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31°C und Sonnenschein machen uns glücklich und deshalb gibt es heute wie angekündigt die codierte Community Party im Wald. Alles mitbringen was man verzehren will, optophonisches und anderweitig künstlerisches mitgestalten ausdrücklich erwünscht. Wir freuen uns auf Freunde und Freundesfreunde. Mehr Infos und Anfahrt, Decodierungwerkzeuge und so hier.
OCZ - a modder company selling overclocking and cooling devices normally - has introduced a computer brain input interface. No its not an "coming soon product" it is apparently available to buy pretty much now for a mere US $147,00. The devices detects brainwaves, facial muscle movements and eye muscle movements to enhance your input possibilities. There is a great writeup from hothardware using it and reading that makes me very itchy. This could very well be a great additional solution to some input woes with complex programs - especially complex programs that need fast reaction time or programs were you need to push more buttons at once then you have fingers. Like VJ programs for example... Sadly the device is Windows only at the moment and mostly aimed towards gamers. But I expect this to become a common form of input if it is really working as described in the article.
Ever since I entered the code behind the internet I have been a big fan of Javascript. While there was a time when Javascript use was seen as something only those who had no clue did todays thinking has changed and you can probably not get around the modern web these days with your Javascript turned off and have a pleasent experience. But I always knew that Javascripts capabilities have been greater then just pulling some data from some server and presenting it interactively in a glossy interface (so I am always trying out new stuff look at the moving logo up this site - based on code I wrote in 1997!). Well with the SquirrelFish engine in the nightly build of Safari and Firefox 3 things are getting mighty speedy in the Javascript world and things are possible that seemed impossible before. Like recursive mathematics f.e. I stumbled upon a site that makes recursive beautiful organic pictures totally with javascript and totally inside your browser - no plugins needed - all open standard nice Javascript. I am genuinely exited.
So download WebKit Nightly (the developer version of Safari) and start tinkering with the following site:
Glatte 2 Stunden für den Aufbau unseres set-ups sind einfach zuviel, wenn es dann zu regnen beginnt und wir wieder abbauen um unter ein Dach zu ziehen, glaubt man höhere Mächte hätten sich verschworen. Umso erstaunlicher das dann alles doch geklappt hat. Jedenfalls haben wir die offizielle Einladung zur Proto.Betriebsfeier, welche am 26.07.2008 an einem geheimen Ort (anhören) eingebettet. Vorneweg freeculture.links, feine Hinter- und Vordergrundmusik sowie unsere Netzfundstücke immer am Ende der Sendung. Wir sehen uns doch wohl dann hoffentlich. Akkus aufladen nicht vergessen.
Wie immer am besten den podcast subscriben (iTunes -> Erweitert -> Podcast abbonieren -> link reinkopieren)
http://www.prototypen.com/radio/index.xml
oder durch den iTunes Music Store abbonieren (muss man nur auf Link drücken und dann im Musik Store auf abbonieren gehen)
Radio Prototypen im iTunes Music Store
oder direkt speichern unter
Als Enhanced Podcast im AAC Format:
http://www.prototypen.com/radio/rP28_Betriebsausflug.m4a
Oder als normales MP3:
http://www.prototypen.com/radio/rP28_Betriebsausflug.mp3
Links des podcast im "enhanced" Teil des MPG4 ausserdem im Lyrics Teil des MP3 und hier:
Musik
Hintergrund Musik Heute: Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Dub Band
Musik Heute: Ayro
Free Culture News
FreeFood: Urban Agriculture in Kuba ein Erfolg
Free Food: Mini Ökosystem
Free Culture: Öko Nachhaltig Leben Bücher Shop
Future: Wie stellt ihr Euch die Welt 2100 vor?
Free Transport: Liste aller Autos und vortbewegungsmittel ohne Oil
No More Money: Geld und wie es unser Leben bestimmt
Lots Of Robots: Roboter Arm imitiert Orginal Arm
Lots Of Robots: Roboter übernehmen Job von Lagerfahrern
Open Source: Music und Video Mixer / Midi
Free Living: Geiles Strandhaus
Free Energy: Wasser Schlangen generieren Strom
Hauptthema: Betriebsausflug
prototypen Betriebsausflug
QR Code ProtoPodcast
Links
Visual Berlin macht Jugendarbeit
Kunst aus Müll
Flash 3d Flythrough
While impressive looking the fire departments are dumping more chemicals into california wildfires every day. The Phos-Check fire retardant is surely making the company who produces them very rich. They claim "its nothing other then a fertilizer" and on surface it looks like it:
From an australian research report:
Any amount of unaltered (un-burnt) Phos-Check would act as a direct source of N, P, S to the environment.
but just before it says:
The retardent also contains < 5% by weight of a range of performance additives that are confidential to the manufacturer, but the composition of which were made available to the consultant under a confidality agreement. The effect of high temperatures on these compounds is unknown.
