I recently had the luck of finding out about a computer game called Osmos.

The game itself is very simple; you’re a blob of energy or somesuch, and you grow bigger by consuming blobs smaller than you. You can move around by expelling small pieces of your mass, this makes you smaller and more vulnerable to other blobs.

Sounds maybe too simple? Well! Not quite, the blobs have inertia, there is repulsing blobs and so on.

Also, the presentation is simply so wonderfully calm and beautiful. Set on an ambient music background, playing the game has some sort of tranquilling effect on me. It’s kind of like watching a lava lamp, and playing it too.

Check out the Osmos demo, and if you like it, buy it. It’s only $10. I bought it and I think it’s well worth the money.

You’ve perhaps read part I and tried it. Everything works until the moment when you need to electronically sign a document. The web browser barfs an error message, you cannot sign anything.

The good news is that this is super simple to fix.
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Here are step-by-step instructions about how to get the Swedish e-Legitimation to work in Linux. The instructions are specifically for Nordea bank customers.

You need the “pocket calculator” cardreader (I used Todos NCR1), a suitable USB cable and a card with an EMV chip. If you have Nordea-issued bankkort or VISA you’re OK.

Note: These instructions are Debian-specific but they should work with other distros too with appropriate, slight changes.

Update: Signing will most likely be broken for you, but you can fix the signing too.

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Apple released their mysterious tablet computer, called iPad.

The marketing slogan used for it is “Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelieveable price”. Indeed, it is revolutionary in the business model it represents.

The hit products which Apple has made recently include the music player iPod, the smartphone iPhone, and now the table computer iPad. What do all these have in common? Snazzy UI, yes, but also the closed hardware and the tight lock-in with the Apple App Store (and iTunes for media content).

On a more abstract level, every single one of those devices give the vendor more or less exclusive control over what you can and cannot run or view in your device.

Is this the magical and revolutionary new way of the future? If so, count me out.

BBC reports that “The head of Russia’s federal space agency has said it will work to divert an asteroid which passes near the Earth in the 2030s.”

The asteroid in question is 99942 Apophis, which currently stands at 1:250000 odds of smashing into Earth on 2036. 99942 Apophis also has a close fly-by on Friday, April 13th, 2029.

I am delighted that such a high-level instance is speaking so strongly in favor of asteroid protection.

Indeed, Apophis could be a good candidate to practise deflection, since we already know it’s coming and know the orbit relatively well too. Plus, there is enough time to act.

Some previous posts about the asteroid threat and why it is important to do something about it are here and here.

Today is the day when my native country, in 1917, stopped being a Grand Duchy of Russia and started being an independent nation.

For Finns 6th of December is a very important day. Flags fly, and there’s a traditional military parade in some city. People light (usually blue-white) candles to remember the independence and most importantly the people who died defending the independence.

Another big tradition is the President’s Independence Day reception at the Presidential Castle in Helsinki. They air that on television, and most of the nation (something like nearly half!) sits and watches who is invited, how the movers and shakers are dressed, and who, if any, will cause a scandal this time.

A nice thing is that the reception is streamed on the Internet too, and therefore can be seen from abroad too. So my plans for today are to make some nice food, tuna fillets with leek-onion white wine & parsley sauce and mushroom-leek risotto, open a white wine and watch the reception via Internet!

So I got a discount voucher, and went to a Subway restaurant and grabbed a sandwich.

They gave me a freebie to go, a little bag of potato chips.

Normally, potato chips are made of 1. potatoes, 2. oil, 3. salt. That’s it. How boring.

Luckily this one was barbeque flavored one!

Here’s the list of stuff contained in the barbeque flavor – a handy list if you wish to barbeque-flavorize your morning yoghurt or your living room rug, although it might be wisest to not try to make it at home, unless you possess a meth lab in the basement:

• sugar
• whey powder (from milk)
• rusk (from wheat)
• flavour enhancer (monosodium glutamate, aka. MSG)
• flavourings (contains wheat, soya, lactose)
• colour (paprika extract, caramel)
• sweetener (aspartame)

How could they fit all that into that tiny 27,5 g bag? Well, it was tasty, though.

The Google Chromium OS is open sourced.

In the world of Chromium OS, applications will be web apps. Access to the applications will be through the web browser. The web apps live in the cloud, i.e. in a bunch of servers somewhere in the Internet.

In light of this, let’s talk about cloud computing. More specifically, let’s talk about the security and privacy trade-offs of non-cloud and cloud computing.

Do you trust the cloud?
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A battle took place, at a narrow sea-shore lined track at Thermopylae, about 2500 years ago. The defenders fought valiantly against the Persians but were ultimately killed to the last man.

Simonides of Ceos wrote about it with these words:

Go tell the Spartans, you who read:
we took their orders, and lie here dead.

Thanks to Christophe-Marie, who sent me a link of a very interesting video of a UI concept where the mouse is no longer relevant. Instead, multi-finger touch is used, with quite natural gestures.

Here’s the 10/GUI video by C. Miller.

Why do I like it?
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