Administrator Barnhard Blog
Feb 212012
Feb 202012
Feb 192012
Volkswijsheid van de afgelopen jaren… de toekomstige generatie krijgt niks. Zembla ging eens kijken hoe we er nu voorstaan. Note: Nederland schijnt volgens internationale kenners het nog het “beste” geregelt te hebben.. Dat zegt wel wat. Dit is dus de staat van 1 dag in de week werken mensen.
Zie ook de eerdere aflevering: Het verdwenen pensioengeld.
Allthough I don’t like the ausweiss policy for IDs, we have in the netherlands (upfront penalties are ridiculous if you can show it later), your religion to avoid the law is NEVER a legitimate reason. The spirit of the law goes before strict law in some cases, but plain religious authority/commandments has NOTHING to do with the law. Yes there is a web of laws (international law, human rights, etc.) connected to dutch law, but there is no such thing as religious law. Lawyers who don’t draw that line are ending their own legal rights to act as lawyers. We can’t have that. Fullstop.
Feb 172012
Feb 162012
Twitter Inc. has acknowledged that after mobile users tap the “Find friends” feature on its smartphone app, the company downloads users’ entire address book, including names, email addresses and phone numbers, and keeps the data on its servers for 18 months(..) The disclosure from Twitter comes after another online social service, Path, came under fire last week for automatically downloading iPhone users’ address books without permission..Twitter’s current privacy policy notes that some categories of “Log Data” are stored for up to 18 months.
Twitter just went a bit more to the hated Facebook privacy corner. Guys.. be clear&open how you operate!
Feb 152012
It is not Goldman, but the moral and game (both economic and political) with these trades that goes wrong here. Profit for nothing, gone bad… but is it alone for Greece or are we next?
It’s a sign of the European Commission’s increasing desperation over ACTA that it has been forced to send out a document entitled “10 Myths About ACTA” [pdf] that purports to debunk misinformation that is being put around. Unsurprisingly, the EC’s document is itself full of misinformation. Here are just a few of the more outrageous examples. [via]
Read the article @ Techdirt.com
Remember SOPA? Remember the urgency with which the bill’s backers were trying to convince us that its intended target, online piracy, was a clear and present danger? Remember how those dastardly BitTorrenters were going to deprive us of a functioning, creative movie industry? Well, an academic study now doing the rounds suggests that’s nonsense. [via]
Read full article @ Mashable.com
Feb 132012
You have just used the extraordinary invention of Kevin T. Amiss, Martin H. Abbott, patent 5443036 and are now laible for paying us two a shitload of money! See also:
A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.
It leaves little to say that patents are non-sense.
Feb 122012
Model X Reveal from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.
Without doubt all major ca builders are now hitting the market with cars which can drive 300 plus miles, so we’re about the crossing point of masss scale introduction of silent (but not toooo silent – that is dangerous for kids) ultra-fast super green cars. A great development and thus, like Apple presentations Tesla’s new car lines always attracts much attention. Not bedause it is always the most practical, but since they have proven to lead the pack.. enjoy.
Feb 112012
Yet as of today, www.wikipedia.org remains nestled in the GoDaddy bosom, according to WhoIs directory records, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by some, including users of Reddit, which along with Wikipedia was among the most high-profile and active SOPA opponents.
Allthough GoDaddy did the worst by supporting SOPA, Wikipedia should stay consistent and thus move somewhere else.
Feb 092012
14 Years, 1 Billion Euro in costs, 0 convictions. Moreover, 13 people appeared in court (half voluntary) and were judged by non-lawyers. This year construction for the permanent institute will start in The Hague. Global Mail has some point that if protests are not held here often, is it likely at all that the court will eventually become the centerstone of justice it aims for?
Feb 082012
Kakker is met de hele familie naar Val Thorens. Het is een sneeuwpret van jewelste. Kakker vindt de fakkeloptocht het mooist. Kijk snel waarom!
Meer Philip Walkate op Youtube
Feb 062012
110
Mrs Green joined the Women’s
Royal Air Force aged 17, two months before the armistice
A woman thought to be the world’s last known surviving
service member of World War I has died aged 110.
Florence Green, from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, served as a mess steward at RAF
bases in Marham and Narborough.
She had been due to celebrate her 111th birthday on 19 February.
Continue reading »
Feb 052012
While it is increasingly becoming likely that the Elfsteden Tocht will be held this year, also the Hype is growing. Since it such a rare event nowadays, probably most discussion is not anymore over the ice but how to organise it. Last time, in 1997, a couple of million people went to see it.. What’s the worry? Think wrong commercialization [de Vereniging Elfstedentocht wil dit evenement volledig sponsorvrij houden. Unilever trekt zich daar niets van aan en poogt Unox op te dringen] and many accidents.
There is even an Action site: Elfstedentocht Sponservrij.
