A big thanks to all the original artists who made these images. If you would like a credit, please mail me and I will be happy to add your link and name.

Massa did not win at Spa. Why are they trying to say he did? This is supposed to be about who can drive the quickest around a track in a RACE. The FIA have tied the whole sport up in utterly pointless regulations that do nothing to attract new fans and everything to disappoint and alienate those of us who've followed these teams all our adult lives.

This is a flat out bad decision. Lewis lifted off and Kimi regained the lead. He took him on the following corner via legitimate (until they ban that as well) slipstreaming. THERE WERE NO RULES BROKEN HERE!! THIS IS A FERRARI BIAS FIX-UP!!

What with ITV's utterly infuriating and ever more regular ad breaks combined with the frustration of having to watch know-nothing decisions by officious little men with nothing better to do than interfere at the FIA, as sure as I'm sitting here, I say now I will never watch a live race again until the BBC take up the challenge next season. There is no point!

I shot around my living room with pure tears of joy in my eyes for the love of motor sport this afternoon! My family thought I'd lost my tiny mind, but I knew there were not only millions of others like me around the UK doing the same but yet more millions around the world. All of us united in the joy at finally seeing some action come back to the sport we love. And NONE OF IT MEANT ANYTHING BECAUSE SOME ON-THE-TAKE ANORAK FROM THE FIA WANTS HIS 15 MEGABYTES OF FAME!!

From now on I'm going to get the highlight news of each race on the internet and if there's a British Driver / Team win I'll download the ad-free BitTorrent video the next day. SCREW THIS RIDICULOUS NONSENSE!

Well done FIA - you've just virtually guaranteed instant fan loyalty to a rival series, once the major teams wake up to your inadequacy and leave you and your cronies to do what you do best. Absolutely nothing!

Chi sbaglia paga e il declassamento di due posizioni non è una cosa corretta! (tanto più che un fatto di profonda anti-sportività!)

Ho visto il filmato: carino ma niente di nuovo. Almeno per chi, come me, conosce il movimento del software libero da tempo.

Un'unica cosa non mi è chiara: cazzo ci fa un Macbook Air in bella mostra se poi si parla male di software proprietario? Il signor Fry sta forse predicando bene ma sta razzolando male?

Che dire.. Se si usa sia Linux che Mac Os (come faccio con estrema soddisfazione io) almeno evitiamo di sputare nel piatto nel quale si mangia...

Unfortunately, the big bang theory is not yet a fully complete explanation, because the so-called dark material which the mathematics rely upon, in order to explain the varying levels of heat present in the background radiation left over from the big bang, hasn't yet been directly observed.

The best brains in physics indicate that dark matter does indeed exist, because of the predictions that can be made and tested against the effects it has on everything else around it. But that pesky old problem of irrefutable evidence demands that scientists do all they can, beyond a reasonable doubt to prove, that it is indeed really there.

Ever since the 1960s, when the big bang theory first stepped ahead of the prevailing explanation on universe origins, the so-called steady state hypothesis, science has attempted to build a sufficiently large enough laboratory to carry out experiments on the atom itself, by slamming the constituent particles surrounding the nucleus together and watching what happens to the bits that fly off.

In the billionths of a second after this impact, dark matter, it is predicted, gives mass to the fundamental elements it interacts with - hence allowing them (after a VERY long time) to cluster together and form galaxies, built one atom at a time. If, on the other hand, dark matter does not exist, according to current mathematical models, there is no way of explaining why this bunching together of constituent particles occurs and the big bang as a theory begins to fall apart. Without bunching, nothing has any mass. Without mass, there is no space time. Without space time there is no gravity.

In short, without dark matter, the soup of material which came into being after the big bang, would have remained just that - a mass-less goop, incapable of bunching up into different elements, like iron, carbon and eventually, given the perfect mix of time, water and electricity, evolve into living bacteria, sea algae, then land vegetation, then fish, then monkeys, before eventually culminating in the ultimately evolved life-forms. You, me - even Republicans - we're all made from the same material, which can only be fully understood, if predictions about the existence of dark matter are proven correct.