Now that is a sentence that would get me worried but it goes on and does not get much more pretty.
Some of the additive compounds in Phos-Check are potentially harmful to biological systems and human health. Very little is known of the impacts of these in natural environments, including their longevity or transport in aquatic systems.
So while the main components are good fertilizers (so I still doubt dumping huge amount of sulfuric acids can be very good) the 5% that are under "confidentiality" are known to cause health problems and problems to the environments and they are know to be washed into rivers and streams with the next rain after the fires.
While I know that fires are really hell for the people living in the affected areas I also know that forest fires are a natural phenomenon that is actually helping the local area by supplying it with good natural fertilization from the charcoal burnt wood. And most of the fires ranging in the US lately can also be attributed to overcrowding areas that just do not sustain people in the long run in the manner of fashion that is common these days (level and betonize everything in sight, tear down everything in sight, put rivers into concrete walls so they can not flood anything that might need it, make the woods look "pretty" by clearing everything that isn´t in a straight line etc etc). And also people moving into these areas should surely know about the risks involved (and should look how they can help nature doing its thing to make everything more flourishing - that might include controlled fires etc).
One thing is for sure - dumping chemicals onto areas where its hard for trees to settle in the first place will make things rather worse in the long run and probably also have severe health effects on the local population.
More photos of Phos-Check dumping here.
The very scarce wikipedia entry on Phos-Check.
In another upset to the big players Last•FM has decided to pay royalties to small music labels and individual musicians who upload music to their their service. At the moment 70.000 of such artists are signed up on Last•FM and have uploaded 450.000 tracks in total.
If you are signed with a record label you get nothing directly (just the 1% your record label might get you) but if you are unsigned independend and not a member of the RIAA, GEMA or similar rip off institution then you get you share from Last•FM directly without any penalty (read you get more money if you are not signed up with the devils).
Now I have used Last•FM a bit in the past but have not yet forked over the 5 Dollar for their extended service because its owned by CBS - a media giant in itself and I just won´t support these ever, but quite generally this is a way in the very right direction and just another nail into the Music Industry Mafias coffin.
From Techcrunch.com
I have had a problem that bugged me since weeks. The finder on my MBP (dual 2.4GHz) was taking up about 100% processor speed - always. That not only reduced my battery life to about 30 minutes it also helped fry the graphic card (which I am still not sure if it is actually fried or just acting up occasionally).
You boot up and have nothing on and still your computer feels like it has a single 100Mhz processor in it. I was about to replace the finder with some other finder like tool today when I accidently stumbled upon the fix - on the mac rumors forum. (Somebody say those rumors sites are not good for nothing).
Anyway the fix is simple - the problem it seems is that something is calculating all along - the theory is its calculating the volume size of your main volume all the time. It only happens so (and then repeatably) when you have "Show Item Info" on your desktop turned on and showing your volumes on your desktop (don´t know if that can actually still be turned off - you used to be able to).
So the fix:
1.) click on your desktop
2.) go to "Show View Options" under your "View" menu or hit cmd+j
3.) unselect "Show Item Info"
voilá cpu usage drops from 100% down to 0.2%
Now dear Apple FTFF.
In what accounts a very small victory for the netizens word comes that the vote for the Telekom Package II has been postponed til September the 2nd. And it seems the office holders in the EU parliament are starting to see the light on the issue and are siding with their voters (it seems - but nothing taking for granted around here). A lot of the "compromises" have been thrown out but there is still one backdoor left for the "three strikes out" rule that is the biggest concern in the package. Amendment Nr. 6 is talking about a "cooperation between the netproviders and the (mass) media industry" and if that passes this could still form the loophole that makes netproviders sniff all traffic and report it to the media industry who then demands cancelation of the internet service after found "guilty" three times. Now interestingly enough this would go without any government interference - no courts no oversight. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. Great thing is that the netizens have a couple more month to protest about this. Contact your local EU parliamentary representative and tell them how you feel about the Telekom Package II and the amendment in question.
