Interesting Sites, Things and Events - SIGALON VALLEY

My Photo
Name:
Location: Uzes, France

In the computer business since 1962 - love IT.

2006-01-22

Back to Summary of Content


Daily News Clippings - A Selection

Weather History
Nimes-France, Geneva-Switzerland, Göteborg-Sweden, Halmstad-Sweden

Here is a del.icio.us summary of some of my favorite blogs!
(In the left column)
Use del.icio.us - the social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.

Bloglines

Sam's Blog

Recently Updated Blogs

Latest BBC Technology News

2005-02-06

Napster To Go

Sign up for a year of Napster To Go, get a free iRiver H10

Posted by: Sam at 3:47 EST

iRiver H10

Napster has a new offer to promote the official launch of Napster To Go: be one of the first 1,000 people to sign up for a year of their new all-you-can-download service for $179.00 and they’ll toss in iRiver’s new H10 5GB MP3 player for free. Seeing as how the H10 will normally set you back about $280, you could just flip the H10 on eBay and still come out a few bucks ahead.

[Via Misticriver]

2005-01-29

Ny Teknik - Elracer ska n� 400 knyck med hissmotorer

Ny Teknik - Elracer ska n� 400 knyck med hissmotorer
Elracer ska nå 400 knyck med hissmotorer
400 km/h ska F1-föraren Ukyo Katayama försöka nå med elbilen Eliica. Den åttahjuliga bilen drivs med hissmotorer.
Klar för start
Bilen har tagits fram vid Keiouniversitetet i Japan med stöd från ett 40-tal företag. Avsikten är att visa att miljövänliga bilar inte bara måste rulla fram tyst och försiktigt.

Projektgruppen valde en elmotortillverkare, Meidensha, som har högt anseende och anses vara kvalitetstillverkare. Företaget bygger motorer för industritillämpningar, som hissmotorer, verktygsmaskiner och motorer till textilindustrin.

Företaget har utvecklat elmotorer med låg värmeutveckling. Åtta 60 kW-motorer, en i varje hjul, ska ge Eliica en acceleration som kan liknas vid raketstart och en toppfart på 400 km/h.

2005-01-23

Humanism
The peculiar idea that every human being has worth and dignity.

  1. Humanism is one of those philosophies for people who think for themselves. There is no area of thought that a Humanist is afraid to challenge and explore.
  2. Humanism is a philosophy focused upon human means for comprehending reality. Humanists make no claims to possess or have access to supposed transcendent knowledge.
  3. Humanism is a philosophy of reason and science in the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, when it comes to the question of the most valid means for acquiring knowledge of the world, Humanists reject arbitrary faith, authority, revelation, and altered states of consciousness.
  4. Humanism is a philosophy of imagination. Humanists recognize that intuitive feelings, hunches, speculation, flashes of inspiration, emotion, altered states of consciousness, and even religious experience, while not valid means to acquire knowledge, remain useful sources of ideas that can lead us to new ways of looking at the world. These ideas, after they have been assessed rationally for their usefulness, can then be put to work, often as alternate approaches for solving problems.
  5. Humanism is a philosophy for the here and now. Humanists regard human values as making sense only in the context of human life rather than in the promise of a supposed life after death.
  6. Humanism is a philosophy of compassion. Humanist ethics is solely concerned with meeting human needs and answering human problems--for both the individual and society--and devotes no attention to the satisfaction of the desires of supposed theological entities.
  7. Humanism is a realistic philosophy. Humanists recognize the existence of moral dilemmas and the need for careful consideration of immediate and future consequences in moral decision making.
  8. Humanism is in tune with the science of today. Humanists therefore recognize that we live in a natural universe of great size and age, that we evolved on this planet over a long period of time, that there is no compelling evidence for a separable "soul," and that human beings have certain built-in needs that effectively form the basis for any human-oriented value system.
  9. Humanism is in tune with today's enlightened social thought. Humanists are committed to civil liberties, human rights, church-state separation, the extension of participatory democracy not only in government but in the workplace and education, an expansion of global consciousness and exchange of products and ideas internationally, and an open-ended approach to solving social problems, an approach that allows for the testing of new alternatives.
  10. Humanism is in tune with new technological developments. Humanists are willing to take part in emerging scientific and technological discoveries in order to exercise their moral influence on these revolutions as they come about, especially in the interest of protecting the environment.
  11. Humanism is, in sum, a philosophy for those in love with life. Humanists take responsibility for their own lives and relish the adventure of being part of new discoveries, seeking new knowledge, exploring new options. Instead of finding solace in prefabricated answers to the great questions of life, Humanists enjoy the open-endedness of a quest and the freedom of discovery that this entails.

