Swine/Avian flu comeback?

We've seen  the avian/bird flu to "fly away" from the media attention, as soon as a new wave of infection, called swine flu, popped out. There exist 3 main "types" (genus / species) of influenza virus - A, B and C. Their "subtypes" (serotypes / strains) are really easy to merge with each other and create a whole new subtype, which isn't covered by a vaccine. If you still didn't understand it, imagine crossing a black cow with a white cow and ending up getting a black cow with white spots (or vise versa) - that's a rather simplistic comparison!

Now, CDC and the pharmaceutical companies (and subsequently the doctors that cooperate with them) warn about the widespread influenza virus infection. They expect the same or similar strains that have appeared so far. To some of you, this might look like "a big game" played by medicament-related companies. I have no idea what's going in the background and in the behind-closed-doors meetings, but one thing is sure: You have to be prepared.

Note for employers: this really concerns you, if you don't want to have insufficient personnel unexpectedly!
CDC has a well-written article about how should businesses and employers be prepared for the winter: http://www.flu.gov/plan/workplaceplanning/guidance.html




It may statistically be a pandemic crisis, but if people and public areas are well-prepared there's nothing to be afraid of. Quite honestly, I doubt anyone of you reading this post will face any serious symptoms. Surely pre-schools, schools and libraries can provide better hygiene control, teaching children how to wash their hands properly is a great way to start. Secondly, liquid hand sanitizers should be available in some rooms. Moreover, it should be possible to "recycle" the air in the premises, providing a fresh set every now and then; for instance, leaving a window open for a couple of minutes while on break.


Sneezing, coughing and even talking might expel liquid (droplets) along with some particles (droplets nuclei). One of the best ways to trigger attention while warning other people is to show why sneezing and coughing are bad, and some pictures of the actual moment are a good way to start:
- http://pileofphotos.com/view/188/People-sneezing
- http://www.immediart.com/catalog/popup_image.php?pID=434



It's common sense that some people will get sick during the winter. That doesn't mean that they all will catch the bird or the swine flu. Babies should of course be taken care of and checked by a paediatrician, whereas adults and teenagers should also take precautional measures.

The easiest pathways for a micro-organism to enter our body is through the mouth, the eyes or the nose. The droplets from sneezing and coughing are really contagious. Therefore, "nose-picking", "eye-rubbing", "thumb-sucking" etc. should be avoided at all times; or at least until you get your hands cleaned! :-)


Also note that one of the first symptoms is almost always a sudden fever, followed by a runny nose/sore throat/higher fever after 8-12 hours; they might not all be expressed and might be in a different sequence!

There is one thing though in this whole bird/swine flu story that drives me nuts. The western capitalistic countries seem to be in a non-infective bubble. Many people in the least developed or developing countries don't have the adequate medical equipment nor the vaccines to combat and prevent the virus from spreading. Because of this, people might die, and only a few of us care. The media simply draw attention to what happens in the "western civilization", avoiding to show deaths that happen in other places of the world, where - under famine and food shortage - pathogenic micro-organisms spread wildly and only some of us provide help.

If the flu was just a marketing trick to cause mass hysteria and sell out their vaccine merchandise, I have a brutal comment for such companies, but then again I prefer not to  express my opinion.


Finally, I recommend taking the "Flu I.Q." test, it's a fun way of being informed about general information and facts regarding the influenza virus:

People are practically showing off where they got their songs on last.fm

I just stumbled upon the famous http://last.fm/ website - really great website that tracks down your audio preferences. Useful to show off your stats and music to your friends.
It's unfortunate that many people practically show off the origin of their (illegally downloaded?) songs, take a look: http://www.last.fm/search?m=all&q=www.

Makes you think again before posting your audio along with your personal information... ;)

belimantil.info hacked

About 2 days ago, I saw this on belimantil.info:




Astounded my first thought was "What the hell?!". I was looking for a revision text one of my colleagues wrote, and fortunately it was available on another site. medforum2 (a forum created by medical students for general talk, exams and medicine-related discussion) was hosted on that domain, I thought of visiting and saw one of my colleagues complaining about the same thing.

