Swiss earthli Logo

If you’re seeing this article, then you’re browsing the Swiss version of earthli.com. The site (along with it’s proprietor) has moved to Switzerland. As you can see, the logo has been updated to reflect this status :-). If you find anything that is broken, be sure to let me know, as it could be a configuration problem as a result of the move.

After long months of focus-group testing and careful deliberation, earthli has a new logo. This logo is only rendered in alpha-transparent PNG, so will look extra bad on all Windows IE incarnations, but those are the breaks. It’s worth it just to have one logo for all themes now. The new logo also makes a nicer and more distinct icon, as you can see in the icon to the left. With the decision to leave all non-alpha-transparent-PNG rendering browsers behind, the logo can make full use of the... [More]

The August 15, 2002 Cryptogram by Bruce Schneier at Counterpane Internet Security explains what is known about “Palladium”, the code-name for Microsoft’s trusted computing intiative. It’s abbreviated as Pd, like an element. Isn’t that cute. This is a natural outgrowth of Hollywood’s (in the form of the MPAA and the RIAA) jihad against its customer base and our acceptance of the blame. It aims to use hardware to prevent people from doing anything that Hollywood doesn’t want them to with... [More]

Am I looking for conspiracies where they don’t exist when I read The Importance Of Being In India in Business World India and this article, Bill Gates pledges $100 million to fight AIDS in India on Canada.com on the same day and wonder whether the two are connected? I mean, Gates himself said that “…[h]e worried that India’s enormous progress in information technology − the country has the only Microsoft software development centre outside the United States − would be thwarted by AIDS.” At this... [More]

Arab League Expects Iraq to Comply on the New York Newsday discusses Iraq’s response to the new “United Nations resolution that requires Baghdad to declare and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction.” In addition, neighboring countries in the “…Arab League yesterday urged Hussein to comply with the Security Council resolution”.

“Hussein yesterday ordered Iraq’s 250-member parliament to hold an emergency session today in Baghdad. The legislature is stacked with members of Hussein’s ruling... [More]”

The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks on Counterpunch talks about the latest plan for “rooting out evildoers”. The report, prepared for Rumsfeld by the Defense Science Board, plans to create a new organization, whose duty it will be, in the most Orwellian possible fashion, to find terrorists, even if they must be created first.

“new organization—the “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)”—will carry out secret missions designed to “stimulate reactions” among terrorist... [More]”

As BBSpot points out in Americans Surprised to Learn of Upcoming Election, “74 percent of Americans were surprised that elections were being held this Tuesday”. This is actually surprising, since you would think that the administration would have their hands full with diverting attention from the economy; but it seems that the ever-compliant media has helped to downplay today’s elections as well.

Plastic explains why there may be so little emphasis on today’s elections in Election Day In The... [More]

If you dig the Pixar movies, then check out the trailer for Finding Nemo, hosted at Apple. I’m not really sure what the story is about — it looks like two fish trying to find one of their sons, surprising named “Nemo” — but it’s a sure bet it has a happy ending. It seems Pixar has found another venue in which to show off its technical prowess. In Monsters, Inc. it was Sully’s fur that stole the show, technologically; this time, it’s the underwater environment that will blow you away. In the... [More]

The Washington Post reports in Europe’s Microsoft Alternative that a region of Spain, “a western region of Spain called Extremadura, a mostly rural expanse of olive trees and tiny towns with 1.1 million inhabitants”, is planning “to convert all the area’s computer systems, in government offices, businesses and homes, from the Windows operating system to Linux”. This is a trend that started in Asia, with first China, then India, declaring that they would be standardizing on Linux or other... [More]

I know, I’ve written about the WhiteHouse.Org site before, providing select links that really stand out, but whoever is writing this site has really hit his/her stride at this point. Perhaps it’s because of all the juicy news tidbits available these days, perhaps because the target of ridicule is so big; whatever the case, the “press releases” by “The President” are just hilarious. It’s almost scary how much they sound like what we all know he wants to sound like in that malignant tumor posing... [More]

Writing With Elvish Fonts is, believe it or not, a page put up by one Daniel Smith, someone who apparently has enough free time to create TrueType™ fonts for the main elvish scripts from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

“This guide aims to give an introduction to using fonts for writing with the Tengwar, an Elvish writing system in J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels. In The Lord of the Rings the Tengwar can be seen in the inscription on the One Ring and the text on the West Gate of Moria.”

