Author: Serkadis

As you may have read in my recent interview with The Conscious Cat, I’ve been working on another little project. I’ve opened Moderncat Studio in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve always been a crafter, and you may have noticed that I have a bit of an obsession with Etsy (I’m wearing my favorite necklace from Etsy seller Adorn Natural in the photo above — thanks to Giulio Sciorio for taking that photo). Moderncat Studio is a place where I can experiment with my own cat-related handcrafts, plus I’m working with other designers to develop some new cat products, all of which will be handmade and in keeping with the Moderncat style. I also feature the work of other artists and craftspeople whose work I appreciate.

The studio is open to the public for special events, like the First Friday Artwalk in downtown Phoenix every month. The official website for the studio is not yet finished, but if you’d like to follow along with the development, please become a fan of the Moderncat Studio page on Facebook.

The plan is to have the studio products for sale on Etsy soon. I’ll be sure to notify you when they are available. In the meantime, if you live in Phoenix, please stop by the actual studio for some serious Moderncat-style holiday shopping for all the cats and cat lovers in your life. We are fully stocked and ready to go! Some of the things you will find at the studio are shown below. Having the studio is also my way to give back. I plan to donate a portion of the profits to local cat rescues and shelters.

Each month, I feature a different guest artist in the studio. This month, the artist is photographer Joe Mehl. We are running a special fundraiser this month – come to the studio and purchase one of Joe’s beautiful cat prints and 50% of the sale will be donated to a local cat charity. We also have Joe’s signature kitty head kaleidoscope on a custom vinyl record wall hanging and also on 8 inch stickers.

In addition to offering products that we make at the studio, I’ve hand-selected products from some of my favorite companies. Right now we have catnip fortune cookies and retro boomerangs from Jake & Micah, as well as catnip eyeballs and kickin’ sticks from HannaPt.

We’re also featuring handcrafted sterling silver jewelry from Phoenix-based jewelry designer Gloria Marsiglia and I created a line of handmade cut-paper greeting cards and gift tags using silhouettes of my own cats (these will be on Etsy soon!)

And here are the first two Moderncat Studio exclusive products! Kitties & Fishies cat toys made from re-purposed vintage neckwear with organic catnip, designed and made by yours truly, and EcoToys designed by Collin Smith, made with EcoFi felt from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic water bottles and stuffed with organic catnip.

So please keep an eye out for more news about the studio and if you’re in Phoenix, please check out the Facebook page for a list of when we’ll be open in the coming months.

The 2009 Today’s Gamers International Survey reveals a fact that has been pretty obvious for quite a while now: more and more US citizens consider pla…

Techdirt reader Kathy writes in to let us know about the 200 different flavors of Kit Kat candy bars in Japan. Public Radio International describes how Nestle has developed an interesting sales strategy in Japan where the competition among retailers is apparently so great that stores benefit from constantly updating their shelves with new products. In such a marketplace, Nestle has adopted numerous varieties of its Kit Kat candy bars that can only be purchased in certain locations or at specific times of the year. So instead of trying to peddle the same merchandise to everyone, Nestle has effectively given consumers a reason to buy (RtB) — by making limited edition flavors and targeting the local tastes and customs in Japan. Nestle caters to Japan’s omiage gift-giving culture (where friends are expected to bring back unique trinkets when they travel) with regional Kit Kats. So for example, a potato-flavored version is only sold in the northern part of Japan known for its potatoes, so northerners (or traveling southerners) can give out unique treats that aren’t available nationwide. And all over Japan, the candy bars have also been packaged with mailing labels — so that the candy can be sent as “good luck” charms. Due to the ingenious connection to the Japanese words Kitto Katsu which mean “you will surely win”, the “good luck” symbol for Kit Kats in Japan was also successfully manufactured and marketed and as a result, Kit Kats have been popular with exam-taking students who seem to want good luck, however they can get it.

Clearly, Nestle must be admired for its efforts to connect with candy fans. And it’s particularly brilliant to see them bundle candy bars as good luck charms — a story that adds intangible value to the otherwise ordinary snacks. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before some artists write some flavor-inspired songs/plays/films and try to sell loooots of Kit Kats, too.

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The word “Hacker” has a unique history, Hacker said even with a positive means, even war hackers have happened throughout the world, korbanpun falling, would know what the history of Hacker? please read my post below.
Early 1960
At this year are still in the computer giant, stored refrigerated in a closed room and only the institutions are state-owned 60-memilikinya.Pada era Hacker’s very positive sense, so-called hacker is someone who has a high programming skills and could be to hack a program so they could walk more than the specifications they have. One of the hacker era work programs of the 60 are still revered to this day is the UNIX operating system. Duo who gave birth to this OS is Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson.

