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The Chair is made with drawing paper, as the paper is being “drawn upon�?, the size of the front cylinder increases and thus follows the child’s growth!- age 2-7 Years. Clean paper is transferred from the back cylinder to the front simply by rolling the front cylinder backwards. The amount of paper is approx. 500 meters, which means that the paper can be changed twice a week for 5 years.

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Britain could lose its ability to impose environmental taxes, restrictions and safeguards on airlines under a draft treaty between the EU and US which curtails the power of national governments. The draft treaty, meant to liberalise aviation, includes a little noticed clause requiring EU states to reach agreement with each other and with the US before taking measures to tackle noise or pollution from airlines.

The text of the draft “open skies” treaty, obtained by the Guardian, is likely to alarm environmental activists who argue that the seemingly unstoppable growth in air travel is among the main contributory factors to global warming. Aviation emissions rose by 12% last year and now account for about 11% of Britain’s total greenhouse gas emissions – the fastest growing sector. The government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has described global warming as a bigger threat to the world than global terrorism.

“Open Skies” means a US veto on European environmental regulations? Wow.
We would have to wait for the climate change deniers in the US to come around before we could do anything about airline emissions here?

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Is the sky falling in on our smug little Mac universe?

On Tuesday, there was news of a security hole in Apple’s Safari web browser that allows a system to be compromised by merely visiting a website. And last week, the first worm to pose a serious threat to Mac OS X, Leap-A or Oompa Loompa, raised its ugly little head.

[..]

These Mac security holes are a storm in a teacup. They’ve inspired hundreds of stories in the press and even the national network news, but if they were Windows holes, no one would have blinked.

That’s because holes in Windows are routine, business as usual, while it now appears the Mac is under attack thanks to Apple’s brand-new high profile. But this isn’t the case.

Last month, there were four “massive” virus attacks on Windows, according to Commtouch, an antispam and antivirus vendor. Indeed, viruses are now so aggressive, they routinely outpace attempts by antivirus companies to distribute protective signatures.

This state of affairs is now so common, I hadn’t noticed — and I work for a technology news site. “Virulent computer virus infects millions worldwide, other non-news at 11.”

These Mac “threats” are only news because of their novelty, not the threat level they pose.

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Yet why aren’t we dual booting already? Money. Most of you are undoubtedly aware of “The Contest,�? a 12,000 dollar pot that will be going to the first person to provide a viable dual booting method to the site’s owner. Also note the “onmac�? network – and advertisements – that the contest has bequeathed to the once minimalist site as well… another interesting commentary on money.

[..]

t’s all quite predictable – nothing is getting done because the sharing of information has stopped. Were there no contest, IRC channels would be full of dedicated developers sharing what they’d learned through trial and error, swapping ideas and encouraging each other. I’ve talked with some people who are very close to success… but their efforts are not public. As it stands, sharing what you’ve learned could cost you $12,000.

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“It’s hard for me to worry about the studios losing money. I’m not very sympathetic to their money problems, because they certainly haven’t been sympathetic to mine.

“When you look at one of their accounting sheets you realise you’re never going to see a penny, so if someone wants to rip them off that’s fine with me.

“If you’re going to pirate, though, make sure the quality’s good. Have some respect for what you’re pirating!”

– Terry Gilliam

via

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Swiss and Belgian police have shut down a major component of the eDonkey file-sharing network, used mainly to trade copies of copyrighted movies and music, the Motion Picture Association said on Wednesday.

Razorback 2 was the biggest server on the eDonkey peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which transfers data from user to user. Music companies have blamed P2P piracy for causing a drastic downturn in sales, and Hollywood is trying to prevent a similar impact on the movie business.

“Swiss authorities arrested the site’s operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home,�? the MPA said in a statement. “At the same time, on the authority of a local magistrate, Belgian police seized the site’s servers located at an Internet hosting center in Zaventem near Brussels.�?

Want to know something funny? Check the MPAA press release PDF (mirror).

At the end of the press release there’s a hidden registration link. Apparently the MPAA doesn’t bother to register their free trial software when they start using it commercially. Could the BSA please tell them how much money the software industry lost this year because of piracy?