Today I re-visited the site, only to find that it wasn't working! Naturally, my techie side kicked in several minutes afterwards, and I started looking into whether it was their fault (probably) or the web administration (why not?). So the whois command revealed the nameserver, I decided to visit oklopsrbija.com, their hosting provider.

Poštovani klijenti,

 Prekjuce je izvrsen napad velike grupe palestinskih hakera koji su "u borbi protiv Izraelaca" uspeli da zaobidju sve zastite na serveru i ishakuju sve naloge. Juce je ceo dan bila rekonstrukcija fajlova i pojacanje zastite.
 Nocas je uglavnom proradilo sve. Otezan je jos pristup cPanelu. Klijenti kojima je hakovanjem ostecena indeks stranica a nemaju backup tog fajla, neka ostave ticket sa subjectiom: "backup index fajla" i uradice se parcijalni restore podataka za te klijente, pocevsi od petka ujutru, i samo za klijente koji zatraze restore indeks fajla. U nemogucnosti smo da uradimo full restore svih podataka posto je vecina sajtova, pogotovu foruma, vec online i pregazili bi tim full restore njihove sveze podatke.Probijanje zastite nije nista novo na internetu, postala je nazalost svakodnevnica, igrom slucaja smo prekjuce odabrani mi.
 Ako hakeri mogu da provale u NASA ili Pentagon servere, sto ne bi i kod nas. I nismo prvi a na zalost ni poslednji domaci provajder koji je imao komplet ishakovan server.Takodje vas molimo da pratite dalja obavestenja logovanjem na vas oklopov nalog i pregledanje sekcije "Obavestenja".
S poštovanjem,
Vojin Petrović
direktor Oklop Srbija

In short, they are claiming that "Security breaking is nothing new on the internet, it has become an everyday event unfortunately, by chance we were chosen the day before yesterday" and "If hackers can break into NASA or Pentagon servers, why wouldn't they break into ours?". If understood them correctly, they're claiming it's not their fault they're not secure. Not even a single "We are sorry for not being careful" or "We'll take extra security steps to provide you with a safer hosting in the future" sentence. What an arrogance! I guess they should scratch the word on their website title, "Pouzdan" (=Reliable).

P.S. I hope this doesn't happen to me :)

A second language - and a third one!

  One and a half year ago I wanted to comment an article about a second language. Sometimes people are having hard time learning new things, and it's not just their fault, it could be literally an anomaly in the brain structure or it could be related to the level of complication of the language someone chose to learn.
  To a personal background level, I believe I used to be a polyglot, a linguist if you will. I loved to learn new languages, I started English as a second language at the age of 9 (I think), all thanks to my wish to understand how to interact with the computer and read foreign literature. From there, I followed English until the GCE O'Level certificate. In the meantime, I began French for fun, having nothing to do during long summer days. The intensive 5-hour lessons proved to be a really attractive language and I continued learning for 3 consecutive years (during July/August). Then came preparation for the medical schools, which put a stop to all my other activities. Perhaps it was my teen-hormone years or my own free will that did not pursuit my love for new languages. Nevertheless, I've learned basic Latin and still continue to perfect my knowledge in Serbian language during my medical school years - I guess I still have a crave for languages deep down under the wish for wearing a white robe. :)
  No hard feelings to anyone, but I've recently compared the Serbian language to the German. Not that I know much about the German language, but I've noticed that in German there is the possibility to mix multiple words into one. Really cool once you get to know the basics of the language, but sometimes it is really hard for new learners. Basically, the grammar and the word pronounciation can be a reason for a person to pull back and not wanting to express themselves in that language. For example, Serbians from what I know have a hard time using "th" or "th"(d) - i.e. in the words "theatre" or "the" respectively - in English, which I think is one of the reasons they prefer not to use English at all.

