http://duvet-dayz.com about life, technology, gadgets, politics, the planet earth and other interesting things. Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:03:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/04/28/1073/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/04/28/1073/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:03:09 +0000 fpp http://duvet-dayz.com/?p=1073
Röyksopp with music from their new single "The Girl and the Robot" together with Robyn and the visuals from black&white science fiction classic Metropolis. Fritz Lang might have liked it.
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Last year we pointed you to "another animation (Leo's Song)" from Portland-based web site Impactist here's a great new one called Parrallelostory.
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Listen to what RadioHead, Frank Zappa and many others have to say about an industry that so desperately wants to make us believe that the world will stop turning when they will not be able to continue to rake in Billions from other people's creativity and work...
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]]> http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/04/24/1071/feed/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/04/22/1070/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/04/22/1070/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:23:26 +0000 fpp http://duvet-dayz.com/?p=1070
Today the German Parliament will vote on a new Censorship law to be put in place to block web content as decided by the German administration. Based on black listing web sites and blocking those at ISP level via DNS and the displaying of so-called Stop pages the planned law was originally been handed around and legislators were seeking public approval by false-flagging it as a solely preventive measure against child abuse / pornography.
While almost all experts heard on this matter (fighting such illegal material and use) have clearly demonstrated that the censoring of access is no way forward towards stopping such activities particularly as many of the web servers in question were even physically located in Germany and other means (take-down notice to providers) proofed that within shortest notice (often less than a day) the material was taken off the net, it became more and more clear that the German Government is seemingly following a completely different agenda. The latest text of the law not even contains a reference anymore to the previously so broadly used argument of fighting child abuse but provides the general right to block any Internet content as...
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Great animation by Ransom Riggs for Mental Floss.
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A new short film shot in Piccadilly Circus London.
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]]> http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/03/14/1068/feed/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/03/04/1067/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/03/04/1067/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:07:02 +0000 fpp http://duvet-dayz.com/?p=1067
Another fine example of an outstanding data visualization from the WSJ. We call it the beats of the financial crisis.
These diagrams perfectly demonstrate how many people are having a bad time now because of the greed, ruthlessness and high criminal energy levels of a few.
And this just seems to be the beginning or better to say the end of the beginning.
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]]> http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/03/04/1067/feed/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/02/25/1066/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/02/25/1066/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:52:56 +0000 fpp http://duvet-dayz.com/?p=1066
I've once had a training with one of the most experienced guys from the RYA showing us how to react when the boat starts to overpower in Force 10 winds. It felt like going straight down into the water when changing over for a tack. If you like that experience watch this short video. This is extreme sailing.
Watch the guy on Playstation walking forward at full speed at 3:04.
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An outstanding visualization by Jonathan Jarvis - the 101 guide to the credit crisis animated.
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Interesting Samurai short film by Raffi Asdourian.
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Earlier this month we received our 500,000nd spam message and thanks to our spam filters it was blocked like the many others before.
And the winner is..
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Tonight we finally reached "1234567890" as Unix time. If you run a Unix or Linux machine try the following command...
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A metaphor / parable on how tax payers' money is burned within some internationally (un)-coordinated organizations aka multinationals aka United Nations.
The underlying story is based on actual experiences in the field of Information Systems / Information Technology (IS/IT) within one of the largest UN organizations. While - as we hear - since then things got even worse, this short story not only tries to demonstrate the lack of professionalism in those organizations, but also what happens when people who "know what they are doing" come to those organizations without political protection by their own governments. The sad endings to these stories are often like in the underlying true case used for this metaphor.
With that case we know...
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This quote is from James Clavell's well known novel Shogun:
The blue sky above the earth
White clouds rise towards heaven
Life is only a butterfly's dream
Death the way to eternal life
Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell, 1924 - 1994, Shogun
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A video interesting in a few ways.
First historically of course, then because we will almost certainly hear a more or less similar speech in about a week, and third as times of today might turn out to be rather similar too.
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A great viral advertising idea. For every 10 (virtual) friends you defriend at Facebook you get a free Whopper from Burger King (U.S. Residents only).
Finally someone is putting a price tag to virtual friendship (1/10 of a burger - xxx calories, xxx USD) and a way to bring all these SEO spammers to a better use. So far more than 12,000 friends have been un-friended.
Interestingly they have chosen Facebook and not, for example, MySpace. Maybe because they want to sell some Burgers as well.
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Internationally celebrated British guitarist Julian Bream plays Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonata No. 1 for violin (G minor, BWV 1001), second movement Fuga (Allegro) on the guitar.
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A short documentary on Bartitsu, a self defense system created by E.W. Barton-Wright in 1899 by combining Asian and European defense techniques including jujitsu, boxing, french (kick)-boxing, stick fighting and improvised fighting for example by using your overcoat to defend yourself. It was so popular in the UK at the beginning of the 20. century that Arthur Conan Doyle had his best know character, Sherlock Holmes, practicing Bartitsu in one of his books.
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The video "Running with the Beast" for the band zZz is interesting in two ways.
First there is of course the music and then the project shown "...about two artist who have created the conditions to capture rage in a systematic way..." by letting two colored cocks print their fight on a sheet of paper.
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One of W.H. Auden best known poems "Funeral Blues" in its second (shorter) and changed version. We are still searching for the original version with five stanzas which Auden wrote together with Christopher Isherwood in 1936.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Wystan Hugh Auden, 1907 - 1973, Funeral Blues
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An outstanding time-lapsed video of the sky, the sun, moon and the stars.
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A video with a little puzzle to start the new year.
The Yoshimoto Cube - a transformation of two stellated rhombic dodecahedrons from one cube.
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]]> http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2009/01/01/1052/feed/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/12/24/1051/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/12/24/1051/#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:25:30 +0000 fpp http://duvet-dayz.com/?p=1051
Thanks to all our readers for another year of your support.
Best wishes and happy holidays!
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Now you can finally find out what the meaning of life is, well maybe not.
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A video to start your day smiling.
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]]> http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/12/18/1049/feed/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/12/18/1048/ http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2008/12/18/1048/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:59:49 +0000 fpp http://duvet-dayz.com/?p=1048
Here's one more way to reduce the amount of resources you use without need.
The Dutch group SPRANQ has developed MS Windows and Mac font replacements that have little holes within the normally printed areas of a font to reduce the amount of ink used. The fonts are based on Vera Sans an open source font similar to Verdana. Their tests resulted in about 20% less ink used.
Downloads are available for MS Windows XP, MS Vista and Mac OS X.
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This is one of Klaus Nomi's greatest performances. In this video, Klaus Nomi sings Purcell's aria "The Cold Song" from his 17th century baroque opera King Arthur.
The opera's composer Henry Purcell died in 1695 from incurable T.B. aged 36, while in 1983 Klaus Nomi sadly died as one of the first prominent victims of AIDS, aged 39.
He died about a half year after this recording was taken in Munich, Germany.
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The song Lux Aeterna (Requiem For A Dream) by Clint Mansell.
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With these pencils you can have a really lazy day at the office - you not even need to chew on them - they are already pre-chewed.
Four (natural wood) pencils for about GBP 1.5
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A set of great and free tracks from British Indie Label 4AD.
Includes most of their artists from Atlas Sound to Stereolab. You can embed their player in your web site (see below) and also download the tracks.
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