In this BBC documentary, Professor Brian Cox visits Geneva to look around Cern Laboratory's Large Hadron Collider - the biggest science experiment ever built. The LHC will be switched on next Wednesday, the 10th of September, 2008. Inside the ring, under the Swiss / French border, four detectors will - over the next few years - either establish once and for all the existence, behaviour and properties of dark matter, or point the whole world of physics off in an entirely new direction, in the search for the ultimate truth to the ultimate question of how the universe and everything in it, first came into being.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7499941440182737549&hl=en&fs=true]
Click to watch in full screen (opens in new window)

Compare and contrast the joyful anticipation of the scientists who have spent their entire lives waiting to be proven wrong, with the arrogant ignorance of fundamentalist religious certainties and you begin to see how far we have to go in convincing all the people of planet earth just how amazing we really are.

Le ultime statistiche riportate da Hardware Upgrade sembrano darmi ragione. Cito:

un software su due in circolazione non ha regolare licenza e oltre il 70% delle installazioni di Microsoft Office è illegale*.

[...]

un software ogni due è privo di regolare licenza e a fronte di 800 acquisti di un gioco esistono oltre 20mila utenti*. Inoltre, ogni sistema di protezione fino ad oggi sviluppato è rimasto inviolato solo per poco. Quanto appena esposto conferma come gli sforzi e le strategie più comunemente adottate siano inadeguate, anche dal punto di vista della repressione.

Se le non-licenze di Microsoft Office si tramutassero in licenze di OpenOffice/NeoOffice? Cambierebbe radicalmente il mercato? 

*Enfasi mia.

Yay for green stuff!

E ora che anche Dell ha un suo netbook la scelta si fa davvero dura! Certo è che visto che Dell rilascia il proprio netbook con già preinstallato Ubuntu la cosa si fa davvero allettante!!

Sarà la volta buona che vedremo questo funzionare e che uscirà dalla fase beta/bozza/idea?!?

(Mi sembra abbastanza scontato (e non solo perché costa meno :F) che non prendo nemmeno in considerazione l'opzione Inspiron con XP!)

I hope there is a later in life with Miss Kibble. I sometimes panic that I've become one of those people who enjoys projecting their anxieties onto every situation they face so much, that they stop trying to address them and spend the rest of their lives in a permanent state of scenario completion syndrome. I've caught myself thinking along such lines only this week, with regards to impossible to know, ridiculous to even try what-ifs about (duh duh daaaa) the future!

Whatever the heck happens, I pray that Joseph Smith watches over me, so I can become a God too. Mu hu hoo ha ha haaaa - then Lucy will HAVE to love me forever!! Or something.

No but seriously. Those of you who, like Lucy, have been kind (or certifiable) enough to stick with me and read this occasionally bleak, usually erratic and usually just plain shite little blog of mine, for the past fuck-knows how long, will be pleased to hear that I am finally in a good head space. It might appear quite schizophrenic of me to the passive occasionally dip-in reader, to be harping on about yet another relationship that is THE ONE (the first person to mention the American gets a punch in the clunge) - but I think everyone bar me knew that last one was doomed to fail from the start.

Lucy, on the other hand, is the brightest, funniest, sexiest, maddest, quietest, noisiest, considerate and many other superlatives girl in the world. In fact I feel really quite sorry for the whole of the rest of the men-folk that she's taken - because they'll have to just sort of make do, while I get to be with her for as long as she'll have me; which I suspect is based upon how long I can carry on just being myself. Yet another of her many aspects that almost audibly spell out the word perfect, in my head, letter by letter, every time I see her smiley little face.

I Love you babe Xx

I've got my eyes pealed for a nice cactus, which I shall name Bonham. Are you seeing a pattern emerging here?

