DJ Wiij [prounounced deejay wee-jay]: the original bluetooth wireless dj control setup using Wiimotes.

A very interesting application for the Wii remote controller indeed. Check out the technique and features over at the site DJ Wiij.
They are using a freeware application called GlovePie, that is able to recognize the Wii remote controller as an input device for the computer, and with that program they than control the (digital) turntables. There are a few scripts already available for GlovePie, and it features much more than just the Wiimote, e.g. Gamepads, Joysticks and even VR Gloves.

Just if you are wondering what the banner above this line displays, it’s the Google logo in braille. Anyway, I am using Google mail since about half a year now, after a presentation at a friends place convinced me that sorting mails by conversation is extremly convenient. The only not-so-good thing about gmail is that is does not support PGP encryption. But there are some clever plugins (mostly javascript) that enable the webmail to do even more than it normally does:
First, there’s the complete collection over at GmailTips.com and a very interesting guide I found on another blog - Hack Attack: become a Gmail master. The latter site, Lifehacker is especially nice for so-called geeks and in general everyone who wants to be more efficient when using their computer.

The Guinness book of records sure has some strange records in it, like putting 60+ cigarettes in your mouth at the same time and such feats. But this one sadly tops them all:

That kind of deadpan humor happens when dynamic pages get created with database entries sometimes. I don’t think that anyone who wants to “break” this “record” would first announce it to Guinness…

I already wrote about how funny the 30-second Bunny Theatre from Angry Alien Productions are almost two years ago. I almost forgot about the sheer craziness that evolves when bunnies re-enact famous movies, and when they don’t have more than 30 seconds time to pull off the particular story. So without much further ado, I’ll just take you to the latest entries from the troupe:

Borat: Cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Bunzakhstan
Brokeback Mountain
Caddyshack
Fight Club
Highlander
King Kong
Pulp Fiction
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Reservoir Dogs
The Ring
Rocky
Star Wars
Superman Returns
War of the Worlds

The most laughs I definately got out of the Star Wars one: not only does it feature outtakes which no other of the features has, but there is a short frame of the famous Cantina, and the bunnies hum the cantina melody - how sweet! And of course the Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs ones are great too, especially the scene with Butch, Marsellus and Zed from the first one. Here all the bunnies have to say after the humiliating scene is “We cool?” - “We cool!”

Experience teaches that, of all the emotions, fear stands alone in its power to move us, or to capture us in its grip forever. In a world of terrors, there is nothing more fearsome that the unknown…especially when what is unknown is ourselves.

The Outer Limits

LiteStep, Sphere XP, GeoShell, I have tried lots of alternative shell replacements for the user-unfriendly and unefficient Windows Explorer. As an aside, I still cannot figure out, why Microsoft has to make explorer.exe the shell, file manager and browser - if one of them crashes it will pull the others down with it into the data abyss. Anyway, I was never truly satisfied with any of the shell replacements - Talisman was too slow and clunky, LiteStep (while being probably the most-customizable of them all) too bug-laden, Sphere XP too funky and GeoShell was on the side of LiteStep. Also there is always the problem when you have a system crash or need to reinstall the OS, all your flashy desktop features will probably be lost in oblivion, and some applications and especially full-screen ones don’t work too well with the shells.

But now I may have found revelation where I did not suspect it - the data storage folder on the netdrive of my new workplace. The name of this little application is Desktop Sidebar. It is not a shell replacement, rather a shell enhancement. A sticky sidebar for the left or right (or anywhere else) side of the desktop which is highly customizable. Although it isn’t Open Source it still is Freeware and doesn’t come with any spyware attached. On the website there is also a community place with lots of useful plugins and skins.
This sidebar is just like a regular application that can be loaded when Windows starts, but it also can fully replace the standard taskbar if you choose to. I for myself really like to have a neatly ordered space on my desktop where I see if I got new mails (and from whom and about what those are), control Winamp, check the latest news, blogs and comics via RSS feeds, play a little sudoku, and of course - manage up to 4 virtual desktops, which no “cool” shell should miss.

So if you are generally interested in making your workspace more efficient (and stylish if you like) you should give the sidebar a try.

That Murat Kurnaz - a turkish citizen and legal german resident - was imprisoned for 5 years in Guantanamo Bay, is old news already. At last he was released from his agony in august 2006 and shipped back to Germany. News agencies around the world covered the evolution of his sad story: Spiegel, BBC, Washington Post, Deutsche Welle, International Herald Tribune, Yahoo!, and countless more.

But also german right-wing boulevard tabloid BILD covered the story all the way through, and of course according to their point of view. On January, 31st one of the tabloids daily commentary authors, Franz Josef Wagner wrote the following in his column “Mail from Wagner“:

Sie hätten den Häftling erlösen, befreien können. Sie haben es aber nicht gemacht. Ich hätte es übrigens auch nicht gemacht.
[…]
Der Bremer Türke ist für mein Leben nicht so wichtig. Wichtig ist für mich die Sicherheit.

Translation:
You [the government] could have freed the prisoner, redeemed him. But you did not. I wouldn’t have done it either.
[…]
The Turk from Bremen isn’t crucial for my life. Only safety matters to me.

If he had written “I do not care about the life or death of any random turk, I only care about my own personal safety and the pureness of Germany” it’d carry the same message, but at least it’d be the honest truth (of what Wagner and most of BILD think) and not some kitsch that tries to emulate journalism.