Early 1970.
At this year’s famous phreaks terms, namely that hackers can break through the phone line to access remote melepon for free. Started by John Drapper, he discovered that the whistle prize Cap’n Crunch cereal foods can produce the right tone with 2600 megahertz.Hanya blew the whistle on the telephone receiver remote telephone access to the communications network AT & T will open. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak made equipment to hack the phone, called the “Blue boxes”. The two men later was the founder of Apple Inc.

Year 1980-1991.
IBM launched a computer “stand-alone” complete with CPU, memory and software in 1981. In 1983 came the film that revealed the hacker’s life, entitled War Games.Film shows the American public about the dangers of hackers that can break through all this period komputer.Selama system, the defense department’s network ARPANET Americans slowly began to turn into the Internet. In this era of birth Two big hacker group, the Legion of Doom is located in the United States and the Chaos Computer Club in Germany. In this era there is also a great hacker war, the two groups are vying with each other to destroy all computer systems, internet and telephone.

Year 1986-1994.
Because of the increasing attacks by hackers in 1986 the U.S. Congress issued the Law on the crimes of this era komputer.Pada formed Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) that investigated the attacks via the Internet. The man who became the first victim for violating laws on computer crime was Robert Morris, he admitted that he intentionally did not release the worm into the Internet. Worm tanggan work of Robert Morris 6000 has crippled computer. As punishment he was prosecuted 10,000 USD. In the same year there was a hacker named Kevin Mitnick is through company-owned network of Digital Equipment Company and stole some software. He was sentenced to 1 year in prison. after escape from punishment Kevin Mitnick is not too sour, he repeated perbuatannnya with stealing 20,000 credit card data and were arrested in 1995 because of the help of a hacker named Tsutomu Shimomura.Operasi Sundevil launched by the U.S. government failed to roll up a hacker group Legion of Doom, but they managed to catch some members of the hacker group Masters of Deception.

Year 1994-1998.
In 1994 a Russian hacker named Vladimir Levin managed to break into Citibank’s computers and to transfer money from customer accounts totaled 10 million USD. Citibank raised the most money back tersebut.Pada this era of hackers increasingly bold in conducting such serangannya.Situs U.S. government justice department, air force, CIA, NASA etc. korban.Para hackers had been announced that they managed to break into Pentagon computer network and threatening to sell military satellite software that had been stolen to the terrorists.

1999 to present
In the year 2000 computer event of mass destruction in 2000 at 00.00 or better known as Y2K greater. In February of 2000 the Internet community was shocked by the attack “denial of service” (DoS) against several sites such as CNN, Yahoo and E-Bay. Denial is a hacker attack that makes as if millions of surfers accessing a site simultaneously. Servers that “confusion” to serve the millions of surfers will collapse fictitious alias crash. In the same year in May appears exactly I Love You virus that helped mark the beginning of the era Worm.

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My inbox is in pain. Almost immediately after I hit the publish button on last week’s iPhone 3GS vs Motorola Droid Smartphone Showdown, a torrential blast of comments and questions has been barraging just about every communication inlet I’ve got. Phone calls. Twitter DMs. Lots, and lots, and lots of emails. Across the board, it all seems to indicate one thing: people want more. We hear you. There are a number of worthwhile topics I simply didn’t get a chance to touch on, and a few observations I’ve made since that are worth mentioning. For those, may we present: Round 2.

Read the rest of this entry at MobileCrunch >>

Reactions to John Cameron’s next big movie Avatar, scheduled for release (almost) worldwide on December 18, can be called mixed at best. We’ve shown you two trailers already, and now Japan gets a third one with a handful of scenes not seen before.

The two-minute clip has English dialogue and is free of spoilers as far as I can tell.

Watch the newest trailer here:

Lord Mandelson, the UK Business Secretary who has been the leading force behind putting in place the entertainment industry’s desired plan to require ISPs to kick accused file sharers off the internet under a “three strikes” plan, apparently is also saying that young people need better technology skills. Along with that, he’s supporting a plan to get universities to do more technical skills training. Now, I’m all for more tech skills training in universities, but wouldn’t it be nice if Mandelson started by getting some tech skills training himself — including a basic understanding of why an IP address is not an accurate indicator of who is doing something online? Or, perhaps, an understanding of how BitTorrent actually works and a brief primer on encryption technologies….

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01. So puppeteer
Role behind the scenes is like a casting director what the company needs to be done. Ideas and input from members of the community should be allowed to flow.
02. Know When to Act
How to do the monitoring? Actually the community has the ability Correcting good self. But the company must be sensitive when there are flamers or those who disrupt the continuity of community

03. Critical Mass
Communities must achieve a minimum number of members to be functioning optimally. Key positions in the critical mass is also important to ensure the community can live. These key positions include positions as a motivator, as Conector, and leader. When the community is large enough, it can say they can make good content, and improve the content of existing fault

04. Admit Mistakes
When a mistake is made in the community should never be covered. Admit it, apologize sincerely and do not repeat.

