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051128 23:12 The world outside

Chocolate replica of the famous memorial church in Berlin.

051127 23:23 The world outside

051127 10:30 Entertainment

I know, i'm several years behind on this. I avoided 24 because of the initial hype but this article (Watching TV Makes You Smarter, NYT, April 2005) got me interested so i watched the first season and was impressed. Although it feels a bit similar to a soap i was on a pleasant adrenaline high for quite a while. Even if the Bosnian background story was shite, the suspense it had going non-stop was addictive. That pace made the ending a bit too abrupt though. Too quick a comedown.

So i got the second season out and the first episode starts in the most grotesque way, with a horrific torture scene, going on to a government agent killing and sawing of the head of a man with the justification that when the homeland is threatened these methods are the only option. The background story: Middle-eastern terrorists are trying to blow up LA with a nuclear bomb. Dude! Also the 'torn by all sorts of emotional conflicts' thing wears a bit thin now. Nothing new there.

So i don't know whether i should keep watching because they did manage again to raise my adrenalin level sufficiently or whether i should turn away right now, before i get sucked into it too far, because i'm just totally appalled by it.

051119 21:11 Geeks

Geeks are corporate dress code offenders:

Help-desk staff were named as the worst offenders, followed by those working in technology start-ups, many of whom had continued to wear T-shirts to work as a consequence of the casual web culture of the '90s.

Awful! Didn't they know that you're not supposed to feel comfortable at work? You guys might not understand that but 'dressing smart' can be a real pain if you're a woman.

In 1998 i went to a job interview in jeans and t-shirt. I sat there next to three guys in suits and i got the job. Glorious days :)

051116 02:08 Health

Yeah, that's what i want to know: Why no health warnings on cars?

In the century since the first recorded fatal traffic accident, the car has claimed 30 million lives. Traffic accidents are now predicted by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to become the world's third most significant cause of death and disability by 2020. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.2 million people die on roads each year: similar to total fatalities caused by malaria.

051116 01:25 Urban environment

Using a city's wasted open spaces: green roofs.

The biggest roadblock to our green roof future seems to be cost and bureaucratic red tape of city planning laws. Although green roofs cost more up front to install than regular roofs, the savings that they accrue over the years quickly pay off.

051113 01:56 Browsers

Kill Bill's Browser campaign with 13 good reasons to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Even with generous support from Google. They'll pay $1 for every person you convert to Firefox.

5. If we knew web designers would hurl themselves off it, we wouldn't have put the Golden Gate bridge so close to San Francisco.

Every year, hundreds of web designers take their own lives rather than continue the hopeless struggle of making their websites IE compatible. Is that what you really want?? Dead web designers????? Cause that's what you're going to get!!!!!! See if I care!!!!!!!!!!

051112 00:19 Comics / Society

Women get more of a buzz out of cartoons than men. Why? Because they have lower expectation. That's a pretty sad statement about our society.

...women appear to have a lower expectation that the cartoon will be funny than men. "Women appear to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punch line of the cartoon. So when they got to the joke’s punch line, they were more pleased about it,"...

051109 21:26 Comics

To continue with the comics theme, here's a word from Tatsyua Ishida, President, CEO, Revolutionary and creator of Sinfest:

You know how when rock stars play the guitar they make all sorts of funny faces cuz they're really into it? Well, when I draw I do the same thing. When I sketch I got that easy breezy too cool for school look. When I do inks I whip out my focus face, all intense and burning with concentration.
When I mess up I get the angry Shit-I-Fucked-Up-Now-I-Gotta-Use-White-Out Scowl. Very sexy. Sometimes I get that pained expression when I'm doing ultra fine detail work. As I gear up for the big finish my strokes get quicker and quicker, my eyes bug out, my hair explodes like Yahoo Serious, I'm totally insane. Energies reach their breaking point. I can taste the final crescendo as it all comes together, all my skill and talent, my genius, my love, my truth, laid out there on what was once a clean white sheet of paper. Spent, I sit back, light a cigarette, wipe away the last remaining bits of eraser dust and purr, "Was it good for you too?"

Here's my list of dailies, if you're interested:

• User Friendly
• Sinfest
• Little Gamers
• Arlo & Janis
• Over the Hedge
• Penny Arcade
• Ubersoft

There used to be more... sure, i'd love to read comics all day but... ah frell.

051109 02:09 Literature

Cory Doctorow has been releasing some of his stories as postcast. You can download the installments as mp3s.

051109 01:43 Politics

UN condemns US blockade of Cuba.

051107 20:38 Comics

Even though my father tried to discourage us from reading Comics with the usual boring and clearly false arguments, they have been a stable part of my diet all my life, starting with the usual stuff European kids read: Asterix, Lucky Luke, anything by Franquin (especially during his Dark Thoughts period). Mostly belgian stuff really. For some reason they dominate the European comics landscape. But there was also Hal Foster's Prince Valiant for the romantic teenage years.

During my time in the States in the late 80s i enjoyed the daily dose of funnies in the papers and became a great fan of Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes.

During the 90s i encountered British comics, of the mature kind. A boyfriend introduced me to 2000AD. Then I found the beautifully written and drawn Sandman. That's when i learned to call comics graphic novels. In recent years i discovered Warren Ellis, some excellent and always surprising writing and a goriness that goes beyond what i saw in 2000AD.

Lately i've been getting into Manga and Anime, something i previously avoided due to the cute bug-eyed kiddies that seem to dominate it - until i discovered Cowboy Bebop and figured out that Anime is not all kiddie stuff. (Strangely enough, my favorite character in CB is the cute slinky bug-eyed Ed, the typical manga kid.)

Now i just found out that some famous people from related areas have branched out into graphic novels. Michael J. Straczynski (Babylon 5, Jeremiah) and Douglas Rushkoff (The Ecstasy Club, Media Virus, etc etc). I just read Rising Stars: Born in fire by Straczynski. I don't generally like superhero stories, but this one is great.

Thus my evolution continues. I leave a lot of money at my local comics store at the moment.

My aunt says that the older she gets the less she finds things she can get excited about. I don't have that problem. I'm always sufficiently thrilled.

051106 22:05 Intellectual property

Google has added a Creative Commons search option to its Advances Search page. It's called Usage Rights and offers the following options:

Return results that

• aren't filtered by licence
• allow some forms of re-use
• can be freely modified, adapted or build upon

We have to give Yahoo credit for getting there first, though.

051105 12:14 The world outside...

051104 09:19 Health

Doctors should wash their hands with yoghurt instead of anti-septic soap.

Inappropriate use of antibiotics remains a major problem, despite our ever-growing understanding of how bacteria behave. For example, any student who has grown bacteria in a lab will know that they generally do not grow on top of one another. So when we wash our hands, we could actually be killing off harmless commensals to the extent that we leave space for other bacteria, such as MRSA strains, to settle.

Perhaps we should be thinking about using probiotics and even dipping our hands after thorough washing into a solution which contains harmless bacteria, which could then colonise our skin and prevent pathogenic bacteria from settling on it.

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