Keys Corner

Bought DVDs drive me nuts already with the unskippable beginning where the film company warns you that copying or broadcasting the DVD is illegal. But things can get worse – IBM has patented a way to stop the films periodically and disable the DVD controls, forcing you to watch canned adverts:

...15 minutes or so into the movie—right as the action is building to a crescendo—the movie fades to a commercial. For the next minute, you’re forced to watch the commercial as the fast-forward button has suddenly stopped working. The unhappy experience is repeated two or three more times before the movie ends…

I can’t think of a better inducement to load ripped films from the internet to view instead.

It seems the Iraq war was started by two religous zealots, as some have suspected for several years:

Tony Blair was reluctant to discuss his Christian faith during his time in Downing Street for fear of being seen as a ‘nutter’, the former Prime Minister reveals in a BBC interview.

It strengthens my personal belief that most religions are extremely dangerous and should be kept strictly and completely separate from politics and government.

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I have to agree with Scott Hanson, Cem and everyone else who has picked up the Hema “web shop” – this is a great shopping site with a tremendous sense of fun, even if you don’t speak a word of Dutch!

Looking back on this summer, I’d say that at least one person in the office has been suffering from a heavy cold at any moment in time. At least they don’t seem to have caught the mutation which has been discovered in the USA:

A mutated version of an adenovirus, a common family of viruses that normally causes simple colds, has caused severe respiratory illness in patients of all ages, including healthy young adults, U.S. health officials announced Thursday. The new and virulent strain of adenovirus serotype 14 (Ad14) killed 10 people in parts of the United States earlier this year and put dozens into hospitals, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported…

View from the Pentagon behind the scenes:

US military officials are putting huge pressure on interrogators who question Iraqi insurgents to find incriminating evidence pointing to Iran, it was claimed last night…

...Brose, 30, who extracts information from detainees in Iraq, said: ‘They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there’s clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I’ve had, I’d say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran.

‘It feels a lot like, if you get something and Iran’s not involved, it’s a let down.’ He added: ‘I’ve had people say to me, “They’re really pushing the Iran thing. It’s like, shit, you know.” ’

Brose said that reports about Washington’s increasingly hawkish stance towards Tehran, including possible military action, chimed with his experience. ‘My impression is they’re just trying to get every little bit of ammunition possible. If we get something here it fits the overall picture. The engine needs impetus and they’re looking for us to find the fuel – a particular type of fuel…

The official view from both the US and German government leaders:

President George W Bush and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel say they will continue to seek a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear programme...

...Mrs Merkel warned that if Iran refused to freeze its nuclear work, then “we need to think about further possible sanctions”.

The US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany have agreed to draft a UN resolution calling for new sanctions and officials are meeting in nine days to finalise a text unless the UN’s nuclear watchdog reports concessions by Iran.

Mrs Merkel added that she would work with the business sector in Germany – one of Tehran’s main trading partners – to reduce trade with Iran. Washington has been lobbying its allies to cut business links.

I hope Mrs. Merkel has all her wits about her. If she should find herself on the same side as the USA in a war against Iran in a few months time, she can wave goodbye to running the government after the next elections.

I bought a couple of 12V LED lamps to replace conventional halogen spots this week. I have tried this before, but the last time I experimented, the light output of the LED units was pretty pathetic. These new lamps throw 450 Lux and use 60 LEDs drawing 2.1W – the result is acceptable – about the same as a 10-15W halogen lamp I would guess, which is enough to be able to at least partially replace the 20W halogen lamps as they burn out in future.

Even if we add some extra units to get the same amount of light as now, we would be burning 10% of the electricity and getting over 20 times the lifetime of the halogen units (up to 50 000 hrs instead of 2000 hrs). The so-called “white” light is tends towards a light blue, so it will probably be an idea to mix in some warm-white or yellow units at the same time.

(Via Think or Thwim)
PS - I should have noted the idea is to touch the blue square without touching the red spots…

While the New Yorker pontificates on whether more fuel-efficient cars will ever happen, and the British government appears to be about to go back on recent commitments to increase the use of renewable energy, the European Commission has published several papers and maps on their website showing how they expect the average precipitation, average temperature and crop yields in Europe to change over the rest of this century if no action is taken to reduce emissions. Things could get pretty uncomfortable in southern Europe – drier, hotter and much poorer crop yields. Additionally, around half of all plant species in Europe could be threatened with extinction if nothing is done to reduce emissions.

The largest ever study of the links between lifestyle and cancer has made 10 stark recommendations to reduce the risk of developing the disease…

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