Why There's No Escaping the Blog

"Early in the evening of Dec. 1, Microsoft revealed that it planned to take over the world of blogs—the five-million-plus web journals that have exploded on the Internet in the past few years. The company's weapon would be a new service called MSN Spaces, online software that allows people to easily create and maintain blogs. It didn't take long for the blogging world to do what it does best: swarm around a new piece of information; push, prod, and poke at it; and leave it either stronger or a bloody mess." ....

2005-01-22

Dancing the War Away

"Watching the inaugural ceremonies yesterday reminded me of the scenes near the end of "The Godfather" in which a solemn occasion (a baptism in the movie) is interspersed with a series of spectacularly violent murders.

Even as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war, one of the worst presidential decisions in American history.......

President Bush and his equally tone-deaf supporters spent the past few days partying hard while Americans, Iraqis and others continued to suffer and die in the Iraq conflagration. Nothing was too good for the princes and princesses of the new American plutocracy. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on fireworks, cocktail receptions, gala dinners and sumptuous balls....

The disconnect between the over-the-top celebrations in Washington and the hideous reality of Iraq does not in any way surprise me. It's exactly what we should expect from the president and his supporters, who seem always to exist in a fantasy realm far removed from such ugly realities as war and suffering. In that realm you can start wars without having to deal with the consequences of them. You don't even have to pay for them. You can put them on a credit card."

Bush and the Satanic Salute

Bush and the Devil


Many Norwegian television viewers were shocked to see President George Bush and his family apparently saluting Satan during his inauguration yesterday. And deaf American viewers were equally as surprised because to them it was a sign language obscenity.
But in reality, it was just a sign of respect for the University of Texas Longhorns sports teams, whose fans are known to shout out “Hook’em horns!” at games.The president and family were photographed lifting their right hands with their index and little fingers raised up, much like a horn.
But in much of the world those “horns” are a sign of the devil.
In Scandinavia, the hand gesture is popular among death metal and black metal groups and fans.
The sign also means bulls*** in American Sign Language.

A Sense of Urgency - where participation is recreation
Debbie

Debbie Chapman

You've just inherited a manufacturing plant that specializes in plastics. What are you going to make?
Pollution


"I AM SO PROUD !
BUSH INAUGURATION

Washington is one of five states that will not be represented in the official inaugural parade on Thursday in Washington, D-C. The 75 units in the two-hour parade will include seven from Texas. A spokesman for the Inaugural Committee, Jill Willis, says the goal was to have representatives from all 50 states. But apparently no band from Washington was willing to pay its own way to the event.(reported by KIRO710 news)"

Paul Z. Myers “Pharyngula”

Paul Z. Myers
"I’m an associate professor of biology at UMM. I created these pages to describe some of my past and current research, and to support my teaching. "

“Pharyngula” is a term coined by William Ballard to describe a particular stage in the development of the vertebrate embryo.

Take a good look at the random quotes.

Margot Wallström

Margot Wallstöm

"I was appointed Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication in August 2004. President Barroso created this post in order to improve the way we communicate 'Europe' to citizens. For the last five years I served as Environment Commissioner in the Prodi Commission."

