conjuro:

Yesterday I went to the opening night of Klaus Littmanns new art intervention: Move for live. Six different artists designed trucks that will travel 250'000 km around Europe - catching more than 25 million visitors each year. The topics are poverty, AIDS, racism, violence and environmental damage. I liked the idea of art being present on our streets (and not just art galleries and museums) as well as the pictures on the trucks. What you see here is a piece by Basel artist Xia Zheng. More trucks will be launched in Frankfurt, Vienna, Paris, Madrid and Milan for up to 46 different trucks.

Pretty scary article about how new SSL-evading trojans work. I'm going to use a live Linux CD to do my online banking from now on - and I'm going to tell my girlfriend how to do that too. A good start for live Linux is Knoppix and here is a list of other compilations. Simply boot from CD or DVD, start the browser and do your online banking. Since the CD or DVD is read-only you can't easily catch a virus. Another possibility would be to run the free VMware Player with the browser appliance virtual machine - but this requires installation of software.

To prevent wild game from crossing the street when cars are approaching, CDs are hung at the streetside. Maybe this is a wise reuse of old AOL-CDs? Apparently, this actually reduces the number of accidents due to game crossing the street in front of cars. Seen here: map.search.ch map.google.com

The art project Book for Bush is seeking the unfiltered input of people on the current US president - an idea I like, since George Bush actions influence people all over the world. The social networking part, where the best article (by votes) is published on the first page is a great idea. However, I don't like the paying part for an article (2$ for 200 characters - without spaces and then 1 cent for every 5 additional characters). And I fear that the book could be misused. I'll be watching. Here a link to a blog with pictures of the book. (Image credit: Baslerstab )

Yesterday, I spent a few hours reinstalling Windows XP Home Edition [1] on my fathers computer. Thanks to MSDN, I was able to download a slipstreamed XP Home with SP2 in it (otherwise I would just slipstream it myself) and I also burned a CD with all essential tools and programs (AV, etc). But what I'm missing is a way to download and burn the security patches Microsoft published since SP2. Microsoft is relying on people like myself providing tech support for friends and family - and I don't understand why they can't make it easier for all of us to provide that support (which, by the way I regard as some sort of internet-community service - one virus and malware ridden computer less on the internet sending you spam and viruses). What I'm looking for is a website where I can specify what type of system I want to install (in my case Windows XP Home Edition German SP2) and download all the patches available for that system. If a simple script would be provided to install t...

The Swiss Council for Accident Prevention bfu has an eye-catching poster. It says: "To prevent accidents becoming horror (stories): Wear a bycicle helmet." Link to .pdf (144k)

NOAA has consistently discounted any connection to global warming in its scientific summaries about the record number and destructiveness of hurricanes in 2005, despite ample evidence of a likely connection from other leading climate scientists. On Wednesday, NOAA announced that several of its scientists disagreed with that official position. It is so amazing, that the current US government is afraid scientific research that it tries to silence research about global warming and health issues. Isn't the government there to protect and serve their people? I don't think global warming is directly causing natural disasters, but if there is any evidence that changing our behaviour today could make this world a safer and healthier place for our children should not suppressed. The United States is entering into an era where faith is more important than fact and dissent is considered betrayal, he said. When it comes to research, the current administration has gone well beyond the tra...