Soft Man

The civilizations of Egypt and Middle East had already ages measured in millenia when the Iranian nomad tribes of the Medes and Persians left the steppes to establish in the Iranian Plateau, 3,000 years ago. The Medes settled in the south of the Caspian Sea, the Persians in the southeast, in the area of what we call today the Persian Gulf (Shiraz). Before the arrival of the Iranian tribes, the plateau was inhabited by the Hurrites and other non Indo-European tribes.

Enlarge pictureThey were less developed than the neighboring people, like Assyrians and Urartu, but they brought the Zoroastrian system of religion and ethics that still survives, a belief that humans can choose between good and evil. Avesta was a collection of sacred texts expressing the Zoroastrian doctrine. Zoroaster had been a religious reformer which preached the existence of a supreme god, Ahura Mazda, lord of the good and creator of the world, identified with the sky light. Its emblem was the Sun and its representation was a winged circle with bird tail. Minor deities were called yazatas, which many times were represented as winged animals with human heads. Opposed to the God was Ahra-Manyu (later, Ahriman), lord of the darkness, and led a legion of evil spirits causing all the misfortunes on Earth. The gods were offered sacrifices and sacred fires were maintained burning on the top of the large towers.

At the beginning, the Medes were stronger, and made an union of tribes with the capital at Ecbatana that pretended tribute from Persians. But Medes themselves had been the vassals of the Assyrians, until their king Cyrxartes allied with the Chaldeans (Babylonians) and conquered the Assyrian capital, Ninive, in 612 BC, wiping out the Assyrian empire. The new Mede empire comprised Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria and part of Asia Minor.

But Persians united under a genius leader, Cyrus the Great, who founded the dynasty of the Achaemenides. In 559 BC, Cyrus started the fight against the Medes and built a huge empire comprising Iran, Armenia and Asia Minor (today Turkey). In 546 BC, Cyrus conquered Lydia and Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor. His campaigns led him to the Hindu Kush mountains (in modern Afghanistan). His son, Cambyses II conquered the whole Egypt, an unique deed by those times.

The appearance of an aspirant to the throne and the revolts of the Babylonians and Medes impeded Cambyses invade Libya and Ethiopia. At his death, he left no direct heir, but Darius, the leader of the 10,000 Immortals (the Royal Guard) pretended his descending from Achaemenides and was crowned as the new king. In two years, he crushed the revolts and, by 486 BC, he had extended the border of the empire to the Indus River.

The Persian Empire comprised people of various religions and ethnicities, but Persians did not attempt to rule through terror, like the Assyrians, but to conciliate various groups. Local governors ruled the 20 satrapies forming the empire. Customs, laws and public institutions were respected and all religions tolerated: one example is the reconstruction of a temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians.

The capital of the Persian empire was Persepolis, rather a ceremonial center than a city. The Persian civilization is famous for its enormous palaces, but Persian villages were made of adobe houses, whitewashed to reflect the heat. The Persian houses were gathered and possessed terraces and terraced roofs accessible from external stairs, with very few windows.

Persian men wore curly beards and earrings; long trousers and short tunics. The clothes fitted horse riding. Persians wore folded-edged hats, while Medes wore rounded hats.

Enlarge picturePersians were artistically heavily influenced by the Urartu kingdom and adapted the cuneiform writing to Persian. Persian jewelers were inspired by the Assyrian models and that of the craftsmen of Luristan and Lydia.

The Persian kings were buried in giant tombs, carved on the vertical walls of rocky cliffs. The facades of the tombs were adorned with depicting the king in front of Ahura-Mazda, while friezes could present lines of characters worshiping the God and rendering to the king. The entrance gate was flanked by 4 columns, also cut in rock, leaning a false cornice.

Enlarge pictureAll the subjects of the empire served in the army, which turned cosmopolitan. A well developed road system boosted trade and communication; prosperity was promoted by the use of money (an invention from Lydia) as gold standardized coins. Such a large and fragile empire (the biggest until then) survived remarkably for 200 years. The peak had been reached during the rule of Darius. In 512 BC, Darius crossed the Bosphorus trying to defeat the Scythe tribes located beyond the Danube. 20 years later, he remade the route, occupying Thrace up to the border with Macedonia.