05. Say Thanks
Brand / company should give rewards to those who have been willing to offer an opinion or contribute to the community / brand

06. Long Term Relationship
Communities take time to develop. Along with the development community, the brand must continue to experiment with content and a way to generate discussion and ways to attract members to be active.

Sorce : Fernando Sitindaon

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 This week’s PlayStation Store Update is now live. The controversial Rock Band Nirvana track pack is here, so all you rockers out there are sure …

1. Knowledge
Knowledge factor (knowledge) to companies that are the most important type of resources that must be owned organization. Given that the knowledge inherent in the human brain, the factors of intelligence from human resources the company is determining whether the organization’s success in achieving objectives. Collective knowledge which is the value of the company in the process of creating products and services. Thus the concept of knowledge management will be key to the success of a company in this era.

2. Digitization
Digitazion is a process of transformation of various forms of information into formats digits “0” and “1” (based on number two). Although the concept seems simple glance, but its existence has produced a breakthrough and major changes in the world of business transactions.

3. Virtualization
Model that allows one to start a business with a simple device and can reach all potential customers in the world. In the virtual world, a customer simply dealing with an Internet site as an enterprise (business to consumer), as well as relations between the various companies that want to cooperate with each other (business to business). In this relationship, a process that occurs over the transaction is the exchange of data and information virtually, without the physical presence of the parties or individuals who conduct transactions. In other words, the business can be done anytime and anywhere as long as 24 hours per day and 7 days a week on-line and real time.

4. Molecularization
Organizations that will survive in the era of digital economy is successfully applied molecular shape. Molecular shape is a system where the organization can easily adapt to any dynamic changes that occur in the environment surrounding the company.

5. Internetworking
Efforts to develop the concept of cooperation with other companies. There is no company that can work alone without work jointly with other parties, so one of the prerequisites to succeed in cyberspace. Based on the chosen business model, associated companies must determine its core activities (core activity), and collaborates with other institutions to help implement the processes of supporting (supporting activities). Examples of parties who generally serve as a partner is technology vendors, content partners, merchants, suppliers (suppliers), etc..

Source : www.fernandositindaon.info

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Sorry, Twitter fans (and animal lovers), but you’d better brace yourselves for another round of (hopefully Photoshopped) pics featuring birds in cats’ mouths and squashed against glass doors.  New stats from Hitwise make it look like Twitter isn’t doing so well.

First of all, it seems that there’s almost no chance of Twitter catching up with Facebook.  Bill Tancer found that, on October 24th, Facebook’s market share of U.S. visits was about 6.10 percent.  Twitter’s, meanwhile, was 0.14 percent.  That puts Facebook ahead by a factor of about 43.5, and it’s increasing that lead every month.

Then, in a move that might silence anyone who’s hoping that Twitter’s just biding its time, building up speed, Tancer provided a zoomed-in view of the site’s performance.  And since early July, at least, the news hasn’t been good.

Tancer also wrote, "At iMedia Breakthrough, Jeff Rosenblum from Questus referenced a Harvard Business School Study finding that the median number of tweets per twitter user over the life of their twitter account is 1!"

Still, any pictures that just portray a bunch of half-eaten bird feathers must be considered overkill, at least according to Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams.  He recently told Adam Lashinsky, "It’s grown a little bit slower lately, but we have some things in the works that we think will change that."

Related Articles:

> Twitter Has Big Plans For $100 Million In Funding

> Social Networks Blamed For $2.25B In Lost Productivity

> Online Retailers To Focus On Facebook And Twitter During Holidays

EFF points us to yet another massively expensive computer system that can’t do some rather basic things. Apparently the state of Texas has pulled its election systems from an $863 million computer system project it had with IBM, after failures and glitches in the system took down the voter system and lost data, which was unrecoverable. State officials realized that if this had happened during an actual election, the state wouldn’t have been able to verify new voters, in violation of federal law. So, it dumped IBM and set up its own system that (gasp) actually has multiple backups of the data. I guess things like redundant backups aren’t included in the $863 million package.

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Charge to 2010!!!The third quarter financial call for Activision just commenced this afternoon, and the big news that came out of it was that their 2…

A Joint Committee on Taxation report released today by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) found that regulating Internet gambling would generate roughly $42 billion over 10 years.

The report is based on the requirement of a federal license for operators that would allow them to offer online gambling throughout the United States, while keeping the federal prohibition on any form of sports betting.

"This analysis further reinforces the fact that a regulated environment will generate billions in new revenue to offset the costs of health care reform or other vital government programs," said Michael Waxman, spokesperson for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative.

