captsolo weblog

Engadget reports that the manufacturer of iRiver MP3 players is using the adult film star Jenna Jameson to advertise its products.

That is an ad for iRiver’s new PMP-100 personal video player (the ad text says “Your refined movie collection just paid off”). Engadget: "Since they can’t exactly annoy Hollywood and promote piracy in their ads, maybe, just maybe, porn is the next best thing".

Also reported on:
- Digital Chosunilbo.
- Gizmodo

See more of Jenna's sexy photos at GorillaMask.net.

From the (at)semantics weblog via Danny's weblog:

Libby Miller strengthes the team at @semantics as partner and Chief Research Officer. She will focus on the research programs and help apply leading edge technologies to our customer solutions.

She has been part of the Semantic Web Communtiy from the begining on a wide range of topics such as such as calendaring, query, vocabulary developement and community building. Libby will continue her pivotal role within the the W3C and RDF communities with the full support of @semantics.

Congratulations, Libby!!!
And congratulations to @semantics!

Mūsu elektroniskie mēdiji atkal izceļas ar absolūti idiotiskiem rakstiem.

Šoreiz tas ir apollo.lv: "Coca-Cola etiķete stimulē smadzeņu aktivitāti"

Ievadā tiek runāts par tējas labvēlīgo ietekmi pret Alcheimera slimību. Tēma par tējas veselīgumu turpinās arī raksta iesākuma daļā.

Piemin nepareizu dzīvesveidu un tālāk pārlec uz krūts vēzi: "Zinātnieki pierādījuši — zāles auglības veicināšanai samazina risku saslimt ar krūts vēzi".

Tad nāk pērle - par to kā raksta nosaukumā censored minētais dzēriens (tas pats, kura viena no pamata sastāvdaļām ir fosforskābe) veicina smadzeņu aktivitāti: "Amerikā populārākajai Coca-Cola etiķetei, kā izrādās, ir milzīga ietekme: divas trešdaļas no testējamajiem atzina, ka izvēlas tieši to." un "tajā pašā laikā pētnieki atklāja, ka Coca-Cola etiķete stimulē ievērojamu aktivitātes palielināšanos tajās smadzeņu daļās, kas atbild par kultūras zināšanām, atmiņu un paštēlu."

Es gan neesmu tik drošs, ka ir jau atklātas konkrētas smadzeņu zonas, kas atbild par kultūras zināšanām. Bet ja nu guru tā raksta... Vispār laba frāze viņiem sanākusi: "Amerikā xxx etiķetei ir milzīga ietekme". Nu labi, atstāsim ameriku amerikāņiem un viņu brendiem...

Bet pats raksts ir haotisks izteikumu savārstījums un var vien pabrīnīties kā kautko tādu vispār publicē. Tas būtu tāpat kā rakstīt: "Pornogrāfijas demonstrēšanai, izrādās ir milzīga ietekme: vairums testējamo atzina, ka viņiem aktivizējas abas smadzeņu puslodes". Nākamais itin loģiskais solis būtu valdības priekšlikums Izglītības ministrijai paredzēt skolu programmās regulāru Coca-Cola etiķešu un pornogrāfijas demonstrēšanu.

Viņi vispār paši apjēdz, ko raksta?

Varbūt uztaisīt arī latvisko blogu?

Šobrīd pamatā viss saturs še ir angliski. Domāju, ka nav jēga tulkot esošos tekstus latviski - tie, kurus interesēs semantiskais webs (tā galvenā, kaut arī ne vienīgā, esošo rakstu tēma), pratīs tos izlasīt arī angliski.

Drīzāk varētu vienkārši "pavārīties" par tēmu, iegāzt dažas idejas, domas un iespaidus.

Daži latviski "sub-blogi" šeit jau ir:

mazais weblogs - kurā small-n-tabby reizēm padalās domās par mārketingu, sviestu un dzīvi.
tiesa - tikai "šad un tad".

tm no-place - attiecīgi ar tm rakstiem un iespaidiem.

Starp citu - itin jauka doma ir Friends of Get With It! blogam - "This is the weblog for all of our friends - ..."
Blogs, kurā visi viņu draugi var kautko uzrakstīt. Savā ziņā pārkāpj pieņēmumu, ka blogs ir tikai viena autora darbs.