After crashing a revolt of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor, Darius attempted to act on the Greeks from the mainland. The army sent in 490 BC to punish the Athenians for the help accorded to the Asian Greeks was defeated at the Battle of Marathon. But this was a small defeat, and Xerxes, the son of Darius, prepared a larger invasion, whose results were disastrous following the battles of Salamina (480 BC), Plataea and Mycale (479 BC). In 446 BC, Persia decided to make peace.

Persians were good riders and employed war chariots. Persian archers were famous for their powerful 2 m (6.6 ft) long bows. Persian troops wore helmets, shields and shin guards, but their infantry was much weaker than the hoplites (Greek foot soldiers).


Enlarge pictureAs they were steppe riders at their origin, the art of navigation was foreign for them. A Greek explorer, Scylax, was sent by Darius, and navigated by 515 BC from the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean, surrounded the Arabian peninsula, entered the Red Sea and finished its adventure where today is the Suez Channel. When the Persian Empire attacked Greece, their fleet was led by a Phoenician admiral. The entire Persian fleet was destroyed at Salamina.

Greek mercenaries played an important role in the revolts and civil wars between the rival groups fighting for power and which shook the empire.

The empire was visibly in decline, and only the fights between the Greek cities escaped it.

Enlarge pictureBut Darius III had the bad luck to face Alexander the Great, who started his famous campaign, during which he conquered the Persian Empire (334-324 BC). Following the conquest of Alexander, Persia turned into a kingdom led by the Greek Seleucid dynasty. Pathians, another Iranian tribe, revolted against the Seleucids in the third century BC, forming a kingdom that survived till 224 AD, when the Persian Ardeshir Babakan defeated them and founded the Sassanid dynasty. Sassanids considered themselves descendants of the Achaemenides and Persia experienced a revival of several centuries.

Enlarge pictureSassanids created an army based on a strong chivalry, armed with bows. Art boomed and palaces were decorated with reliefs and carvings. Beautiful jewelry and woven fabrics, with gold thread, got famous around the world, being exported everywhere.

The Sassanids collapsed during the 7th century AD under the Arabs, who brought Islam. Persia changed forever. As human representation was forbidden by Islam, Persian artisans started creating art objects displaying sophisticated interwoven geometrical motifs.

Undoubtedly, the existence of an ultra-mobile version of Macintosh notebook was hardly a secret since alleged details about its features have emerged since early December. Although we knew about it, we could not help an exclamation sigh as the king of all notebooks, the MacBook Air, was first unveiled to the public.

Apple has continually improved the design of its existing products, while focusing on miniaturization. This is exactly what happened to the MacBook Air, world's thinnest notebook. The laptop measures only 0.16 inches (40 millimeters) at its thinnest point and weighs 1.3 kilograms – a normal weight for a sub-notebook, and not for a fully-fledged laptop PC.

Enlarge picture"We've built the world's thinnest notebook - without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "When you first see MacBook Air, it's hard to believe it's a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is."

The notebook integrates a 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display, and, according to its technical specifications, comes with a 65-nanometer Core 2 Duo processor featuring 4 MB of L2 cache, an 80 GB 1.8" hard drive as well as 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity. What the Apple guys "forgot" to mention is that the Air appears to be powered by a new breed of processors, the low-voltage Merom-based Core 2 Duo, and not an Ultra Low Voltage Merom like the vast majority of notebook vendors use.

Enlarge pictureWhile a standard Merom Core 2 Duo processor sucks up about 1.0375 - 1.3000V core voltage under normal operating conditions (from 1.8GHz all the way up to 2.6GHz), the Low Voltage Core 2 Duo processors run at 0.9V - 1.2000V under the same conditions. Of course, since they are not as common as the regular parts, Intel makes sure to charge a little extra money.

The notebook comes with a full-sized keyboard framed in an aluminum enclosure. It is backlit, so dimly-lit environments are not a problem anymore when it comes to typing. Moreover, a built-in ambient light sensor makes sure to perfectly calibrate the brightness of the keys and of the display for optimal visibility.

Enlarge pictureThe energy efficient CPU and LCD display allow the MacBook Air to deliver up to five hours of battery life. The only drawback is the fact that the notebook comes without an internal optical unit, but the MacBook includes AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi networking. However, Apple introduced a new feature called Remote Drive that enables you to use the SuperDrive (a normal CD/DVD of another computer, accessed via the wireless network)

The MacBook Air will arrive on the market in two weeks' time, at an estimated retail price of $1800. Apple will also offer a SSD-enabled version of the notebook that will come with 64GB of solid-state storage, for as much as $3100.