This is less of a "burn the house down" post and more of a "burn the field of weeds in the hopes that something fruitful might be able to take root" post. And it the latter happens, great. If the former ends up happening, well, shit happens.  You, the reader, are welcome to interpret my actions any way you see fit; you are not required to believe me when i say my intent is the latter. But don't let anyone other than me tell you what to believe about what i say.

In any case, some folks in the fatosphere have decided to ignore me unless there's something they want to righteously call me out on, and since the standing up for others doesn't generally appear to be a mutual thing, i've decided to not care about the reactions from the people who've decided i'm worthless.

The fatosphere has two feeds, the Fat Liberation Feed and the Notes from the Fatosphere feed. With the upcoming elections going on in the States, people are getting more and more political in their blogs. 

I don't want to be a part of any of that. I don't want to be associated with either side, because it seems like no one wants to cross the political lines to work together. I don't want people to see me on one feed or the other and make assumptions about my political standings based on that.

I do not want to be a part of either of the fatosphere feeds anymore. Yeah, it's great to be that much more accessible, and it's great to get that many more people reading what i choose to say here. But the people who want to read what i write will read it anyway. My posts will not be made more valid by having them read by more people. I've said that before, but now i need to step in line with that. My Technorati rating is not indicative of my value to other people.

It is not up to me to clear up miscommunications between two other people, or two other groups. If a community does not want to be brought together, it is not indicative of a failure on my part. I cannot be held responsible for the non-mixing of oil and water.

There has been entirely too much drama in both of the feeds about who should and shouldn't be in them, and both of them have had minor shitstorms brewed when someone got removed from each of them. I don't want to be on a feed where one person decides who does and does not get to have a voice in the community, no matter how well-intentioned that voice may be.

The Notes feed was a great idea, and it worked so well to bring us together for a good long while. And the Fat Liberation feed was a creation of something new out of a bad situation (which i really respected), and i've appreciated the gaps it's filled.

But now, i personally see both feeds as being more divisive than inclusive. And i want no part of that. Because as anyone who's been paying attention can tell you, i'm all about community. I would far rather take the harder task of building bridges than the much easier task of burning them. Again, i'm sure there are those who won't believe me when i say that, but somehow i'll survive such a gruesome tragedy.

All of this infighting has just been eaten up by the anti-FA crowd. Don't think they haven't been watching and cackling gleefully whenever there's signs of trouble on the FA homefront. THIS is why i've been posting about how we need to be nice to each other, why we need to get along. No, we don't need to cater to them in any way, shape or form, but we need to look at their reactions as an extreme example of how we are perceived by people who are not a part of the FA movement. Don't think they won't eat this up, too. So to all you anti-FA people who think this post is proof of the falling of the Fat Acceptance movement? Get over yourselves. This sort of shit happens in any growing movement. 

I've asked fatfu to put me back on the fatosphere feed for this one night, because i haven't been on it for the past month (due solely to technical issues), and i want both sides to see this post. As of tomorrow, i won't be on it anymore. And i'm going to ask that Big Liberty remove me from her feed as well. 

I'm still going to read all the blogs, and anyone who wants to be added to (or removed from) the FA Links list or the feed i created from it, let me know and i'll add (or remove) you. I haven't yet decided what to do about the FA 101 blog. I'll probably keep picking away at it here and there as my emotional energy allows. But believe you me: i'm still going to be around, and i'm still going to be posting about FA issues, because i care like hell about it. But i sure as hell don't care to be a part of, or be associated with, the petty bickering and squabbling that's been going on.

Only the Mormons could make the whole Catholic virgin birth thing look normal.

I took this picture after Lucy saw it outside this 'Pets At Home' store and said "CATHUNK! Look'at size-o-that dogs mowf!"

So, look, I gotta tell ya about something that's been buggin' me well, like bugs all over me. You know, the little ones that cause the little itches that just never get scratched exactly right? It's everywhere you turn. You hear it on TV, on the radio, at the bar, in traffic and at the ballgame. Why, I even heard it the other day at the post office. Someone talking then raising their voice then screaming at the top of their lungs - at the postal employeee behind the counter who just...wasn't getting it.

