The Unreasonable Man

Tonight, I am watching “The Fifth Element” (downloaded) in 720p HD, on my PC. And I must say, Milla Jovovitch looks very fetching in her thermal bandages in 1280×720p High Definition.

Nothing special of course(*) - 1280×720 is not as good as my PC has been forever. Still, if the Hollywood powers would sell me movies like this for a reasonable fee (and without DRM: if I buy it, it is mine), I would buy. What a pity that these old guys are holding back progress so badly.

(*)The definition, not Milla

Another image of an Icon in the Park:

…and a free punlet for the day:

Playboy Magazine is a very popular pubication 

I like.

In the UK, there are some people who are quite reasonably against the ID-card nonsense that is being introduced there by the labour government. These people have started an organisation called NO2ID. That group recently posted this brilliant ad [link to picture]

Naturally, some people complained. The Advertising Standards Committee, however, has just rejected the complaint [link]. Brilliant:

Assessment: Not upheld

The ASA noted the ad had been intended to encourage discussion on a sensitive political issue.  We considered that, although the ad may have been distasteful to some, it was unlikely to be seen as making a serious comparison between Tony Blair and Hitler but instead as highlighting a lobbying groups opinion that ID cards should not be introduced because of the threat to civil liberty they posed.  We concluded that, as such, the ad was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence.

Someone in England has balls!

This month’s selection search strings used to find this site by the 400-odd who visit it daily - and my comments.

yeah right - ?

atheists for jesus - you found one here

bellzebub - if you spell him right you may get more hits

confusing controls - you’re in the right place.

cultural confusion - you’re still in the right place.

jane birkin photos nue naked - please.. please.. tell me when you’ve found them.

pathetic middleaged men - you are so in the right place.

photos of sad indians - um…

abolish religion - let’s.

anti-religion photographers - you are still in the right place.

canadians have a passport - what, you’re telling me?

canadians live in the us california - no, Californians live in the US California. Canadians live in Canada.

cultural indians - hoping to find them here?

derka derka allah - um…?

framing construction house easy - no, framing construction house not easy. Not cheap or quick either.

god forsake me - Suggest you ask God, not me?

hoodies - Yes, hoodies. And?

how many citizenships are you allowed to have - Depends on whom you ask. The Dutch and the Canadian Conversatives would say “one”.
how to copy mp3 dics in apple - not?

if i am canadian do and live in us do i pay taxes - Um… Q: If I am <anything> do I pay taxes: A: Yes

ignore my music media player - Will do, thanks for the advice

is hell unreasonable - Very. Customer Service sucks. It’s warm, too.

is solid food allowed on domestic flights - See above

l word - eh.. how about “Liver Omens”?

liver omens - They are very useful. Ask King Ashurbanipal.

mafia in guelph ontario - No, Mafia in Sicily, Italy. And Montreal. And Hamilton. And.. never mind.
mohammad laly or lalyho or madjan or mt-env or blog or weblog - now htat is a nice, well-defined search string.

offensive hoodies - Only inoffensive and plainclothes hoodies here.

plainclothes hoody - See?

securlarism - If you spell it right, you will find more sites.

think - I try to.

tom the dancing bug comic kill sell - Uh oh. Someone warm Ruben Bolling. Quick.

use of cellphones necessary or not necessary - Same as eating of spinach.

when i do countanalysis - Is that a question?

why did god forsake me - Probably because you asked him, see above.

Another image from the GWNW press photo workshop in Toronto. I would quite like to be sent out daily to take a picture for the paper: the pressure is exciting. Learned a lot from these pros: the presentation about feature hunting, by a long-time Toronto Star photographer, was the most inspiring.

The state of DRM (Digital Rights Management) is “yellow alert”, I would say. But The Public is ignorant of what is happening. How many consumers, for instance, know these facts:

• A DVD you buy in London cannot be played in New York: these are different “regions”. And no, this is not for technical reasons; this is only to prevent you from doing it.
• A song you buy on your iPod will only work on a few machines. Every time you buy a new PC, you need to re-register and de-register PCs. Imagine your workload 10 years from now.
• Windows Vista will not allow you to send a “protected” high-def video to a device that does not have protection built in (using HDCP - “High Definition Content Protection” over a digital interface). Yes, you heard that right: if you have copyrighted high-def content, such as a movie, you will not be allowed to send it at, say, 1280×768 out of your VGA port. Have a VGA only screen, or a VGA only PC, and no HDCP? Well, then it sucks to be you: you can watch most content at 480i only, or go buy a new monitor. And a cable that will probably cost you $100 as well.
• Any TV without HDCP will also be unable to play such high-def video content. Yes, even if you paid $5,000 for your TV a year ago: if it has no HDCP, it will be a large, low-definition brick.
• Even Microsoft balked at the level of DRM built into the new BluRay standard. The hardware (and by extension, Sony) deciding whether you are allowed to play a piece of media - that is too much.
• All this screwing with the customer applies to you - even though it is done in America, and under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). Again, the US decides it can rule the world. Why do people all over the world hate America, again? Ask me that when I am replacing all my non-digital screens, TVs, PCs, and cables, to do America a favour.

