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Gaberlunzie
Skype may be smart: Nokia UK users battle
Gaberlunzie's ears picked up at a Reuter piece on Skype (having tied up a deal with Verizon) now unveiling software from Nokia Oyj, which could run on more than 200m smartphones around the world.
Asparaginase for French fries (chips)
Ghent University researchers from the department of Food Safety and food Quality have developed a technique to reduce acrylamide in French fries on an industrial scale. Acrylamide is a product that may cause cancer and was discovered in various foods.
Of stripping and the weapons to hand
Ably assisted by Tony Robinson (who despite this, emerges as the fall guy) and judiciously edited by Clare Francis, author Leonora Soculitherz, takes her own ultra fashionably, chatty, confidential route through “Striping for Freedom” or “taking control of your own destiny by going it alone” as an entrepreneur.
Trout fishing in May?
Gaberlunzie's dream, was ruffled by a project of Powan aimed at safeguarding the future of one of the UK’s rarest freshwater fish species currently underway in Scotland. Populations of the powan (Coregonus lavaretus), a species of freshwater whitefish, are only found in Loch Lomond and Loch Eck, with both populations having existed in total isolation since the last ice age.
Will robotic Valentines appeal?
Gaberlunzie was amused by one Valentine suggestion of Hexbugs and is considering whether the top of the range inchworm, or more limited crab, ant or nano would be most appealing to someone who loathes spiders! He reckons the original Hexbug should be avoided in this case.
Sponsorship & awards: heavy on art, light on words
The Highlands and Islands honour a photographer journalist from Skye. This year's Barron Trophy for lifetime achievement does goes to to a Lochaber journalist. Scotland meantime breaks out with continue arts sponsorship, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise also works to promote home-grown artistic talent. Rather less definitive is what constitutes 'art' - clearly photography, paintings, sculptures, galleries, museums, music and theatre are there, but publishers, playwrights, writers, and poets and seem to be a weaker dimension.
Bee colony declines need ISO for evaluation
Central Europe bee colonies has decreased over recent decades and numbers of beekeepers has been declining in the whole of Europe since 1985. Researchers analysed data that available from national beekeeper magazines and national reports, to calculate the total number of bee colonies and beekeepers. reconstructing the number of bee colonies between 1965 and 1985 for 14 European countries and then for 18 European countries between 1985 and 2005.
Homecoming Florida 2010
The roar of the crowd just outside the orange plastic fence hit jet engine loud just as Ching McKee, in long curly hair and a dark tartan kilt, launched a telephone pole skyward, upward, then over. And just then, pandemonium erupted behind him as a smile lit up his face.
Bees contend for Euro funds
Gaberlunzie is an unashamed bee lover, would like to keep them and will always vote on the bees side. According when the BBCT Newsletter rolled in and offered a voting link for them….
12345 once I caught a fish alive: sorry oicaf5
Gizmag and others have picked up on that old chestnut, passwords a knotty issue for security where 123456 does not hack it! Gaberlunzie sees that the findings of a report by Imperva, a data security firm, that analysed 32m passwords recently exposed in the Rockyou.com breach. They identify the most common, and easily-guessable, but they also suggested some effective methods for creating secure ones.
Multilingual OCR Converter: Pictish no problem
A versatile piece of software Image to OCR Converter has thrown up some local dudgeon over differences between Irish and Scottish Gaelic, not to mention the historical inaccuracies, as the blockbuster film 'Eagle of the Nineth' will not have any Pictish speaking actors.
New virtual Scottish newspaper
For Scottish technology and other watchers comes the Caledonian Mercury a virtual daily offering sport, politics heritage, health, world, rab, entertainment, outdoor, stranglets, and bIz tech, which understandably, with the Apple tablet due out any day, is focused on e-books.
The payoff in types of people
Gaberlunzie, having returned from holiday to be confronted by a whip-yielding editor, was sent a email on that old chestnut joke on types of people.
There are only 10 types of people who understand binary. Those who do, and those who don't.
Spring festival of snowdrops
The Scottish Snowdrop Festival initiative was started at Cambo Estate, just south of St Andrews, in Fife where snowdrops, snowflakes and aconites carpet the 70 acres of woodland of the Estate, near St Andrews and are a focus of its renowned 'snowdrops in the green' mail order business. The Festival has now spread to more than 50 Scotland wide participating gardens.
Scotland's vanishing landscape
The public is being encouraged by the Scottish government to spend more time outdoors to appreciate the country's spectacular landscapes and its wildlife in the United Nation's International Year of Biodiversity. The government should operhaps have added the warning that granting Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission Ltd (SHETL) consent to install the 400,000V overhead electricity transmission line to replace the 132,000V line between Beauly, near Inverness, and Wharry Burn, near Stirling, some of that stunning scenery as it is seen now, will vanish.
Hope for the Arduaine Gardens survival
The 115 year old Arduaine Garden, threatened with closure by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) earlier this year, has won a 12-month reprieve after a sustained campaign by local supporters of the Kilmelford site which holds the widest range of rhododendrons in the UK, including rare species from across the world brought back by botanist George Forrest.
Gaberlunzie computes some top best links
It's silly season reader filler time, where the world seems to emerge with the top 20, the next best 100 and even an eight great. Not to be outdone Gaberlunzie offers his current 20 with apologies to hundreds of others.
Art: computer and human interpreting skills
While some researchers find computers lack the the high level pictorial information to place art in a period, the human eye fares better at facial expressions recognition over a minimum 100 millisecond moving image.
Where the sun shines
Gaberlunzie has had another email Christmas card, and it has just got the edge on EPSRC's elegant "Let it snow." It comes from the Scottish Agriculture Centre news and shows just the sort of weather and scenery that has greatest appeal -water, mountains & sunlight!
And if the sun don't shine, EPSRC answers: Let it snow
Gaberlunzie wants to share the EPSRC's Christmas card with everyone.
Cracker fun from the Joking Computer
The "Joking Computer" developed by scientists at Aberdeen,Edinburgh and Dundee Universities for the Glasgow Science Centre, shows children and young people what computers can do, helps them explore language and engage with the underlying science.
Smartphone music spreads
One of the earliest books Gaberlunzie had the pleasure of reviewing was "Music by Computers" from the 1966 Fall Joint Computer Conference, edited by Heinz Von Foerster and James W Beauchamp, which amazingly came with 5 thin vinyl records. The most charming of which, he recalls, was humour of "The British Grenadiers" eliding into "When Johtnny Comes Marching Home." So he sees with great pleasure that the piano tuner for the prestigious BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra naturally uses an iPhone app as a routine part of his work in tuning the Steinway pianos. And in the US, both Stamford and Michigan orchestras are using the iPhone and smart mobiles to make live concerts.
Voicing your grievance, choirs do it for you
Gaberlunzie saw the sun come out today and is enchanted by the idea of a Complaints Choir, He especially falls around at the Finish one where the gloom faces simply can't always hold it.
It moans about people on escalators, women's pay, wives always complaining and how Finnish is difficult to learn, among other grouses, complaints and grievances.
Known art for £250: unknown art for £40
Paintings by some of Scotland’s most coveted artists will be going for a song later this week (Friday, 4 December 2009) at the annual Christmas exhibition organised by The RGI (The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts).
© Compute Scotland 2009
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