The font files... [More]

The problem with capitalism today is that it works really well for some people. Then those people do everything they can to make it keep working for them. It only takes a relatively small group of people with this lack of morals to make it work. The plurality of people with flexible morals are the grease that moves the machine forward. A topmost layer must at least have some awareness of the lives they’re co-opting for their own gain, but those myriad layers in between, in which each simply... [More]

The World’s Funniest Joke — Official at Yahoo News gives us the end result of the “largest-ever scientific study into humor”. The study was based in Britain, and their home page is at Laugh Lab, which seems to be down at the moment. After “[m]ore than 40,000 jokes from 70 countries and two million critiques”, they came up with the following (which I think is pretty good…these studies tend to find the most lame jokes):

“Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem... [More]”

Shadow boxing
15 squat thrusts
20 Reg push ups
cat stretch
20 wide
cat stretch
20 diamond
cat stretch
30 crunches legs down
30 Bicycles
30 jack-knives
Stretch up (3)
90 J Jacks
90 Knee bends

mirror drill with kicking shield, when opponent moves in, fire a hook kick
mirror drill with kicking shield, when opponent moves in, fire a side kick

live round: sl, sl-bf, lsl-uc, sl-lh-hh
live round (same as before, but ending in cross): sl, sl-bf-c, lsl-uc-c, sl-lh-hh-c

Remember to line up the feet on... [More]

For the dismantling of the apartment, prior to earthli’s move to Switzerland, the Webcam has been re-enabled. As usual, service will be intermittent, but you should be able to see the living room change…and maybe we’ll move the camera as we move to different rooms.

Neck − lie flat on back, raise head, twist from side to side for 1 minute
Arms − forearm raises − Get into pushup position, but on the forearms instead…hold for 15 seconds. Lift right arm behind back, hold for 15 seconds. Lift left arm behind back, hold for 15 seconds. Both arms again. Repeat.

Footwork

Get into stance as quickly as possible on a cue. Do five times into stance going forward, then backward.

step and slide forward twice − 5 times forward, then 5 times backward
slide/step... [More]

90 J Jacks
20 Reg push ups
20 wide
20 diamond
30 crunches legs raised
30 L over R
30 R over L
90 Knee bends

live round:
straight lead, back fist, low straight lead, hook

combinations:
2 sl, bf sl, sl hk, lsl sl

avoidance drills, switch with partner
slip on jab
catch jab parry cross (can also snap away)
catch parry cover

10 hk (hook kick)
10 hk + sl
10 fk (front kick)
10 fk + sl
20 rear leg roundhouse

10 squat thrusts with 3 pushups
30 crunches legs up
30 bicycles
25 leg raises
80 or so jumping jacks
80 or so knee bends
20 regular pushups
20 diamond pushups
20 wide push ups
25 squat jumps !

—-

footwork drills

slide forward, slide back
slide back, slide forward
slide back, push shovel

(2 or 3 more, cant remember)

—-

single straight lead standing, count of 20 (?)
—be careful not to jam the hand, should connect with vertical fist and straight elbow
straight lead with a push shovel... [More]

If hackers ruled the world at Security Database’s forums is a pretty funny post of Photoshopped images modified to show an eerie alternate reality in which Hacker-Speak has replaced English everywhere. My favorites are the first one (with a hacker-friendly epitath) and the one shown at left, which is pretty funny if you play any online multiplayer games (especially Quake, Counterstrike, etc.).

That’s a nice term I saw coined by Ted Rall in If You Have Dignity, the Terrorists Have Won on Yahoo News. It’s an opinion piece which covers the dread with which you should be approaching this day quite nicely.

