Monthly Archive for February, 2005
I took belinda to see the new Audtrey Tatou film ‘A Very Long Engagement‘, which is currently on Limited release in a selection of London’s more louche cinemas. It’s director also produced French quirk-fests; Amelie and City of Lost Children. He also produced the yawnsome, Alien Resurrection, perhaps the most dissapointing film about flesh-ripping xenomorphs. But what can you expect from the man who gave us
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user salimfadhley on 2005-02-06
- The French Cafe —
An outline of some techniques used by the Samba team in reverse engineering Microsoft SMB ProtocolTagged as: computing networking samba smb - Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting —
A blog of things that Josh things are coolTagged as: art blog cool gadgets - Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea —
A group of Sci-Fi writes work together to write the worst possible book.Tagged as: awful fiction humor sci-fi science tea travis
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user salimfadhley on 2005-02-05
- Dietrich Ayala | Foxylicious - Firefox and del.icio.us bookmark integration —
A mozilla plugin for Del.ico.us.Tagged as: del.ico.us delicious extension firefox mozilla plugin - Microsoft Chat (Comic Chat) —
Screenshots from MS Comic Chat, with art by Jim WoodringTagged as: Art Cartoon Chat Comic Jim Microsoft Woodring - The Frank Book, Volume 2 —
Another Jim Woodring bookTagged as: cartoon comic frank jim woodring - Gentoolkit —
A set of tools for managing the Gentoo operating systemTagged as: gentoo linux software tool - Loki Torrent - Torrent Search, Torrent Download :: Torrents —
Another public bittorrent tracker. This time, with an on-going legal battle against the RIAATagged as: bittorrent public tracker - Torrent Stop - Your one stop shop for torrents :: Welcome to Torrent Stop —
A frequently updatedp ublic bittorrent tracker.Tagged as: bittorrent public torrent tracker
Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user salimfadhley on 2005-02-04
- AX | BX —
Tagged as: arcade assembler game test - Crouch End - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia —
Crouch End, this is where I live.Tagged as: geography harringey london wiki wikipedia - Archetypes Documentation — plone.org —
Tagged as: archetypes documentation manual reference zope - wikipage_view — plone.org —
Tagged as: archetypes reference wiki zope - A historic first step for the Hurd/L4 microkernel port | Wikinerds Portal —
Tagged as: hurd os port - WordPress Wiki - Plugin —
Tagged as: del.ico.us plugin wordpress - Mac Mini: The Emperor’s New Computer —
A truthful review of the Mac MiniTagged as: apple humor mac mini review - Cvals.jpg (JPEG Image, 1200×975 pixels) - Scaled (47%) —
A chart showing the relative quantity of genetic material in various classes of life-form.Tagged as: c-value chart comparison genetic graph quanity - Lifehacker —
Tagged as: blog hack life - 4.2 re — Regular expression operations —
Tagged as: module python re reference
Last summer Steven Kurz’s wife had a heart attack in her sleep. When he called for paramedics, they observed his collection of bacteria samples and genetic engineering equipment. His wife could not be saved, and following her death Steven was arrested by the FBI under the US Patriot act, accused of bioterrorism.
Steven was a member of a group called of the “Critical Art Ensemble”, an artistic organisation dedicated to exploring scientific issues. The devices that attracted the FBI’s attention were due to be incorporated into an installation that allowed members of the public to analyse foods for traces of genetic contaminates. For example, you could bring in a sample of kebab-meat and the device could determine if any rat DNA was present.
At the moment, Steven is out on bail, and the FBI are still investigating his case. Email from artist suspected of bioterrorism.
I felt a profound sense of relief as the postal teller accepted the parcel containing the iRiver PMP-140, which I had only obtained four days earlier. For the reasons outlined in my previous article, this gadget completely failed to live up to my expectations, so I had to return it.
Fortuantely, iRiver are not the only company attempting to build a Linux based pocket PVR
I went to Trafalgar Square today to watch Nelson Mandela deliver a speech in support of the Make Poverty History campaign. At one point I looked up to see Horatio Nelson standing on the famous column, then down to see Nelson Mandela, one of the most remarkable leaders of our time, commanding an audience of what must have been eight or nine thousand. Two of the most famous Nelsons in history, unless you count Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons.
Read the transcript of his speech here.
Click here for the BBC article about the event.
Coincidentally, if you go into a pub and ask for “two Nelsons” you will be served two pints of Stella Artois, Nelson being rhyming slang for this strong continental lager (Nelson Mandela = Stella).
I’m making light of it but the whole event was very moving and awe-inspiring. I couldn’t hear much, especially as I arrived late and had to stand at the back of the crowd where I only got a tiny view of the great man from far away. But among the few words I could make out were the following:
“…overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity.
It is an act of justice.
It is the protection of a fundamental human right,
the right to dignity and a decent life.”
I’ve been wearing the white wrist-band for a few weeks now, since a colleague got back from Africa where she had been filming for Comic Relief and to be perfectly honest, when I read the words Make Poverty History on it I can’t help feeling the same vague hopelessness that such words bring. The obstacles are so huge, the widening gap between rich and poor is so entrenched and reversing it is against the interests of so many powerful people. It’s difficult to know what to think, how to estimate the chances that something will be done instead of more promises which fall “tragically behind”.
I distrust the anti-virus business, it’s an industry that should not need to exist because it’s continued existance does the world no good. I put AV companies in the same category as paractitioners of homeopathy and feng-shuei, however their marketing strategies are more closely resemble crack-dealers.
You know that without your trusty AV tool you would have become the victim of a series of virii, each more destructive and embarassing than the last. You pity the poor fool who fails to load AV onto his Windows box for he will surely have his computer eviscerated by the first virus that comes-a-knocking, You may already be about to dismiss my ranting as the high-minded yet impractical twaddle of a Lunix activist.
Continue reading ‘Symantec, trampling whats left of your liberty…’
These days there are plenty of companies that make “Personal Media Centres” - pocketable devices with the capability to play back video files. Most of these are based on Windows CE and are little more than cut-down Windows CE computers with bulked up storage. These depend somewhat on Windows Media Centre, and can only be trusted to play heavily DRM’d content - the sort you have to pay for.
Of course, the Microsoft flava is not for me - I rip most of my own content, and as a Linux user my preferred formats are XviD and Ogg Vorbis - these are not standards that Microsoft has any interest in supporting.
It was for this reason I was thrilled when the Korean firm iRiver announced that it would be adding the Linux based PMP-100 series to it’s rather nifty range of multi-format jukeboxes. Styled somewhat similar to the windows media devices - and resembling the original Gameboy Advance, the PMP claimed to be able to play all my audio files, plus DivX and XviD files - the most common video formats on the linux, amd possibly the Internet.
It was some excitement that I placed my order and unfortunately an equal amount of disapointment when I received it.
Continue reading ‘Review: iRiver PMP-140′