Darth Saudi?

King Abdullah of Saudi is greeted by a rendition of the Darth Vadar "Imperial March" tune.
I thought that maybe, the tune is a classical one that was merely used for the Star Wars film.

Well no it isn't - it was written by John Williams specifically for the Star Wars score!

British sense of humour? Practical joke?

Linkdump

Details Revealed - Google OpenSocial
The Web is Agreement (huge map)
Elton John Gold and Diamond iPhone
Open Social - a new universe of social apps
G.ho.st - an online OS
Google Maps Halloween Icon
Google News Gadget
Brijit snippets of articles
Hulu backdoor
Simpsons Video game review
Rotten Neighbor insane Google Maps mashup
Convenience wins , hubris loses, Head of Yahoo Music is sick and tired of DRM
Live365, thousands of online radio stations

How to Evolve a Watch

Google's response to Facebook - "Maka Maka"

Via TechCrunch

"Google may have lost the bidding war to invest in Facebook, but it is preparing its own major assault on the social networking scene. It goes by the codename “Maka-Maka” inside the Googleplex (or, perhaps, “Makamaka”).Maka-Maka encompasses Google’s grand plan to build a social layer across all of its applications."

The 13th sign of the zodiac - Ophiuchus

Via Wikipedia

Ophiuchus is a large constellation located around the celestial equator between Aquila, Serpens and Hercules, northwest of the center of the Milky Way. The southern part lies between Scorpius to the west and Sagittarius to the east.

Of the 13 zodiacal constellations (constellations that contain the Sun during the course of the year), Ophiuchus is the only one not counted as an astrological sign.

Further info:
Ancients omitted the 13th sign of the zodiac

Cyriak Animation Mix

new working embed. vid was reuploaded

Cyriak

Google Earth Updates

Google LatLong has a big list of imagery updates to Google Earth/Maps.
New hi-resolution imagery now for the following:

Americas: State of Oregon, State of Nebraska, State of North Carolina,Western Mississippi, Much of Pennsylvania, Yakima County (WA),Benton County (WA), Whistler (BC), San Jose (CA), Imperial County (CA),Steamboat Springs (CO), Calhoun County (FL), Adams County (IL),Washtenaw County (MI), Chemung County (NY), Cortland County (NY),Castilla (Colombia)

Europe, Middle East & Africa:
- France: French Riviera, Avignon
- UK: Exeter, Brighton, Crawley, Essex, Colchester, Chelmsford,Swindon, Cheltenham, Ipswich, Norwich, Peterborough, Leicester,Chesterfield
- Germany: Freiburg, Stuttgart, Waiblingen, Remseck, Kornwestheim,Ludwigsburg, Saarbruecken, Chemnitz, Erfurt, Ratigen,
Munster, Hamburg, Luebeck
Umea (Sweden)
Borger-Odoorn (The Netherlands)

2.5m imagery for the entire countries of: Tunisia, UAE, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.

Rod Stewart's Model Railway

Source

Laid out at his Beverly Hills mansion, the 1:87-scale version of New York's Grand Central Station in the Forties boasts 100ft of track, period locomotives, skyscrapers, advertisement hoardings and lots of tiny passengers in period hats and coats.

Its appearance on the cover of this month's Model Railroader realises a lifelong ambition for 62-year-old Rod, who has said that such an honour would "mean more to me than the cover of Rolling Stone".

California Fires

Satellite photo of fires around San Diego
Google News search

Meet the Steves

Since the early Twentieth Century, evolution deniers have been fond of creating lists of "scientists" who do not accept evolution. This tactic is an attempt to give the erroneous impression that, among scientists in general, support for evolution is in decline or that evolution is a "theory in crisis."

Project Steve is a parody of these lists conducted by the National Center for Science Education.

More info here
Current Steve-o-meter
Project Steve

Latin for cloud

In meteorology Nimbus is Latin for "cloud". However "nimbus" means specifically "rain cloud".
Another word in Latin which means cloud is nebula, which in astronomy means an interstellar cloud of gas and dust.



The Eagle Nebula

Asus launches Linux mini laptop

From the Register
Asus has formally rolled out its Eee PC line of sub-notebook computers, a week after UK supplier RM - formerly Research Machines - spilled the beans on two of the models. The complete line-up comprises four computers.

All four models are based around the same 7in display; 900MHz Intel Celeron processor and chipset; 10/100Mbps Ethernet port and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi for internet access; HD audio; three USB ports; SD card slot; stereo speakers and microphone input; and a version of the Linux open source operating system, Xandros.

