My plane for Shanghai leaves tomorrow at 9.40 from Kastrup (and lands at 6.40 the day after, local time - helloooo jetlag), so don’t expect any blog post tomorrow. I will however keep you all updated via this blog to as large of an extent as possible. I doubt I’ll be doing everyday posts, but hopefully a few a week at least. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a giant backpack to pack (I won’t fill it more than a third though; I’m gonna be doing some serious shopping).
An assortment of news and links for your perusal
Research: Clinical Sciences Research Institute at the University of Warwick have been licensed by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to create human-pig embryos in order to study heart disease.
Now I’m an agnostic, but I still found this to be rather interesting, because it basically means the HFEA plays God; they get to decide as to what types of obscene mutations may be grown for the purpose of reasearch (the article also mentions human-cow hybrid embryos to have been previously licensed). However, the question of whether this is ethically wrong or good I leave to you.
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Business/Humour: CIO.com lists “9 Reasons Why Application Developers Think Their CIO Is Clueless”. I simply had to quote an item from this list:
“8. The CIO collaborates to death.
Whether it is the character flaw of being indecisive or some middle-school notion of democracy, you are in charge. Collaboration is critical, but you also need to make the right decision at the right time. Collaborate like Captain Kirk. “Spock?” “Bones?” He gets opinions from his experts but there is never any question about who will make the final decision. And, if you never watched Star Trek then you shouldn’t even be a CIO.“
So there you have it; if you’re not a geek, then you shouldn’t be a CIO (which means I’m all set to be one).
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USA: As if we needed more proof of American inanity, apparently Texas now requires that all computer repair technicians hold a PI license (that’s PI as in Private Investigator, much like Magnum (if anyone actually remembers that awesome series from the 80’s)), lest they be fined $4000 and risk up to a year in prison. PCMag writes: “In order to obtain said license, technicians must receive a criminal justice degree or participate in a three-year apprenticeship.”
I mean sure, finding out what’s wrong with a PC does usually require a certain amount of ratiocination, so I can sort of see the reference to detective work, but please, a friggin’ PI license? That’s taking it a bit far, wouldn’t you say?
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I see your camera is bigger than mine…
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They’re out to get me!
I went into town today in order to get me some o’that sexy Chinese moneyz (they sure have done a good job making Mao look sympathetic on the 100-bills), and I’m telling you, the inner city is like a political warzone. On a distance of roughly half a kilometer I was approached by no less than three different political/ideological organisations. First off was Naturskyddsföreningen (Society for the protection of nature), closely followed by Svenska Afghanistankommittén (Swedish Afghanistan Committee), and ended by Människorätt för ofödda (Human rights for unborn). (Translating the names of Swedish organizations is always fun.) The first two didn’t really surprise me as I’ve seen them in town before, but the last one was new; I didn’t even know there was a Swedish organisation against abortion. Felt very American it did.
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Riksdagen spammas med protestmail
Jag har aldrig haft så mycket till övers för Expressen, men om ni vill protestera mot FRA-lagens genomdrivande på ett löjligt enkelt sätt, så har Expressen lagt upp ett simpelt formulär med vars hjälp du kan skicka ett förskrivet protestmail till alla de riksdagsledamöter som röstade ja. (Klicka här för att komma dit.) Lite fånigt, men det har en poäng.
En statsminister utan verklighetsanknytning, och ett informationsutbytesavtal mellan EU och USA
Längre ner i samma artikeln står att läsa:
“Har du ingen förståelse för kritiken?
- Beslutet är ju fattat.
Men det är ju det som de kritiserar.
- Jo, det kan man göra, men beslutet är fattat, säger Fredrik Reinfeldt.”
Jag tror att det härmed är bevisat att vår statsminister inte har minsta koppling till verkligheten längre. Eller i varje fall inte till Sveriges befolkning.
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På Sydsvenskans hemsida står att läsa en kortare och svensk version av denna nyhet från New York Times hemsida.
Det handlar om att “USA och EU är nära en uppgörelse om att utbyta privata uppgifter om sina medborgare, inklusive information om kreditkort, resor och nätsurfande.”