Look, you know we're onto something when it's achieved most favored and treasured status with each of the politicos vying to run the country. Oh yes and even the boss man that runs the country now. Our sports heroes have started and it's a favorite, not so secret weapon anymore, amongst almost anyone being interviewed for any reason...anywhere. To get a good dose, check out any the shows like Meet the Press or CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 that regularly feature recognized experts or experts in their own minds trying to show you why they know everything about everything and...well...um...you don't.

Look, it's not something that I do as far as I know. Or, at least I sure hope not. Most of the people I know and work with don't do it either. If they did, I think I'd have to slap 'em upside the head. Send them straight to timeout. Or up to bed right now. No supper. It sounds cheap, it sounds amateurish. Yo, it sounds like you're trying out for the reincarnation of The Sopranos.

So, who do you know that does it? C'mon...fess up!

Look, I think it's actually become just a bad habit or maybe a nervous tic kinda thing. Or maybe everyone is just uber frustrated that they can't get their point across. Fast enough or...at all. And because you hear it everywhere it's hard to ignore and some little synapse up there says "look, everyone else is doing it, if you can't beat 'em join 'em. It's the new way to communicate. When in Rome, do like the Romans.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.  Be there or be square.

So, look...knock it off, will ya?

9/4/08 UPDATE:Look, last night I heard a CNN political commentator say "Look" twice while answering another commentator's question. Barack Obama says it all the time.

Next time you're watching a news show or news related show that involves interviews or a bunch of talking heads sitting there trying to show us how much they know - take out a sheet of paper and tally up how many times everyone says "Look". Better yet, assign names to each of the tallies and come back here and share the lunacy with us!

Look, it'll be fun!

~ Rick Zwetsch ~

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Anyway, the post was highlighting an example of how one user/traveler found the print Yellow Pages in their hotel room to be indispensable. Here's the post:

Received this interesting email which confirms my belief that hotel rooms should all have printed Yellow Pages in them.  From J:

"...I was first traveling to Oregon to look at colleges for my son.  We stayed at mom and pop motels in 2 of the towns (Eugene and Corvallis).  Both had advertised "free internet".  Well, when we got there the internet was down.  My son made a valient effort to get into some free Internet sites but to no avail.  So what can a person do when they need to find a restaurant to eat at????  Open the drawer and get that print Yellow Pages out!

Some may consider it a relic of the past, but it was a saving resource when we were hungry and out of town..."

Print Yellow Pages - the original search engine

Here was my comment to that post that after 10 days still hasn't been approved. I have communicated with the host so it is my belief that the approval delay is not due to an extended Labor Day vacation or other extenuating circumstance.

Great story and an excellent reason for hotels to keep providing the Yellow Pages for their guests. Mom and Pop hotels will probably have the Yellow Pages forever.

Here's another idea for out of town guests at any hotel. If searching for a good restaurant - go down to front desk and talk to a human about what good restaurants are close by. At a larger hotel talk with the concierge. That's what they get paid to do and if they're any good (not always a guarantee!) they'll have the "inside scoop"!

If all you're looking for is the nearest Chili's or other national chain, the Yellow Pages is the bomb. If you're looking for local flavor, great atmosphere and/or the best (fill-in-the-blank) food in town along with a local's "recommendation"...don't be shy. Talk to a human.

I can certainly understand why the Yellow Pages industry is sweating bullets. Profusely sweating bullets. I've written about it before so don't feel the need to write about it again right here right now. I believe the print Yellow Pages is a valuable search tool for some not for others. I believe it's a valuable marketing tool for some SMBs and not for others.

What ceases to amaze me is ongoing belief that the print Yellow Pages is the greatest thing since grits. At one time, maybe it was. Today, I just don't think it still is.