The basic model, the 2G Surf has a 2GB of Flash storage and 256MB of DDR 2 memory. The 4G Surf ups the storage to 4GB and the memory to 512MB. The next machine up, the plain 4G model, matches that spec but introduces a 0.3-megapixel webcam into the display's bezel. It also ups the first two machines' 2.8-hour, 4400mAh battery to a 3.5-hour, 5200mAh unit.

The top-of-the-range 8G builds on the 4G and is fitted out with 1GB of DDR 2 and 8GB of Flash in addition to the extras the 4G offers.

Richard Simmons

I have no idea who Richard Simmons is but searching for his name has gone "volcanic" over at Google Trends.

Here's a bunch of links for those of you who know who he is

Richard Simmons on David Letterman
Richard Simmons Hilarious video
Yet another Richard Simmons on Letterman video link

Mallorca Tornado

Photos/videos of the supercell that hit the island of Mallorca and the east coast of Spain.

Imageshack
Gallery
YouTube
YouTube 2
YouTube 3
YouTube 4
YouTube 5

Linkdump

Following up on the Mutated Pictures Project
Hive mind
How does it feel to die?
New Scientist article
Vimeo High Def Video
Better quality than YouTube
CNN asks how much you paid for the new Radiohead album
The New Space Race
The Technological Singularity
Amazon could be lost in 40 years
Early Venus had oceans
Scientists lift veil on galactic dust
Family Guy explains Death Star flaw
Microsoft and Facebook deal rumours

Life Sized X-Wing Launch - What really happened

Moonwalking Mannequin Bird

Google Streetview cars spotted in other cities

Via Googlified

There has been several sightings of the Google Streetview car in more cities:

St. Paul
Ankeny, Iowa
Evansville, Indiana
Washington D.C.
Salt Lake City
Quebec City
Montreal
London
Columbus, Ohio

Google Streetview Chicago

Chicago Tribune has a blogpost on the first interesting sightings on Google Streetview Chicago.

Google adds six new cities to StreetView

From the Google LatLong blog

"Now you can check out 360-degree views of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland and Tucson. As an added bonus, the images in Phoenix, Tucson and parts of Chicago are all in high resolution.

But wait! There's more. Ever wish you could pan up to the very top of a 50-story skyscraper using Street View? Well, prepare yourself for some serious sightseeing; we've introduced the ability to pan up in most new cities."

Radiohead In Rainbows Reviews

Here's a bunch of reviews of the latest Radiohead album In Rainbows collected from around the web.

The Times

"For what it’s worth, In Rainbows was sent to me at 6.30am. Three hours later, this insidious index of sonic surprises is stacking up in my mind, like planes waiting to land. The trick, I guess, is to give your fans what they didn’t know they wanted. Radiohead, old hands at this, have been doing it for over a decade now. With In Rainbows, they appear to have done it again."

StudentDirect
‘In Rainbows’ is similar to ‘Hail to the Thief’ in its conception of mixing styles and sounds developed during the recording of The Bends, Ok Computer, and Kid A/Amnesiac. From the opening bars of the ‘Idiotequesque’ ‘15 Step’ to the final bars of the majestic ‘Videotape’, there is a vast array of genres and styles to feast upon.

Rolling Stone track by track review
Another track by track review
Dave Allen - a review of sorts
"With that in mind it’s fair to say that Radiohead have delivered access and value for sure. In Rainbow is not the ground-breaking existential, fuck-with-our-heads records that Amnesiac or Kid A were. It doesn’t take me on that helter skelter ride that OK Computer took me; it doesn’t even take me down the dark paths that Thom Yorke’s Eraser explored. Yet still it’s the most enthralling rock album that you’ll hear before the year is out."

Advertise on LinuxNotes!

Click on this graphic to expand



LinuxNotes gets on average around 1,000 visitors per day (see my Google Analytics graphic above). Your site can grab a bit of that traffic (and get more Google goodness since I'll be linking to you) by advertising in my top banner with a 16x16 pixel icon. Look up at the top right - all those "buy" icons. One of them could be yours.

Pricing:

---

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US Dollars: 1 month: $20 3 months $50 12 months: $180

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---

If you want to advertise just send LinuxNotes an email (justinf@gmail.com) with the following details:

- Your name
- The URL you want to Advertise
- Text you want displayed “on hover”
- What length of time you’re wanting (1,3,12 months)
- Attach the 16×16 pixel icon you want to display.

Payment is by Paypal only http://www.paypal.com, payable to
justinf@gmail.com

Once I receive payment your 16x16 icon will be up right anyway.

Not convinced? Here's some more traffic data. LinuxNotes shamelessly engages in traffic baiting , so if there's a volcanic Google Trend happening, I'll blog it.