Politico writes that the mass news media are reconsidering their commitment of covering the democratic national convention in depth because the decision of BObama to hold his acceptance speech in front of voters instead of in front of party elites and the MSM adds a lot of cost to their coverage and apparently they are all short on cash.
If it is really true that the MSM (massmedia) is really THAT short on cash to bring in two or three more camera crews for one evening (plus maybe one transmission live editing car) - they must be absolutely bleeding. If it is really that bad then see the full collapse of the mass news media in the next 2 years. Even just talking about such a lousy sum (for the mass media that is) should make all mass media stocks go down to hell.
I have one suggestion for the mass media: look how cheap bloggers, podcasters and vloggers can produce news that are more balanced mostly better researched and surely much closer to the actual happening then your class A high definition camera teams that need to stay at an expensive hotel and only ask stupid questions. You don´t need camera cranes, airships and super highdef mega recording gear to cover a political speech - in the end its just about the content of the speech and NOT how great your footage looks like. Something that makes bloggers, podcasters and vloggers successful in their own right.
There is of course also the possibility that the MSM does not want to report so much in depth about the democratic convention as this would mean they might actually educate viewers about issues rather then making them more dumb.
You think things can´t get more weird or more bad, but my hatred for myspace has just found a new root cause. If you sign up on the Rupert Murdoch network under a wrong name - and all privacy advocates would probably say that you should do that to escape datamining by one of the biggest media companies in the world - then you can be charged with hacking because their terms of service agreement (you know the fine print nobody ever reads) is specifically prohibiting the use of fake names for sign up. Well you know why that is? Because they earn their money with datamining and also the government needs to have an overview whats happening right?
The fellow Lori Drew has been charged with a felony and faces up to 5 years in prison for hacking myspace by signing up under a wrong name. What about you? Have you signed up on myspace with your right name - stupid you... Better is not to sign up on myspace at all - but you know then you don´t get karma from people you never knew.
Via /.
Teance is a tea company who sell tea. Their mission statement is one of the most sensible mission statement I have ever read for a company.
The spiritual practice of mindfulness, concentration, and deliberate intention through tea is ultimately used in the service of others. The guest should be moved by his experience without imposition; the generosity and spirit of sharing one's best effort should be felt without display. The guest should experience, wordlessly, the years of artful practice that brought to life the leaf as intended by the tea masters' equally skillful crafting, somewhere far away in the mountains of Asia.
They learn all of the formal presentation steps designed not for show, but to produce the best cup of tea possible.
I had this article of impossible balanced house here a couple of weeks ago. By pure accident I stumbled across this one today. Unbelievably beautiful. I have no idea where that is, if it actually exists (judging from the cable car it probably does) and what function it has/had. But its clearly somewhere in Asia and its god damn beautiful.
I want to end todays blogging on a lighter note to all the german language typophiles out there. Since April 4th 2008 the german ß (sharp - s or esszet) got a big brother - "das versale ß". Its in the official Unicode 5.1 table and will therefore pop up on keyboard drivers and fonts all over the world. Now only thing that puzzles me is the fact that with the newest german spelling reform the ß was kicked out in favor of an "ss".
Well I love the ß and seeing it gets a big brother fills me with some minor joy...
From signographie.de
Ugh... We heard it all: France wanted to implement a rule that if you are caught downloading copyrighted material and got caught three times in a row they cancel your internet once and for all lifetime.
Now what most didn´t know is that France has sneaked this bill into the European parlament and it set to become an EU wide rule.
Whats best they are voting on it tomorrow just so we don´t have time to make a public outcry on it or might even stage demonstrations or the like.
Let me note that this is not about copyright infringment per se its about the right to use the internet. Given the less then clear copyright laws in this world its bound to happen to EVERYONE to infringe on somebodies copyright at one or three points in their life. And hey if you happen to be on this lists because you said something wrong it might be you who will be without the net for the rest of your life (or at least without your own connection).
Oh and the copyright industry doesn´t have to prove anything its a "3 accusations" and not a "3 convictions" rule! So somebody thinks your band is a threat to the pop culture and they want to inhibit you for the rest of your life they just claim three times in a row that you might have downloaded something and bingo - profit.
There is a wiki where you can find informations on how to take action to stop this bill. The page is in english and french and german and gives detailed instructions on what to do to stop this bill.
also there is a much better writup at laquadrature in english or on netzpolitik.org in german. The laquadrature wiki has now also a german translation of the summary and commentary of the bills and amendments in question.
netzpolitik.org also links to a website with a list and contact data of german MEPs called Abgeordnetenwatch.de.
