This 'prediction' in Copenhagen by Lord Monckton was made 2 days before the end of the UNFCCC global catastrophes conference. We now know the 'result' and see how dead-on Lord Monckton was. Do we indeed see the repeat of an old history? His comparison with Nazi-Germany and the 'achievements' of this peculiar 'conference' may seem daring for some. It also may be a brave and clear warning at the end of 2009 that little good is to be expected from 2010...
Excuse me for the smile, but the tweet from Twitter went silent the early morning of Dec. 18th. A group of skilled hackers, presumably from Iran, hijacked the DNS 'entrance' of the Twitter system and diverted visitors to their political message, something about the USA controlling the Internet and other countries on their 'embargo-list'. Hacktivism is making the news these days, in particular when it is spectacular. Hacking the NASA was, as were cyber attacks on the Israeli 'Mossad' and the Al-Khaleej newspaper lately. That each and everyday dozens of cyber-attacks are performed remains unnoticed by most of us and the media. Security experts earn a decent living trying to indicate loopholes for hackers these days. But didn't we know for long about so-called 'vulnerabilities' of social networks? How could 'Persian' hackers inject their diversion in Twitter's DNS? Per intercepted e-mail account, the common way, or a systemic shortcoming in some program codes...?
This may come as a shock for some: imagine to run a "Linux" desktop and software on Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista. Well, you can. Just install KDE for Windows. On the other hand the 'full-blown' (Linux) version of KDE (:kadee-ee), its very latest version 4.4, offers new users a few nifty surprises. Pretending to be a Common Desktop Environment the history from KDE is a long one with several ups and downs. Having started in 1996 its founder Matthias Ettrich, a German computer scientist, and his team have succeeded in producing a stable and innovative desktop metaphor that in some respects is different from all we know today, however that with its short learning-curve is fairly easy to use. What at first glance might look somewhat like Windows-7 or Vista rapidly exposes itself as an incredibly flexible environment for nearly every Linux application. Although we talk about 'desktop', KDE-4 in fact has none. But you could make one. Incredible? If you need a new experience for computing just install KDE to see for yourself...
Fireworks at the New Years Eve parties belong to long-standing traditions. Millions are spent to -one time a year- let the emotions go and play with fire. In many countries this is only allowed for a few hours at the first day of January. An earlier post reminded me of the splendid and exceptional fireworks from Ricardo Caballer of Valencia - Spain. His company 'Ricasa' is world-famous for its firework-productions. Sidney 2000 comes to mind. But there is also the Spring 'Fallas' from Valencia, a monumental fiesta of sorts, that attracts millions of visitors. A truly 'should-see' when you ever can. Polvora (gunpowder) belongs to Spanish traditions. One isn't afraid of it, although sometimes accidents happen. Even children get for their birthdays a small 'castillo' (fireworks), a box with numerous pirotechnic gizmo's in it, that parents can ignite (outside of course) to add to the joy. Good fireworks are a joy and an emotion. But be careful when you let it go at the end of this year...
Browsing millions of websites to just find the item you were looking for, can be a daunting task. Finding documents on a hard drive often takes its time. "Where did I store it..., I know I have it somewhere?", many ask themselves at times. The fact that the Internet represents a universe of data, often 'headlined' only, makes finding what you are looking for cumbersome and difficult. It is not so much the problem of asking the right questions to a search engine, but the often immense un-referenced, chaotic-looking structure of the output. What are the correlations? What belongs to what and goes to the essence of the question, and what is only in a way associated and of chronological relevance? Lots of time goes lost with searching in vain for subjects that 'hang in the air somewhere'. On a small scale we can see this on our PC's, where file managers keep track of content: by filenames, types and dates, often categorized only by the name of some folder: 'pictures'. It tells nothing about the contents, connections, similarities, grouping etc. Computers are shallow-brained things indeed, it appears. Users often are but superficially thinking about their limited potentials in the vastness of all data that is available. Hence search-engines and file-managers could need a brush-up in 2010. Maybe Pivot gives an indication of the desktop-future...
Classical UFO case or not? This was December 9 seen over Norway. Spectacular this is anyway and a good example of a real UFO phenomenon. It happened on December 9, 2009, minutes before 07:00 UTC over Northern Norway and was seen down to Tromsø and Bodø. A bright beam of bluish light showed up above the surface and gradually produced a clear whirling spiral of greenish white light, that expanded rapidly in the skies. Jan Petter Jørgenson made this fantastic picture of it. Was it an alien spacecraft exploding high in the atmosphere? Or was it a rocket launch that went wrong? What caused this spiral of light? (Updated when more details become known)
Advanced propulsion concepts often appear to people as science fiction. A car driving on water already is an intriguing theme. Although it offers a rather peculiar and cheap solution, water-power isn't an advanced concept. Just analyze the burning of petroleum, or heating water to steam even to understand that. Different this gets, when one takes note of studies about elementary particles and electromagnetic waves. More so when one takes a look at light and its photons. Imagine a photon drive and have yourself catapulted through space with up to 6 times the speed of light. Imagine a car driving on particle beams. Science fiction or science fact? Dr. Paul A. LaViolette, a bit of an 'enfant terrible' at the forefront of physics, connects all of this to the secrets of anti-gravity propulsion, adding gravity to the equation. In his new book"Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion: Tesla, UFO's and Classified Aerospace Technology" he reveals the existence of amazing ways of propulsion that are bound to come out of our laboratories. But don't throw away your BMW with a modern combustion engine yet...
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