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Indigènes -- a French term used for the African soldiers during the second world war, meaning "natives" -- is a more appropriate title for this movie, than the English release title, Days of Glory . There was little glorious about the participation of North African soldiers in the French army of WWII. Although the North Africans fought for the French motherland, France was hardly open arms for the Africans -- if anything, to this day, those soldiers that are still alive continue to be marginalized and not treated with the same respect of their French counterparts. The movie is about France's shame -- a shame that some are willing to acknowledge, but others, like those of the National Front, dismiss as lies. Indigènes follows a group of Algerians who join the French army as they fight through Italy and Provence to liberate France from the Nazis -- focusing on four, each having their own reasons for fighting in defense of their colonizer. Abdelkade...

Pan's Labyrinth is an amazing movie, set in Francisco Franco 's Spain, at the closing of World War II. It tells the story of Ofelia, a young girl who's mother is remarried to the brutal fascist, Captain Vidal -- and is pregnant with his son. Ofelia and her mother are not loved by Vidal -- he considers Ofelia a nuisance and her mother only a vessel for his son. While waiting for his son to arrive, Vidal goes about reigning terror on the populace of small town and hunting down Republican rebels. In this horrible world, Ofelia seeks comfort, and finds it surprisingly one night, in the form of a praying mantis that morphs into a fairy. The fairy leads Ofelia to a hidden labyrinth, where she meets a faun, who tells Ofelia that she is Princess Moanna of the underworld, and he has been looking for her to return her home. To prove that she has her essence intact, the faun instructs Ofelia to complete three tasks before the next full moon. Ofelia sets about to complete her ...

Desperate times are at hand -- have been at hand -- and continues to be at hand, over at SCO. Desperate times also seem to bring out the conspiracy theorists -- but then again, when you're flipping insane, which is a safe description of anyone still in the employ of SCO -- the jump to conspiracy theorist could be achieved with just a small little stumble, no leap required. SCO is now going after a long-time critic of their suit against IBM, Pamela Jones , a blogger on Groklaw . SCO is trying to find Jones to serve her with a deposition to appear in court because they suspect she isn't real, but is actually a team of IBM lawyers spreading propaganda against SCO. Only problem is, they can't find her. Yeah, and right now, I'm Data Mirror lawyer trying to bring an end to Teilhard .

The UK Sunday Times carries an article suggesting that the 2,500 scientists from 130 countries were simply wrong in their findings that global warming is happening and human activity is the main contributor. Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, writes that perhaps a greater contributor to the recent changes in the global climate may be solar in orgin. Calder presents evidence that changes in the Sun's magnetic field may be temporarily changing the nature of the shield that protects the solar system from cosmic rays originating from extrasolar sources. The evidence Calder presents is plausible. This is science for you. The debate continues. The truth hasn't been found. In every scientific field, until proposed theories can stand up to critics, they continue to face scrutiny. What the general public fail to understand is that this is just science at work. It's slow, tedious, sometimes sure of itself, sometimes not -- and regardless, could be wrong. That...

The EU is set to introduce new rules to turn the screws on businesses and individuals who use blogs, forums or other online entities to misrepresent themselves as consumers. As more consumers take to the internet looking for reviews and information on products and services, the more businesses are realizing that they can influence consumer habits by creating the opinions that consumers seek. You would think with the risk, businesses would not misrepresent themselves -- surprisingly however, many do, or take third parties on the payroll to spin the yarn for them. Next year, companies that get caught representing their opinions as that of consumers will be recognized as such by a trading standards body -- or will face prosecution. It's great that the EU is taking consumer rights seriously, even as they continue to erode in North America. Our governments could learn something here.

You can't even trust the bloggers anymore. Advertising has insidiously wormed its way into blogs, podcasts and videocasts. Is nothing sacred anymore? Actually, nothing was ever sacred when it came to advertising. Next time you read a blog, ask yourself if it's for real, or if it is some machination of a corporate spin department. Read more at the National Post .

What were they thinking when they filed this patent? Microsoft has filed the Securely providing advertising subsidized computer usage patent last week with the US Patent office. The patent proposes a method to provide free computer access in exchange for eyeballs staring at advertising. Sounds like an idea that has been tried and failed already, except Microsoft adds a new twist to it. They will guarantee that consumption of the advertisements by the user has actually happened by having the user interact with the ad. If the user doesn't provide the correct response, the free computer will cease to be free. Who would go for such a deal? Well, Microsoft doesn't specifically say, but they're targeting you and me, including the kiddies who are in school. Yup, you got that right -- schools. The patent itself presents nothing remarkable. Eyeballs for free stuff has been around for a while, but this patent does stand a chance of making it, thanks to inept US Patent Offi...

