Waiting room, part 1

You know that you're at a serious dentist when the waiting room doesn't have any of the ordinary magazines. Instead, you're stuck reading reports on politics and foreign relations, energy dependance and democracy issues. Respect. ;)

Out of context

Brilliant clip. Plain and simply brilliant. The ice is gonna break.

Why I love chinese creativity: Part II

The chinese will do anything. I previously mentioned the KenSingTon 'I'm not at all trying to pass of as another popular gaming console' Vii. Today I actually stumbled across a collection of Trademark rip-offs from the previously mentioned country of many talents, especially in cloning.

A friend of mine once said: Nothing that you can buy in China is genuine. What you get for paying more is not an original item, it's a clone with better quality. I still admire it though, because it provides good entertainment.

This picture, along with more trademarks can be found at Fuss.

What you don't see if you don't look

In celebration of the newly finished american election, and the immediate return of all normal news (that is, an awful lot of FRA and IPRED reporting), I present you with:

The Most Interesting Part Of The Presidential Debate: THE AUDIENCE!

How copyright is strangling creativity

TED (short for Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference that brings together the most fascinating thinkers that exist in our time, and presents them with a great challenge. They get to give the most inspiring speech they can think of, the speech of their life; the challenge is, they only get 18 minutes to make an impact.

Many of the speeches available on the site are worth watching, but since there is discussions regarding the need for Sweden to implement a rather draconian copyright law extension (an implementation of IPRED1), the speech Lawrence Lessig gave regarding how creativity is being strangled by copyright law strikes me a suiting at the moment. Lessig, who is also the creator af Creative Commons, has some very valid arguments in this speech. Points that really should be considered when thinking of the previously mentioned law in Sweden. Also, I would recommend watching the speech before reading the rest of this post (yes, a classic spoiler warning).

For the proponents of the law argues the right to make a living as a professional creator; a professional creator being defined as 'a member of the proponents organisation and/or company'. The law entirely excludes the creativity of other people than those fitting that particular definition, along with the possibility of creating cultural works in other ways than those thought of by these organisations/companies.

Lessig also states another important thing; the situation of today mainly has two sides, two extremes. The pro copyright side and the no copyright side. There are of course variations on this, but for the most part it is a suiting description. The pro copyright side (to whom we include the previously mentioned organisations) want to regulate copyright by law. If and when the law isn't enough, or when citizens aren't abiding by the law, a stricter and more punishing law is needed. They feel that solution is the only way to get the system working again.

The problem with that argument is that the other side, the no copyright side, thinks that the pro side is so utterly wrong that part of the reason they are ignoring the existing system is due to that very belief. They refuse to accept the existing copyright system since they don't believe in it. To make it stricter and more punishing only gives motivation to go against the system, to revolt. It also pushes the technology and solutions in a direction that is directly opposite of that which the law intends.

So, in a very large sense, the only real effect this new law has is that it further divides the two sides causing a larger revolt than before. For most people, it should be obvious that this is a never ending spiral, and that the victims of this evolution is the creators in the gray areas in between the two extremes.

A grayscale world can never be built by systems with a pure black and white foundation.

In my view, there can be no winners with the new law. It is simply a faulty solution to the wrong problem, and the cost is giving up basic civil liberties and rights.

Solar System Visualizer

Was stumbling casually (the usual way you stumble) when this page came up. A basic illustration of the relations between the different bodies in our solar system. Have a look at Jupiter, when you look the orbits of all the moon it seems almost miraculous that they don't collide in a disastrous way.

Solar System Visualizer

Why I love chinese creativity: Part I

I've seen and heard of a lot of fun things that come out of China. The main reason for my liking is that they seem able to reproduce just about everything, even if it isn't quite as good as the original. This weekend, I came across a KenSingTon Vii and got to play with it a bit. Complete knockoff, but still fun. Even had the mysterious Porwer™ button. To keep a long story short: it didn't actually match the quality of the original Wii, but it had some innovative features (see pictures below). I especially enjoy the "feeling dummy experience".

  

Statistics and lies

A classic expression is “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” The quote comes from Benjamin Disraeli and was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain. Still, statistics and graphs can be used to illustrate just about anything efficiently; this is the very reason that Florence Nightingale used and extended the at the time existing pie chart.



More hilarious graphs available over at The Atheist Network.

5 Things I love about OS X

Mac OS X has a lot of nifty features that are useful; most of them are quite apparent, like Exposé, Dashboard etc. Some of them are not as obvious, but can be real gems when you find them.

Autocompletion in nearly every text field

This little know feature of OS X is incredibly useful. If you're like me, and have trouble spelling certain words (and never seem to remember the correct spelling from time to time) this will save you a lot of time. In any text field, start typing a word and press F5. You'll be presented with a dropdown list containing all sorts of suggestions to what you are trying to write. (Video)

Dictionary lookups from within any application

You're reading through that long text, when you suddenly come upon a strange word in a sentence that you don't know the meaning of. Of course, that very word is a key word in the sentence, so nothing makes sense. So, what to do? Instead of going after a book, or opening a new tab in you browser to search for the meaning, simply hover over the word with the mouse pointer and press Ctrl + Cmd + D. The dictionary lookup is presented inline with the content. (Video)

Search Wikipedia from within Dictionary

An obvious thing, that is also well documented, is the fact that you can use Wikipedia through Dictionary.app. Still, if you aren't a every day Dictionary user, this option is easily forgot. Personally, I love this, since it features things like live search. Additionally, the presentation of the information is much cleaner than on the web page. (Picture)

Frameworks and integrations that are system wide and actually works (yes Microsoft, I'm looking at you)

OS X has a bunch of frameworks that allow applications to communicate both with the system itself, but also to other applications. This approach, instead of containing data within a certain application, allows for developers to create an environment for the user that gives a feeling of integration. For instance, if you edit a contact in Address Book, and enters an e-mail address, some Instant Messaging account information and assigns a picture to that contact, that information will be available to other applications, such as Mail and Adium. (Picture)

Add your own menu shortcuts

Menu shortcuts are useful time savers, but what to do if a shortcut doesn't exist, or the key combination used just seems wrong? Luckily, OS X provides to option of configuring personal shortcuts through its System Preferences. Just add a custom application menu shortcut and select the application which has/hasn't the menu option in question. Then simply type in the name of the menu option and choose a new keyboard shortcut. All done. (Picture)

Stephen Hawking on relativity

Stephen Hawking is an incredible intelligent man. He is also able to see the problems ordinary people have with relativity, string theory and quantum physics; in this lecture he clearly shows that he is on the same level as todays young people.

Via Neatorama.