Month: August 2009

Books on my nightstand at this moment. This is silly.

Ok, I need to finish some of these before buying new ones. And guess what? Amazon just sent me a $30 gift certificate for some reason. Maybe I’ll use it on a bookcase.

Ok, this is just silly. I’m taking some of these back downstairs to the library. There are easily 5 more in here and I’m tired of making all these links.

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Book Giveaway–The Girl who Played with Fire

Stieg Larsson‘s first book the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I was patiently awaiting his next book, the Girl Who Played with Fire.  Of course waiting isn’t exactly the right term as it’s been ‘done’ for a few years now, it was just a matter of waiting for the translation to be completed.  Luckily, by the power of the net, I was ‘found’ by Alred Knopf’s marketing team which has sent me a free copy of the book to giveaway to my vast and illiterate mass of readers. So I’ll have a competition.  Post your answers below and I’ll pick from the correct responses: 1) How many Ikeas are in there in the world? 2) Who invented Swedish Fish (and why)?  You can make up the second bit. 3) What was the score in the 1980 US-Sweden gold medal hockey game? Ok, that’s enough.  Just post a comment and I’ll send it to one of you. Oh, bonus:  if you want a temporary Dragon tattoo just email me your address and I’ll mail you a bunch.  I probably have about 30 of them from the marketing team at A. Knopf. ]]>

Another day, another human rights activist dead in Russia

This is getting to be a bit repetitive…  

The head of a children’s charity was found shot dead in Chechnya today, a day after she and her husband were abducted by armed men. The bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov were found in the boot of a car in a suburb of the capital Grozny, the human rights group Memorial said. The murder of Ms Sadulayeva comes less than a month after a gang kidnapped and killed Natalia Estemirova, another prominent rights activist in the turbulent southern Russian region.
chechenRamzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, will likely face some additional pressure after this latest killing.  Kadyrov is often accused of removing some of his opponents, and the head of the charity where Sadulayeva worked recently accused Kadyrov of orchestrating a campaign of murder and intimidation.]]>

Watch France 24 on your computer with a desktop widget

When it comes to IPTV, the US has Hulu, and the rest of the world has the really cool stuff. France 24, the France’s government-funded answer to CNN (and in English too)  has been doing some cutting edge stuff like being one of the first ‘live streaming’ applications for the iPhone.  Now they have a desktop widget that will put France 24 on your desktop with relative ease.  Just click to get the widget and turn your PC into a tv (albeit with only one channel)]]>

The half a billion dollar subway line with three stops

Total cost: €320 million, or about $500 million US. And this is a pretty interesting station in that it serves only the Brandenberg Gate and Bundestag, so some are calling it the Chancellor’s line. 130609BER802 Maybe we should just build new cities. Start with the subway systems under basically farmland or deserts and then build the rest of the city atop of the existing tunnels? Might be cheaper. Meanwhile, DC’s Streetcar effort remains hopeless stalled at about two blocks of work. The streetcars are stuck in the Czech Republic, having spent the first few years of their warranty in storage in the factory because DC doesn’t have anywhere to put them yet.]]>