Det finns fortfarande kvar några hinder på vägen, så som att USA inte vill tillåta Europeiska medborgare att stämma amerikanska staten för missbruk av personuppgifter (en lag som finns i USA, men som bara omfattar amerikanska medborgare), men såväl Bush som EU verkar vara benägna om att få till stånd ett fungerande samarbete så snart som möjligt. Bush eftersom han lämnar presidentposten inom en snar framtid, och EU för att Lissabonfördraget när/om det går igenom kommer att flytta mer makt till det folkvalda Europaparlamentet, som är avsevärt mer kritiskt inställda till amerikanska antiterrorpolicies än vad EU-kommissionen är.
Kommentar: Så ypperligt lämpligt att svenska staten precis har drivit igenom FRA-lagen i så fall, så vi har ännu mer information att “utbyta”!
At long last
So, after two very long days and three Windows reinstallations, I finally have my comp back up and running somewhat normally again. All I can say is: Don’t try to encrypt your entire hard drive when you (apparently) have a corrupt sector on it. Run CHKDSK first. And now, let’s get back to the regular blogging.
Technical issues
I’m having serious technical problems (reinstalling Windows among other things, and it’s looking like I’ll have to do it again), so blogging is not tremendously prioritized right now, as I’m sure you’ll all understand. I’ll get back to you once I have things properly up and running. Sorry for the inconvenience (no, really, I’m about as bitter as bitter can get right now).
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A selection of news and links from the past week
Great, so when CCTV’s in many cases have been deemed useless in helping prevent crimes because the image quality is so poor, instead of removing the cameras, we’re going to put microphones with artificial intelligence on them. Yeah, that’ll help.
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The US wants to pass a law forcing all airlines flying across it’s borders to collect the finger prints of all departing foreign passengers. Bush also thinks that the airlines should be the ones to pay for all this. Both the EU and the airline industry have vehemently opposed this.
Higher costs for airlines results in more expensive flight tickets which we pay for. So in the end, we travellers are going to be paying for having our finger prints collected when leaving the US. One more reason not to go to the States (besides the rather obvious one that they’re “allowed” to copy the contents of your entire hard drive when you’re entering the country).
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MPAA has filed this to an American court basically saying that they think they shouldn’t be forced to provide any proof of actual distrubution when it comes to copyright infringement. Instead, merely “making it available” ought to be enough.
What’s the next step? Perhaps we should simply scrap the whole idea of law and justice and simply throw the people the entertainment industry points at into jail? All the money lost in ineffective copyright trials today could be used to so much better things! I think that sounds like a great idea!
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An Australian (seriously, what’s with these Aussies?) bloke called Ian Usher has decided to sell his whole life. House, job, friends (they will be introduced upon purchase), everything. Once the deal’s been closed he’s going to walk away with the clothes on his body and a wallet in his back pocket.
I can’t decide whether it’s sheer lunacy or utter genius. In a way I’m sort of jealous.
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Song of the day: Dido - Life for Rent (For sale rather, but this was the closest related song title I could find)
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I am death! Or at least I wield a scythe…
The results of a two day visit in my family’s summer residence (more like a cabin, but residence sounds a lot fancier, don’t you think?):
- One large cut lawn (with a scythe no less)
- One raked lawn (that cut grass ain’t gonna pile itself)
- One pre-felled large tree (the one I cut down with naught but an axe last time I was there) sawed into more managable pieces
- More managable pieces chopped into firewood
- Firewood properly piled up
The results of the results:
- Five blisters (one out of which is a gaping wound, small, but nonetheless) (my poor computerised hands couldn’t deal with the scythe very well)
- Muscle soreness in left hamstring, roughly the whole area around the spine, arms (both upper and lower parts), and right side of abs (monotonous, one-sided scythe swinging tends to do that)
- One mosquito bite
Am I manly or what!?
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Song of the day: Joe Hisaishi - It’s hard work
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The lake and the sky, as it looked today, from our cabin.
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