A mush up of thoughts

What a lovely video. Well made and I love the music.

President Obama in a speech called Wall street upper management's behaviour "shameful" based on their spending 20 billion of the bailout money on bonuses, and at a time when most of them are "having" to let people go. There are rumours, which I hope turn out to be fact, that legislation may be passed that will allow the state to claw back some of the bonuses paid to top management in times such as these. I really do not understand the mentality of these people, are they mentaly retarded? They are always arguing that they demand their high salaries because of what they are able to bring to large organisations and the bonuses, which are multiples of their salaries, are based on their performance. Yet, there does not seem to be any accountability clauses in any of their contracts. For example, a top executive joins a company and he gets a high salary. On top of that he will be promised a large bonus each year and then on top of this bonus there will be an additiona...

The New York Times has announced a Congress API. This is part of their developer network and they are giving access to their database which is in turn fed by a number of other db's such as the U.S. House and Senate Web sites, THOMAS the Library of Congress Web site and the Bibliographical Directory of the United States Congress. The database contains House votes since 1991 and Senate votes since 1989. House members are from 1983 and Senate members date back to 1947, thanks to a compilation of data organized by MIT’s Charles Stewart. At the moment the data returned is: a list of members for a given Congress and chamber, details of a specific roll-call vote, biographical and role information about a specific member of Congress, and a member’s most recent positions on roll-call votes. The last is to me the most interesting. Who knows what interesting nuggets may come out of this. I just wish I had more time to play with it. More information can be found here . In addition to the Congr...

Well, here it is. This is where Obama wants the money to go to. Hope you can stay awake ;-) $650,000,000 for Wildland Fire Management programs $135,000,000 for Indian Health Services $410,000,000 for Indian Health Facilities $150,000,000 for the Smithsonian facilities $3,250,000,000 for Training and Employment services under the Department of Labor $120,000,000 for community service programs for the elderly $160,000,000 for the Office of Job Corps $400,000,000 for State Unemployment $160,000,000 MORE for the Office of Job Corps facilities $1,000,000,000 for the Department of Health and Human Services $88,000,000 for Department of Health and Human Services HQ replacement $412,000,000 for the CDC $300,000,000 for the National Institute of Health The Committee recommends an additional $2,700,000,000 for the Office of the Director, half of which will be transferred to the Institutes and Centers. The Committee strongly urges that, to the extent possible, the funds should be used for purpose...

Wow, what a great tool and I love the logic behind the method. The end product is a little rough (too much feathering for my liking) on the edges but nevertheless for home videos it is ideal. Interactive Video Cutout from pro on Vimeo .

I was surprised to hear today that Carol Bartz who is succeding Jerry Yang as CEO at Yahoo has started her job with sending out a really critical email to all staff and has frozen all pay rises, that is of course after she gave herself a really good package. She also said in an internal memo that she'd "dropkick to fucking Mars" anyone whose company gossip ended up on the blogs. Then on friday last week, I guess having re-read the appropriate chapter in "how to win friends and influence people" she decided to do a frilly email to all staff about her first week at Yahoo. From: Carol Bartz Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 3:12 PM To: all-worldwide@yahoo-inc.com Subject: My First Friday It’s Friday! Wow, this week has gone fast. I thought I’d give you a quick idea of how things went for me this week. First, a BIG thank you for all the positive comments you’ve sent my way. It has really made me feel welcome. And a special big thanks to all the guys (that’d be Willie,...

I woke up this morning to find that it was snowing. I thought great, I will go for a walk in the park which will help me think about a problem I am currently having with ext js. Anyway, I took my daughter to the kindergarten and then put on my headphones and went for a walk in the park. At 9:30 I came across these guys who were already on the ice having a game (what is bowling on ice called?). Now these guys are comitted though not to a job. Good for them. So I walked on and started thinking about everything but the current task on hand. I was listening to a podcast where Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton was discussing the crisis of American foreign policy. An interesting talk that I will not go into here, but for reference's sake it can be found here . I very much liked the way she spoke though I did not agree with her on all the points (that I understood :-) however I looked her up and she was one of the lawyers who helped the Sandinista goverment ...

I was coming back home when in front of me I saw this woman walking her dog. She had it on a leash but it was clear that the dog did not like the idea much and was just standing its ground. As I came around the corner I saw the woman pulling at the dog and talking to it. What surprised me is that she was talking to it as if it were a child fully expecting it to understand her logic and start walking. I closed the gap between us and much as I wanted to take a picture I did not think she would approve, and if she talks to a dog expecting it to understand God knows what she would do to me if I started photographing her. As I got closer she had enough and said something along the lines "well, if you dont want to come home then you can stay here", took off the leash and started walking away. The dog looked around at me and I am sure he gave an exasperated sigh of relief then turned round and followed her. He caught up with her and was happy to walk beside her, she looked down and ...

I was putting up videos on vimeo last night that I have taken of my daughter and it is quite a good medium for sharing video content with friends and family without the hassle of your stuff being out there in the public domain, but rather you can select who has access to your content. Anyway, as I was waiting for a particular long video to upload I was browsing around and I came across this short video by a Ted Chung. I found the quality of the video excellent and the story touched a cord so I wanted to put it here so that perhaps you can have a look at it too. Enjoy. A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo .

Now I am worried. Watch the following clip and tell me that mobiles phones dont mess with your head. Pop Corn téléphone portable micro-ondes by sassiere

Hang on a minute, where is the bed? I can't believe there is no four poster bed in this baby. And what about the little ones? I can't believe that anyone seriously expects Obama to travel without his kids and wife! OK, this floor plan is from 2002 but Bush has probably added a bar. "Air Force One Floor Plan." 29 May 2002. HowStuffWorks.com.