“Are you the kind of person who believes that attaching a plastic American flag to your SUV makes a major patriotic statement? … Don’t get the rest of us wrong. We love America too. But we are understandably tense as we approach what is likely to be the greatest orgy of cheesy... [More]”

“A ‘code’ of ethics is a myth. It is only in the most convoluted of circumstances that ethical dilemmas arise. Up to that point, there is no moral quandary. Simply because there exist cases for which a simple, straighforward, common-sense ethics has no answer is no reason to doubt its validity where it does apply. Social interaction is not mathematics; one example does not suffice to disprove its correctness. Therefore, for most matters, there is only one ethics to which all can adhere − that... [More]”

Warmups

1. Shadow boxing
2. 35 regular crunches (legs up)
3. 35 bicycle crunches
4. 25 bring legs in and arms up in a crunch, like a jackknife, but with arms and legs tucked
5. 25 regular pushups
6. 20 diamond pushups
7. 10 reverse negative pushups. Go down, just off the floor, raise to halfway and hold until the count, then return to just off the floor again.
8. 75 jumping jacks
9. 75 knee bends
10. 15 squat thrusts with jump

Good exercises to strengthen neck and prevent whiplash in glove drills:

for the neck − lie flat,... [More]

TRANSCRIPT OF BUSH’S SUMMIT WITH PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN is a pretty funny (fake) interview between these three fellows I found on the White House.org’s press releases section.

He has the Prince ask for “The One”, who turns out to be Cheney and includes the line “Never let it be said that your Christian whore is not civil.”. Happily, while I find it pretty funny, I’m not so far gone yet that I’d publish this in the Humor & Fun section.

(There’s another recent article with a (fake) transcript... [More]

Here’s a real quote, from none other than Jello Biafra, former lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, a notorious punk band of the late 80s/early 90s. He once stormed college campuses, opening concerts with the following:

“WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM WITH A SPECIAL BULLETIN. AMERICA IS NOW UNDER MARTIAL LAW. ALL CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS HAVE BEEN SUSPENDED. STAY IN YOUR HOMES, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CONTACT LOVED ONES, INSURANCE AGENTS OR ATTORNEYS. SHUT UP! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO THINK OR DEPRESSION MAY OCCUR.... [More]”

“Our overriding purpose, from the beginning through to the present day, has been world domination − that is, to build and maintain the capacity to coerce everybody else on the planet: nonviolently, if possible; and violently, if necessary. But the purpose of US foreign policy domination is not just to make the rest of the world jump through hoops; the purpose is to facilitate our exploitation of resources.”

earthli.com will soon be leaving its home at Logicat, where it’s been housed for almost 3 years. I’m leaving Logicat and moving to Switzerland, so soon earthli will be served from there (hosted at Opus, my new employer). I’ve updated my resume (PDF) with my last work at Logicat.

3.998GHz! Now that’s an overclocked chip. This was spotted at Slashdot in an article called P4 2.80GHz Overclocked to 3.917GHz. In their English language abstract, they mention that they actually got it to run at 3.998GHz after all. Yeah, those numbers are correct. These crazy Finnish guys place the entire chip assembly into a bath of liquid nitrogen inside a styrofoam cup (see picture). In a couple of pictures, you can see the Fluke thermometer registering -193°C! The whole site’s in Finnish,... [More]

The New York Newsday published several news items today (and some from other days this week are pulled in), which together paint an altogether different picture of the U.S. than it would like. These are normal articles in a normal newspaper; information there for anyone with open eyes and an open mind to see.

The first, Caution Over NY Airspace mentions that the “federal government is expected to prevent foreign airlines from taking off or landing at metropolitan New York airports during... [More]”

We Must Cut Down the Forest to Save It on Plastic talks about Bush’s recent burst of environmentalism. You can check the NY Times article, Bush, Citing Fire Hazards, Wants Logging Rules Eased or the Forest thinning has Bush support article at the Washington Times (whose article title should have elicited a deafening “duh!” from its readers).

Bush must have been dancing once he saw this wonderfully facile reason for opening up national forests to his buddies in logging. Because that’s really... [More]