The Null Device
2000/12/1
Just in time for the failure of the climate conference (due to the US and Australian delegates; shame!): there is an official page for the Viridian Movement. Something to read while you wait to roast to death or be wiped out by one of the increasingly common freak tidal waves.
Linux program of the day: XMPS, a modular video player (sort of like xmms), which apparently can use Windows codecs with a plugin. Hopefully it's better than the aging xanim.
A Linuxworld article proves what we knew all along: Nyetscape 6 is bloated, and full of memory leaks. Netscape 4 performs better, though the Linux version has a tendency to lock up frequently.
Tension, apprehension and dissention have begun: Researchers look at why some songs get stuck in our heads, whether we like or loathe them.
"The mark of a good advertising jingle is that you can't get it out of your head," [Stephen Pinker] said. "The conspiracy theory is that ad writers have figured it out, that they've cracked the brain's code."
(via Pearls)
A study in the British Medical Journal reveals that terminally ill patients and their doctors systematically delude themselves of their prospects, going as far as to make plans for the future, and that their doctors collude with them in this.
False optimism often ends in regret as patients suddenly recognise that they are close to death, and felt they did not have enough time to say their goodbyes or make final preparations.
A sign of an unhealthy attitude of denial to death, prevalent in modern Western culture.
The street/own uses/things: More on the guns disguised as mobile phones that gangsters are importing from Eastern Europe.
By cranking the aerial, four high-tension springs are pulled back into the base of the phone and then each one can be released separately by pressing buttons five through eight. The spring then strikes the base of the bullet, held in the top half of the phone, and fires it out the top of the phone.
Yes, I'm blogging on World AIDS Day. Because I think that a blackout of weblogs is just petulant and silly (either way, it won't accomplish anything). You're welcome to disagree; denunciations will be cheerfully ignored.