PM Þ 

Echo!?
posted by alex_tea , 9:51 PM Þ 

blogdial has a lot of pc users. that's gay.
posted by Ken , 9:27 PM Þ 

ho ho ho....
posted by Irdial , 9:24 PM Þ 

posted by a hymn in g to nann , 9:15 PM Þ 

ECHO.

Josh Carr's Blogdial Echo Screen Cap
posted by Josh Carr , 7:29 PM Þ 

All life is sacrosanct?

Not when mosquitos do this
posted by chriszanf , 6:07 PM Þ 

I'm sure someone posted about Subethaedit when it was called Hydra.

If you're up for some dual-action (or more) coding (maybe we could thrash out the perl GPG thing I was working on before) then email me. I am thinking around 2100BST.
posted by alex_tea , 6:04 PM Þ 

Solid air is *great*. I was totally converted by watching the teevee show "Johnny too bad" which was on a few weeks back and repeated recently. Had to zoom out and buy that. It was one of those total "Why hadn't anyone told me about this before?" moments.
posted by captain davros , 5:35 PM Þ 

afternoon of installations
it's a beauty isn't it ? ... oh, i can taste the silence ... except that i now need a couple of SilentDrives to remove the very faint sound of hard drives doing their thing

dav ... solid air ... the joy, the joy !
posted by a hymn in g to nann , 5:09 PM Þ 

Is it just me or is there a slight echo in here...



Please post your view in order to check this.
posted by captain davros , 4:32 PM Þ 
posted by Irdial , 3:43 PM Þ 

has anyone been to Shhh.. yet?

I went on Monday. Quite enjoyable except the Roots Manuva piece was quite oppressive compared to the feeling I got from the room and the Elizabeth Frazer piece sounded too much like LOTR soundtrack. [which I learnt she did the vocals for - so no surprise there!]

One of the David Byrne pieces was funny as it's set inside a toilet so it was amusing to see people coming out of it, looking sheepish, after only going in to hear the piece!

Only downside with the exhibition is that most of the pieces only play once and you have an allotted time to go round [2 hours]. I would have liked to be able walk around at my own pace [as this was the first time I had been to the V&A] and had more of a look round with the tracks on repeat.


I received delivery yesterday of a Startech removable drive drawer and my Zalman Superflower silent fan. Thanks for the links to those. Now an afternoon of installations!

I wonder, is that near the little village Rennes-le-Chateau?

Barrie, it's the city of Rennes in Bretagne, north-west france. A search showed the village to be south-west France, near to Barcelona. So, no but it sounds worth a visit.
posted by chriszanf , 1:25 PM Þ 

Philippines 'pulling out' Iraq troops

Manila says it is organising the withdrawal of troops from Iraq after threats made to a Philippine hostage.

Militants said they would behead Angelo de la Cruz unless troops left by 20 July, a month earlier than planned.

A statement from the Philippine government said the number of its military personnel had already gone down from 51 to 43.

Both the US and Australia have expressed disappointment at Manila's purported plans to withdraw its forces.

Although the Philippine military presence in Iraq has been small, the country has been a staunch ally in the Bush administration's war on terrorism. [...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3892125.stm

This illegal fiasco is not worth the life of a single human being. There cant be many people who do not see this, and thankfully, some of them are in Government.

The Phillipines will now be taken off of the attack list, an they can get on with their own lives, which is what everyone should be doing.

As for the Butler report, what it says really doesnt matter at all. The only thing that matters is that any government can go to war without the of its electorate. As long as this is the case, war will be a threat. Unless something fundamental changes, there will be a never ending sucession of governments eager to flex their muscles, and each will deploy troops on yet another meaningless, life-wasting excersise. Permanent blocks on the ability to make war must be.... released.

You all know that I am not talking about legislation.

These reports are a distraction; a false way to bring closure to bad decisions that leave the mechanisms that generate the mistakes possible completely intact. Even if the report caused responsible parties to resign, the mechanism would remain intact, and new lever pullers would take the place of the disgraced.
posted by Irdial , 1:00 PM Þ 
posted by Alun , 12:45 PM Þ 

posted by meau meau , 12:32 PM Þ 

Interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawir insists the country will soon reinstate the death penalty despite strong opposition from the European Union.