"With the completed analysis, and support for Internet gambling regulation growing daily, it’s only a matter of time before Congress acts and begins allocating the billions in new revenue sitting on the table to one program or another."

Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced legislation that would legalize Internet gambling and McDermott has a companion bill that would collect tax revenues on online gambling.

"We believe this tax revenue analysis will encourage immediate discussions and consideration of pending legislation to regulate Internet gambling," said Waxman.  

"With everyone acknowledging that attempts to prohibit the activity have failed, this provides even more incentive for Congress to act."

Currently the amount of revenue that remains uncollected while Americans gamble online is more than $100 billion annually.

Related Articles:

> Kentucky Supreme Court Hears Online Gambling Case

> Online Poker Players Expose Cheaters

> Americans Favor Legalizing Online Poker

A virtual pinball machine sounds like a really good idea. No less then 17 tables, on a LCD display (so the playfield doesn’t wear out). Best yet, the virtual pinball machine has some of the most famous Gottlieb games like 2001 and Gold Strike. Sure, it’s expensive, but compared to the cost of actually buying 17 pinball machines? It’s quite reasonable. And takes up a lot less space in the ol man cave.

The Multispin Digital Pinball machine uses a 32 inch LCD monitor for that play field, and a smaller monitor mounted on the back glass to replicate the scoring section of those classic games. There is just one thing that makes me nervous, and that’s the lack of flipper buttons on the pictures of the machine. Hammacher Schlemmers website says that it does have flipper buttons and a ball launcher just like the real thing, but I can’t seem to find it.

The Hammacher Schlemmer website lists the pinball machine as being currently available, however it will take 4-6 weeks for delivery, so order fast for Christmas. The Digital Pinball machine will set you back $6,000. I’ve got to say though, I think it’d be worth it.

[via Technabob]

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

During one of the more noteworthy weeks in Europe’s modern history, as the 27 member nations of the European Union prepare for a newer and more centralized executive authority, the EU will also be making way for a powerful regulatory authority for telecommunications: the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). This is the name for the new European Telecoms Authority; and whereas in the US, there remains considerable debate over whether the Federal Communications Commission can and should have regulatory authority over Internet transactions, in Europe, the debate has officially been settled: BEREC will have authority to propose regulations for telecommunications in all forms, including the Internet.

But the power for approving, exercising, and then administering those regulations has been delegated to the European Commission. So although the new telecoms authority will be comprised of the national telecom regulatory heads from each member nation, the EC will have the authority to overrule them. Negotiations over this single provision extended for hours and eventually days, according to the EC, with the central point of contention being this and only this provision.

But in the end, the agreement reached early Thursday morning essentially gave the EC everything it has asked for, without any hint of compromise.

“When the Commission, in close cooperation with BEREC, considers that a draft remedy notified by a national regulator would create a barrier to the single market,” reads this morning’s communiqué from the EC, referring to the continent-wide telecommunications market, “the Commission may issue a recommendation that requires the national regulator to amend or withdraw its planned remedy. The new rules also enable the Commission to adopt further harmonization measures in the form of recommendations or (binding) decisions, if divergences in the implementation of remedies persist across the EU in the longer term.”

“Harmonization” is the EC’s term for getting everyone’s ducks in a row, and has been a favorite watch-word of Comm. Viviane Reding, whose authority over Europe’s Internet industry has just increased.

Also within Comm. Reding’s power will be the ability to order a country’s telecom company, once it steps over the regulatory body, to divest itself of its services division if it wishes to maintain control of a majority of lines or transmitters in its given nation. This is the functional separation option introduced in the original proposal two years ago, based in principle on the spinoff of Openreach from UK-based parent BT in 2003, in one of the EC’s first telecom-related antitrust actions.

A final draft of what’s now called the Internet Freedom Provision will not, as some European journals had reported, guarantee broadband Internet access as a fundamental human right. What it will do, however, is guarantee that an individual’s right to choose any available application over the Internet is not suppressed by a service provider’s maintenance measures, privacy policies, or lack thereof. In its entirety, the new annex of the Provision reads as follows:

Measures taken by Member States regarding end-users’ access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law.

Any of these measures regarding end-users’ access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks liable to restrict those fundamental rights or freedoms may only be imposed if they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and their implementation shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection and due process. Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.

Final votes in the European Parliament on the creation of BEREC will take place later this month, although at this point, they’re seen to be largely ceremonial. The new authority — and the authority over that authority — could come into existence in the first quarter of 2010.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

 It’s numbers time again! The latest hardware sales figures from Japan’s Media Create has been release, and competition is getting tighter as the…

Halo and Blu-ray — together? Yes, you are not imagining that first sentence. Halo will indeed be on Blu-ray, through the Halo Legends anime project.T…