These are some notes I took at the talk of Prof. Behrens today, who seemed a bit worried about the ruling of the German Constitutional Court on the Lisbon Treaty, which brings some structural changes to how the European Union works.

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The School of Economics and Management of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, in the framework of the Jean Monnet Module, would like to invite you to the Jean Monnet Special Lecture (held in English language):

”The German Constitutional Court’s Judgment on the Lisbon Treaty”

which will be held on the 9th of November in Bozen/Bolzano at 6 p.m. in room D 103.

The lecture will be held by Peter Behrens, Professor emeritus at the Law Faculty of the University of Hamburg and Managing Director of the Institute for European Integration at the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg.

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What’s so immoral about downloading music through unofficial channels? And why is it called pirating? Why should this be “stealing?” Stealing to me means deprive somebody from something, but as a matter of fact the owners still have their music. So is the problem “unallowed access to specific resources?” It’s not appropriation, but a matter of access. So what’s the difference between listening to music at a friend’s place and downloading it on one’s computer? Access.

Some other questions: If I download something “illegally” and enjoy it, why does that mean the record companies lost money because of me? What money? Am I really a potential customer only because I like the product? Does the fact that I download the product automatically imply that I would buy it if I didn’t have the possibility of downloading it? I doubt so.

We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the earth.

(Some of my favourite parts from A man on the moon, by Andrew Chaikin. Read it, it’s definitely worth it!)

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So knowledge seems to give power to people who have it. Information, that’s its more modern description. To this regard I have two questions:

  1. What can/would a big organization do with a huge collection of personal/public data about lots of people?
  2. How would this be different with countries/governments and multinational companies?
So we live in a meshed world, where to be connected or not to be connected, to have access or not to have access, seems to be the question. Is it an illusion believing that the Internet can help to further develop democracy, perhaps at a world-wide level?

Hi folks,

Recently I’ve been playing an online application with some Kawashima style puzzles. Envious at the first few highscores in the worldwide ranking I decided to write some application to train myself in arithemtics.

Funny enough, this made me also appreciate very much the Python scripting language! It is after all the language I learned to program with (began to) and has some really really nice features C, C++ and Java lack: no heavy syntax burden between you and the algorithm, functions as values (implies many things like passing them as parameters to some functions or getting them within a return value), flexible OOP and surely some more I didn’t see in this short experience.

Check out the code! And use it -)

download

MuhAuhauhauhuhauhauhAuhauhAUHU HAuhauhAuhauhUHAuh ahauhauhaUHUHAuh auhAuhaHUhUAuhauh mwaahuhahuauhauha This one is really kicking me off the chair because I can’t stop laughing!!!

The One Ring

So there is this website selling “The One Ring” and you can also choose among three different variants of the __ONE__ ring, __THE__ powerful __ONE__ ring gnauhauhauhauhuha

What may a shop clerk say to a potential customer? “If this One Ring is not the one you like, you can have this other One Ring..”

btw, notice how the mouse pointer changes when you hover a link on that webpage… METALLLLL \m/

I’m seriously thinking of buying these, they really sound like a groundbreaking new way of creating artistic content. The author of the review doesn’t really seem to be an industry insider but shows nevertheless in a very clear way pros and cons of those “pencils”.

Oddly enough, one reader is suggesting there ALREADY exist newer versions of this stuff! Kewl!

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-02-11-n78.html

Check out this very interesting article on Forbes speculating about the future of computing. I think the author really does make a good point, but unfortunately doesn’t elaborate the idea further or in more detail.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1112/074.html

Everyone and everything is a mesh in a net, everyone and everything is influenced by anything else and influences anything else. Everyone and everything is defined by anything else, just as everyone and everything defines anything else. In this view, I really appreciate the following quote:

“As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes.”
—Buddha

I finally received the things ordered at thinkgeek, and among them there are some astronomical posters. Check them out and ask yourself, where am I, what am I?

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The historical Buddha (”awakened one”), Siddharta Gautama, lived in India/Nepal 2500 years ago. He was surrounded by luxury and wealth at the court of his father, leader of a small kingdom in today’s Nepal. The prince was supposed to become a political leader but became a spiritual leader instead. At the age of 29 he left the court and chose the life of a monk.

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