Here's the traffic in response to this post


And here's the volcano of traffic in response to this post which made it to Digg and Reddit



And here's another traffic rocket , back in May, in response to this post



For only 10 quid for a month, you could get a piece of that traffic for your website.

Radiohead download

If you are looking for the new Radiohead album "In Rainbows" it's at this url:
InRainbows.com


From the BBC:
"In Rainbows, the seventh studio album by alternative rock group Radiohead, has become available for download from their official website. The band have let fans decide what to pay for the 10 MP3 files - from nothing to £100."

How to embed a Flickr flash slideshow in your blog

If you want to embed a Flickr flash slideshow in your blog just use this:

<div align=center>
<iframe src="http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?tags=ubuntu" align="middle" frameborder="0" height="500" scrolling="no" width="500"></iframe>
</div>

just replace "tags=ubuntu" with a tag of your own choosing.

Here it is in action:

Columbus Day

Columbus Day is a holiday celebrating the anniversary of the October 12, 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.

Since 1971, the holiday has been commemorated in the U.S. on the second Monday in October, the same day as Thanksgiving in neighboring Canada. It is generally observed today by schools, some banks, the bond market, the U.S. Postal Service, federal offices, and most state government offices; however, most businesses and stock exchanges remain open.

Further reading:
Columbus Day
Christopher Columbus
Google News

Monday Linkdump

EbayBulletin
A blog about all things buying and selling on ebay
Boris Quote of the Day
A different Boris Johnson quote each day.
Crimean War photos
An investigation
Top Ten mega disasters
The Bumper Book of Government Waste
£100 billion squandered

Ig Nobel Awards 2007

The annual awards for quirky and off-beat science research with handed out by the Annals of Improbable Research at Harvard University.

Some of the winners included:

• Spanish scientists who found that rats sometimes could not distinguish between Japanese spoken backwards and Dutch spoken backwards.


• An Australian woman who documented the indexing problems caused by the word "the."


• A Japanese researcher who extracted vanilla flavoring from cow dung.


• A Taiwanese man who patented a Batman-like device that drops a net over bank robbers.

Further info:
MSNBC
Slashdot
Google News

Most abundant element in the universe

The most abundant element in the universe is hydrogen , followed by helium and then oxygen.

The top ten most abundant elements are as follows:
1. Hydrogen
2. Helium
3. Oxygen
4. Carbon
5. Neon
6. Iron
7. Nitrogen
8. Silicon
9. Magnesium
10. Sulfur

Sputnik anniversary

Fifty years ago today the Russian satellite Sputnik 1 was launched into orbit, thus beginning the space race. As a result Google has a new doodle today.

Sputnik wikipedia page

SeedyR now in blog format

The Dublin based SeedyR record label (run by my mate Corrugated Tunnel) has moved to blog format for it's website.

You can visit it over here: SeedyR blog

BBC interview Corrugated Tunnel

Interview is here

ATI HDA - SIGMATEL STAC 9200 CHIPSET How To

From this Fedora forum thread.
Ubuntu launchpad also refers to it where a poster writes that he has finally got his sound to work

He writes: "I have the NVidia MCP51 High Definition Audio with the Sigmatel STAC 9200 chip on it. It came with my Gateway MT3421 laptop."

Here's the instructions:
1. uninstall every alsa package if you have any
rpm -qa | grep -i alsa - if it shows nothing skip this step
and then
rpm -evv --nodeps alsa-... for every package

2. go to www.alsa-project.org and download these files :
alsa-driver-1.0.15rc1.tar.bz2
alsa-lib-1.0.15rc1.tar.bz2
.alsa-utils-1.0.15rc1.tar.bz2

Open a terminal and type : su then make a directory called alsa into /usr/local/src. Copy the files to this directory and unpack them (tar xjvf alsa-... for every file).

3. go to this page and download the file patch_sigmatel.c.patch-1.0.15rc1-simple. Copy the patch to /usr/local/src/alsa.

4. type this :
patch alsa-driver-1.0.15rc1/alsa-kernel/pci/hda/patch_sigmatel.c < patch_sigmatel.c.patch-1.0.15rc1-simple.

5. do this:
cd alsa-lib-1.0.15rc1/
./configure && make && make install
cd ../alsa-utils-1.0.15rc1/
./configure && make && make install
cd ../alsa-driver-1.0.15rc1/
./configure && make && make install

If the configure script complains about missing some libraries yum for them and try again.

6. reboot
7. after rebooting volume may be muted so use kmix or some other mixer to enable it.

Hope it works for you. I have a Gateway MT 3705 laptop and i finally have sound after months of silence

NOTE - on Ubuntu with step 1 you just have to remove alsa-lib and alsa-utils.