First you need to download and install VirtualBox. That is the easy part. I used 2.10, which is the one available at the time of this writing.

Secondly, you need a premade Ubuntu image. You can find one here (I cannot vouch for the quality or integrity of these), specifically I used the Ubuntu 8.10 from here.

You need to unpack the image from its 7zip format.

Unpack the image. You now have two files inside a folder tree, a .vdi file and a .xml file. The .xml file contains the settings for your new virtual machine, such as amount of RAM and other stuff. The .vdi file is an image of the hard disk, with all the linux stuff pre-installed. These two files are all you need to create a VirtualBox virtual machine. We need to place these file where VirtualBox can find them and we need to edit the .xml file, because it does not work in its downloaded configuration.

The xml file that the Ubuntu 8.10 virtual machine image linked to above, does not work ( at least not on my machine, and not at the time of this writing) . I think it may have been made for an older version of VirtualBox, but I really don't know. We can make it work though. We do this by letting VirtualBox make a new Virtual Machine of its own (let's call this the bogus machine), and we use the files created by that one to guide us on how to make the downloaded machine work.

Start VirtualBox and pretend that you are going to make a new Ubuntu virtual Machine from scratch, just so we get a skeleton to work with.

Select Ubuntu, and some sane settings for memory and other stuff. Exit VirtualBox after you have created a virtual machine and its accompanying storage.

You will now have two .vdi files, one that was created by VirtualBox for your bogus Virtual Machine, and one that we downloaded. The downloaded .vdi file is correct and just needs to be placed somewhere where VirtualBox can find it. But the XML file needs to be edited.

Delete everything from the downloaded xml file except the beginning and the end:

<?xml version="1.0" ?><!-- Sun xVM VirtualBox Machine Configuration -->
<VirtualBox version="1.5-macosx" xmlns="http://www.innotek.de/VirtualBox-settings">
  <Machine OSType="Ubuntu" currentStateModified="false" 
lastStateChange="2008-11-01T12:55:48Z" name="ubuntu-8.10-x86" uuid="{c7f76231-b24b-462e-815c-967a054c0120}">

In the above XML I changed the OSType value from "ubuntu" to "Ubuntu". If you do not do this change, VirtualBox will choke on it and say that it is not among the valid OS types. Strangely enough it lists the allowed values as part of the error message and "Ubuntu" is not part of them, however Ubuntu works and is indeed generated by VirtualBox itself when it created our bogus machine.

and the end:

    <HardDiskAttachments>
      <HardDiskAttachment bus="IDE" channel="0" device="0" hardDisk="{58a58064-e589-47c0-baba-de38fa621c80}"/>
    </HardDiskAttachments>
  </Machine>
</VirtualBox>

Paste in the corresponding parts from your Bogus machine in between. You may get away with editing the file in a more fine grained way, but I have not tried that. Place the .xml file in the same directory as the bogus xml file is already in.

You must now move the downloaded vdi file to a location where VirtualBox can find it, and tell VirtualBox that it exists.

Edit the VirtualBox.xml file, and add the following sub element inside the <HardDisks> element

 <HardDisk uuid="{58a58064-e589-47c0-baba-de38fa621c80}" location="VDI/ubuntu-8.10-x86.vdi" format="VDI" type="Normal"/>

I moved the .vdi file to the VDI sub directory of VirtualBox to make the above XML declaration to be correct.

The username and password needed to login is not documented. it is 'ubuntu' and 'reverse'  respectively (without the quotes).

Once Ubuntu is booted you will want to install the guest extensions. Select this from the menu. It will mount a virtual CD for you and try to auto run it, which will fail. Run the appropriate script from the command line instead.

Each time you update the kernel, it seems like you need to reinstall the guest extensions.

I then ran Ubuntu in rootless mode under Mac OSX, and I can mingle windows from OSX and Ubuntu. I tried Kate and it works including sftp with kioslaves. I have now returned the Mac due to a mechanical problem, and hence can give you no screen shots but everything worked fine!

Well I actually I made screenshots, but I (duh!) stored them on the Mac's hard drive...

(Sorry about not being specific in all places in the instructions, this is of course due to my not having the Mac anymore. Maybe I also edited the Virtualbox.xml file to indicate the new virtual machine. Please check if the bogus machine is registered there, and if so, register the other one accordingly.)

Homeland Security i USA håller på att testa en lögndetektor som ska kunna användas på på flygpassagerare när de går igenom en korridor. En kommentar på Slashdot påpekar dock det roliga i nedanstående citat från artikeln, att systemet när det testades på frivilliga, kunde plocka ut de med onda avsikter. För då kommer ju frågan: Hur f-n hittar man frivilliga med onda avsikter till ett test??