People seem surprised when they are censored, have accounts deleted and generally get their asses kicked off web 2.0 properties. They shouldn't be. Recently, Nick Gisburne gained the attention of YouTube staffers for the wrong reason. YouTube claims that Gisburne had had too many videos flagged as inappropriate, and wasn't stopping his uploads, so they deleted his account, all his videos and the community that had been subscribing to his work. What Gisburne uploaded and why YouTube found it offensive is one point here, and I'll get to it in a bit -- first however, people, Gisburne included, continue to feel they have ownership of the community they've created on top of the YouTube -- or any other web 2.0 -- platform. The truth couldn't be further from this supposition. The communities created by user generated content doesn't actually belong to the content creators, and can very quickly dissipate in an interpretation of the terms of use policy. YouTube, ...

Here's a community site that caters to the denizens of the cubicles, factories and other places of toil, where life goes to pay penance for the little respite it is afforded. The site aims to make the pain a little less, by giving you the inside dope on managers and companies -- allowing you to query your future before you sign your life away. Thus far, there doesn't appear to be much content on the site -- and of course, it's heavily focused on the US. I wonder how long it will take before corporate HR types descend to populate the site with propaganda. Hmm ... being a manager myself, maybe I should shout out my own accolades before my staff tear a strip off my hide!

What a load of poop! That's what Guardian of the Realm was. The premise of the movie had the makings of b-movie gold, but alas, the execution rusted the gold potential and make it into poop. The movie is about demons -- those denizens of hell that want to take over the world to turn it into hell. I could never understand the motivation. Wouldn't it be a whole lot better to have the world the way it is and just keep messing with humans? I suppose demons aren't that smart ... but neither are the people in this movie, and none of them apparently, had seen a horror movie. A bunch of derelict choir boys started off this little adventure by freeing a demon that had been imprisoned by Buddhist monks centuries earlier. If these guys had seen horror movies, they would have know that the first thing the freed demon would do is kill them. Which is what happened -- more or less -- a couple of them had their bodies used as hosts for other demons. Meanwhile...

I hate to be cynical about this. But the Obama-Clinton battle is just a waste of time. The Democrats need to field a candidate that actually have a chance of winning. America will not elect a black president, no matter how qualified, or how effective a promise he is. Neither will America elect a woman president, no matter how qualified, or how effective a promise she is. The Clinton-Obama contest is only a distraction to the Democratic Party and entertainment for the American people, because at the last moment, they will elect the Republican idiot. Why? There are many more stupid Americans than there are smart ones. That's the problem with democracies. One person, one vote, no matter how ill-informed and unqualified that person is, they have equal voice. Ah ... but it's nice to dream, isn't it?

Ever been screwed by the man? Then you will find this story of Frank and Elizabeth's abuse by Comcast quite familiar. Frank and Elizabeth run a small business, and use Comcast for broadband access to the internet. Their business depends on it. One day, they tried to use the internet and found out to their dismay, that they were disconnected. Comcast had disconnected them as they had violated their unlimited usage account by exceeding their bandwidth cap. WTF??? Yes, you read correctly. Unlimited usage apparently doesn't mean unlimited bandwidth usage. It means there is a bandwidth limit. When Frank contacted Comcast to find out how he violated the terms of the contract, they told him he used too much bandwidth, but refuse to tell him what the limit was, as they couldn't divulge that information to customers. WTF??? Right. So, think it couldn't happen to you? It has happened to me -- with Rogers, right here in Toronto. Rogers suspended my account a coupl...

I've been listening to Sinéad O'Connor 's Throw Down Your Arms and The Black Album for a couple of weeks now -- and whatever people may say of O'Connor's personal life, her public life, and everything in between, she does have a great a voice. Throw Down Your Arms , released in 2005, is O'Connor's foray into reggae music and was produced by reggae gods Sly Stone and Robert Shakespeare . The album is a double CD release, with one CD featuring the original versions of the songs performed by O'Connor, while the second has dub versions. If you haven't heard O'Connor doing reggae, it's certainly something. If you're an O'Connor fan, you might take to it -- even if you're not a fan of reggae music. If you're a reggae fan, this album may take some playing before it takes hold. Surprisingly however, the album has apparently been receiving good reviews. The album contains some pretty good songs, including Downpressor Man an...

Michael Geist has the early warning on the Conservative government's leanings on the net neutrality issue -- and it ain't good for consumers. In the post, Geist provides evidence that government is aware of the telcos intent on prioritizing and levying fees on internet traffic that travel their networks, and don't intend to do much about it. The government is content to sit this one out, abdicating their responsibilities to Canadians to the debate that is happening in the US on the topic. However, policy makers have been successfully lobbied by the telco industry, and from the evidence Geist published, have already determined that the government's position will be to leave consumers at the mercy of the carriers. That means is the gatekeepers to internet content is shaping up to be the telecommunication industry -- who have been steadily rolling out their own content. This just can't be good for any of us. Updated: Feb. 12, 2006 Geist tears into Maxime Bernie...