After five long months of development, the most expected project of 2007, KDE 4, has finally seen the light today! KDE 4 is the next generation of the popular K Desktop Environment, which seeks to fulfill the need for a powerful yet easy-to-use desktop, for both personal and enterprise computing. KDE project's goal for the 4.0 release is to put the foundations in place for future innovations on the FREE desktop.

Today, we will take a closer look at the main features incorporated in the final release of KDE 4. First of all, I should let you know that for these tests, I've used the Kubuntu 7.10 KDE 4.0 Remaster that can be downloaded from Softpedia. Let's see the highlights of KDE 4.0!

Plasma, the brand new desktop shell and panel, is an amazing piece of technology that makes your KDE experience better than ever. Its role is to offer, to the end-users, an efficient and ergonomic access to their desktop. A few Plasma applets or widgets (also known as Plasmoids) were created by various developers and can be found here, if you would like to make your KDE desktop more funky and modern!



The window manager of KDE 4, KWin, comes now with Solid (a sophisticated hardware API) and Phonon (a multimedia framework) and with some amazing desktop effects. In the System Settings window, at Display, you can activate these desktop effects, which are independent from Compiz Fusion. These are brand-new effects that can be found only in KDE 4! However, running them kinda slows down your entire desktop if you have 512 RAM. I've also tested it on a machine with 1 GB of RAM and works better. So, I guess the KDE developers still need to patch this in the 4.1 release.

Some of the old applications, that can still be found in KDE 3.5.x, are gone now and some brand new applications have taken their place. All known KDE applications, such as Konqueror, which is the default file manager and web browser, KGet, KColorPaint, Konsole, Kopete, SuperKaramba, are now greatly improved and I'll bet you will not even recognize some of them! Last but not least, KDE 4 uses a new and very beautiful icon theme, called Oxygen.

As an alternative file manager, Dolphin is included for those of you who have already been using it. Sadly, but Amarok is not included and it can't be installed. Don't know why!? Moreover, I really miss an important (for me) function in Konqueror that cannot be found in any other browser. The "Search & Replace Text" function, that could be activated with the CTRL+R key combination, is now replaced by the "Reload" function! I guess this happens because Konqueror is now powered by WebKit?!

In conclusion, it's not yet perfect, but from our test (until now) KDE 4 runs pretty good and looks amazing. I strongly suggest you download one (Kubuntu is preferred) of the CDs below and install (or just run directly from the Live CD) this final and groundbreaking version of KDE.

Don't you just love strip joints? I mean, you go there, pocket full of small bills and lots of willingness just to have some good-old fun, without other people judging you or with the fear that your lover will elbow you very subtly right in between your ribs for looking at a hot girl that is not her (not that I personally do that! *grinning) and you do just that: you have fun while some chick that you couldn't care less about is showing you all that Mother Nature (and maybe Father Surgeon as well) gave her. Yes, those are the times!

Then again, don't you also love it when you see a celebrity doing just that – which means that you don't even have to pay for it? That's like, you get to see all the goodies without even coughing a buck – save for the ones you pay for your Internet connection. And all in the same spirit of having fun... So, today we're gonna talk about stripping, since we all like it that much. But, mind you, this is not the kind of stripping you might have expected from this long introduction but rather taken in a more non-literal way. What happens when a celebrity begins to shed, along with her clothes (like essential pieces of wardrobe such as skirt and pants and bra and panties), her superstar layers that made her an iconic figure? You get Britney Spears in return, that's what happens!

You might have heard that, last week, Britney went berserk for a yet unknown reason and that she held her own two children hostage for almost four hours in a police standoff that was really worthy of a "Cops" episode. This was yet another step downwards for the former Princess of Pop, the woman we all loved and held in high regard for at least the past five years. It was the last layer that she shed and that left her completely naked in front of us, stripped as she was of all the misconceptions and smart PR strategies that had built her in our eyes as some sort of untouchable, unbreakable, untainted goddess. Well, if the goddess likes to be worshiped by having her feet tied down to a hospital gurney while she doesn't even seem able to comprehend why all these people in white robes are swirling around her looking concerned, then I guess Brit Brit is still high on her throne...