  The fascinating thing as a child is that you can learn more stuff than an adult person, the so called "Tabula Rasa" thesis. My opinion is that gifted polyglots (people that speak a lot of languages) should nurture their languages by daily or weekly translating/reading text of headlines, otherwise the wealth of words and phrases of a language they might once perfectly knew will definitely decrease by time without giving it adequate practice. And it doesn't stop there, listening should adopt your hearing ability in order to rapidly process verbal requests or to better interact with other people. Remember, a dialogue needs "two to tango", so it might be better to find a partner for it. Exchanging opinions about your primary language for a secondary one through "The mixxer project" may prove really helpful. I haven't tried it yet, but some of the readers may have better solutions for this. I suppose that you'll have to make remarks about the difference in slang and normal language, so.. be very careful!
  Learning languages can be compared to other learning possibilities, such as playing the piano or the guitar or even writing code in various programming languages. There's a time when you might mix up words or phrases, but the brain learns to eventually adopt while multi-processing such requests - almost similar to other mechanical functions, like driving, eating a burger, talking to the phone and switching gears at the same time (not that I recommend it).
  To sum up, comparing time required, ability to learn and grace of use, as a child you'd have better results in learning a language, provided you often practice. And do practice, because in later years it will definitely prove worthy!

Openoffice 3.0 final.. finally!

Today I noticed that the new version 3.0 of OpenOffice.org will be out, the open source/free desktop office bundle (that I adore). As osalt.com describes it:

 OpenOffice provides a great alternative to existing commercial office suites. It comes with word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation (Impress), drawing and graphing tool (Draw), tool for creating equations and formulae (Math) and finally a database tool which also build reports and forms (Base). All components are multi-platform and multilingual. Development is sponsored by Sun Microsystems.

So I have two events to celebrate today, this and my birthday! :)

Click on the following links to see:
- the release announcement:
www.openoffice.org/news/index.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A//www.openoffice.org/news/index.html

- the new features:
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.0/
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A//www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/3.0/

I've enclosed google cache links as an alternative, for some reason the openoffice.org site replies with '403 Forbidden' error.

Update:

You can obtain the openoffice suite from torrents or mirrors such as:
torrents: http://borft.student.utwente.nl/~adrian/bt.php
mirrorservice: http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/down ... ble/3.0.0/
Filehippo (windows executable): http://www.filehippo.com/download_openoffice/

Free rice!

Do pay a visit at http://www.freerice.com - It's an amazing concept where the sponsors will donate 20 grains of rice for each right answer you provide! If you can't give financially, give by testing your knowledge.
There are various subjects to choose for answering! I took 10 minutes of my free time and summed 3000 grains of rice :)

Ranting developer

I recently stumbled upon an old thread about linux users searching for someone to create an autoit-like application for linux. Starting from this post the ranting begins, it's really fun, I went through the whole 5 pages laughing :)
Sometimes people don't understand "No", that's why developers head to the aggressive "Let me say it again: No you idiot!"

Nevertheless, if you're looking to automatize some of your basic daily work, you should be looking to learn bash scripting or even an advanced programming language such as perl or python - if you're still looking for something that handles windows and gui interface, try gambas or python-dogtail (or here).

Social life and recreational drugs: Smoking

  As modern humans, or homo sapiens sapiens, we have evolved greatly in a lot of areas - from creating ways of verbal and signal communication to the rapid development of economy, trading and science, as well as technology. While this exponential progression was successful so far, something has gone wrong the past century. In this errata belongs the use of recreational drugs.
  Drugs of this kind haven't been banned yet and people have a free choice of using them or not (most countries have an age-limit). Tobacco smoking, alcohol and caffeine are now three of the most powerful profit-making industries of the 21st century.


Smoking

  By the mid-17th century, most major civilizations had been introduced to tobacco and recreational smoking; We should probably forgive the past generations for using them in neglect of the consequences of this type of drug use, but nowadays a lot of studies have shown the nasty effects of these indelicate habits, is there really a reason to use them? I'm surely not referring to medical patients which have a couple of years to live and seek to live it pain-free and pass away peacefully.
  Despite the way tobacco is taken, smoked, snuffed or chewed, the effects in a human being are devastating after prolonged usage, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease have boosted over the years and despite these facts, tobacco consumption is still increasing.
In the false belief that nicotine "calms down", humans intake large amounts of this drug in small dosage. This brilliant way of  taking up poison without even realizing it has enormous negative effects just after several years of constant smoking. You first start small; either as a need for relaxation, a window out of dullness or to become accepted in the "cool" or audacious sect of a social group. You continue the uptake in normal dosages every now and then. But, just like the body adapts to high or low temperatures in a number of days or your nose to an awful smell in a matter of 5 minutes, the same exact way your body becomes accustomed to tobacco as a normal intake.
  Taking it down slowly, you may think you can control it, but you find yourself in need to "relax" after an attempt to break the habit for several days. A parasite of your own free will has taken over your wallet, your pocket money, and your years to live. People cannot understand this and keep taking nicotine.
  A lot of people believe that smoking can calm you or provide you with extra alertness and concentration (increase of a substance called acetylcholine), that it can drop the level of anxiety (due to the release of beta-endorphins), that you can afterwards endure large psychological stress, which is not always true. As mentioned earlier, after several years of using tobacco, you become a slave to a regular dosage that tends to increase day by day, while you grow up and face the world's problems. Arousal? Probably the first couple of years. But what could happen in several years later is to reach a state of sexual disfunction (genital haemodynamic disruption).
  Finally, most people don't understand the cost of the cigarettes, since they dosage is small and for. An accustomed male or female might smoke one pack of cigarettes per day. Multiply the cost of the pack by 30 for a month. Suppose they cost 3 €, you would save 60 or 90 € per month for this nasty habit, which could be used for two nights at a lovely appartment outside town.

  All in all, the "great" or "pleasing" effects of nicotine only apply for a short timeline usage, longterm usage comes with great negative effects and therefore problems, may these be financial or health related. Your body doesn't need to relax every day, your body is a temple made of hard stone and marble, that can re-enstate itself back to normal after a good sleep of just one hour. Outdoor activity can prove much helpful to decrease anxiety, since you stress out yourself in exercise - this way you get a sexy body, ladies/men to want you and keep it healthy. I dare you to compare that to a "sitting-eating-mcdonalds-and-smoking" syndrome that an obese person's lifestyle might include.

  Recreational drugs of such sort can be controlled by seeking professional/medical help - don't let yourself reach a stage where you need such help.

To be continued...

Belgrade BeerFest today!

Back from my "holiday" and (partly) ready to work. In other news, the famous belgrade beerfest is beginning today in the new place called "Ušće", located on the mouth of the Sava river (into the Danube).

Grab your backpacks, and stick around, plenty of beer participants and music to make you dance all night long. I might not make it for the whole night, but I will probably give it a go if I find the right company...

Last year I tasted the wonderful bilberry beer, my taste buds are eagerly looking forward to try this year's wicked flavour! :)

Bos taurus gas quarantined!

The gas produced by the cows' (Geek name: B. taurus) digestive system (aka GIT, short for gastrointestinal tract) is being tested, in order to see the share of effect to the global warming problem.
See it here.

What's next? Attaching tubes on human rear ends? :)

P.P.S. I'm establishing a miniposts tag, for such small posts!

Happenings of Mid-March 2008

It's been a while, lots of stuff to talk about. First and foremost, I'm beginning to get up again and stand on my own two feet, although my father's death will always be a painful memory. I've decided to prioritise my to-do list for this year, and guess what - it's more study time for me! That doesn't mean I won't post here, but it means that I will do it after I get to know with my books a little bit better. :) I don't need anyone watching over my shoulder to do this, I am aware that the buck stops with me, but biochemistry (one of the subjects left for me to pass) is a quite large subject with enormous books, it requires time, and it's not something you can test on a computer, run it and say "Ah, it works this way".
Secondly, I believe some of you must've heard about the fall of Serbia's Government. Although I am apathetic to the political scenery in Cyprus and Serbia, I must say it was a bomb waiting to explode, this way the two democratic parties get to bash each other about the fact that no-one was able to .
Thirdly, I signed up this puppy in blogrush, they say it's good for publicity, plus they have this nifty addon for blogs, that give you some interesting articles of what's going on in (their) blogosphere.
Bubbling thus, I have just made a bash script that checks whether you have duplicates of a screen -S something instance. I will personally use it along with "screen -S irc irssi". It helps in situations like when you want a connection waiting for you in the background, while you log in. I believe it can be used with gnome sessions. You can alter it in your own personal style, get it from here. Usage: bash screen-irc-check
Last but not least, I opened up my own personal reseller website named HellNetworks (not done yet, I'm working on it), providing people internet services such as IRC shells, logo design, web hosting, webspace, some programming skills, something for those extra funds for my medical studies.

Serbian Presidential Elections - Round two, FIGHT!

The election countdown has begun while I am writing this post. After 31 days of presidential campaigns, unnecessary TV "air time" here we are. While they are bubbling in the television, with roughly the opinion of 64% of the population (around 4.3 million people), a person can think "Where did the rest of the population go or what where they doing all day?"
In my opinion, the result of the final round of Boris Tadić - Democrats - vs. Tomislav Nikolić - Nationalists? I'm not a politics freak - isn't much of a mystery for me, since the rest of the candidates that lost in the first round agreed to support Tadić. It's a disgrace how parties think they "give" their voters to someone, as if the voters don't have an opinion of their own. To make matters worse, I believe that people never really cared who was their "leader", as long as there is a shepherd that keeps the flock away from some wolves. The percentage speaks for itself.
On the other hand, the reason that ~36% of the people didn't reach a voting booth could be because they had to do more important things, like earn their income and I don't blame them, everyone has economic problems. But voting takes 5 minutes, come on!
One final excuse some stated was that the candidates didn't actually deserve their vote.
One thing I didn't like about the campaigns was that the candidates used the TV to broadcast their "message". OK, maybe there are immobile persons, but there are other persons that come back from their universities or work and want to sit in front of the television, watch a good comedy and relax.
I'd like to take the chance and thank online the RTS (Serbia's National Radio-Television network) for respecting our monthly payments and didn't approve any paid "air time".
We shall see who gets to roll the fancy limo!

P.S. Nothing like the good ol' democratic socialism and Tito as I've read and heard so much about those golden times :)

UPDATE: Boris Tadić won, who would've known! (if you read the post, you know the irony)

Caregiving and ethics

Caring is such a simple word, especially when it comes to people very dear for you. Ever cared for someone so much that you simply don't know how to do it? There are a dozen of pages if you search right at Google for them using some of the google operators I blogged about in earlier posts (*hint* "how to" care *hint*).
Social care shouldn't just be shown for relatives, you have millions of persons waiting and deseve to be loved. I'm not allowed to name such groups of persons, everyone has their own pride and see this matter differently. Be gentle and reasonable, that is always the first step towards finding real solutions.
For example, while browsing the Internet, I stumbled upon a fresh caregiving service called bettercaring, giving people a literal opportunity for a care home. I don't know how reliable their services are, but it looks very promising from my browsing point of view.
On the other hand, some may not deserve it so much. If they see you care, they get very (and I mean VERY) impolite, using you around to get their job done and generally abusing your kindness.
Finally, there are some problems if there are patients that require better caring. As a student of medicine, I'm not allowed ethically to show that I care literally for my patient and that I should always keep a "status quo", but I believe I would be able to show my caring indirectly by running all the appropriate tests and diagnosing them carefully, while I do not express my inner thoughts. Racism is out of question of course. There are certain ways to hedge embarassing moments of racist and fascist criticism, I can give you two: 1) Keep it short when explaining, no need for adjectives of extra beautification. 2) If you do make the mistake and "cross the line" just kindly say "I'm sorry, let me rephrase that". If you follow these two golden rules you'll be able to overpass some misinterpreted situations or not come to them at all!

To sum it up, care for those that really need it, be kind to everybody (including the attention "hunters"), and watch your expressions while chatting or explaining.

Burried "Live Free or Die Hard"

I was rolling on the floor laughing when I first heard about this.

Emir Kusturica has symbolically burried "Die Hard" (or "ДИЕ ХАРД" as it wrote on the cross above the "grave") in a "Graveyard of bad films". OK, maybe the director wanted to pass his message that the film series wasn't good enough, but you can't say it's not HILARIOUS! Although I didn't personally like much of Kusturica's films, he has won two Palm awards so far, proving that at least some people respect his filmmaking geniousness.

I couldn't get to see the ceremony live, but once again, Youtube comes to the rescue:

Happy new year... with side-effects!

By the old calendar (see Julian calendar) today's the first day of 2008. It's sort of a family tradition to celebrate new year by the old calendar here in Serbia. Unfortunately for me, I got sick the day before.
What was the diagnosis? With my limited (yet) medical knowledge, I believe it was either cold (viral gastrointestinal infection?), gastroenteritis or just a grumpy stomach after so much eating these days - whatever it was, the emesis was inevitable! I remembered a movie scene, where people simply puked out some fake juice. In any case, mine was not just fake juice. We had a lot of dinners during my short stay in Cyprus, lots of friends wanted to see us, some of them just to see how we're doing, what have I achieved so far etc. It looks like I have overworked my poor stomach and it declared strike! :)
To make matters worse, a headache and fairly high temperature were presented shortly after the "sailing-at-sea" nausea feeling to the symptomas, therefore I had nothing else to do than start treating myself with a doze of a domperidone-based anti-emetic drug and paracetamol.

So, 2008 - new year, new expectations, new destinations, new romance, new... everything! May this year be the best for you and your family, enjoy it as much as you can, just don't forget to grab a book from time to time.

Update: Forgot to mention the celebration that happened yesterday at midnight, fireworks literally lit up the sky over the Cathedral of St. Sava, one of the biggest cathedrals in Europe. Here are some of the pictures, taken by B92:

R.I.P. Zorane

Zoran Radevic, my dear beloved father, has passed away at a middle age on the 6th of December, one day after my nameday (St. Savvas, Greek Christian Orthodox). As a medical doctor, specialised in Internal Medicine and Cardiology, he was great at his work, his patients can all confirm that. One of the main reasons he couldn't stay in life longer was because of his condition, Wilson's disease. He was diagnosed at an early age, about 9 years old, but the problems had already began to gather up due to the already piled Cuprum (copper). The problems became vivid day by day, until he decided to take his chances and do the inevitable transplantation about 2 years ago. After a whole of 3-4 months of waiting, a donor was found to be compatible with my father's body tissues and size (among other things). With a 60-70% of chance to survive, enormous inner strength and pride have made him a fighter, a fighter that wants to survive the worst moments in his life and yes, he did pull it through, the surgery was successful.
But compatibility problems have appeared 6 months after the surgery. The immunosuppressive drugs weren't doing their job anymore, so my parents decided to do a retransplantation to try once more, maybe he was lucky enough to find a donor in time. But, as all patients of immunosuppressive therapy, he faced the big problem: bacteria. A type of Klebsiella species has invaded his body and it made sure he couldn't do the tranplantation in time. Klebsiella spp. usually comes from the hospital staff, and it's probably the reason why my father had to confront with this nosocomial infection. 4 months have passed since that event, and the microbiological tests were still positive for bacteria. As long as those tests were positive, he couldn't do anything that involved surgery, since that would be characterized as a high-risk action and of course no one would do anything but to try and clear out the infection.
My dad was one of the main reasons I'm studying medicine, and again the reason why I've chosen to study at the Medical school of Belgrade university, since that's the place where my parents met during studies.
What surprised me the most was that at the day of his funeral and the first Sunday afterwards (Greek Cypriots call it μνημόσυνο, in memoriam of the deceased) it rained in Cyprus, 3 or 4 times - and Cyprus is an island known for its long drought seasons. It kind of makes you think about possibilities and coincidences as well as afterlife.
After his death and his funeral, I am proud to be his son, I cannot thank him enough for being there when he was needed the most, for trying so hard to raise his two children and give them a bright future and a good life. I love you dad, I'll always love you and I know that you will always be with me, every step of the way, to guide me through all my difficult moments.

Rest in peace and may the ground holding your body be blessed with the thousands of thankful souls you have saved.

Xubuntu peerwatch or university rootkit?

After I've read Ubuntu's weekly newsletter and the blog post from washingtonpost, your not-so-friendly neighbour, a notorious group of people who are deluged in money, the same group who have successfully tried to ashame themselves in the past, have done it again, by infridging the GPL license!
They kept Xubuntu trademarks and artwork and made / published their own tools that break privacy policies of almost every university.

I'll keep this post short: Democracy or hypocracy? Hypocrites or advanced rootkit bullies? The legend stays to be told...
The so-called Xubuntu "derivative" website can be found here: http://www.universitytoolkit.com/

As a footnote, if you agree to their *ahem* novel of terms and conditions about how it can break your computer, you can check out their work (or temper with their bandwidth) by downloading the newest iso here:
http://universitytoolkit.com/peerwatch-0.9.2.1.iso
(0.9.2a is not available or someone is hiding the good stuff!)

P.S. Unfortunately, the picture is not associated with the text, but it pretty much explains my thoughts :-)

Update: 19:50 CET - the 0.9.2.1.iso is down

Lots'a new stuff..

..but I'm still the same! :) It's important to help around in projects you use and like.
In Ubuntu a lot has happened these days, especially after the Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 release; among others:
- Ubuntu OpenWeek
- #ubuntu+1 users have moved on to the next devel release, Hardy Heron
- #ubuntu was practically flooded with users asking for help these days, most of them were related to graphics cards, probably because they wanted to try out the fancy 3D experience provided out-of-the-box for most of them.
- The release after hardy is said to be Grumpy Groundhog, although I personally would prefer to move on to the next letter ("I"), and use my suggestion: Itchy Iguana - I still believe it's catchy!

I'm VERY satisfied with that the developers have accomplished, but I didn't like this:

cat /etc/debian_version

This command returns: lenny/sid
Debian leftovers! Oh well, it's really a minor "bug", a way if you will to show their direct connection I guess (yes, I'm just guessing).

In my circle of life, there's nothing that is worth publishing, pretty much dull. I'm stuck with 3 exams, which I will probably finish by the end of January, if not all, then I'll try my best for at least 2. The next not-so-important thing is that the central heating of my appartment (in the heart of Belgrade, Slavija) is not functioning correctly. All the buildings in Belgrade have a centralised heating system, all connected to each other if I'm not wrong - well it seems like the appartments on the 8th floor here don't have as much "heat" as expected. I really hope this will get fixed by November, because the temperature has begun to go lower.
My neighbour mentioned to go get an electric heater, but what would be the point of paying a central heating all year long and not actually enjoying one?

Something to get your day started!

A good day to start your day is by laughing. It doesn't only cheer you up, but laughter also stimulates your immune system. I bet this adorable baby is as healthy as much as it is happy :)

Baby Big Laugh - The best home videos are here

Why do babies cheer you up? Probably because you remember your baby movies and/or photographs. Memories can play a very important role in the brain, especially if they are thoughts of joy. See how much of this can be connected to a single video or photo?
Most feelings are expressed in a special part of the brain, called the limbic system. But anyway, let me not ruin your day with medical facts! I'll bore in some later posts. For now, enjoy your day! :)

Nis Petrol Wfest

It looks like Nis Petrol considers to kick-start the developing of Serbia's website representation by throwing in a contest of the best websites out there. Maybe this blog is in English, but the writer is of Serbian origin ;) I changed the blog's logo and filed the blog for the contest!

Updates for the last days?

1. I haven't passed any of the 3 exams left, it looks like it's going to be "crowdy" for the October examination period, but I'm willing to take a shot.
2. I've installed Ubuntu Gutsy Tribe 5, 3 days before the Beta release, and today (beta release day) I joined #ubuntu+1 in Freenode IRC Network, and noticed that more than 240 users were in, whereas 3 days before the beta it was a simple sum of 40-50. What I didn't like is that they do NOT mention the problems with Firefox plugins Flash and Sun Java in the amd64 (64-bit) version of Ubuntu 7.10. I used the nspluginwrapper solution for flash, since Gnash (the free swf player) isn't still completely usable. I'm still waiting to see what's going to happen with Java.

Have a lovely weekend everyone! I'll probably spend it on my studying.