Homeland Security ran a test in September of 140 volunteers using a FAST prototype. The system was very accurately able to pick out people with hostile intent.

The FAST system detects physiological signs of stress. In testing it detected "hostile intent" in volunteers. The obvious question is how can volunteers have valid hostile intent? You can't test deception with fake deception. The generalizability of physiological response to stressors is a basic tenet of physiological psychology (the folks who brought you FAST's grand dad, the polygraph)

Läs mer: Slashdot | Security Checkpoints Predict What You Will Do

James Lovelock, den gamle NASA-forskaren som skrev en bok om jorden som en levande organism - Gaia - är dyster om jordens framtid, enligt The Daily Galaxy.

Lovelock menar att vi rubbat planeten ur ett jämviktsläge. Lovelock menar att olika fenomen, som global uppvärmning men också "global dimming", gör att vi kommer att få en klimatmässig berg- och dalbana i framtiden, och under denna period och när jorden finner nästa jämviktsläge så kommer det att bli bistert för oss människor.

Vad ska man säga? Mer kärnkraft!(Det säger Lovelock också, om än inte skildrat i denna artikel)

Today, Lovelock believes that a rapid drop in carbon in the atmosphere could actually do more damage than good. He believes that the global warming that we are currently experiencing is offset by a cooling of 2-3ºC, caused by Global Dimming -essentially, the reduction of direct irradiance at the earth’s atmosphere as a result of industrial pollution, known to others as aerosol particles. It’s a horrible catch 22 situation that leaves only a very small gap for any joy at all. If we continue to do nothing (note the use of the word continue), then we will doom ourselves. If we do do something, like a massive cut back in the emission of carbon in to our atmosphere, Lovelock believes that we would further damage Earth.

Läs mer: The Status of "Spaceship Earth"

Tyska hackers visar att många samtal med trådlös telefoni inte inte följer säkerhetsstandarden ordentligt och  kan avlyssnas med en Linuxdator med ett billigt Dect-kort i. Även Dect-samtal som följer säkerhetsstandarden för Dect kan avlyssnas med hjälp av samma dator, och en man-in-the-middle-attack, där datorn låtsas vara basstationen för den lokala telefonen..

Uppdatering 16:20

Här är artikeln på engelska:

Tews explained that the boffins quickly noticed there was sometimes no authentication or encryption process between the transmitter station and the handheld device. In many cases, as with the GSM mobile communications standard, the telephone only authenticated itself against the network, even though, according to the DECT protocol, the network can in principle also authenticate itself against the receiver.

Keine Probleme mit dem Abfangen von DECT-Ferngesprächen habe diese Vorrichtung, wenn ­ wie sehr häufig ­ eine Verschlüsselung überhaupt nicht aktiviert werde. Aber auch bei einem anfangs verschlüsselten Informationsaustausch könne die Steckkarte eine Basisstation vortäuschen und die Kryptierung dabei deaktivieren.

Åskväder på hög höjd kan ge rejäla doser gammastrålning:

"Everywhere we look, we're seeing x-rays and gamma rays flying out of thunderstorms and lightning," said Joseph Dwyer, a physicist at the Florida Institute of Technology and lead author of the study. "The gamma rays coming out of thunderstorms are so intense we can measure these 600 kilometers away and so bright that it almost blinds the spacecraft."

Läs mer: Lightning-Storm Gamma Rays Could Harm Air Travelers | Wired Science from Wired.com

In a 4,200-square-mile Atlantic ocean swath off the coast of Namibia, bacteria converted lethal sulphide into foul-smelling but otherwise harmless sulphur and sulphate.

Läs mer: Toxin-Gobbling Bugs Could Clean Ocean Dead Zones | Wired Science from Wired.com

I Indien har man upptäckt en groda som mest lever under jord. Den ser ut som en felande länk i utvecklingen av grodor. Man får nog inte äta den, för den är nog fridlyst, om man hunnit detta.

Scientists have recently discovered a very strange breed of frog. It's a kind of "living fossil" whose great great grandparents lived during the time of the dinosaurs. The doughnut-shaped, purple frog was found in a "biodiversity hotspot" in the mountains of southern India. It is bloated and purple and has very tiny eyes. Look how small the head is.

This behavior of intentionally gathering together and going out to kill members of our own species is an extremely rare behavior. Humans do it. Chimps do it. There is some evidence that wolves and hyenas do it. But it's pretty much a human and chimp innovation. You have a very intelligent animal and a social animal. And when you're a social animal, all of the evolutionary pressures are toward living in a group. There are hierarchies. There are mechanisms for resolving disputes in nonlethal ways. That can all be summed up under empathy. But humans and chimpanzees, when they are fighting an out-group, have the ability to turn off the empathy. By turning that off, you dehumanize the enemy or dechimpize the enemy.