The following article in Newsweek is quite good: [link here] - especially the quote at the end of page 2. When the public finds out how they are being taken for a ride, and that all these modern technologies are “defective by design”, there will be a backlash. Until media can be easily moved and played (like a record, CD or VCR-tape), there will be no mass adoption.
Of course that moment of realisation may be a while: as said, the public still thinks that all DVDs are equal, and that a TV marked “HD Ready” necessarily actually has an HD LCD Panel in it. And the industry is not hastening this process: Apple has said that “it does not normally discuss Fairplay” (its DRM mechanism).

Do yourselves a favour, and inform your next door neighbour. Perhaps we can hasten the process of public enlightenment a bit, before it is too late and we are all permanently under Hollywood/Washington’s rule.

A couple of “weather pictures” I took during the recent GWNW (Great White North Workshop) press photographers’ convention. As always, click for a larger image.

Canadian icons…

Tree… with inhabitant…

A few Linux/OSS (Open Source Software) updates for you:

Linux at work:

• I am once again using Linux on a desktop PC at work.
• I first tried FC6 (Fedora Core 6) - really bad as a desktop. No audio, no mouse cursor (!), the list goes on - not intended as a desktop. Fedora, just remain a great server OS.
• Then I installed Ubuntu 6.10 desktop. Install was trivial (faultless from the start: everything simply worked); then getting the nvidia drivers, getting Multimedia codecs and getting MS fonts, and tuning the desktop to look like MS, with those great small icons and fonts etc, took just a couple of hours.
• Things that just worked included sound, printer support, SMB (Windows) network support, screen support (it chose 1280×1024 automatically!) - in fact all the peripherals.
• And the verdict: I absolutely love it. I am trying to find things not to like, but it actually looks and feels better than the Windows desktop. And works really, really well.
• Why is it not my only PC? Simple: applications. I kind of like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, Palm Desktop, Canon Digital Photo Professional, and a number of other apps. Apart from that, I have switched. So I now run Ubuntu most of the day and switch to the XP laptop only when I need to.

Linux appliances:

• This weekend, I bought a couple of Linksys 53GL routers - the “L” means it is the Open Source version. And I installed this firmware (to be precise: this version) - wow. I now have a PC that I can shell into using SSH and write software and scripts for. I can adjust power levels. I can use it as a bridge. A $600 router for the price of $60. Very cool.

Linux CRM:

• We are using the free, Open Source version of SugarCRM now - a clone of salesforce.com but one that we can use for free. Installation took me half an hour.
• Yes, no doubt we’ll pay for service and hosting/appliance some day soon, but in the mean time we can try this out with most functionality free of charge and free of risk. I am building a database; as soon as we are rwADy to pay, we will be off with a guaranteed-to-succeed project. Sugar, many compliments.

Linux email

• We are now beginning to use Scalix, an Open Source Exchange-clone. Like other packages, this is not free - but it is Linux-based and it gives us Exchange functionality at a much lower price, and in a full Ajax package - very cool stuff. Check it out.

My conclusion: The Open Source world is progressing rather nicely, and is now unlocking real possibilities.

Punlet, I should say:
“Smoking causes Lung Cancel”

This is very silly, but all right. Here is a list from te Blogosphere that you are supposed to copy - and then boldface only the things you’ve done.

It is silly, partly because it is someone else’s list. On the other hand, that also makes it somewhat interesting - what does a random American (must be) think are 150 majorly life-changing experiences, and how many of them have I actually done?

So in that spirit, here it is. And no questions answered about the details!

I have actually thought before that I should write my own list of 100 things to do in a lifetime, and I shall do that soon. For now, here’s someone else’s list of 150, and the ones I have done in bold. There are 68 of them.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables (do herbs count?)
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse (but in my case, of the moon)
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class (when I was a child!)
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Fwiw.