Continue reading »
Feb 042012
Een oproep tot revolutie in de telecomsector
Telecomproviders staan er de laatste jaren belabberd op. Eerst T-Mobile met de iPhone. Het netwerk werd volstrekt onbruikbaar, en er was een Youp van ‘t Hek voor nodig voordat klachten van consumenten serieus genomen werden door het bedrijf. KPN startte onbedoeld een privacy-debacle omdat bleek dat ze haar gebruikers afluisterde, wat uitmondde in verregaande regulering door de wetgever. En Vodafone vatte mooi samen dat de reputatie van de sector zich op een “historisch dieptepunt” bevindt. De CEO wijdt dat onder anderen aan de netwerkkwaliteit en de klantenservice van Vodafone.
Mensen beginnen het zat te worden. Internet onderweg is voor veel mensen inmiddels net zo belangrijk als internet thuis, of internet op het werk. Maar voor die mobiele internetverbinding zijn we overgeleverd aan een conglomeraat van bedrijven dat structureel onder de maat presteert. Mobiel internet is op veel plekken in Nederland afwezig of is onbruikbaar traag. En ondertussen blijven de prijzen stijgen.
Het is niet voor niets dat het gezoem in het geruchtencircuit op dit moment oorverdovend is. Grote Nederlandse investeerders uit de technologie-, telecom- en mediawereld zijn bezig met het neerzetten van alternatieven voor KPN, Vodafone en T-Mobile, zo hoor ik van verschillende, goed ingevoerde bronnen.
In Frankrijk vindt de revolutie nu al plaats. Vorige maand begon ADSL-provider Free.fr met het aanbieden van telecomdiensten. Voor 30 euro per maand (of 20 als je al ADSL-abonnee bent) kun je onbeperkt bellen naar Frankrijk en 40 andere landen, plus onbeperkt SMS-en, plus 3GB internet of onbeperkt via landelijk wifi-netwerk. Dat is serieus goedkoop.
Een deel van het geheim zit ‘m in de routers van Free.fr’s ADSL-abonnees. Elke ADSL-gebruiker deelt zijn wifi-singaal automatisch met andere klanten, waardoor een enorm wifi-netwerk ontstaat dat in grote steden dekkend is. Daarnaast zitten er femtocells in de routers: dat zijn een soort mini-zendmasten die het GSM/3G-signaal versterken. Eigenlijk gebruikt Free.fr zijn miljoenen ADSL-klanten om het mobiele netwerk beter te maken. Redelijk briljant.
De oude garde reageerde laconiek op de nieuwkomer, maar dat is de arrogantie van de macht. Ondertussen trekt Free.fr hordes nieuwe klanten door het agressieve prijsbeleid. En de bestaande telco’s kunnen het prijspeil van Free.fr niet kunnen bijhouden, als ze hun netwerk niet drastisch anders inrichten.
In Frankrijk trekt een schokgolf van verandering door de telecomsector. Ik kan niet wachten op het moment dat die zich ook in Nederland aandient.
Alexander Klopping schrijf iets wat we al tijden willen.. maar wat zelfs verboden wordt. Dit is precies weer zo’n piraten verhaal. Als innovatie van de industrie zelf uitblijft, is het niet vreemd dat de mensen het dan zelf gaan oplossen..
Feb 022012
SAN FRANCISCO — The graffiti artist who took Facebook stock instead of cash for painting the walls of the social network’s first headquarters made a smart bet. The shares owned by the artist, David Choe, are expected to be worth upward of $200 million when Facebook stock trades publicly later this year.
[via gast! bsc]
Read full article here
Feb 012012
Jan 312012
As mentioned at the first day this year, this year it will be 100 years ago that Alan Turing was born.
Instead of waiting till the media bandwagon will start in June, giving us the information overload, why not spread it a little bit? Why is Turing relevant?
This time more on his technical side..
Continue reading »
The people of Poland have taken to the streets in response to ACTA. With in the past three days tens of thousands of protesters have shown their discontent for the Anti-Courtesy Trade Agreement. The ACTA agreement which has been signed by seven other countries including the US and Australia, is supposed to put law and order on the internet which has become an illegal place for anarchy according to some. But the people of Poland believe it’s an abuse of power.
Jan 302012
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Fear Factory | ||||
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What did we say again about the relevance of NO LOGO anno 2012?
Jan 292012
In the list of supporters of SOPA and PIPA, we earlier found academic publishers Elsevier, Macmillan and McGrawHill.
We noted before that particular Education seems to become less open.
“The academic publisher Elsevier has attracted controversy for its high prices, the practice of bundling journals for sale to libraries and its support for legislation such as SOPA and the Research Works Act. Fields medal-winning mathematician Tim Gowers decided to go public with a blog post describing how he’ll no longer have anything to do with Elsevier journals, and suggesting that a public website where mathematicians and scientists could register their support for an Elsevier boycott would further the cause. Such a website now exists, with hundreds of academics signing-up so far. John Baez has a nice write-up of the problem and possible solutions.”(via)
ACTA, SOPA and PIPA also try to kill off already open initiatives in which Universities participate.. excuse me? Again it can be much more open.