Iraq's interim government would first announce an amnesty deal to resistance fighters who had fought US-led occupation forces since last year's invasion but were now ready to lay down their arms, Yawir said.

This move would be followed "by a law on the death penalty," he told reporters in Baghdad.

No prizes for guessing who'll be the first to take the final walk.
posted by meau meau , 10:39 AM Þ 

Bush plan drops logging ban for national forests

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Environmentalists are blasting a Bush administration proposal to lift a ban on logging in remote areas of national forests, saying the move ignores popular support for protecting forests.

The plan announced Monday would allow logging by permitting roads to be constructed in national forests. Governors would have to petition the federal government to block road building.

"When the Forest Service originally proposed protecting these special places to hunt, fish and camp, the millions of public comments received were overwhelmingly supportive," Idaho Conservation League spokesman John Robinson said. "There's no reason to drag out this fight." [...]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/07/13/forest.rules.change.ap.ap/index.html
posted by Irdial , 10:20 AM Þ 

Overbearing to people of different cultures, oblivious to nuance, unsophisticated in politics and arrogant in temperament. [...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46304-2004Jul13.html
posted by Irdial , 10:11 AM Þ 



Editing documents in groups can be a challenge. Versioning systems like subversion or cvs help your group to keep a consistent copy of your document, but don't provide realtime collaboration. Wouldn't it be great to edit the same document, live, in realtime, together with everyone in your group?
Time for SubEthaEdit

With SubEthaEdit you can. The idea of collaborative editing has been researched for years, with notable results. But now for the first time it has been implemented in a way you actually want to use: A sophisticated technique allows all users to type anywhere in the text without locking parts of the text for other users, making SubEthaEdit just as easy to use as a traditional text editor.
Everyone's invited

Using Mac OS X's unique Rendezvous features you don't have to edit long lists of preferences anymore, configuring servers and clients. It's as easy as editing a local file, just announce your document and type away. You can even see who is available for collaboration on your network and invite them by dragging and dropping them to your document. [...]

http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
posted by Irdial , 9:57 AM Þ 
Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Japanese children will soon be taking ID cards equipped with the latest tracking technology to school.

Alarmed at a spate of violent crimes involving children, a school in western Japan will next month introduce radio frequency identity cards (RFID) which enable parents to keep tabs on their children all day.

Guardian

We know where this will lead

-

The growing of GM plants for medicinal purposes is exactly the kind of approach to GM that excites me, positively. Plants can be grown cheaply and close to areas of need. They appear to only want to grow the plants in greenhouse environments which limits cross contamination with indigenous species and presumably the greenhouses would need to be secure to meet clinical standards. There is the isssue of the patents but I think the technology is sound, moreover it is only the vaccine that is to be taken into the body and this will have to pass standard medical tests and will be administered in controlled doses, compltely unlike the lack of restrictions on GM food ingestion.
posted by meau meau , 10:21 AM Þ 
Monday, July 12, 2004

I saw the most riveting documentary the other day; first person accounts of live under the Vichy government in France, mostly in the words of the collaborators.

This film conveyed a true feeling of what it was like during that time; I recomend that you see it. It will hopefully be repeated:

THE SORROW AND THE PITY
Marcel Ophuls, France, 1969
Part 1: Saturday 10 July 2004 7pm-9pm
Interview with Marcel Ophuls: Saturday 10 July 2004 9pm-9.30pm
Part 2: Saturday 10 July 2004 9.30pm-11.40pm

Classic documentary about the Nazi occupation of France, widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/storyville/sorrow-and-pity.shtml
posted by Irdial , 8:16 PM Þ 



I was given this as a present.
I've wanted it for ages.

It is stunning.


I remember watching it as a child on Sunday evenings.
It never used to make me cry so.

