It‘s a well-known fact that Word not only saves your text, but also keeps changes for a long time in the DOC files. Somebody got an idea:

A pointless idea came to my mind that instant: why not run a gentle web spider against all Microsoft sites in English, specifically looking for other instances of tracking data not removed from documents? I coded a bunch of scripts and let them run through the night, fetching approximately 10,000 unique documents; over 10% was identified as containing change tracking records. I decided to collect only those with deleted text still present, yielding a crop of over 5% of all documents. Quite impressive. Below, you will find a brief (and rest assured, incomplete) list of the most entertaining samples I‘ve run into, along with some speculation (and only speculation) as to the reasons we see them.

Get the results: Strike it out, Sam.

There is a nice quiz at Alias/Wavefront‘s site showing you a mix of real photographs and rendered images and you have to tell which is what. I was surprised that I got all then right in the first round and I got one wrong in the second round. So there is still a way to go for 3D but they are coming closer every year.

Not really news, but a worthwile link for everybody interested in getting behind the UNIX thing: the UNIX History as a graphical historical timeline, printable as PDF and other formats.

Lawrence Lessig has released his new book Free Culture both in print and as a free download. And of course, it is released under a appropriate Creative Commons License allowing you to redistribute the book as you like as long as it is non-commercial activity.

The whole Creative Commons project is the right answer to the ongoing copyright paranoia. Sharing and allowing free distribution is essential and the open source software movement has already shown that it has power.

If you are a creative person, consider putting your work under the least restrictive license you can bear. It will benefit others. And it will benefit you in return. Sooner or later. But for sure.

Every year, there is a new buzzword and every year, there is a new hype. In 2004 it‘s name is “hot spot” and it‘s dead-on-arrival. It‘s just another episode in the ongoing story of “telcos just don‘t get it”. First they did not envision the popularity of SMS, then they tried selling us UMTS with “video telephony” teasers (IT‘S THE INTERNET, STUPID!) and now they try to re-sell air by charging for wireless LAN access points.

An article on Ars Technica notes that T-Mobile makes USD 13 a day in each Starbucks – gross earnings. Congratulations. I wonder what Starbuck‘s win in this game is? Do they get any money from this? I doubt it. So what they offer their customers is super-expensive Internet that nobody buys. So people have basically no Internet usually. And nobody is happy. T-Mobile is not happy, the customers aren‘t happy and Starbucks can‘t be happy with unhappy customers. What‘s wrong?

What‘s wrong is this: idiots are at work. Apparently I have to explain. This is what I expect in a restaurant/bar/pub:

• Good coffee for a fair price
• Free toilets
• Free water
• Free electricity (for low-power devices)
• Free Internet

This is what I want. This is what everybody wants. Nothing more, nothing less. Business People, please understand: this is the century of the Internet. There is no way of charging for it. Hotspots are dead on arrival

The costs (in Germany) for offering free Internet at a Café or restaurant is around EUR 60 per month, accompanied by initial hardware and installation costs of EUR 200 a maximum. It‘s not much, and it is getting less every month. Offering Internet to the customers is not very complicated and is usually done quickly. What you need is this:

• Get a flat-rate Internet DSL line. Flat-rate means, there are no additional monthly costs regardless of the amount of data traffic generated by customers. You will always pay the same fixed tariff, every month.
• Install a WLAN 802.11b oder 802.11b/g Access Point with built-in DSL-Support. Some providers sell one with the initial installation for as low as EUR 50 or less. Almost all WLAN Access Point support direct DSL support (PPPoE)
• Install the Access Point at a central location in your bar/café/pub/restaurant. A central location will distribute the signal evenly across your premises. They usually pass one or two single wall or floor level without problems. Get a second access point or better external antennas if your location is spacious.
• Configure the WLAN Access Point to provide DHCP and NAT. Do not enable WEP encryption as it slows down performance and you have to make the key open anyway. If you suffer from neighbours overusing the line you might try using WEP and changing passwords every now and then.
• Select a nice name for your wireless network and make it “visible”. Switch the beast ON.
• Voilá. You‘re done. Congratulations. Meet happy customers.