"We politicians are accountable to 450 million Europeans and you expect us to work together, to be effective, to communicate with you and to give you a voice. We can never be allowed to forget that. That is what gives me my political motivation."

Interdependent Thoughts - Ton Zijlstra

Ton Zijlstra

"During my work as a technical consultant I found that the tension between technology and organisations/people, as technology is introduced to be much more interesting than the technology itself. This resulted in a shift in professional focus from technology to people and organisations (and made me re-enter university). That's why, although my C.V. suggests otherwise, I came to KM from an organisationial point of view, and not a technological point of view.
I think KM has a lot more to do with competences of people, and organisational change, than with technology, which can only act as a tool for distributing knowledge (and mostly in the form of information only)."

Take hold of the future
Dr Patrick Dixon Futurist

Patrick Dixon

Dr Patrick Dixon is Chairman of Global Change Ltd and described as a"Global Change Guru" by the Wall Street Journal. He has been ranked as one of the world's 50 most influential business thinkers alive today, and is widely sought after as an international conference speaker at large corporate events .

Place a subscription form on your site
Every day, readers receive a single email from Bloglet informing them of your site updates

A Lot of Interesting Ideas
Dave Pollard's environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays.


Dave Pollard

'Dave Pollard was born in 1951 in Leicester, England, of a Canadian father and a Welsh mother. He grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, a shy, slow learner who suddenly developed some social graces and language skills at the age of 17, and in the process evolved from an incoherent and withdrawn C student to a scholar with an overblown ego. He was then, and remained throughout his life, defined by words that start with the letter "I": immature, insensitive, inarticulate, idealistic and insane.'

Chocolate & Zucchini
A Great Site run by Clotilde Dusoulier.

Clotilde

Who is Clotilde?
'A few facts about me : my name is Clotilde, I am 25, I am French and I live in Paris (Montmartre to be precise) with my boyfriend Maxence. I work as a computer engineer for a small CRM software company, but I have aspirations to become a food writer and I am seriously considering a career change.
Another dream job would be to open my own little coffee shop / restaurant / salon de thé, a cosy little place where people would feel comfortable ; I would serve a light lunch fare, a good choice of tea and coffee, freshly baked goods, display artists' work, sell a selection of artisanal food products, ...
Between 2000 and 2002, Maxence and I lived and worked in the Silicon Valley, and that’s where, interestingly enough, I discovered my love of food and cooking. But it is really upon coming back to Paris that it has taken a new turn and become a central element in my life.


Why the name "Chocolate & Zucchini"? I thought it was a good metaphor for my cooking style : Zucchini illustrates my focus on healthy/natural eating - fresh produce, as little processed food as possible, artisanal products, a preference for organic or natural foods when possible (and not outrageously priced), you get the picture. And Chocolate represents my decidedly marked taste for anything sweet in general and chocolate, glorious chocolate, in particular. So there you have it, Chocolate & Zucchini!'

FourmiLab

FourmiLab

This site is developed and maintained by John Walker, founder of Autodesk, Inc. and co-author of AutoCAD. A variety of documents, images, software for various machines, and interactive Web resources are available here.
Amongst other things "A Hacker's Diet"
'As an engineer, I was trained to solve problems. As a software developer, I designed tools to help others solve their problems. As a businessman I survived and succeeded by managing problems. And yet, all that time, I hadn't looked at my own health as something to be investigated, managed, and eventually solved in the same way. I decided to do just that.'


2005-01-21

A SPECIAL EVENT

Friday, January 21st, 2005

Inauguration 2005: Bush Vows to Spread "Freedom" and Target World's "Tyrannies" in Second Term

Listen to Segment Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream Read Transcript
Help Printer-friendly version Email to a friend Purchase Video/CD

Democracy Now

2004-07-17

Svenska Rivieraklubben
Rivieraklubben

IKEA

Ingvar Kamprad

Sweden -- France