The people. The people.
posted by Alun , 3:36 PM Þ 

Josh - There really are NO secret stashes of This Heat and Deceit, but hold back on paying anything ridiculous for them as they are both in the pipeline to be re-issued (The first album in completely re-mastered and re-packaged form and Deceit as a re-pressing of the 2001 edition). The These site is very soon going to be updated and more information will be available there, I've just not had time to do it with all the recent eviction problems. Also www.thisheat.com is in the pipeline for launching when the first album is re-issued. I'll post any REAL information here as soon as I have it...
a.these
posted by THESE , 1:03 PM Þ 

Hmmmmmmm!

That reminds me a bit of this thought from earlier this year (although it feels like last year).
posted by captain davros , 11:43 AM Þ 

"Have you ever dreamed of having your own radio show? With iTunes, you?re halfway there. You can give anyone on your local network access to your personal music library. You can share your entire library, or really ?play DJ? by creating and sharing special playlists.

Other computers running iTunes on your local network will automatically seek out your computer and connect to your shared music library. Your shared music is streamed to the other computers, not downloaded, so others can listen only as long as you?re connected to the network and have iTunes open. They can?t copy your music to their library."

You can listen to other peoples collections, but not transfer the files to your own machine.

getTunes allows you to transfer files to your machine; it then automagically imports them into iTunes under a geTunes playlist.

I wonder how many Wireless, no-wep, iTunes-no-pw running machines are out there waiting to be discovered?

Hmmmmmmm!
posted by Irdial , 11:20 AM Þ 

12OMG - am I missing something or hasn't iTunes got this built in already?

-

apple's site says 100,000,000 songs have been downloaded from the iTunes Music Store. A major milestone for online music.
More like a drop in the ocean.
posted by meau meau , 10:58 AM Þ 

As a result, sources tell NEWSWEEK, Ridge's department last week asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place. Justice was specifically asked to review a recent letter to Ridge from DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Soaries noted that, while a primary election in New York on September 11, 2001, was quickly suspended by that state's Board of Elections after the attacks that morning, "the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election." Soaries, a Bush appointee who two years ago was an unsuccessful GOP candidate for Congress, wants Ridge to seek emergency legislation from Congress empowering his agency to make such a call. Homeland officials say that as drastic as such proposals sound, they are taking them seriously?along with other possible contingency plans in the event of an election-eve or Election Day attack. "We are reviewing the issue to determine what steps need to be taken to secure the election," says Brian Roehrkasse, a Homeland spokesman.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5411741/site/newsweek/

"Secure The Election" indeed.

If anything happens, no matter who is behind it, they will be able to postpone and change the result of the election.

Its the preemption doctrine again; if you think you are going to loose, preempt the problem.

The TRUE American way would be to hold the election come hell or high water. Even if another 911 style attack happened, the voting should continue in all other places; and why not? Recounting can happen in the microscopic area where the attack happened, but for certain, no election should be postponed or called off because of a bomb.

You have to admire the sheer audacity of these people.
posted by Irdial , 10:07 AM Þ 

Outsourcing (from a privacy point of view) would be OK...

There is also the fact that a technician in India will be less aware of the nuances of government/official agencies in the UK, so there is the question of whether or not they would question the question of whether or not they should divulge a patient's DNA profile to the Home Office if they were asked to do so and how this is governed by UK data protection. One would hope that a UK technician would spot covert database aggregation and not do it and blow a whistle.

-

Interesting Data Protection link from Spy Blog
posted by meau meau , 9:57 AM Þ 

one 2 oh my god is a client for iTunes4 library sharing written in java. it uses jrendezvous to discover hosts, and uses a reverse engineered protocol to browse the iTunes library.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/one2ohmygod/
posted by Irdial , 8:56 AM Þ 
Sunday, July 11, 2004
posted by Irdial , 2:43 PM Þ 
Home
 
People
 
Services
 
Articles
 
News
 
About


Subscribe to “Irdial-List” Our Mailing List.
The Blarchives are here.
The Blogs on irdial.com are powered by WordPress.
Here is the Blogdial Atom XML feed.
Here is the Blogdial Feedburner XML feed.
Open Content 1995-2005 Irdialani Limited. All Rights Relinquished where applicable.
Links: STAND FIPR PI PF NUFORC M2M SB FTT FFF RMS A-SCROB ONGAKU Blogroll BLOGDIAL WOE CHEZ MANNING