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Nederlandse auto’s krijgen een sticker waaraan te zien is hoe vervuilend ze zijn. Gemeenten kunnen hiermee hun parkeerbeleid wijzigen en vervuilende auto’s meer laten betalen. ‘Het labelsysteem hebben we binnen enkele maanden klaar’, zegt staatssecretaris van Milieu Pieter van Geel (CDA). Dat schrijft de Volkskrant donderdag.

Wat het verschil in vervuiling is tussen een geparkeerde auto in categorie 1 en een geparkeerde auto in categorie 2 is niet duidelijk. Met daadwerkelijke vervuiling – gereden kilometers – houdt het plan in ieder geval geen rekening. Bovendien is het niet te handhaven. Immers:

Burgers zijn volgens het ochtenblad niet verplicht de stickers te kopen. Als ze geen sticker hebben, worden ze geweerd uit gebieden waar een zogenoemd fijn stofalarm van kracht is.

Oftewel: “Maar mijnheer de rechter, toen ik er parkeerde was er nog geen stofalarm!”

Ik verwacht dat het hele plan de prullenbak in gaat zodra er iemand procedeert met als uitgangspunt dat de betreffende auto de APK gewoon gehaald heeft, en dus aan de daarin geldende roetnormen voldoet, en dus gewoon toegestaan is op de nederlandse weg. Of is het argument dat een dergelijke auto wel mag rijden, maar niet overal mag parkeren (en dus rondjes moet blijven rijden)?

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When you type “startkeylogger” in a populated IRC channel you will notice that many of the clients in the channel quit, with the quit message: “Read error: Connection reset by peer”.

I’m guessing Norton AV now automatically assumes any incoming cleartext ‘startkeylogger’ on any of the standard IRC ports equals commands issued to a rootkit on the local machine, and immediately closes the connection.

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An attack Wednesday that destroyed the soaring gold dome of one of ShiiteIslam’s holiest shrines is being interpreted by most Shiites here as a direct attack on their faith – and has sharply raised sectarian tensions.

It’s unclear if any people were killed in the massive explosion in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. But the destruction of the shrine may be the most emotionally charged of attacks on Shiite targets thus far in the war, and could set back already hamstrung efforts to form a government of Shiite and Sunni unity.

As citizens deserted the streets of Baghdad in the wake of the attack, many said they feared this could be a seminal moment in Iraq’s low-intensity civil war.

“The war could really be on now,” says Abu Hassan, a Shiite street peddler who declined to give his full name. “This is something greater and more symbolic than attacks on people. This is a strike at who we are.”

[..]

Samarra is not simply a Sunni city with a Shiite shrine at its heart. It hosts a confusing welter of tribal allegiances and rivalries that have left it violent and unstable since the war began. About half of its 200,000 residents have abandoned the city in the past two years, and US soldiers built a vast earthen berm around it last August in an effort to keep insurgents out.

The city’s history is also wound up with an age-old Sunni-Shiite rivalry, as well as with the apocalyptic beliefs of many Shiite clerics, like Sadr. The shrine contains the tombs of Ali al-Hadi and his son Hasan al-Askari, the 10th and 11th imams of Shiite Islam who died in the 9th century. Legend has it that Askari’s son, Muhammad al-Mahdi, was born in the city. It is one of four main Shiite pilgrimage sites in Iraq.

Mahdi was the 12th and final of the Shiite imams. Legend has it that he was “occulted” by God before his death, and will return to earth to bring an era of justice and peace, followed by the end of the world. Sadr’s militia is named for this imam.

Sadr and his followers are convinced that the time for the Mahdi’s return is close. “He disappeared into a supernatural realm from there … so this will be interpreted as an attack on the imam al-Mahdi, an attack on their guy; so for the Sadr people it’s an apocalyptic moment,” says Cole. “There will be reprisals.”

There was also outrage in Iran, the most populous Shiite state, whose president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, is a deep believer in the looming return of the Mahdi.

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Rug 1 appears to be dated 3/3/57. February 1, 1979 corresponds to the 3rd day of the 3rd month of 1357, which coincidently is the day Khomeini returned from France. Secondly there is the French tri-color on the plane’s tail. The preceding word is hard to read but could be related to childbirth or the making of an epoch. Between the plane and the car appears to be a rising sun, an Iranian national symbol (usually shown in rugs rising over a lion’s back). This rug most likely, commemorates Khomeini’s return to Iran.

(for more amazing rugs, visit warrug.com)