Läs mer: How Biology and Technology Shape Sex and War | Wired Science from Wired.com

Mycket mark i världen är inte odlingsbar därför att den t ex är infiltrerad med saltvatten från kusten. Men det finns växter med hög avkastning som kan växa i dessa förhållanden.

Overly salty land could play a large and previously underappreciated role. That's because there's plenty of previously uncultivated territory in the world's coastal deserts, inland salty soils, and over-salinized agricultural land.

Läs mer: Food vs. Fuel: Saltwater Crops May Be Key to Solving Earth's Land Crunch | Wired Science from Wired.com

Bland en hypokondrikers värsta skräck måste väl vara att tro att han har fått maskar i lymfsystemet. Dock finns det minst 120 miljoner människor på planeten som inte är hypokondriska om detta tillstånd, utan verkligen har det.

Två läkemedelsföretag, GlaxoSmithKline och Merck, har nu gått ihop och producerat över en miljard piller för att behandla dessa och andra människor i farozonen.

Detta låter som väl använda pengar. Undrar hur väl biståndspengar används egentligen i allmänhet? Det verkar som om dessa läkemedelsföretag och t ex Bill & Melinda Gates foundation har hög effektivitet på sina hjälpinsatser.

Dessa hälsokampanjer gör dock inte ett land rikare. För det krävs utbildning och frihandel.

A public health campaign has saved more than 6 million people from filarial worms, which cause elephantiasis and other grotesque maladies, in just eight years.

Läs mer: The Crusade to End a Horrific Disease Costs 10 Cents Per Person | Wired Science from Wired.com

Enligt bloggen Eternal Remont så är de pass som getts ut i Sydossetien inte riktiga ryska pass, utan en slags resedokument för att resa inom Ryssland. Detta ska ha skildrats i ett reportage på nyhetskanalen Al-Jazeera.

Al Jazerra's camera accidently answers what no one -- and I mean no one -- in Washington has confirmed. The Russian passports are actually "propiska" (internal documents) rather than "mezhdunarodnye" (international). This means the "Medvedev Doctine" might as well be handing out memberships to the Hair Club for Men, or the Mickey Mouse Club, for all the legitimacy it has before international law. Either way, Russia is not minting new citizens of the Russian Federation.

Läs mer: Eternal Remont:: On the Russian Passport Question: Al Jazeera [Accidentally] Scoops Everyone

In all countries with embassies, there are stories about diplomats misbehaving. Reader's Digest has written an article - promptly linked to from the front page of Digg, where they criticize the immunity of Diplomats. Leaving that aside, they chose to illustrate the article with a photo of a house carrying the flag of ...Finland???

Above is a miniature of the picture on the Reader's Digest site. The caption reads:

"Unpaid bills, drunk driving, sex crimes and even slavery -- isn't there any recourse for this conduct?"

None of the examples of misconduct that they list has the slightest bearing on Finland. Obviously somebody at Reader's Digest has decided that any flag that is not stars and stripes will do.

In my country, Sweden, the papers occasionally publish lists of misconduct by foreign diplomats, sorted by country. I do not remember Finland being very high up on that list. The bad apples tend to be from countries rife with cronyism and no oversight, not from mature democracies. The whole Reader's Digest article smells of sloppyness, and I was surprised when I realised it was on the site of Reader's Digest, a publication I have fond memories of from when I was a child.


Läs mer: Diplomatic Immunity Going Too Far: Diplomatic Impunity | Michael Crowley | Reader's Digest

En gång är ingen gång, men två gånger på förstasidan på DN.se? Och i ena fallet en gång till i den korta ingressen också på förstasidan?

Tror inte det är slump...

Rubrik 1:

Rubrik 2 +ingress:

Julmat och choklad gör inte hunden glad

Å andra sidan så verkar det lite smaklöst vad gäller å-olyckan, så det kanske är en slump trots att just den rimmar?

Jag tror inte någon i min familj läser denna blogg så jag kan dela med mig av ett tips om hur man kan få sina julklappar att verka dyrare.

Normalt sett så tar man ju bort prislappar från klappar och presenter, för att inte genera mottagaren. Men detta är ju hel fel sätt att göra det på. Sätt istället på dyrare prislappar! Allt som behövs är sax, papper, limstift och en laserskrivare.

Det är svårt att på ett trovärdigt sätt få till de riktigt små prislapparna, så jag föreslår att du siktar på de större prislapparna som också har en streckkod på sig.