Enlarge pictureThis is not meant to make you feel any kind of sympathy for the pop idol (?); this is, just as I said, meant to lay bare the truth about our own pop culture. We raise our idols to watch them fall, we thrive on their mistakes because that's what makes them more human, more like you and me. We adore them blindly (and I'm not talking only about Britney here) and then, when they do fall because of the pressure we and the grinding wheel of showbiz put on them, we are the first to point fingers and cast stones. Of course, it's easier that way because it's not like they're going to come after us to reprimand us, isn't it? But, and you'll have to agree with me on that, Britney Spears, as far as we're concerned, did have her chance. And, if she blew it, she did it all on her own, without us even interfering.

In Brit Brit's case, the industry has been more than lenient. We all knew she couldn't sing but her "comeback" of last year was probably one of the most-hyped and anticipated musical events ever. The fans were there for her, the media was showing around the clock support and even her most bitter critics were on their toes, waiting to see what she would come up with next. All in all, everything was looking up for Brit, which is more than we can say for other pop stars who don't even get a first chance, not to mention a second one. And a third. And a fourth. And the millionth one as well. Despite all the rumors and bad media that Britney was getting, from things like hooking up with barely legal college boys or with a paparazzo , to being no lady in the presence of strangers and passing gas indiscriminately (I know, gross!), Britney's album, what was supposed to be the breakthrough of the century, was still on everyone's lips. And, instead of meeting our (rather justified) expectations, she came up with THIS, an album that clearly showed that, as far as her "artistry" went, if she ever had any to start with, she was completely done. Dunzo. Over. Kaput.

Enlarge pictureAnd then, it was like that was only the beginning. Slowly but surely, our former Princess of Pop began to shed away her superstar layers and to show herself as she truly was: a country girl who just happened to be once at the right place at the right time, who got one major lucky break and who now was obviously in no position to cope with everything that was going on in her life. A regular person after all, whom we worshiped for no logical reason and who had disappointed us in many ways, but only because we had expected so much of her. The events of last week, the yet unknown tragedy (if that's not too strong a word for it) that went down at The Summit, the gated community where Spears resides, just showed us that she was no better and no worse than any of us. But, for some, the paparazzi, she is still the Princess of Pop, the same idol and killer woman who had just had one unlucky day.

If you're looking for Britney Spears as you once knew her, look no more. She has stripped of all that she once was and is now laying naked as the person she really is. Just like when you peel an onion, we did the same with our very own Princess of Pop and, trust me, the effect was basically the same because Britney, as the core of the onion (feeling a bit philosophical today, you might have noticed) stings your eyes and makes them all teary. And you thought you like stripping, didn't you? How 'bout now?!

You all know the drill with the wireless headphones: more or less, pretty much any headset has some point where something isn't exactly as it should be, whether we're talking poorer audio quality in certain conditions, lack of sufficient battery life, too much wiring involved in other places and the likes.

Well, it seems that Sennheiser have been quite busy lately (pretty much as ever) and their collaboration with the Cupertino, California company Kleer has fruited a most rewarding result, in the body of the MX W1 headset - truly wire-free headphones.

The biggest leap in wireless technology was made when the Bluetooth connectivity has been abandoned because it required complex audio compression
Enlarge picture(a thing rather incompatible with the audiophile perspective) and it was also potentially interfering with the use of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones or Wi-Fi communictions.

The new technology has been developed by Kleer and both companies claim it boasts a dramatically higher respect to the audio quality while at the same time being significantly less power-hungry. As a matter of fact, the new wireless communication tech is said to require five to ten times less power, thus critically increasing the battery life of the headset and any other device using it.


Enlarge pictureThese specs have founded the further miniaturization of the headset, allowing the same operation time with a much smaller body for increased wearing comfort, better looks and greater overall usefulness. The transmitter is the size of a matchbox and can be easily stowed away in a pocket near your player as it only needs a signal jack; even more, Sennheiser claims that up to four listeners can hook their headphones to the same transmitter and simultaneously enjoy the broadcast.

Exact specs and battery life, as well as pricing are due soon, as the hew equipment will be launched in May 2008.

We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .