Alles neu ...

macht der Mai, as the German proverb goes. You will have noticed that this revolutionary month is being preempted in this blog, which is revamped in everything but its looks. Nonetheless, you should not experience any untoward behaviour, except for the old problem of addressing individual posts which still carry no .html ending. Let me know if you do all the same.

There's more news to report: My recent birthday was celebrated among a very exclusive circle in very nice surroundings. Don't worry if you were not invited - nobody was. There will be other partying opportunities soon, I promise. Meanwhile, thanks to everyone for your kind wishes!

You will never guess what I've got as a birthday present. Hint: It's in the picture. My sister gave me a meteorite! It's an amazing piece of metal (an iron nickel alloy, in fact) originating from the planet Mars, and it has come down in Siberia in 1947 I am told. The exact profile will be posted when I get it. Also, I got what probably amounts to several grams of nicotine, but in the more pleasant form of cigars, and a couple of other great items. Thanks, again!

Print your own!

If you still feel the occasional urge to send physical instead of electronic mail, you don't have to keep a stack of stamps around any more. Webstamp enables you to print your own - you can even insert your own pictures into the stamp. The production process is really smooth & simple. The yellow square covers some information bits which represent a valid stamp that I've just printed. Great stuff! The service is free and you get a CHF 5 start credit when you open your account.

However, there are some inconveniences still, which I hope will be amended really soon - we'll see. At least, a very nice lady at Postmail said that product management would look into those suggestions:

Whilst the service generally works on Safari, it's obviously not optimised. Most embarrassingly, you cannot recharge your account very comfortably. This is a major issue, of course.

I'd like to know precisely what data is coded into that stamp.

You are limited to fixed postage amounts, and you are not supposed to put more than one webstamp on any item. This is also a major inconvenience, for instance if you want to send a parcel or an international letter. This needs to be changed with top priority!

It would be convenient to be able to keep more than just one picture stored in your account at any time. How about enabling flickr references?

My assessment: Great idea, but not unequivocally usable right now.

Instant obsolescence or Marx & Orwell

The Financial Times Magazine has a excellently written article on blogging, which makes a viably sceptical point about blogging, for a change (via SM).

Speaking of the blogosphere, or whatever it is supposed to be called in Mr. Butterworth's opinion, I'd like to put two hippi-esquely idealistic quotes by Dave Winer from a recent episode of Rocketboom into searchable format:

"If you are an amateur, you have less reason
not to tell the truth - your truth."

... and in the same vein ...

"Writers who work for others have less integrity to offer
than those who do it for love."

Infrared desktop

looking over a four leaf clover
Originally uploaded by camil tulcan.

Here's my new desktop picture, as blogged directly from flickr. Kudos to Camil Tulcan!

Also, in order to relieve the horror vacui in this post, may I refer you to this great new album just out by Michael Talbott & the Wolfkings. Considerably less contemporary, but of of all the more incredible quality are these albums with songs by John Dowland that have arrived today in the mail: In Darkness Let Me Dwell and Care-Charming Sleep. You know you need them!

Remember the fifth of November

Having missed the one or two official screenings of V for Vendetta around here, I was forced to gain access to that movie by other means ... and it was very much worth while! V for Vendetta is a rather quirky & sophisticated blend of Zorro and George Orwell's 1984, with some 16th century English history thrown in for good measure. The scene is set in London, which is under totalitarian control of Chancellor (not Prime Minister) Sutler, in the not too distant future, as recurring references to avian flu, terrorist acts and closed tube stations eerily indicate.

It reminded me a little bit of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which I wanted to see again, but it was never shown here. What's wrong with that?!?

Etymon

Watch out, this is a podcast of sorts! Well, kinda, it is a blog post with an attached audio file, but there you are. I went to check out Alex Hendriksen's (still no web site to link to!) new band Etymon at the bird's eye tonight. The four guys (Alex sax / flute, Assen Doykin piano, Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz bass / oud & Mathias Kuenzli percussion) met at Berklee in Boston, and now they're doing a chamber music world jazz with strong eastern European and arabic influences. It's powerful stuff, check out the attached sample (with permission, and sorry about the sad recording quality).

Etymon will be recording professionally next week with the CD expected some time in autumn. Watch this space, and remember the name!

Fish 'n Chips

Here is an interesting OECD paper about the secondary market for domain names. It contains a fairly intricate market definition, according to which the market is estimated to be worth some USD 400 Mio p.a. So, what about that fish? Well, it's hard to believe looking at it, but fish.com seems to have fetched a winning bid of over USD 1 Mio last year!

Survey New Media

The Economist features a great survey New Media in its latest edition. I've only read part of it to date, but already the summary of 500something years of media history in two paragraphs is worth checking it out!

Cablecom out of line

Are you a Cablecom internet customer? Then you're certainly happy about their recently announced bandwidth hike for the same price.

The problem lies in the spin they're putting on it, however, especially on a legally relevant document such as an invoice. I am being invoiced for hispeed 5000 from 1 April to 30 June, although at this point which is well into the period, I am still only getting 2000 Kbit/s of service. Charging for a better service than what is actually delivered is not only unethical, it could even be considered to be illegal. That's what I have complained about to Cablecom, and I suggest you do the same.

China vs. India?

On the occasion of his ongoing visit to the USA and, more specifically, Microsoft, the Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party is quoted saying that he is a friend of Microsoft because Mr. Gates is a friend of China.

This raises the question of the geo-strategic implications of Steve Jobs' delayed trip to India!