Condoleezza Rice, during her Senate confirmation hearing:

"I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the U.S. government, but the heart of the American people, and I think it has paid great dividends for us." - via

More on the subject here - Boxing Condoleezza.

How cynical is this???
Great dividends???
Talking about other people's disaster as an opportunity...
I sincerely hope that's just bad wording.

Added this beauty to my deviantArt gallery.
Has been long time since last photos were added to it.

Todays featured deviation: Spiked by ~eyecandyrayce.

There are many interesting blogs by the Semantic Web hackers and friends. I'll do my best to list some of them here, both for myself and for you to see what I like to check out from time to time:

- John Breslin - also a big fan of anime (see Anime.IE); check out his icon sidebar - he's got quite a lot links there.

Amazon's TOP 10 Animes

- Hannes Gassert - he has just arrived in Galway to work on his master thesis.
there are 2 entries in our blogs very, very similar to each other - this and this one.

- Morten Frederiksen (Binary Relations) - congratulations with a redesigned site (mmm, that Weblog/Planet/Links pane works very nice) and new resolutions! And his faceted photo database is just amazing!

- Danny Ayers - semantic web and lots of cat pictures.
a pitty he is having some problems with a site right now.
good luck in getting it back on its feet! (i almost wrote 'feed')

- crschmidt - see also his Semantic Web Hacking page.

These are the first five.
Will add more some day.

This paper describes Xenon - an RDF stylesheet ontology.

Linksys makes this little device that sits by your TV and stereo and allows to browse photos or listen to music (MP3, WMA) from your PC. There are more Linksys devices to check out.

The Wireless-B Media Adapter connect to your home stereo and television. Then it connects to your home network by Wireless-B (802.11b) wireless networking and you can browse through the digital pictures from your computer by folder, filename, or thumbnail. You can view pictures one at a time, or watch an automatically created slideshow of all the pictures in a given folder. You can also use the remote to browse your MP3 or WMA formatted music collection, choose the music you want, and let this device play it through your stereo system. You can even let music play in the background while you browse your pictures.

It is interesting how the availability of information and the information systems behind them change the way how politics is done now (though the basic roots remain the same). This conference might be interesting:

The 3rd International Conference on Politics and Information Systems:
Technologies and Applications (PISTA '05).
July 14-17, 2005 - Orlando, Florida, USA

via: The Pants Daily Chump

Skype surprises by taking words right out of the mouth.

As I was chatting on Skype (yes, it is my preferred instant messaging tool now) yesterday and thinking about writing an article on it, a lack of multi-user chat came into mind as one of the minuses. Not what you would normally expect from an instant messenger or VoIP software, but a very cool feature. If they have voice conferences, why not IM?

And - literally the next thing I see:

Skype launches Windows Version 1.1

Luxembourg, January 5, 2005 - Today Skype launches v1.1 for Windows and introduces the new Chat feature, allowing Skype users to hold multi-person or forum-style conversations with groups of people. Chat expands the existing one-to-one chatting and other instant message features in previous versions of Skype, and allows groups of up to 50 to communicate.

* download it now!

Just make a wish.
Now I won’t have to repeat news to everybody over and over again.
Just say it in a chat conference.

One less minus to name in the review.
What does it boil down to?

Pluses (+):

* High quality VoIP, free
* Convenient IM interface
* Encryption - both VoIP and IM
* Peer-to-Peer
* Cheap calls to phones worldwide

Minuses (-):

* Contacts can’t be exported
* All data kept on P2P client

The last one (all data on client) is both good for privacy and bad in having side effects:
- have to enter all contacts anew on every computer you use
- irregularities of delivery of IM messages
- irregularities of finding new contacts

When I mean irregularities of delivery of IM messages - the messages are kept on the sender’s PC until the recipient comes online. Both need to be online for the message to be delivered.

It’s cool how users on Skype forums have a “Skype Me” icon next to usual “Profile", “PM", … icons. You can actually press it and voice call to the author of the post.

Forecasts say today and this night this will be the biggest storm here in 100 years, with gusts of wind up to 160 kmph. During daytime I had a feeling it's gonna blast the roof off the building we were in, but it was not _that_ bad in the end.

Now - is the biggest storm over or still ahead?
That's how it looked some hours before (via):

... looked at the picture above and it resembles a fractal so much. like a spiral in a magnified view of a Mandelbrot set.