for_sv's blog

Epica 2004 Awards

It contains 109 commercials from 18 countries, including the popular 'Gandhi' spot for Telecom Italia.

Posted by SV at 6:08:00 AM in Reality, Tech/Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Friday, Feb 11, 2005

A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii

A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii
Credit: Night Sky Live Collaboration

Explanation: What in heavens-above was that? Not everything seen on the night sky is understood. The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky. On the night of 2004 December 17, the fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala, Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious. The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as unconfirmed, but the Mauna Kea CONCAM on the next Hawaiian island recorded the same thing. The NSL team might then have disregarded the streak as a satellite, but no record of it was found in the heavens-above.com site that usually documents bright satellite events. If you think you have a reasonable explanation for the streak, please contribute to the on-line discussion. Current candidates include a known satellite that was somehow missed by heavens-above, a recently launched rocket, and a passing space rock. Volunteers are solicited by the NSL project to help monitor the operability of each NSL CONCAM, including looking for interesting anomalies such as this. Disclosure: Robert Nemiroff collaborates on both the NSL and APOD projects.

Posted by SV at 6:02:00 AM in Tech/Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, Feb 10, 2005

WMD on Google Maps

Google finds what neither the US nor the UN inspectors couldn’t: Weapons of Mass Destruction:

Find more goodies for yourself. How about Osama Bin Ladin?

Posted by SV at 6:09:00 AM in Humor, Info | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Einstein, the brainy bird

Einstein proves why she's a bird brain. Watch her winning moment.

Posted by SV at 6:09:00 AM in Fun, Info, Reality, World News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Feline-powered screen clean utility

(click the image to see) As noted by Judith, the site now has a message:
there is always someone who pisses on the fire..... :( sorry, its not pozzible to show you this 'legally' anymore...thanks to all who have viewed and enjoyed this in the past few weeks and have sent such nice emails byee j
So please try this link, looks like a larger version of this thing which made the rounds heavily a few weeks ago. Flash required, as is patience with content load time. And if you're burned out on screenlicking kittens, try this excellent monkey chimpanzee version.

Posted by SV at 6:06:00 AM in Fun | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, Feb 9, 2005

Don't go job hunting in Germany

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

Continue reading ...

Posted by SV at 6:00:00 AM in Reality | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, Feb 8, 2005

wackiest warnings!

Here are the winnners of the M-LAW competition for wackiest warning label of the year:

1st prize
Do not use for personal hygiene – on a toilet brush

2nd prize
This product moves when used – from a child’s scooter

Previous winners have included:
* Remove child before folding – on a baby’s buggy
* Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally - on a digital thermometer
* Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating - on an electric hand blender
* Harmful if swallowed – on a three-pronged brass fishing lure.
* Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device - on a bag of air used as a packing material
* Do not use as a ladder – on a 30cm tall CD rack
* Never iron clothes while they are being worn - on a household iron
* Do not use the Silence Feature in emergency situations. It will not extinguish a fire - on a smoke detector
* Do not eat toner - on a laser printer cartridge
* And on a pair of cyclist’s shin guards – Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover.

Posted by SV at 6:07:00 AM in Reality | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, Feb 7, 2005

Crazy Horoscopes

We don't know what's in store for you this week, but the last time we checked, we discovered that Virgos should avoid muffins and Aquarians may want to try something really outrageous involving gooseberries. If a Pisces wants to attach paperweights to his or her eyelids and dance like a harlequin, that week was not the best time. So says the Goblin Prince, a zany young Brit who offers alternative astrological predictions. In addition to weekly horoscopes, the site offers an offbeat love-match tool to see which signs you're compatible with. Or try the dream interpreter if you've ever woken up from a dreamy sleep and thought, "What the hell was that all about?" The Goblin Prince can't guarantee accurate predictions, but you might have cause to worry if you're dreaming about lemons singing and dancing in your bathroom.

Posted by SV at 6:09:00 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Sunday, Feb 6, 2005

Content will be More Important than its Container

PressThink writes on one of the most important ideas of 2004 in journalism:

Content is an analytic term. It refers to the "stuff" media carry rather than the carriage system itself. We need a term like that. It's not a leveler; it's just neutral. I think what smart people mean when they "hate" the word content is they hate thinking about things in that way. We should talk about literature-- not content.

It was another important thing said by Tom Curley, CEO of the Associated Press, in his big speech this year to the Online News Association: "Content will be more important than its container" in the next phase of Web development. "That's a big shift for old media to come to grips with," Curley added. "Killer apps, such as search, RSS and video-capture software such as Tivo -- to name just a few -- have begun to unlock content from any vessel we try to put it in."

The means are there to unlock content from any vessel we try to put it in. Those vessels are the big media brands themselves, including the flagships of the press fleet. Here's Admiral Curley telling them that news is becoming unhinged from "brand," and so we who make news content have to re-locate where we brand it, and think about adding our voice at every step.

"Content will be more important than its container" is thus a disruptive idea in journalism. In a way it is similar to that cross-platform battle-cry in the software biz: write once, run anywhere.

Posted by SV at 6:02:00 AM in World News | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)