scientists have created artificial life…
can’t wait the day when I’ll be able to program DNA
scientists have created artificial life…
can’t wait the day when I’ll be able to program DNA
the school is held at the Institute Of Physics, Belgrade for the month of July, two times a week
today, Uros Nedic, the guy doing the lecture, arrived a bit late but I managed to find a beautiful park behind the institute with a great view of the Danube river
I had a nice time today
we were learning about Sun OS processes, threads, LWM, kthreads, DTrace, Zones and ZFS
Uros was great while teaching us/giving a lecture, answered all of our questions
I learned a lot
now, here are some pictures I took with my mobile phone, sorry for the bad quality
people more than 700 kilometers apart report seeing this meteor hit Canada
check out this video shot from the police vehicle
I was at my first dog show at Sunday trying to figure out how to get into the breeding/show dog business
I came like 90 minutes late so I missed Dogo Argentino’s, German Shepherds and American Staffordshire Terriers
but I got to see other interesting breeds
my favorite breed is Cane Corso because it is strong, mastiff, calm, smart and obedient
and it’s really easy to show him, he will patiently wait for his turn to go to the show ring and you wouldn’t need any help showing him to the referee
but there’s one big problem with Cane Corso… drooling
I mean, a LOT of drooling
which is really bad because it’s such a great breed
I saw this one Cane Corso that was 11 months old, I guess some people from Zagreb own him
he was HUGE
really HUGE!
and he stood from all the other dogs in his age group, all of them were smaller and not his quality
but the problem was, the owners were nervous, since it was both their and the dogs first show
so they made a couple of mistakes handling the dog, trying to switch guides, calling the dog while he was running… that kind of stuff
and they lost ![]()
I was really pulling for them to win the show
so, I can easily breed Cane Corso and show him but drooling is a big negative
I’ve missed Dogo Argentino show but I got to see the dogs around the show ring and they were impressive in size and demeanor. All of them were calm except for one Dogo that was really aggressive and was caged.
they weren’t drooling which was a big + when you think about Cane Corso
but I somehow have the impression that they are not really smart
sure they’re nice, obedient but I want to see some Dogo obedience, tricks etc.
now let me talk about Rottweilers
I consider rotties my favorite breed right now
they are strong, smart, calm, trainable
they don’t drool much although I guess they drool some but nothing like Cane Corso
but they also tend to overeat (I would fix that
), can show people agression (I would influence that), and they’ve got REALLY strong prey drive
I mean they lock on to something and they are REALLY focused on that
and that’s something I think is misused at the dog shows, or at least this one
rotties had the entire ring, a huge ring, just for themselves for the whole duration of the dog show
what I didn’t like were people clowning themselves with toys so that the dog would stand focused on the toy and the ref could see the dog better
now, the ref didn’t ask those people to goof around
some of them were running outside the ring while the dogs were running in the ring circle, calling the dogs, playing funny sounds from using dog toys etc.
I REALLY didn’t like that
from what I’ve seen, it’s really tough to show a rottie
you need to have someone to occupy dog’s attention while you’re with him in the ring
that means either taking someone with you (wife, friend, cousin) that will loose the day with you or paying someone for the goofing job
Doberman Pinschers were a bit easier to show than rotties but not that easy
you still need to have someone to goof around with dog toys so that the dog would focus on the toys
but the ring is smaller, the dogs are not as aggressive as rotties, and dobbies don’t have such strong drives as rotties
or at least that’s what I saw
dobbies looked impressive with their athletic build and size
they looked great without tail and with cropped ears but I guess it’s cruel to the dogs
but on the other hand, how does a dobbie with a tail and natural ears look like? nothing much? I guess so
rotties have ugly, curled tails but I wouldn’t cut the tail from my rottie
I guess I’d have to if I was in a breeding job because people wan’t them without the tail
I guess I’ll learn more at my next dog show
but from what I hear, next show wouldn’t be until spring :-/
or in Serbian, “Beogradski festival piva”
yet another beer fest
and I’m as always regular at beer fests…
this year was so like other years
Guinness beer is once again served warm (ewww smiley here)
best beer is Paulaner weisbier (white beer)
beer prices are really high, much higher than at the stores which is kind of strange since this is a beer fest, prices should be lower
music is rather booring but I guess people don’t really listen to the music when they’re high on alcohol or other
Kiril Dzajkovski was here tonight and he was great (look him up at youtube.com)
he really has 3 big hits (drum and bass music) and the other tunes are high energy and very listenable but not something you’ll remember in a few years time
actually his hits are songs I used to listen a couple of years ago
I see he’s been combining etno music from the Balcans with high energy tunes and it sounds cool
the best part was a little black girl that did some rap music and then combined with Kiril in one of his songs…
I couldn’t really understand the lyrics she was singing but she was great
Cedric Gervais was booring as was Timo Maas
you’ll find clips at youtube, I couldn’t be bothered to make my own
oh man… where do I start
pics first
we got some really cheap tickets (read it as FREE passes
) for Friday and since we’ve never been to Exit festival in Novi Sad we (my friend and I) decided to try it out
and it was a disappointment
the most notable performers for the night were Rony Size on the Main stage and Laurent Garnier on the Dance stage
Rony had a good sound system, great visual effects and good rhythm but I couldn’t understand a word he or his singer sang.