There you can find the persons for your Bundesland and call them - write them - be nice tell them to read the bill in full, tell them your objections and in the end tell them that you are highly aware that they are up for reelection next year and you will have a close eye on their behavior in this regard.
If you have a blog PLEASE spread the word.. If not then call your MEPs office tomorrow latest.
You could be first - last or next affected by this bill and not have internet for the rest of your life.
Again its not about if you are infringing on some dubious copyright claim - its copyright law itself that is dubious and this law will give the government a tool to quell any dissent on the internet at will at any time without courts without truth - its a full out affront to the very foundations of a free society and with a free internet and stands against anything the internet is known for.
You know when a presidential candidates hates something and becomes president he will very probably do everything to ease his hate. This is no joke folks this is dead serious and expect a McCain presidency to do everything in their might to stop the bloggers.
Hmmm.... Twitter or "microblogging" is a very strange technology that I dismissed then discovered then dismissed again with the thought that it might be useful for short announcement for bigger project that involve a lot of people with little time. Then Twitter is a freaking company again that controls my dataflow and we all know how I stand with other companies/groups controlling my dataflow and time and energy. So I was delighted to read today that there is now an opensource microblogging tool called laconica and a twitter like service that builds upon that tool called identi.ca.
The tool is heavely in beta and requires the absolute newest php (5.2.1) and the pearl library (which my isp won´t install because of security reasons) and it has no automated database creation script yet - which means you must know how to create a database table by yourself. All this is a bit over my head at the moment but maybe someone integrates that code into drupal and I can integrate it then in our bigger site (note to myself - drupal probably can do stuff like that already).
Anyway moving the datastreams of the world into OpenSource Creative Commons open protocal territory is a very good thing.
http://identi.ca - a service based on laconica
http://laconi.ca/Main/HomePage - the locanica wiki with downloadable source code
Everyone who loves movies and loves science fiction knows that the most important film in the early history of cinema was of course Fritz Langs Metropolis. Everyone who watched a "remastered" version of that film also knows that considerably parts of the film are missing - with some parts having been filled in with typographic plates explaining the missing scenes. That leaves the viewer with an uncomplete, lacking and sometimes misunderstood overall picture of the film.
The reason is that there just has never been found a complete copy of the film, because most copies disappeared in WWII in the burning cinemas of Berlin. The current watchable version is a patchwork of multiple partial reels found all over the world. Everyone agreed that this iconic science fiction film that set the pretext of visual science fiction to come - in production scale and "out there" story - will never be shown how it was supposed to be meant. Until now...
The german Zeit magazine found a complete full length copy of this film in Argentina - in a museum that somehow never knew it had such a treasure. The magazine has already some pictures up. The film is in dire condition and in the need of a LOT of retouching and cleaning but the prospect to see this film in full and maybe understand some confusing scenes and have some more drama incorporated will fill science fiction fans, silent movie fans, cinema fans and fans of a doomed machine world with joy for sure.
It has come to our all attention that Google is being sued by Viacom (MTV etc.) for copyright infringement and the using habits of all people ever watching a youtube video will be part of that lawsuit and google has to comply. Now privacy issues aside there will be another highly interesting aspect of this court battle to watch: embeds.
Yes I know I have promised a lengthy article or podcast about the whole "how embeds fall into copyright or not" issue. The reason why I still not have done so is that even after over a month of research I have no 100% answer to this very question and the reason I have no answer is that there is none out there it seems (I still have two option left for research). Now this lawsuit is wanting damages for each and all views of copyrighted material and this includes embeds. Now its a funny situation (not so funny actually) because if google looses the first round of the suit (so its found they are infringing copyright) then they will try to keep the damage to a minimum and that would mean that they try to push the embed button. Meaning Google would argue that those who embeded a youtube video are on their own when it comes to copyright and they are only liable when it comes to content on their site. Its the logical way out and would set the record straight.
I will be watching this closely.
Quite generally this lawsuit is worst that can happen to the net as whole and I sincerely hope Google has an ace up their sleeve. Not only is the privacy issue involved with all this data a can of worms also the whole music industries grip on the net would grow tremendously if they win this (an you better check if you have any infringing loop on your site - youtube or not - because thats going to be their next target).
I predict some secret out of court negotiations and google handing over some large swathes of cash and nothing gets resolved in the end for the whole net.
