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by Sven Triloqvist
Fri Dec 24th, 2010 at 05:46:01 AM EST
well, here's today's open thread! afew
by Sven Triloqvist
Mon Apr 14th, 2008 at 11:10:00 AM EST
Ecolean represents an evolutionary step in food and drink packaging. It has excellent relative environmental properties. It uses 40% chalk (a virtually unlimited resource) and beats competitor packaging in very low footprint manufacture (energy, waste, water, greenhouse gas). It comes from the people that gave you the Tetrapak gabletop carton (and therein lies a caveat - to be revealed below)
by Sven Triloqvist
Sun Mar 30th, 2008 at 08:09:15 AM EST
The Finnish foreign minister Ilkka `Ike' Kanerva (National Coalition party) is in deep excrement. He is but one of a large number of examples of politicians and leaders both historical and current who believe that their private behaviour is of no concern to those whom they claim to represent - i.e. us.
I'll get into the gory details down the page, but in brief our foreign minister appears to be obsessed by female on-the-make `models' with large bosoms and trash-glam make-up, who inhabit the wannabe celebrity F-list. The obsession appears to be limited to reciprocated bombardment by SMS. However this bombardment appears to take place on government mobile phones during government time. One can only hope that the government mobile service package is one of those `1000 text messages a month for free' deals. And since the target of Ike's obsession has a declared annual income over several years of only a few hundred euros, one hopes she has a cheap mobile deal also. It would help her to keep on buying the expensive shoes and clothes and holidays abroad that she admits are the mainstay of her life in abject poverty.
by Sven Triloqvist
Sun Mar 16th, 2008 at 07:17:18 AM EST
I spent yesterday with an IT visionary pal who was requested by a major European government to find a way to make state budgeting more transparent. The government regularly publishes hundreds of pdfs from the Excel originals. As anyone knows who has transferred spreadsheets to Word or pdf, they just sit there. There's not much you can do to them except read them. What the government wanted was a) a state budget that could be easily translated into various worldwide accounting systems. B) a set of state budget modules and summaries that could easily be tested by other interested parties. c) an Open Source system. D) Automated processing of financial information to cut the laborious and costly processes of manual re-entry and comparison.
by Sven Triloqvist
Sun Mar 16th, 2008 at 06:20:36 AM EST
The mark of the modern world is the imagination of its profiteers and the counter-assertiveness of the oppressed. Exploitation and the refusal to accept exploitation as either inevitable or just constitute the continuing antinomy of the modern era, joined together in a dialectic, which has far from reached its climax in the twentieth century.
Diary rescue by Migeru
by Sven Triloqvist
Fri Mar 14th, 2008 at 04:58:48 AM EST
Seven Samurai v The Magnificent Seven
Seven Samurai
Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) is a 1954 Japanese film co-written, edited and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film takes place in Warring States Period Japan (around 1587/1588). It follows the story of a village of farmers that hire seven masterless samurai (ronin) to combat bandits who will return after the harvest to steal their crops.
Seven Samurai is frequently described as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, and is one of a select few Japanese films to become widely known in the West for an extended period of time. It is the subject of both popular and critical acclaim; it was voted onto Sight & Sound's list of the ten greatest films of all time in 1982 and 1992, and remains on the director's top ten films in the 2002 poll.
by Sven Triloqvist
Thu Mar 13th, 2008 at 02:03:50 PM EST
Jérôme asks us where all the diaries and comments are lately...
Try this for inspiration.
by Sven Triloqvist
Thu Mar 13th, 2008 at 12:45:05 PM EST
I was reading about the the crash of the 27 billion dollar fund Carlyle Capital. I couldn't remember who was involved with the infamous Carlyle Group - but did remember Bushes snr and jnr, Frank Carlucci and John Major. But looking through the list below, a name jumped out of some interest to ET: Oliver Sarkozy, half-brother of the French Prezzie.
by Sven Triloqvist
Tue Mar 11th, 2008 at 11:14:38 AM EST
ET is a fairly broad church, representing many different progressive interests. Economy, energy, arts, photography, bridges etc - they are not discrete subjects. They are all connected together because they all involve human endeavours, and, ultimately, the drivers for those endeavours. The main driver, beyond simple survival, is Quality of Life.
This question came up in another diary and Migu asked me to post it as a new diary - below the fold....
by Sven Triloqvist
Tue Mar 4th, 2008 at 01:50:39 PM EST
As you all know, I don't make a great distinction between biochemical metaprogramming of brain functions from either outside or inside the body. Puberty is the biggest personality-changing trip that many people ever experience. And it is genetically programmed. It's an inside job.
by Sven Triloqvist
Sun Feb 17th, 2008 at 06:26:45 AM EST
I hope to have a bit more time during the Spring to tackle some of the possibilities that ET has for development. So this is the first of a series of diaries, in which my amateur qualifications will be quickly revealed. But I wish to get you all thinking about organizations of the future.
Future diaries will include Self-Organizing Systems, P2P networks, Developments in Collaborative Software (or Groupware) and Open Source. I'll add more when I see how the debate evolves. Maybe this will get TBG to post his Copyright diary <hint hint>
I start off with problem solving.
by Sven Triloqvist
Thu Feb 14th, 2008 at 02:22:06 PM EST
In Greek mythology, Mentor was the son of Alcumus and, in his old age, a friend of Odysseus. When Odysseus left for the Trojan War he placed Mentor in charge of his son, Telemachus, and of his palace. When Athena visited Telemachus she took the disguise of Mentor to hide herself from the suitors of Telemachus' mother Penelope.