There are a couple of things that make this blindingly obvious:

• There is a reason why the number of print advertisers is declining
• There is a reason why people are tired of receiving unsolicited piles of print directories on their doorsteps

I have chosen to opt-out of receiving the print Yellow Pages not because I hate the Yellow Pages and because they're wasting resources and all that hoo-hah. It's very simple...I just don't need the print directories any longer. I can find everything I need online, faster than most folks can go find their print book to find what they need. I'm eco-aware and as much of a proponent of sustainable business practices as the next guy. Don't send me something I didn't ask for and make easy to ask you to stop.

I have chosen to ignore the calls from print Yellow Pages reps trying to sell me advertising because, very frankly, I've forgotten more about marketing and advertising then the reps that are calling me can do to help me and my small business. No offense to ALL Yellow pages reps. I'm sure there are some very knowledgeable ones out there. I've made my simple decision based on the reps in my area that call me. They're out to sell, at whatever cost, and it really doesn't matter what's best for me and my business.

Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we live in a networked world. Six degrees of separation keeps rising to the top and we have more tools than ever to search for and find anything we want and need.

If I need something and I'm in a small hotel out in the middle of nowhere - or close to nowhere - and there's a print Yellow Pages in the desk drawer - you bet I'll pull it out and give it shot. Even if the laptop is plugged in, connected and rarin' to go. If someone tells you they won't, in that same situation, I think they're fibbing.

Will it be the end of the world as we know it if there's NO print Yellow Pages in my hotel room out in the middle of nowhere or in the Hyatt in the middle of NYC? I'm thinkin' probably not.

My guess is...as long as there's a human being nearby (and yes, I realize there will be that phone booth that's 200 miles from civilization with that dog-eared print Yellow pages dangling), you have a good chance of finding EXACTLY what you want and need.

And if you're in that small (or big) hotel, and there is a print Yellow Pages in the drawer or on the desk - write down a couple of businesses and then go talk to a human about which one is...the BEST.

Humans...try 'em you'll like 'em!

~ Rick Zwetsch ~

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Made to Stick: The Myth of Mutual Funds

By: Dan Heath & Chip Heath

Why we don't always believe the truth.

Let's pull off the Band-Aid quickly. You've come to believe that mutual funds are a smart place to put your money. They're not.

That's the assessment of the smartest minds in finance, supported by a mountain of historical data. If you own actively managed mutual funds, you will almost certainly retire with less money -- a lot less money -- than if you'd simply dumped your money into boring index funds. So two questions: How can this possibly be true? And why, in gleeful defiance of the data, do more people keep buying mutual funds every year?

First, the proof. A team of finance researchers conducted an exhaustive study of mutual-fund returns from 1979 to 1998. Mutual funds underperformed the Vanguard 500 Index Fund by an average of 2.8% per year (after taxes). From 1984 to 1998, the deficit was a stunning 5.1% per year.

It gets worse. Of all 203 mutual funds with at least $100 million under management from 1984 to 1998, only 8 managed to beat the Vanguard 500. Your odds, then, of picking a "winning" mutual fund during that time were less than 4%. By way of comparison, if you get dealt two face cards in blackjack, and your inner idiot shouts, "Hit me!", you have about an 8% chance of winning.

"Overwhelming evidence proves the failure of the for-profit mutual-fund industry," says David F. Swensen in his revealing book Unconventional Success. Swensen knows a bit about investing. Since he began managing Yale's endowment in 1985, he has grown the fund from $1.3 billion to $14 billion (a 16.1% average annual return). And his opinion is clear: "Overwhelmingly, mutual funds extract enormous sums from investors in exchange for providing a shocking disservice."

None of this is breaking news. The data have been lying around for years. Yet we keep buying mutual funds, just as people still buy bogus herbal remedies and corporate execs keep making statistically doomed mergers and acquisitions. Our behavior seems impervious to the truth. It's like waking up in a world where 91 million Americans drive Ford Pintos while wearing flammable pajamas.

Here's why this idea doesn't stick: It's true, but it violates common sense. Mutual funds are actively managed, which means that there's a team of Harvard and Wharton MBAs who come to work every day and hunt for good investments on your behalf. Whereas index funds (technically a kind of mutual fund) are passively managed; they simply track the market's performance. There's a robot behind the wheel.