As the new version of The Gimp is nearing its completion (2.0rc1 has just been released), so make yourself ready for the Gimp 2.0 Release Party going to take place next friday at c-base here in Berlin.

Unsolicited e-mails are like midges. If they come in masses you run away. If a bunch is around they give you a hard time and you fight a bit. If it‘s just one you calm down and devote yourself to scrutiny. And then you discover and study and enjoy.

This mail made it through my filters today. It says “Sending this letter will bring you luck”. I‘m by no means a fan of chain letters. But I put it here, in my weblog. Because it amused me. At least right now – sitting on my bed, totally stoned.

Hello!  send this letter to newspapers, rockgroups ,radios a o please:
(Because I am only 1 worker on   projects)
Hello!  send this letter to newspapers, rockgroups ,radios a o please:
(Because I am only 1 worker on   projects)
Hello!  send this letter to newspapers, rockgroups ,radios a o please:
(Because I am only 1 worker on   projects)
Make safety sone-distance to dangerobjects/dangeous agression
 (or
both to get max safety
Avoid war: never be angrrrry,(its always ingredient  in
warfare) and sure not friendly
In the irrational hate,mr revenge plays a key role
agrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrressionhate
This feeling-mess people take serious + it makes eternal
global detours
!=2E Deep  primitive hate have no end ,just like love
hate contains intence refuse + condemnation=2Edarkness no end
Those who hate therebye dont know of the good things of a
person
Its the most stupid feeling of all=2Eresults eternal revenge in
war =2Eaviodfear weapon
Hate creates a limited world and lets fantasi and random def
of old incidents
of old incidents
again & again used to rule=2E                (heartless)
again & again used to rule=2E                (heartless)
So that hate therebye also creates insanety is no
surprise=2E(brain)
next time the law system  &  karma  & always  keep safety
distance to guns
distance to guns
Get red of the hate on your human "PC" www=2Esilva
Get red of the hate on your human "PC" www=2Esilva
 important  ufo job 2000-9999
 Help people to get less looser creating judging
Think global !progression!given of our 2xsun planet friends!
Hate is a childish  "virus"=2E aggression	reat is illegal
Avoid war: never be angry,envy,blame hate revenge etc
In the irrational hate,mr revenge plays a key role
This feeling-mess people take serious and it makes eternal
global detours
!=2E Deep primitive hate have no end ,just like love
It contains intence refuse and condemnation=2Edarkness no end
Those who hate therebye dont know of the good things of a
person
Its the most stupid feeling of all=2Eresults eternal revenge in
war
Hate creates a limited world and lets fantasi and random def
of old incidents
of old incidents
again and again used to rule=2E                (heartless)
again and again used to rule=2E                (heartless)
So that hate therebye also creates incanety is no
surprise=2E(brain)
Sending this letter will bring you luck
Sending this letter will bring you luck
next time the law system  &  karma  & always  keep safety zone
to guns
!fix the human "PC" www=2Esilva    and the alfabet system
(negative thinking makes more minus  in your account)
(negative thinking makes more minus  in your account)
christmas celebrates  with coffe cake chips coca cola cream
cake crack cigarettes can cause cancer

We have released updated versions of the components of our Blinkenlights Toolkit. They are available for Mac OS X via DarwinPorts Portfiles. New features include updated themes (now covering the Blinkenlights Reloaded project), manual pages for most of the tools and more consistent command line options.

If you are interested or working with Darwinports, the project‘s CVS check in RSS feed might be helpful to you. You could also watch this web page that provides essentially the same information.

Darwinports – like many other open source projects – use CIA to report changes to their subsystem which then get passed along to the #commits IRC channel on the freenode IRC network. You can also configure it to login into a IRC channel of your choice (but only on freenode)