You know the sinking feeling. You have a long way home but your iPod battery is running down fast. You wish you could somehow transfer power to your iPod. Here is a guy who has solved this problem by connecting a dynamo to his bike and attaching it to his iPod charger – creating the first bike-driven iPod charger! This is exactly what every bike-freak needs!
Some days are better than others. Today the letters would not form words, the words refused to be sentanced and the brain just didnt want to work. The approaching deadline is one day closer with nothing gained. This amazing macro-image comes from the photo-blog of Martin Kenny called Seen Objects its even more impressive in close-up.
One of the license terms in the Creative Commons license is the term non-commercial. While the term is common enough in daily speech it is not always easy to deliniate between commercial and non-commercial activities.
Creative Commons have put together guidelines to help understand how non-commercial should be understood in relation to the license text. But remember:
Please note – these guidelines are not set in stone; they are a draft subject to debate, discussion and refinement by all those who adopt CC licenses and use CC licensed content, ie. you. Let us know what you think. – Mia Garlick
In his work Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes about the meaning of life and basically the question why we do not commit suicide. The first sentance says it all: “There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”
Camus takes the myth of Sisyphus as a metaphor for life. Sisyphus was a smart man who managed to trick the god of the underworld to let him go back for a brief errend. Once Sisyphus gets home he refuses to return to Hades – eventually he is forced back. As a punishment he is forced to role a huge stone up a hill only to have it role down again and Sisyphus must start again from the begining.
This is usally seen as the pointless and depressing work. However Camus finishes his book with the words:
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The strugg le itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Right now I am spending long days in front of the computer attempting to reach the big deadline (see counter to the right) and hand in my Phd thesis. Its tiring and not very uplifting. At times very pointless. At this stage I am prepared to disagree with Camus. Sisyphus is not happy. He has no time for hapiness and no chance of free time to look forward to.
The UK National Archives has an exhibition on wartime propaganda called The Art of War.
The Ministry of Information (MOI) was formed on September 4th 1939, the day after Britain’s declaration of war. The MOI was the central government department responsible for publicity and propaganda in the Second World War. The initial functions of the MOI were threefold: news and press censorship; home publicity; and overseas publicity in Allied and neutral countries.
Grotesque Italian, German and Japanese characters, shouting into a microphone. Mussolini definitely represents the Italians, for the Nazis â?? possibly Goering, and for the Japanese, possibly Yosuke Matsuoka, who signed the Tripartite Pact which established the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis on September 26 1940.
För mer om Bodströmsamhället läs här läs även Lars O Lindberg “Säpo och CIA i sovrummet” SvD Brännpunkt 18 december.
På ITceum i Linköping finns avtalet mellan Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget och Matematikmaskinnämnden för att utveckla den första svenska datorn Besk. Lite kul att se att avtalet som ligger till grund för IT industrin naturligtvis innehåller ett stycke om rättigheter.
Avtal mellan Matematikmaskinnämnden, här nedan kallad nämnden, och Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, här nedan kallad bolaget, har följande avtal träffats om teknisk information för tillverkning av matematikmaskin av typ Besk.
§4. Avtalet innebär rättighet för bolaget att utan licenskostnad nyttja alla eventuella patent som nämnden eller av nämnden anställd personal kan erhålla berörande konstruktion Besk i dess nuvarande utformning jämte kommande modifieringar under tiden fram till den 1 januari 1958.
1958
Stockholm (Matematikmaskinnämnden)
Linköping (Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget)
BESK (Binär Elektronisk Sekvens Kalkylator) var uppbyggd av 2.400 elektronrör och var mest använd till meteorologiska beräkningar och för att beräkna skjuttabeller till militären. Saab ville ha BESK bl.a. till att beräkna vibrationer i flygplansvingar. Under en kort tid var BESK världens snabbaste dator.
“A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.”
Umberto Eco – Name of the Rose
The Swedish library has put Ferdinand von Gudenus’ Panorama of Constantinople from 1740 online. Its an excellent view with zoom functions.
The Mosque built by Suleiman I, also known as Suleiman The Magnificent.
Sweden has never had a Minister of Justice who has managed to push through so much legislation hostile to civil liberties in such a short space of time as the minister we have today: Thomas Bodström. Here are some of the highlights
Dagens Nyheter 22 December 2005.
Phone tapping – Secret surveillance with hidden microphones will be permissable for a long list of crimes (not only the present day murder, manslaughter and armed robbery. This is despite the fact that investigators have been unable to show whether these devices are efficient police tools.
Data retention – Sweden has stood on the forefront demanding that the EU implement data retention. The EU have now approved rules (BBC report) that will force ISP’s and other telecommunication companies to retain data for at least six months. This data includes the time, date and locations of both mobile and landline calls (as well as whether or not they were answered) along with logs of internet activity and email.
Hemlig telefonavlyssning. En regeringsutredning vill ge Säkerhetspolisen utökade möjligheter till hemlig teleavlyssning. Den ska ske även i “preventivt syfte”, alltsÃ¥ innan ett brott har begÃ¥tts. Enligt förslaget ska ocksÃ¥ den öppna polisen ges utökade möjligheter att registrera svenskarnas telefonsamtal, vilket Advokatsamfundets generalsekreterare Anne Ramberg kallar för “ett paradigmskifte i svensk tvÃ¥ngsmedelshantering”.
Den pÃ¥tänkta lagstiftningen ger staten kraftigt utökade möjligheter att övervaka medborgarna. TillämpningsomrÃ¥det är ytterst brett och möjligheterna till ett rättssäkert förfarande minimala. BÃ¥de Säpo och polisen skulle ges laglig rätt att kontinuerligt avlyssna miljöer som de finner intressanta. Varken nÃ¥gon lagÂöverträdelse eller konkret misstanke krävs.
Försvarets underrättelseverksamhet. En departementspromemoria föreslår att den traditionella signalspaningen ska utvidgas till att omfatta all trådbunden trafik som passerar Sveriges gränser. Försvaret ska alltså inte som i dag bara kunna övervaka etern, utan också telefonsamtal, e-post, fax och dylikt som strömmar genom landet naturligtvis utan domstolsprövning. Förslaget innebär ett genombrott för övervakningsstaten, särskilt om det kombineras med tankarna på att försvaret även ska hantera vissa polisiära uppgifter.
Secret Data Surveillance – A proposal has been put forward that will allow the police (with a court order) can enter and insert software to eavesdrop on individuals computers.
These are just a few of the ideas which have been pushed through on the ministers initiative or suggestion. There are many more examples of tough stances against civil liberties – all done to fight crime or terrorism.
Sweden is no longer the country fighting for rights and liberties but it is using the ghost of terrorism to frighten and bully through oppressive legislation. Leadership by fear. In addition to this the approach has been to argue that oppressive legislation actually improves civil liberties. In a comment on the recent data retention decision a fellow party official stated that data retention protects civil liberties. Swedish quote here – “Jag är tacksam och glad att vi fÃ¥r en gemensam lagstiftning för hela Europa. Det här är ocksÃ¥ garantin för att integriteten och de mänskliga rättigheterna inte Ã¥sidosätts, säger Inger Segelström, s”.
This is straight out of Orwell! Remember: “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength”. Big Brother would have been proud.