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Archive for June, 2007


My Whale day

(Sunday, June 24th, 2007)

I have recently found quite a number of interesting tidbits about whales (mostly from scienceblogs) I wanted to share here with you.

Whale, lance bombFurthermore, eskimos just killed a whale in Alaska where they found (while butchering it with a chainsaw) the head of a bomb lance proving that it had escaped another hunt narrowly about a century ago. The longevity of the animal is not exceptional (it was 130 years old, but it could have lived one century more, with some more luck). [Source: ScienceBlogs]

Last minute: After four days of difficult negotiations, the International Whale Commission, grouping 76 countries, finally extended the 1986 moratorium about whaling. It prohibits whale hunting and catching with some restricted exceptions (for human subsistance and scientific research). [Source : En bref : répit pour les baleines (Futura-Sciences)]

FileHamster: Better than backup

(Sunday, June 24th, 2007)

FileHamster de MogWare - main windowIt’s often (but not often enough) repeated: data backup is a critical element of the security of your data. Too often, we frget about it because of a lack of tools easy enough to support it without significant user involvement.

Here comes the main advantage of the excellent freeware tool for Windows: FileHamster from Mogware.

It automagically produces backup copies of your files any time you change them, immediately after you modify, copy or save the files. It merely opens a small window for a second to give you a chance to input some additional commands on the fly, but it is easily forgotten as less than annoying. And all the changes to your data are recorded as long as they are done on the disk drive.

I have been using at the office for the recent weeks and it is very efficient. Data restoration is even simplified by the fact that backup copies are stored as clear separated files the can be easily copied back in place (the file names use a naming convention easy to decode with the date of saving).

More details on their wiki.

Sources: Lifehacker.

The Windows upgrade

(Saturday, June 23rd, 2007)

An upgrade maybe painful: Vista as a fakir chair.

The upgrade

Source: Ctrl-Alt-Del.

GNU-emacs, version 22.1

(Friday, June 22nd, 2007)

GNU-EmacsOne of the most efficient way to start a religious war between white hat hackers is to ask “what is the best text editor?” Everybody got their own choice and they are quite sensitive to the issue.

My own choice is Emacs.

Today I have the pleasure to announce that GNU-Emacs is released in its new version 22.1 (to include new extensions for a better GUI integration).

Immediate free download on the GNU Official Site.

Gears to make your head spin

(Friday, June 22nd, 2007)

Friday! It’s Friday!

It’s time to spend valuable time on worthless GearTaker.

GearTaker

The aim is to click to make the little man jump. It must fall down on another gear. The longer the jump, the more points.

Have a good Friday afternoon.

Mig-29OVT: Spectacular!

(Thursday, June 21st, 2007)

The Mig-29OVT is also known as “Fulcrum-F”. The latest version of the Mig-29 is such a jump-ahead in terms of propulsion that it has been named Mig-35 by some. Thrust-vectoring engine and fly-by-wire technology give it a really impressive maneuverability. See it in this December 2006 video.


Direct link

Gee!

Creepy: How police interrogation works

(Thursday, June 21st, 2007)

Here is a paper about how police interrogation really works. Far from CSI and other TV series stereotypes, but rather creepy.

As they say, no surprise that some innocent people claim terrible crimes.

Via GeekPress.

84 births: The Siberian Tiger mothers are feeling good

(Wednesday, June 20th, 2007)

A North China breeding center has announced that they already had 84 births this year. The Amur Tigers or Siberian Tiger, or Machurian Tiger are the largest living big cats with more than 600 pounds for an adult.

They intend to breed some of them in order to prepare them for a future life in the wild (the species is threatened by poachers and competition for habitat with humans).

How to disassemble your Minolta 50mm/1.7 lens

(Wednesday, June 20th, 2007)

The 50mm f/1.7 lens from Minolta has the bad reputation of sometimes seeing its diaphragm iris locking itslef open (along with the excellent opticla quality of the glass - even better than for the bigger brother the 50mm f/1.4). Knowing that the repair services are expensive and remembering Minolta’s demise, here comes Internet and one pBase user who details the disassembling of your lens (with copies of the repair manual from Minolta, nothing less).

Dissasembly and Repair of Minolta Maxxum AF 50mm f/1.7 and f/1.4 Lenses.

This is astinishingly precise, I recently partially disassembled my own Minolta 2x focal multiplier (in order to add a tad bit of machine oil) but I would hesitate to start such a task. I don’t know if I recommend the reading of the information or the use of the information…

Ira Bordo: images

(Tuesday, June 19th, 2007)

Once again, I stop by some black and white images. Ira Bordo comes from Russia and brings some very elegant nude images on IraBordo.ru/.

Ira Bordo
Copyright Ira Bordo

No plastics for a better environnement

(Tuesday, June 19th, 2007)

The proposal is a pragmatic one: Let’s try to reduce the use of plastics in our everyday life. It may not solve all the problems but it can reduce one.

A To-Do List For Reducing Plastic. [Deep Sea News]

  1. No plastic grocery bags
  2. No plastic “poop” bags
  3. No plastic trash bags
  4. No plastic produce bags
  5. No plastic silverware
  6. No plastic cup or cup lids
  7. No plastic water bottles

After that, it will start to be a little better.

Inkjet impressions will be dead soon

(Monday, June 18th, 2007)

Canada’s National Archive experts are worried that we don’t have enough knowledge about how inkjet prints age. They fear that most of them will die early because the dried ink is much more exposed to external stresses than the pigments of traditional photo paper.

So, they turn to Henry Wilhelm of Wilhelm Research to get some additonal information.

Source: New York Times.


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