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False Positives Adventures in Technology, SciFi and Culture from Toronto

Monday, December 29, 2003

Hong Kong star Anita Mui, 40, dies of cancer

HK star Anita Mui, 40, dies of cancer

HONG KONG : Canto-pop diva Anita Mui, who suffered from cancer of the womb, died early Tuesday morning. She was 40.

According to reports, Mui had earlier slipped into a coma and needed respiratory treatment to help her breathe. Her death was announced by her friends from the Hong Kong entertainment circle, who had rushed to the hospital upon hearing that her condition had worsened.

Earlier this month, there had been speculation that Mui had liver failure, but her manager denied the report.

The singer first confirmed that she was suffering from cancer of the womb at a news conference in September. But she said her condition was stable. She even held a concert in Hong Kong last month. However, earlier this month, she missed an appearance in Singapore, triggering reports that her condition has worsened.

via : channelnewsasia


Far too young....Anita was born Oct 10 1963, making her one day older than me. She started in 1987's Yin ji kau (a well known HK ghost story, know in english as "Rouge") with Leslie Cheung who died April 1st 2003. Her sister Ann Mui passed away in 2000 from cancer.

Updated : CNN is now reporting on the story. And in Tuesday mornings Toronto Star (they of the ugly long url's) reported on her death, above the fold!.

BWG and Flying Chair are now reporting on her passing.

I found on China Daily a photo series of Anita.

Here is here List of Films.

Anita Mui's funeral has been scheduled for January 12.


Tuesday, December 23, 2003

a Domino OPML directory.

Jake of codestore fame, has collaborated with Christopher Arras of news4notes.com to build a directory (which is the OPML part ) of Domino blogs with RSS feeds.

Get your red hot Domino OPML directory here :
http://news4notes.com/lotus-links/domino.opml


Many thanks Jake and Chris!

Monday, December 22, 2003

Lotus RSS Notes Reader, now for R6.x

I have had reports that the News Reader java code was failing under Lotus Notes R6.x, but had not spent the time to figure it out why. However, I've just finished a email exchange (two words that really shouldn't go together) with a fine fellow (Thank you Brian!) who reports that :

There is some new agent security setting in R6.x (not sure which release). In 6.0 everything works. In 6.0.1 and
6.0.2cf2 and 6.5, your stuff fails. But if you change the security settings to "Mode 3" everything works. fine.

Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Jakob Nielsen's Xmas tradition continue with his Alertbox Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003

Sunday, December 21, 2003

picturephoning.com: How people are using camera phones

picturephoning.com: How people are using camera phones

Saturday, December 20, 2003

Making computer games more real

Via The Globe and Mail : Making computer games more real, report on Condition30 a Van City startup which is try to crack the 'puter games market with smart rather than brute force. Lead by a trio of which 2 are know to me : Illiad, of userFriendly.org fame and the bass player for Can Rock band The Payolas.

Friday, December 19, 2003

Writing Efficient CSS

Writing Efficient CSS as compared to how I usually write it....(LOL)

the Wired Coffee-house Nexus

The Economist.com | Coffee-houses is a lively piece detail the history of how coffee-houses' functioned as centers of scientific, literary, business exchange, and political discussion/dissent. Much of this I knew ( Lloyd 's , the Royal Society, the literary role it still serves today), but interesting anyway. Altogether the article general dismisses the internet's impact along such lines, I would still hold out hope for a similar contribution to society, whether from online science journals, wiki's or blogs. I would also note that it took 100 years for Lloyd coffee house to become the Society of Lloyd's, better known as Lloyd's of London. Please allow us a few more years to change the social discourse, remake the economy and participate in overthrowing a government or two.

Dev Shed - Using Transactions In MySQL (Part 1) - Moving Up

Dev Shed - Using Transactions In MySQL (Part 1) - Moving Up has the skinny on the why, what, and how of Doing the Begin/Commit/Rollback dance with MySql, answering every CIO's question : is it ready for the big time?


As a related tidbit (or timbit? ) via Slashdork : Java DBMS functions for MySQL

Thursday, December 18, 2003

notestips.com :: Securing Your Domino Web Database

A useful reminder of what we sure and should not be doing : notestips.com :: Securing Your Web Database

Saturday, December 13, 2003

The Ceglowski Axiom, clearly Canadian

Via Joey deVilla , Accordion Guy

Fiirst came the Clarke Axiom, named after the guy who coined it, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Now we have Maciej Ceglowski's brilliant quip from the #joiito IRC channel:
Any sufficiently advanced society is indistinguishable from Canada.
Clever, and at least partly true.

Friday, December 05, 2003

Media Literacy Begins at Home

Media Literacy Begins at Home

U.Texas At Austin Flywheel Spins To A Milestone Speed Record

U.Texas At Austin Flywheel Spins To A Milestone Speed Record. Glad to see some work on getting Fly wheels up to speed. And what useful is space would be useful on the ground : storing energy when the sun shines, buy it off the grid when power it cheaper (selling it back when power is expensive).