WOW: It is Facebook and not Vista that makes me speechless

I joined Facebook a few days ago and I am currently "searching for words". Here are some of the reasons why:

- Networks: HP network has close to 9000 members. Facebook maybe already more useful and user friendly than the internal HP employee portal.
- Platform: There are 1,200 applications in the Application directory.
- Content: Facebook has "community first, content second" approach but it will very likely become a serious competitor to YouTube soon (there is 8.5 million photos uploaded daily...)

There are other reasons why I like Facebook and I am sure I will write more about my experience with this social networking site.

PS. Here is link to may Facebook profile:

G7

I am very happy with my new compact digital camera: Canon G7. The last one I was this happy with was actually my first digital camera - Canon S40. And since then I tried multiple compacts from Casio, Sony and Canon but I got rid of all of them very quickly. The problem was either high noise, low sensitivity or other issues like purple fringe.

So far I don't have these problems with G7 (here are some of my pictures) and I really like the the retro look and compact size. Some people complain about the lack of RAW format and vari-angle screen. I don't miss either one: I use this camera to complement my Canon 5D and I plan to do very little of post-processing anyway. And I would always trade the rotating LCD display for the smaller size. And so it looks like this one is a keeper...

Mario the Terrorist?

I fly so much that only very few things surprise me any more. But I was shocked to find out that Alitalia allows only non digital music players (Walkman) to be used on the board of its aircrafts during the flight and it specifically bans Nintendo GameBoy! I wonder who is the real villain here: Mario or Luigi?

Dissident or Don Quixote?

Six years ago Scientific American published this fairly short and more/less negative article about Peter Duesberg's hypotesis (initially published in 1997) that aneuploidy of tumor cells is the cause and not result of cancer. This could be easily the end of the story if the same magazine did not publish last month a feature article written by controversial scientist Duesberg himself called: Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer.

It is actually a very convincing story even for somebody who reads about aneuploidy for the first time and I wonder when we will actually know whether Duesberg is right or wrong. I guess I am not alone - here is a quote from the Scientific American editorial: "Thus, as wrong as Duesberg surely is about HIV, there is at least a chance that he is significantly right about cancer...

Lunches at Gresham Palace

As I was having lunch in the beautiful Gresham Palace here in Budapest, Hungary earlier today it occurred to me that it is more less the same place I had lunch some twenty years ago. But I did not eat in the Four Seasons hotel then:


(If you click on the picture you will see a tin-can of sausages getting ready...)

Revenge of Tongue Twisters

I am in Helsinki, Finland today and I have to say I am struggling with the local language a little bit. Google offers a Finnish version of Blogger only and so I am not 100% sure if Tämän blogitekstin luokkatunnisteet is the same as tags selection or what Ohjausnäkymä actually means.

But then I went to a local bar and I saw a name of a Czech beer written on the black board: Velkopopovicky Kozel! I really wonder how the local people manage to order one...