We can't handle the truth that the robot beats the Ivy League MBAs. Even when the MBAs outperform the robot, you might still come out behind, because of the fees they charge. (Those fees ensure that, while you may lose, the MBAs never will.)

So why do mutual funds thrive? They take advantage of a mistake we all make. Two business-school professors -- Jay Koehler and Molly Mercer of Arizona State -- conducted studies on investors and documented the mistake. We treat cherry-picked data as typical. If a mutual-fund company advertises a 31% return on one fund, investors get more interested in others from the same company. But if the investors are reminded that the data were cherry-picked -- "the 31% return is from one fund of many managed by this company" -- then they are able to avoid this mistake (just as a bulleted highlight on someone's résumé doesn't convince you he's perpetually awesome). But mutual funds aren't inclined to provide helpful warnings like, "The returns we're hyping are anomalies!"

The consequences can be profound -- and invisible. Consider two 50-year-olds who each invested their life savings of about $140,000 in 1984. Vanessa put all of her money in the Vanguard 500, and Muriel put hers in an average mutual fund. If they both retired in 1998, both would be happy, because their assets would have grown substantially.

But happiness comes in different sizes. If Vanessa's nest egg was $1 million, Muriel's would've been about $550,000. Now, remember, Muriel is happy, because she has no clue what she could have made. You know who else is happy? The mutual-fund managers. Muriel has padded their multimillion-dollar retirement accounts with roughly $150,000 of her own foregone income. Forget sponsoring a child in Africa. You're sponsoring an MBA. And you don't even get a photo for your refrigerator.

The final irony is this: Every few years, one of Muriel's mutual funds would have a great return -- say, 22% in a single year! -- and the fund would then spend millions of dollars (including some of Muriel's own retirement money) touting its performance, like a movie trailer that showcases the one funny moment in a deeply unfunny movie. In the end, Muriel feels smart and Vanessa feels insecure.

 It's possible, we suppose, that this feeling of superiority might be worth something. But not as much as it's costing you. Swensen's advice is to buy index funds from TIAA-CREF or Vanguard, where fees are minimal. Stop driving that Pinto. With your investments, boring is beautiful.

Dan Heath and Chip Heath are the best-selling authors of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

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Now my first impressions. The good things about Google Chrome-

1. Its extremely fast
2. Its easy to install. On vista it does not even need admin privileges
3. The UI is excellent less clutter and more real estate and easy to use.
4. On multiple monitors flash full screen works as desired. (In IE7 vista the full screen  for flash uses the resolution of the primary monitor not the monitor in which it is currently playing)
5. CNN videos links finally work ( for me in IE 7 vista it did not work)
6. Task manager is an excellent way of telling which page is using CPU and bandwidth.
7. Google Chrome inspector is a great developer tool.

The fact that so much evidence was completely destroyed in the inferno of the twin towers, before they collapsed, in many ways adds to the conspiracy theories that range from blaming the US government for carrying out an "inside job" (to provide a pretext for war in Iraq) to accusations of a cover-up pact between senior Bush White House neocons and the right wing press.

In 1988 the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 was seen by many as "pay back" for the accidental downing of an Iranian passenger jet [video], Iran Air Flight 655, by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes, earlier that year.

The men who were convicted of carrying out what became known as the Lockerbie bombing, who by planting explosives in a cassette radio in the 747's cargo hold and detonating them over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, are now believed to be innocent, even by many of the people who's evidence was used to convict them; their minds now changed by flimsy and provably false evidence used against them in court.

In this BBC film we hear from people who, because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and thanks to the so-called 'Helsinki warning', stories and speculation on a grand scale - that the FBI and the CIA were behind the killing of 243 passengers and 16 crew, in what remains the worst terrorist attack to take place on British soil since 1988 - continue to cloud the truth of who actually carried out the attack.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-327765978162851498&hl=en&fs=true]
Watch in fullscreen