Bruce Schneier has an essay exploring the psychology of security [PDF] posted on his site. In it, he points out that we're rather irrational beings who are driven by primitive motives buried in our psyche. Most of the time. we're unaware of our subconscious biases -- yet, those biases play a large role in the decisions we make on security -- security of our businesses and our computer systems. We can be driven by fear or the optimism bias. With fear, we tend to exaggerate the risks, and tradeoff freedom and flexibility, for more security. With the optimism bias, we tend to think that the worst would never happen to us, but rather to someone else, and tradeoff security, for freedom and flexibility. Being aware of the irrational responses to security is fairly important, in order to know when your fear or optimism bias are being manipulated by those driven by their own agendas. It's also important for you to know that you have irrational tendencies -- and perhaps, bei...

Steve Jobs has published his thoughts on music , and basically, what it boils down to is that DRM sucks, and you can blame the music industry for it. A lot of people have been pushing Apple, being the largest supplier of DRM-protected music, to either open FairPlay to the industry to allow interoperability, or drop DRM altogether. As Jobs points out, this isn't really his call. The music industry -- the big four -- have placed the DRM restriction on digital music distribution, in order to control distribution of their music. As crazy as it may seem, the music industry however, has not wholeheartedly embraced DRM. For the 2 billion of DRM-protected songs that were sold online last year, there were 20 billion songs sold by the music industry, completely DRM-free, via unprotected CDs. Why do they do this? Because the music industry wants to make sure their songs can be played by as many CD players as possible, and those device manufacturers have not included DRM in their CD pla...

A meteorite that crashed into the frozen Tagish Lake, Yukon, in 2000, is causing quite the stir in scientific circles. The meteorite, a carbonaceous chondrite, containing carbon, silicates and amino acids, may be an example of the wombs from which life as we know it, got started. That in itself is remarkable, but even more remarkable, is the age of the meteorite. It has been dated to be older than our solar system, and contain embedded grains which may be billions of years older than the meteorite itself. The grains are composed of isotopes that could only be formed in extremely cold environments, such as molecular clouds or protosolar discs -- celestial objects from which our solar system would later coalesce from. The meteorite is the oldest object we have yet found on Earth. How cool is that?!

Meeting humanity's needs without harming future generations. It's an old ideal, broadly endorsed by economic development experts, environmentalists, and human rights activists, but formerly too touchy-feely for many American business leaders. Now, however, it's at the top of the agenda of growing numbers of U.S. CEOs, especially young ones. BusinessWeek introduced sustainability to its audience in a recent issue that looked at the progress corporate social responsibility has made in recent times. Sustainability is no longer the fad that businesses pay lip-service to in order to appease employees and customers, while they continue to reap the rewards of plunder . Sustainability is now a strategic business imperative, that corporations gambol with at their peril. In the developed nations, corporations are no longer secure in their stations in industry. Product differentiators are fast disappearing, while the importance of lifestyle marketing and brand value is on the ...

Wired Magazine is running a cover article this month on the really BIG questions -- 42 of them to be exact -- by John Hodgman, nerd in chief on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart . It's an easy pop-science read, good to fill the void of a perfectly boring day, without the loss of brain cells that usually accompany a dose of television. Here, to tickle your curiosity, are the questions I found of interest: Is time an illusion? How does a fertilized egg become human? Why do we sleep? How can observation affect the outcome of an experiment? How do entangled particles communicate? What is the universe made of? Is time travel possible? What happens to information in a black hole? How does the brain calculate movement? How does the brain produce consciousness? Is the universe actually made of information? Can mathematicians prove the Riemann hypothesis? Why do we die when we do? What causes gravity? So, why exactly 42 questions? A nerd would know the answer to that one.

The typical American, with time constraints and family with conflicting schedules, dine out around five times a week. An unbelievable number of time nosh at the McDonald's trough. The number one fast food business feeds 27 million people every day, and its popular meal continues to be a double cheeseburger with fries. While the rest of the world is waking up to health reality of a population gorging its way to obesity -- McDonald's remains a throwback. Yes, you can find some healthier choices at McDonald's, but the company also refuses to change its tried and true, as it would mess would mess with the taste of the portly goodness it serves. Despite this, McDonald's is currently at the top of its game, and all indications predict they will continue to have an outsize share of the paunchy market. McDonald's CEO revels in the knowledge that they have "cracked the code in the United States" -- that Americans love to eat -- all the time -- and are too laz...

Microsoft's Windows Vista looks cool. I saw it the other day at a local computer store. I was tempted to install it to take a look, and perhaps even use it for sometime. (I have this freedom, as my company's enterprise license agreement with Microsoft allows me to use various pieces of software for development purposes.) While Vista is slick, supposedly more secure and perhaps provision some performance gains over previous MS operating systems, I'm still leery of it. Why? Well, I'm just not sure about MS' security -- and by this, I don't mean just the fight against viruses and spyware. I'm also concerned about MS' insistence of validating the OS and revalidating it on a regular basis by uploading data from my machine to MS HQ. Now, I read on a post by Michael Geist that maybe I have even further cause for concern -- and those are buried in Vista's fine print. Apparently, even after I've obtained Vista, it's still not mine -- and not...