<..>
This is the source of the modern use of the word mentor: a trusted friend, counselor or teacher, usually a more experienced person. Some professions have "mentoring programs" in which newcomers are paired with more experienced people in order to obtain good examples and advice as they advance, and schools sometimes have mentoring programs for new students or students who are having difficulties.
by Sven Triloqvist
Sat Jan 19th, 2008 at 11:03:36 AM EST
I just heard the sad news this morning of the death of my friend and colleague from documentary days. I first heard that Paul was seriously ill on January 6th. This was 4 days after I posted here the picture above, taken at the most northerly café in the world at Point Barrow, Alaska. Paul is on the left, I'm on the right. My then camera assistant Chris took the picture, and all others in this diary.
by Sven Triloqvist
Wed Jan 2nd, 2008 at 10:09:35 AM EST
This will be a meander through the oxbows of that lazy river, reality. It is not an argument, but a series of possible connections.
It began as I was in the process of formulating a reply to DoDo a few days ago:
For each sensate being, their perception of 'reality' (both external and internal) is an evolving complexity of patterns that begins from pure noise with increased signal coming from each accumulated experience of stimulii. Thus everything is a synesthetic 'picture' whether from smell, taste touch, sight, hearing, EM detection and possibly a few more of which we are not yet aware. And in any combination.
But the constructed reality will depend on two things: the complexity and 'tools'. Complexity is a tricky question. Does the sea anenome with only 8 neurons and no nodes have a reality? At what level of complexity can signal emerge from noise?
The 'tools' of sensateness come in many different types: the acuity of eagle vision, the echo location-finding of bats, the amazing pheromone detection of some moths in an almost homeopathic dilution in air, and so on. These 'reality' constructs are as real as any other - to sensateness.
And so too are those realities constructed from incomplete information due to physiological anamolies of individuals within a species. Thus colour-blind people are unable to detect a full frequency spectrum of photons, but still construct a workable reality.
by Sven Triloqvist
Mon Dec 24th, 2007 at 10:19:20 AM EST
Thanks to everyone for brightening my days, even if I do not always agree with you. I wish you all, friend and foe alike, a wonderful holiday, thank for you being you not me, thanks for all your advice and sharing, and I look forward to even more vigorous discussions in the future.
Please feel free to use this thread to send any greetings!
by Sven Triloqvist
Mon Dec 17th, 2007 at 05:35:23 PM EST
This is about flagrant fragrances. There's a poll...
An image is burnt in my mind that summons up childhood Christmas. It was my Dad's annual present - a bottle of Old Spice. At aged 11, shaving was still a mystery to me, and the sight of my father shaving, with a lot of lather and one of those traditional steel 3 part shavers using thin incredibly sharp disposable blades was fascinating. I have a photo of him in India during the war shaving. It was his ritual - same lather, same shaver, same small towel flung over the shoulder - and he in a singlet. I imagine 20 or so other identical RAF types in a tent with no walls, and small mirrors hung on a beam, above a table that holds loose metal basins.
scratch and sniff the fold
by Sven Triloqvist
Sun Dec 16th, 2007 at 04:13:08 AM EST
Jail toilets face away from Mecca
Strange really, since non-Muslims consider it offensive to point the exposed rear at someone or some thing.
But on to another arse: Gordon Brown. He is deserving of some mass mooning.
by Sven Triloqvist
Thu Dec 13th, 2007 at 11:21:36 AM EST
Yesterday I stared deep down into the bowels of a nuclear reactor. An 872.5 MW BWR reactor - Olkiluoto 1, on an island complex in the municipality of Eurajoki, on the West coast of Finland. OL 1 is the slightly older brother of OL 2 right next door. The reactor heats water into high-pressure steam at around 400 C which in turn drives a turbine. The turbine rotates at 3000 rpm and generates electricity at a voltage of 20 kV. The electricity is supplied to the national grid through a transformer that raises the voltage to 400 kV in order to minimise transmission losses.
by Sven Triloqvist
Fri Dec 7th, 2007 at 03:17:29 PM EST
Best known for his avant-garde electronic work, Stockhausen was an experimental musician who utilised tape recorders and mathematics to create innovative, ground-breaking pieces.
His Electronic Study, 1953, was the first musical piece composed from pure sine wave sounds.
Electronic Study II, produced a year later, was the first work of electronic music to be notated and published.
The conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was once asked whether he had conducted any Stockhausen. He replied: "No, but I once trod in some."
by Sven Triloqvist
Thu Dec 6th, 2007 at 03:52:09 PM EST
The "Land Girls", who worked on British farms to ensure food was supplied during World War II, are to receive a commendation recognising their efforts.
All surviving members of the Women's Land Army, which was 80,000-strong at its peak, will receive a special badge.
They "worked tirelessly for the benefit of the nation" during the 1940s, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said.
"Their selfless service to the country deserves the recognition that this badge will represent," he added.
Oh, Hillary, it's definitely worth a badge, you fricking cheapskate.
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