his singer was a bit more understandable though and the lyrics were not something I’d sing if I knew them
I like Kosheen more
Laurent Garnier had a problem with the bass on his sound system, you heard a crack instead of veeery deep bass.
and he ran some boring techno, a bit more dancey but still boring.
the other stages very mostly techno, at least in that part of Petrovaradin fortress where we hanged out
actually, the best part of the night was us hanging out in a small bar with some interesting girls from Bristol
I didn’t know Serbia had that many inhabitants as the number of people that were at the festival ![]()
the weather was great, there wasn’t any rain like few years ago, but it was pretty dusty, crowdy and without a decent number of places where to sit and rest
food was overpriced by at least 100% and I thought the Tuborg beer was good while my friend actually didn’t like it (more for me, hehe)
I drove back home completely sober (hehe) with a big hangover and my heart beating at sync with the techno tunes we’ve listened to
it’s really hot these days and sometimes I go out and buy an ice cream
well I’ve been buying quite a few ice creams this past few months
here, there are two major ice cream corporations, Delta and Frikom
and actually buying an ice cream can potentially get you a prize
finally I won something
in my coupon it said “Mobile Phone Jewelry”
hmmm
it must be something silly… wtf is “Mobile Phone Jewelry”??
but since I won it and hey, it’s free I called them to arrange delivery
well the lady at the other end insisted to have my personal ID number
and I was not comfortable giving it to her so I passed on the prize
I gave it to a friend that wanted the coupon
the problem these days is that many people want to have your personal details
the more details they have on you the better they will use it to sell you something or maybe worse
that lady didn’t need my personal ID number
she needed just the coupon number
but she insisted to get it
and they like to send their gifts via snail mail
which means they could also have my home address
why am I so hard on my privacy?
well because everyone is violating it
we’re getting biometric passports, biometric personal id cards, biometric drivers licences
that’s too much
I don’t want a biometric anything…
it seems Neo Freerunner is finally beeing shipped to the distributors
for those who have no clue what Neo Freerunner is, it is a mobile phone running Linux
backed by FIC (First International Computer of Taiwan) it is finally going mass market
it is designed to rival the original Iphone
the phone is unlocked (works with any mobile phone network provider) and uses open standards
the hardware specs are 500MHz Samsung S3C2442 CPU, 128MB RAM, 256MB Flash, 4.3″ diagonal display in 640×480 VGA Color TFT LCD, 3D graphics, 2 3D accelerometers, audio, USB port, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, GPS
the recommended price is 400 USD
I like it
read more about it at linuxdevices
Some 20 years ago, biologist Richard Lenski, of Michigan State University took a single Escherichia coli bacteria and then kept on feeding it the glucose
one bacteria lead to many and he made 12 different populations that he kept going for 20 years
but then, at about 31 thousand 500 generations of bacteria later, he noticed Escherichia gained the ability to metabolise citrate
the other populations didn’t develop this
now, being careful, Lenski has an archive of every 500 generations stored, so he could replay the process and see if the later generations would develop the same ability (mutation)
the result was, only the original population developed the same mutation when replayed
read more about it here