Year 2007

Multinational companies [..] now know that the EU will take a much harder line when it comes to competition.

And that seems to frustrate the Department of Justice Corporate Pampering. Reading the DoJ statements about the EUs treatment of Microsoft and how it 'may have the unfortunate consequence of harming consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition' makes me wonder whether it is referring to the same case, the same software, the same company and the same planet or whether they've been smoking the corporate crack pipe for far too long. Microsoft's dominance of the market has anything but helped competition and innovation over its twenty year reign of the industry. But then again, these are the same people that found Microsoft guilty seemingly only because the evidence was overwhelmingly against it, but then decided to do nothing about it. Kroes is absolutely right to express her frustration about the DoJ's public criticism on the EU's policy; it's none of their business and definitely not within their jurisdiction.

Who needs actors anymore?

I really have no words for this. One of the most impressive videos on computer graphics I've seen in years. And I guess the guys and gals at Tübingen are not the only ones working on such models. Let the good times films roll.

Νεο ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ Google Gadget.

Καιρός για μερικά νεα σχετικά με το ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ. Με το τέλος του καλοκαιριού και την επιστροφή στα γραφεία, σπίτια κλπ. καθώς και την σύντομη προεκλογική περίοδο, η κίνηση στο ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ έχει αυξηθεί σημαντικά. Αντίστοιχα όμως έχουν αυξηθεί και τα blogs και τη περασμένη εβδομάδα ξεπεράσαμε τα 20,000. Μέχρι σήμερα υπήρχαν δυο βασικοί τρόποι αναζήτησης των ελληνικών blogs μέσω του ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ. Η επίσκεψη στην ιστοσελίδα και η χρήση του ΟpenSearch plugin για όσους χρησιμοποιουν Firefox 2.x ή Ιnternet Explorer 7. Από σήμερα υπάρχει και ένας τρίτος: Για όσους από εσάς χρησιμοποιείτε το iGoogle, τη προσωπική σελίδα που προσφέρει το Google σε όλους τους χρήστες του, δημιουργήθηκε ένα gadget που σας επιτρέπει να πραγματοποιείτε τις αναζητήσεις σας στο ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ μέσω αυτής. Για να το προσθέσετε στη iGoogle σελίδα σας, επισκεφθείτε το ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ, επιλέξτε την σχετική επιλογή 'Add to Google' και στη συνέχεια επιβεβαιώστε την επιλογή σας. Την επόμενη φορά που θα βρεθείτε στην προσωπική σας σελίδα iGoogle το gadget του ΜΠΛΟΟΓΚΛ θα είναι ήδη εκεί. Καλές αναζητήσεις!

One Regulatory Void for Corporations and Some Legal Trickery

The European Court of Justice ruled today on Microsoft’s appeal regarding the Commission’s decision to fine it €500 million for its alleged abuse of its dominant market position. There are two, parallel and basic issues with both the regulatory framework and the charges against Microsoft. First, corporations, as per their mandate, are formally encouraged (viz. […]

The Joel Bakan Interview

As part of The Corporation's supplemental material, this interview of Joel Bakan, the author of the book and co-producer of the synonymous film, by Janeane Garofalo covers some of the topics presented in the book and the movie, but also goes a bit further to explain how politics, money and influence has allowed corporations to evolve into the powerful, dominant, yet completely immoral and irresponsible institution of our time. Extremely interesting and definitely worth watching, even if you have watched this excellent fllm.

Liquid Haptics

One thin container (transparent plastic bag) full of dark coloured liquid, one webcam and a glass table and you get your own multitouch interface. Ingenious and very simple. Tom White seems to have come up with this for his Master's Thesis at MIT in 1998 (check out the comments on the page linked to by the title). Here's a video of someone who --- seems to have independently thought of the same idea and --- actually implemented it on their Mac, using his iSight and writing the necessary control software in Cocoa.

Διαπλέουμε τη Μεταδημοκρατία της Δυσφορίας

Εύστοχα και εύγλωττα ο Νίκος Ξυδάκης παρουσιάζει, με καυστικά διαμαρτυρόμενο τρόπο και γκρινιάρικο τόνο το υπόβαθρο των πολιτικών θέσεων, τάσεων και ύφους στην Ελλάδα του 2007. Αποτύπωση των καιρών, πρωτίστως κοινωνικές και όχι πολιτικές ματιές σε μια Ελλάδα που βυθίζεται στη μιζέρια. Κι'όμως, πότε δεν βυθιζόταν;

Thirty years of Voyager

The most distant ambassador of human civilisation, the Voyager probes, turn thirty. Wired has an excellent image set covering schematics and planetary imagery. I think we need more programmes like these. More on the Voyagers here.

Phrack Issue 64

In the latest issue of Phrack, you can find, among others, a very interesting 'paper' on shellcode and rootkit authoring for Mac OS X. While some of the techniques presented are not new, there are few --- if any --- publicly available texts that present them in such a concise manner. The paper focuses mostly on the Intel platform although there are descriptions and some code for PowerPC too. Worth a read.

Dangerous Knowledge

In order to break the stream of posts helping me vent my frustration about Hellenic politics and the upcoming elections in that country, here's an excellent documentary by the BBC (who else?). Its subject matter covers the work and lives of some of the most brilliant scientific minds of the last 200 years and specifically those of Georg Cantor, Ludwig Boltzmann, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. A common theme among them is the fact that they all committed suicide. The documentary vaguely attempts to link their prolific scientific and intellectual output and the primitive social environment in which they lived to their death, something which while possible, is vastly more complex correlation to what is presented in this documentary. Still, it is an interesting presentation, especially for those interested in the biographical details of these brilliant thinkers.