Images

Lunar Stuga

One of the symbols of Sweden is the little red house (Stuga) with white borders around the windows and corners. This is an ubiquitous site all around the country and in particular in the countryside. Naturally houses come in many different colors but all the same the little red and white house is an image of the idyllic countryside.

Now a Swedish consortium is actively working to put a little red stuga on the moon. Luna Resort writes about their plan:

The project has united a manâ??s artistic ambitions with commercial market powers, political enterprises, scientific research and technical cutting edge competence with many different areas.
Luna Resort contributes to the placing of Sweden in the limelight, and to display there Swedish forces of initiative showing that Sweden stands for world class competence in high technology. Luna Resort will contain a number of integrated projects of technical and scientific purpose.
Through a little red cottage on the moon, humanity will have its first universal symbol for the possibility of a single man to realize his dreams, but above all a unified symbol for the commitment to our common planet.
Billions of people will see the images sent down to Earth of the little red cottage with white gables, symbolizing humanityâ??s first steps to inhabit space.

The moon has often been associated with madness in folklore and beliefs – the word lunatic comes from the Latin and from the stem “luna” which is moon. One idea for the connection with the moon and madness is the changes in the appearance of the moon and certain symptoms of mental disorder.

It seems that Swedes are not immune to moon-madness 🙂

Posted on by mklang

A room of one's own (in Lund)

When Virginia Wolf wrote the long essay A Room of One’s Own in 1928 (published 1929) it was a call for the need for authors to have a physical and mental space within which they would have the possibility and acceptance to create. It was also a criticism against the male dominated society and the way in which women were denied such a room. Naturally there is an online version under CC license – it is well worth reading.

Since I will be beginning a new job at the University of Lund in September I really need to find such a room (in Lund).

So if anyone knows where I can rent a room or an apartment in Lund – please let me know.

Posted on by mklang

Wellcome Images under CC

The Wellcome Trust has released its image collection under a collection named 2000 years of human culture. Launched 20 June, Wellcome Images is the world’s leading source of images on the history of medicine, modern biomedical science and clinical medicine. All content has been made available under a Creative Commons Licence, which allows users to copy, distribute and display the image, provided the source is fully attributed and it is used for non-commercial purposes. (read press release)

Mosquito, Anopheles stephensi in flight by Hugh Sturrock (2005)

(via Boing Boing)

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 Resources

Today is the official release of the GPLv3 license by the Free Software Foundation. This is a major event within the software community yet at the same time there are many who do not understand the purpose, point and meaning of the GPL so it’s time for a refresher course.

From the GPLv3 Press collection you can read about the purpose and meaning of free software, the relationship between GNU and Linux and the important difference between free software and “open source”.

On 1 April 2007 Richard Stallman gave a speech on the GPLv3 in Brussels you can listen to it here in Ogg/Vorbis. In the summer of 2006 Eben Moglen gave a talk in Barcelona discussing the wording of the changes in version 3 (listen in Ogg/Vorbis).

Personal Notes has collected great links about the GPLv3

So to begin withâ?¦Why would someone need or want to upgrade from the GPLv2 to the GPLv3? Let the person who started it all to explain why :)

Here there’s a really nice and clear A&Q ‘session’ on GPLv3 wrote by Luis Villa and divided in 3 blog entries (probably more to come):

Groklaw, as usual, is an incredible source of interesting material:

Posted on by mklang

New Computer

Getting a new computer is a fun and, at the same time, annoying experience. On Monday I got a shiny new Macbook Pro and spent the day organising and customising it to make myself feel at home. Now when I think that I have almost installed all the software I need and customised most of it I am beginning to grow accustomed to my new machine. But one major step remains…

On my old computer I engraved an image of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza based on drawing entitled â??Reflectionsâ?? by Gene Colan. After some minor changes the engraving looked like this:

Â

Rather nice! But here is the dilemma. The new laptop is this blank empty space. I need to put something there. So the question is what image shall I engrave on my new shiny laptop? The imagery and metaphor of Quixote is excellent but maybe it’s time for a change?

Posted on by mklang

Stone Cities

Coming from Sweden we may take space, grass and greenery for granted. Old city Dubrovnik, on the other hand, is the opposite. Everything is made of stone all spaces seem to be paved with stone and surrounded by stone walled houses with small windows (reduces the heat in the houses).

 

 Interestingly enough this does not stop children from playing football. Naturally a children’s game of football can be played almost anywhere and the rules tend to be flexible, but I really enjoyed the more permanent football arrangement created in a small open space in the old town of Dubrovnik.

Opposite this goalpost was another – they were not far apart but a workable solution for a game of football.

I also like the peace sign painted inside the goalpost and the word “ghetto” is painted on the outside – symbolism?

Posted on by mklang

iSummit Friday

Today the iSummit (iCommons Summit 2007 in Croatia) begins in earnest. Yesterday was the legal day so today it’s the “real” thing. With keynotes and tracks till 9.30 pm. This is followed by gallery opening and a concert till after midnight. Long days with interesting people. The location today is inside the old fort called the Revelin. We are in a huge old space with limestone walls and arched ceilings and no windows. It’s brilliant, cool and dark enough to make you forget that the sun is shining outside.

 For those of you who want to see pictures from the iSummit you can go to my Flickr site or check out the iCommons group on Flickr. And if you want even more then just look at the photo’s on Flickr which are tagged iCommons.

Posted on by mklang

Old city Dubrovnik

While the conference continues the Mediterranean sun  is glaring outside and the sea is appealingly blue. The lecture hall is relatively cool while the discussions are lively and interesting. On the way to the city in the bus this morning I managed to capture this wonderful image of Dubrovnik’s old town.

Before breakfast this morning I managed to go swimming but right now I really wish I could go to the seaside again. Maybe the iSummit should be held on the beach with wifi…

Ok, enough goofing off it’s time to get back to the legal salt mines…

Posted on by mklang

For the love of God

Damien Hirst has always been one of the more prominent of the group of UK artists often referred to as the Young British Artists (is it soon time to rename the group). His work includes things like a shark pickled in a tank filled with formaldehyde and the amazing massive sculpture depicting a pregnant female human, with layers removed from one side to expose the fÅ?tus, muscle and tissue layers, and skull underneath.

Damien Hirst’s latest artwork is this life-size platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 fine diamonds. The sculpture, titled “For The Love of God,” will likely sell for as much as $100 million, making it the priciest contemporary artwork ever made. White Cube gallery is selling several limited edition silkscreen prints of the work, priced from £900 to £10,000, for one sprinkled with diamond dust. (via Boing Boing)

Images 2007 05 29 Magazine 03Matter450.1

Besides being incredibly pricey it’s a nice piece of bling bling to show off…

 

Posted on by mklang

Blocked!

According to a site that checks the great Firewall of China my blog is being blocked by the great Chinese firewall.

How it works: Weâ??ve opened a website in China and route your url request on greatfirewallofchina.org through to our server in China. The server in China opens the url and the result is send back. Our testing is only based on one server on one location in China. We have different backup servers in different locations in China might one go down.

Try it yourself…

Posted on by mklang