I came across this article on wired magazine that lists the World's top surveilance societies. I was very impressed to see that Greece is the only country in the world that has adequate safeguards, on paper at least, compared to the likes of Canada, Germany, Argentina, Italy and a couple of other new states that offer some safeguards but weakened protection. This comes from Privacy international, a UK based group, and the US based Electronic privacy information centre. I was also interested to see the UK and the US, the champions of democratic freedom, being lumped together with Russia, China, Myanmar and a few others as endemic surveilance societies. Some additional facts of interest to me were: ...an increasing trend amongst governments to archive data on the geographic, communications and financial records of all their citizens and residents. This trend leads to the conclusion that all citizens, regardless of legal status, are under suspicion. ...the emergence of a profitable su...

I subscribe to the TED talks podcast so I see quite a few of them when I am on the go. This was one that I watched today and apart from the fact that Ted Carson has a very easy and funny way of communicating. What I found most interesting in this talk was his impression of People magazines coverage of the 9/11 event and how on a double spread you would see an image of firemen carrying a body and on the other side a young kid modelling jeans, or a crying woman being comforted and on the facing page a full page coke advert with a logo along the lines "He knows how to give me goosebumps". The thing about the ads he was talking about was that from a graphic design perspective the images really did fit, so I am sure that someone actually took the time to make sure that the correct distressing picture was placed next to each ad rather then the other way around. I know I am a cynic, but some of these pictures fit in too well with each other, and it really is a sad reflection, isn...

I have often thought what passwords people like to use on their pc's or sites that they join. Well, it seems that the writter of the Conficker virus is trying to access systems using the following passwords, and has managed to gain access to 9.5 million machines. Wow!!! In fact looking at the list below I am surprised to see that letmein is in the list. I am surprised because in my 20 years in the IT industry it amazed me how many environments had that password. Perhaps I should write to some of my previous employers and let them know they may have a virus :-) 000; 0000; 00000; 0000000; 00000000; 0987654321; 111; 1111; 11111; 111111; 1111111; 11111111; 123; 123123; 12321; 123321; 1234; 12345; 123456; 1234567; 12345678; 123456789; 1234567890; 1234abcd; 1234qwer; 123abc; 123asd; 123qwe; 1q2w3e; 222; 2222; 22222; 222222; 2222222; 22222222; 321; 333; 3333; 33333; 333333; 3333333; 33333333; 4321; 444; 4444; 44444; 444444; 4444444; 44444444; 54321; 555; 5555; 55555; 555555; 5555555; 5555...

You may have heard in the past days of a virus that has many a sysadmin wetting themselves in panic and with good cause. Some say the hackers have yet to activate the payload of the conficker virus which is spreading through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without current security updates. Some 9.5 million pc's are suspected to be affected and as F-Secure's chief research officer, Mikko Hypponen said: "Total infections appear to be peaking. That said, a full count is hard, because we also don't know how many machines are being cleaned. But we estimate there are still more than 9m infected PCs world wide. It is scary thinking about how much control they [a hacker] could have over all these computers. They would have access to millions of machines with full administrator rights. But they haven't done that yet, maybe they're scared. That's good news. But there is also the scenario that someone else figures out how to activate this worm. That is a...

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to hear the man make his speech but I did come across many sites that carried the full text. I was however saddened while reading it at the time site by their choice of ads. I have left an ad that I found particularly sad at the end of the text My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition. Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearer...

A tough, taut, mostly well-executed morality parable and thriller that explores some of todays issues that we as a society currently faces. Very well played in my opinion by both Don Cheadle as a pious and fundamentaly a good man and Guy Pearce as the FBI agent hot on his heels. No spoilers, though it is predictable. There is one little twist in the end which makes one giggle, well made me giggle anyway. What is surpising in this film is that it was written by Steve Martin the comedian. I had to do a double take when I read that, but there you have it.

I really do regret not taking any pictures of this building while it was still standing but I had no way of knowing what was hidden beneath it. Back in the summer the bulldozers arrived and started to knock down this old (30's) building that looked like offices which I thought belonged to some power company, as there was a generator of some sort within its grounds. The bulldozers that were doing the demolition started with the 2 floors above ground level and I was surprised when I saw them rolling onto the ground floor as I knew there was a basement beneath and did not think that the floor would support this behemoth. Not only did the floor hold up, but 2 more joined it. Then slowly the floor became visible. This thing was 2-3 meters thick and 3 of these large caterpillars with pneumatic drill have been hammering away from 7am till about 6pm every day managing to do no more then half a meter a day. The past week explosives have been used and what you see in the picture below are he...

I went for my usual early morning walk yesterday and on the way past I walked past the Chinese consulate. As I was walking I suddenly noticed this little extension in the metal barrier around the consulate building. I was a little concerned about pointing a camera at a consulate building. Usualy there are a couple of police vans parked just in front of where I took this picture but luckily they were not there today. Also all the employees were obviously hard at work on some paper trail or other so no one shouted at me out of the windows. I took my picture and moved quickly on. I found it impressive that rather then cutting the tree down they went into the added cost of building this metal fence to the appropriate specs so that it went around the tree. Perhaps this being Munich the cost of cutting the tree and removing it would have been higher, who knows. I was impressed and just wished that I would see more acts like this around me.