The Commission said last week that computer programs will be excluded from patentability in the upcoming Community Patent legislation and that the European Patent Office will be bound by this law.
I am currently halfway through my 2-week vacation in Greece :smile: And having a great time so far. For the next four days I plan to go to the island of Skiathos. I’ll post photos as soon as I get back to the US…
The Cassini Spacecraft and the Hyugens probe have provided us with a wealth of impressive images like the one below:
I’ve collected some intresting pages from NASA, ESA and the Department of Planetary Sciences at Arizona University where you can find extremely high-resolution posters and some movies showing the Huygens descent.
Some days ago I talked about the status of Opera 9 builds and their progress. In fact, everything is getting better and better, but this is not what I wanted to talk about today. After downloading the latest weekly build, I thought of giving the widgets list one more look. Until now, my favorite was the Pandora Radio widget. It still is, but now I think it has a partner: He’s called Bradford and he’s a sweet-looking monkey! No, I am not getting crazy…
So, what does this monkey do besides looking good? He eats URLs! And just like Pythia (the priestess at Apollo’s oracle in Delphi) who was chewing laurel leaves to give her prophecies, this monkey eats the addresses that you feed it and gives you any relevant information it can find! And of course, if you’re interested in more things he can find for you, just ask for more! (Trust me, his answers are probably better than Pythia’s back then!)
Well, okay, sometimes what Bradford says is pretty laughable, but hey! He’s still learning! 
I suggest to all those of you out there who are using those weeklies to give Bradford a chance he’s worth it! The rest of you may have to wait until the final release of Opera9 to find out what this is all about!
Where does he find all this cool stuff? Well, he searches at the same places we all do: Amazon for Books, DVDs, Music, Software and Video Games, Flickr for photographs, Yahoo! for general stuff, Altavista’s Babelfish for translations, the Universal Translator for… ummm… other translations.
When I asked about digg.com, he popped an archive of a wikipedia discussion about it…
If you decide to give Bradford a chance do it with the right attitude: Have fun with him!
The Greek National Anthem is based on the “Hymn to the Freedom“, a large poem (158 stanzas) written by Dionysios Solomos, a poet from the island of Zakynthos. The poem was inspired by the Greek Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire. During 1828 the eminent musician from the nearby island of Kerkyra, Nicolaos Mantzaros, composed the music for the Solomos’ Hymn.
Although King Othon (Otto) decorated both them for their work (1845 and 1849), he did not think (or, maybe, did not want) to replace the Royal Anthem of that time with the Solomos/Mantzaros Hymn. That Anthem was a musical derivative from the German one, with a text glorifying Othon and its Dynasty.
After the overthrow of the Othon’s Dynasty, the new King George I and the Greek establishment decided to neglect the fashion of that time – to use the Royal Anthems also as National – and looked for a clearly Greek work, both with respect to the poetry and the music. The “Hymn to the Freedom” was readily there – extremely popular since the Revolution times, often recited or sung during patriotic meetings and celebrations. So, in 1865, the first two stanzas officially became the Greek national anthem.
“Eleftheria” – the Freedom – is a female word and also a popular female name in Greece. The Solomos’ Eleftheria is not as erotic and earthly as the Delacroix Liberty. It rather reminds an exiled ancient Goddess, which Solomos identifies with Greece itself. A majestic and demanding Goddess, an object of respect and admiration rather than of belief and passion. She has to be imperative, as the poet reviews the whole history of the Greek Revolution, comments on the negative attitude of the Great Forces, describes the pains and the offerings of the rebels, criticizes their dissensions, calls for unanimity and consolidation – always pointing to Eleftheria – the major human value.
The unusual – for an Anthem – 6/4 tempo of the Mantzaros music points clearly to the most manly traditional dance of the Greeks – Tsamiko.
The Hymn to Freedom is also the national anthem of the Republic of Cyprus.
In Greek (full) (you’ll need Greek fonts!)
Latin Transliteration
Se gnoriso apo tin kopsi,
Tou spathiou tin tromeri,
Se gnoriso apo tin opsi,
Pou me via metra tin yi.
Ap’ ta kokala vialmeni,
Ton Ellinon ta iera,
Ke san prota andriomeni,
Haire, o haire, Eleftheria!
English Translation
The Hellenic national Anthem
A translation in English by Rudyard Kipling in 1918We knew thee of old,
Oh, divinely restored,
By the lights of thine eyes
And the light of thy SwordFrom the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again-
Hail, Liberty! Hail!Long time didst thou dwell
Mid the peoples that mourn,
Awaiting some voice
That should bid thee return.Ah, slow broke that day
And no man dared call,
For the shadow of tyranny
Lay over all:And we saw thee sad-eyed,
The tears on thy cheeks
While thy raiment was dyed
In the blood of the Greeks.Yet, behold now thy sons
With impetuous breath
Go forth to the fight
Seeking Freedom or Death.From the graves of our slain
Shall thy valour prevail
As we greet thee again-
Hail, Liberty! Hail!
Literal English translation
I recognize you from the awesome
edge of your sword
I recognize you from the countenance
which surveys the earth with force
Risen from the sacred bones
of the Greeks
and, valiant as before,
hail, oh hail, liberty!
…noodles to be exact.
Biang Biang noodles are a type of noodles popular in province Shaanxi of China. I don’t know how they taste, but the character representing them is more interesting for me (rare thing for something edible!). The character Biang that’s representing them consists of 57 (yes, that’s fifty-seven!) strokes in total! Have a look:
I feel sorry for the waiter who has to write down such an order! (You actually have to write this little beast twice!). This particular character cannot be found in any Chinese dictionary. The most complex character that does exist in dictionaries consists of 36 strokes only and it means “poor enunciation due to snuffle“. And now, I give you the character Nang:
You can find more information in wikipedia’s article on rare and complex Chinese characters and of course in the article about Biang Biang Noodles!
MIT students need to pass one requirement before starting their $100k+ jobs… The test is easy for most, but impossible for some…
Seven days before the test, Stephanie Yeh stood in her sorority house and cried.An electrical engineering and computer science major, she was set to graduate near the top of her MIT class next month and start a six-figure job as a Wall Street analyst.
Just one test, terrifying to her, remained. She, like scores of undergraduates at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had been putting it off for nearly four years. But Yeh and the others have to pass this exam to graduate.
She had to swim 100 yards, four lengths of a pool, without stopping.
The problem: Yeh never learned how to swim.
Ahhh I wish graduate student life was like this… imagine… instead of those freaking quals, just going for a swim…. 
Autumn Colors
