The new Pet Shop Boys video is using a very innovative way to get its message across: they use sublimal QR codes that, if you freeze the video and scan with your QR code scanner on your cellphone, leads you to websites about civil liberties. Which this they want to make a statement against the '"if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" slogan much used to defend privacy threatening measures.

I checked it with the barcode reader on my Nokia N95 and it actually works.

(Via Engadget.com)

Good to know my iPod still has some 460 days or so left, but shocking my iPod battery only has 47% capacity left.

Want to check your own iPod? You can do that here.

(VIa Bright.nl)

Funny. Firaxis games asked some well-known web cartoonists to make Civilization cartoons, the results can be found here.

My latest discovery on Sellaband is a band named Bim. Check them out here on Sellaband and on their own site.

Sellaband now also has widgets so I can now show you samples of the music I invested in here on my site.

Never visited most of these airports, looks exciting to land at one of these.

(Via Flabber)

I blogged before on the great new music industry concept of Sellaband, now I have found an artist of which I really am very enthusiastic: Julia Marcell.

Compared by others to Tori Amos, Kate Bush, Regina Spektor and such, she has produced some very beautiful songs that not only I am enthousiastic about, but are also taking Sellaband at a storm: Julia managed to reach US$ 18k in investments in only one month, making her the fastest rising artist on Sellaband.

Visit her profile and listen to her music and buy some parts if you like it to get her to make a full length CD.

Whow! This truly is a revolution: there is a new Civilization game coming and this time it comes not to the PC, but to consoles and handhelds.

I have countlessly played basically all versions of Civilization (own Civ I, II, III, IV, Call to Power, Call to Power II, Alpha Centauri and basically all extension packs published), Civ II I almost played full time for a year during my studies.

So I am eagerly awaiting playing the next episode, and am excited I can next year play Civ on my Playstation 3 and in the train with my Playstation Portable as well.

(Click read more for trailer, via QJ.net)

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Well, if you have time too much you can always do your animation this way: by HTML coding it.

(Via Flabber)

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Our photo's of the trip to London and Oxford 17-20 May 2007 are now online.

The famous princess Leia as slave in golden bikini scene from Return of the Jedi apparently is the secret fantasy of many StarWars fanboys, including even Ross Geller from Friends.

So what can top that? Easy, a dozen slave Leias!

(Via Bright)

Finally an initiative in the music industry that does not believe the future of the industry is DRM. SellaBand is a great initiative where independent musicians are supported by fans to professionally record a CD.

I support two artists so far, give them a look (and support if you like this initiative and their music).

Daniel Ward-Murphy on SellaBand

Lucia Iman on SellaBand

Click read more for SellaBand the movie.

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Beautiful morph video showing women in art over the ages (Click read more for video).

(Via Flabber)

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Back when I made the first entry to this weblog I started this weblog with Nucleus as blogging software. I then gradually moved via Nucleus Extreme Edition to Blog:CMS.

However, due to several annoying bugs, but most importantly the fact that support for Blog:CMS is basically a one-person (albeit most of the times a very helpful person) venture, I decided to move back to Nucleus again.

Please report any glitches you might encounter.

For an overview of some of the reasons I choose to migrate:

• Wikipedia page on Blog:CMS
• Another user's story on Blog:CMS

I did not realize I was getting that old, but this news arcticle made me aware that the Sinclair ZX Spectrum is celebrating its 25th birthday this month!

Oh the nostalgia! This is the machine I started to learn computers on, programmed my first lines in BASIC on, spend countless hours waiting for the games to load from tape... great memories!

I still own a working (albeit not my original) ZX Spectrum, and of course emulators on my phone, PSP and PC.

So thanks Clive for starting the 8 bit revolution at prices everyone could afford!

(Via Tweakers.net)

Some more retro stuff after the break (click read more).

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Another business trip to New York, again some more photo's of one of my favourite cities.