Greek values, robots and flies!

Recently, an international organisation for ethical rights published "The Ten Ethical Laws of Robotics". A list of guidelines that go further Isaac Asimov?s Laws of Robotics. I quote number 8: "As a representative member of humanity, I will profess a sense of eclecticism by espousing the classical Greek values (beauty, truth, goodness, and wisdom) to the exclusion of the corresponding vices (evil, cunning, ugliness, and hypocrisy)".
Ok, so robots in the future are going to be beautiful by themselves. (What is the matter with you mr. designer? This sattelite antenna doesn't suit my looks. I am not wearing that!) But let's see for a minute what happens now: EcoBot II is a robot designed to explore dangerous or inhospitable areas to carry out remote industrial or military monitoring of temperature or toxic gas concentrations. The downside is that in order to be fully autonomous, it is generating its own power EATING FLIES!
...maybe they are good for it's skin too!
I hope they don't run out of flies because I fear it can get really hungry... (enter: your fears)

Forum anyone?

Lately I've been busy building my personal FORUM. It's a quite fun process and all the major stuff is pre-made (I use phpBB) But it takes time coming up with ideas that will lure members and modifying pieces of the PHP code to serve my purposes.
The result is here> This is a Portal for all my web-sites (including this one) Just click on "Welcome" if you want to check it out. It's in Greek. (being my native lang.)

Kill Bill (Gates)

Thank God for customer rights.
Economic Times is running a story about how a small colouring mistake forced Microsoft to recall 200,000 copies of Windows 95.
And it is not the first time this happens! Some time ago, a Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, had to be revoked. Why? Because while registering the product, it asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," !!!!!
The error in translation was too funny to be on purpose!
Nice going...

Mobile Religion

Disclaimer: This text has no intention of offending any religious belief. I just find interesting the new uses of mobile phones

Once merely a useful tool for keeping in touch, the mobile phone is fast becoming an instrument of spiritual enlightenment.

• For followers of Islam, companies such as LG Electronics and Dubai-based Ilkone Mobile Telecommunications make phones that aid Muslims in their daily practice by indicating the direction of Mecca, providing the call to prayer or even incorporating the Quran within the phone. Even those with a regular phone can augment it with a religious ring tone or download a lunar calendar.

• Indian operator BPMobile lets customers send prayers by SMS to a Bombay temple where they are offered to the Hindu god Ganesh.

• In the United States and several European countries subscribers can receive a daily text message from the pope. The Pope's Thought of the Day

• In the United States people can subscribe to a daily service called The Seven Spiritual Laws, which features the holistic teachings of Deepak Chopra. Currently available from two U.S. mobile operators, the service provides daily aphorisms as well as diet tips and an inspiring image.

• In Israel you can download "Psalms in his Palm" and excerpts from scripture through PilotYid.com, a Judaism-oriented service for users of Palm OS devices.

• In China, people burn paper effigies of material goods, including mobile phones, to ensure their dead relatives are fairing well in their parallel lives.

• On a recent field trip around Asia, Genevieve Bell, senior researcher at Intel, saw people getting their mobile phones blessed by a Buddhist monk. "Because they are wearing them on their bodies, they didn't want them to be bad for them," she says.

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty

How about this:

Do you love your pet? Me too! But the unfortunate ones have a tendency of passing away quicly (considering a human's life expectancy). Now, Genetic Savings & Clone promises to clone anyone?s pet for about $50,000!

The news are great (unless you had a pet-sheep, so you knew all about it years ago!). No more fighting between divorced about the ownership of the cat. No more mourning if your dog accidentally finds himself underneath the wheels of a vehicle. And if we clone race-horses to win all the races? Is there an anti-cloning control?

Welcome to the new era where your cloned version of Lassy will be mating Sony's robot-dog!