Foto: rick

Själv ger jag bort böcker, så jag har funderat att som ett latare alternativ helt enkelt skriva ut på lite styvare papper och sätta in priset på ett pappersark, vikt över första sida i boken, så som det ser ut i bokhandlar. Jag tänkte börja med 853:- och jobba mig upp mot 55000:-, men det senare priset får blir för en inbunden bok, och inte en pocket.

En viktiga sak: Fejka inte ett tillhörande kvitto som du kan ge dem om de vill byta present. Om du gör det, har du blivit offer för dina egna lögner.

På Martin Andreassons blogg, en blogg som jag för övrigt tidigare har missat,  kan man läsa om "politiska kultböcker". På plats 9 finns Jan Myrdals bok "Den albanska utmaningen 1968-1986".

Ja, bröder och systrar, så knäppa resonemang som återfinns i den boken är inte och var inte helt ovanliga inom kultursverige. Det kan vara bra att sätta ljuset på detta helt flagranta något daterade exempel, innan nästa gång Aftonbladet kultur eller någon annan mediemakthavare skriver något dumt, dumt, dumt och människoovärdigt.

Stödet för det albanska kommunistpartiet är kompakt i hela befolkningen sedan titoister och trotskister väl ”rensats ut”, fortsätter Myrdal

I en kommentar till Andreassons bloggpost skriver "Bengt O":

Läs mer: Politiska kultböcker, 9:e plats: Jan Myrdals ”Den albanska utmaningen 1968–1986” - Martin Andreasson (fp)

To summarize: these things sit on uranium, drink bleach and eat solid rock

Läs mer: Quantum Extremeophiles Thrive Where the Life-Giving Energy of the Sun Never Reaches: A Galaxy Insight

Jag skulle vilja köra lite KDE-applikationer (framför allt Kate) på min nya Mac. Här är tydligen sajten för sådana experiment: .: KDE 4 Mac :..
Jag återkommer med hur det går, eventuellt kör jag hellre än virtualiserad CentOS eller Ubuntu.

KDE on OS X is a project still in its infancy and the KDE/Mac team is currently a very small one. Consequently, there will be issues encountered with either the software or packages provided. Please keep this in mind while using, and do report any bugs or other software errors experienced at http://bugs.kde.org.

Läs mer: .: KDE 4 Mac :.

Summary: Try out buildout.eggnest

A couple of weeks ago, me, Martin and Robin in Webworks had a coffee break and were kicking around ideas of how to make Plone more user-friendly for the administrator. The new Plone distributions are buildout based, and it is easy to add a product to your Plone server if you add one or more lines to your buildout.cfg file(s).

However that is only simple if you know where to add them in the file(s), and we guessed that some people might feel intimidated from the thought of editing such a complex settings file.

In the olden days of Plone distributions, you would add a product by dropping it into a products folder. What if you could make a "products" folder for buildout? Each file would  just contain buildout configuration lines for one product. That is a simpler user interface than buildout.cfg. You make a folder and drop files in it, one for each product. No need to understand buildout syntax.

Well, Martin Lundwall kept thinking about this idea, and created an egg for buildout that does just that. It is called buildout.eggnest and can be found here at the cheeseshop. It is a proof of concept but seems to work.

I tried it out with PloneArticle, I installed buildout.eggnest, designated a folder as the eggnest folder, created a file with only the settings for PloneArticle (the ones listed at the PloneArticle page at Plone.org) and dropped it in the designated eggnest folder. I reran buildout, and lo, PloneArticle was downloaded and installed.

If this turns out to be a good concept, each provider of a product could provide a text snippet in a file (it could e.g. be called a ".nestegg" file) and that file could be dropped into the eggnest and I at least think that might entice more people to try out and work with Plone.

Den brittiska tidningen The Observer har  försökt verifiera den överlevande terroristens bakgrund. Genom att titta på röstlängder och sedan åka till den by där han tycks vara från och prata med folk, har man fått fram rätt övertygande bevis att han är från Pakistan. Det är ju därför sannnolikt att de andra också är det, även om vi inte med säkerhet kan veta det. Det har ju cirkulerat uppgifter om att några skulle vara britter och att andra  föreföll vara från södra Indien.

Överhuvudtaget så verkar det svårt att få fram fakta som man kan lita på i detta ärende, så The Observer har här gjort en insats.

Utan fakta ingen kunskap. Utan fakta kan man koka ihop den konspirationsteori som passar ens befintliga åsikter bäst.

A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. 'We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,' he said. 'We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,' he added. According to the villager and other locals, Ajmal has not lived in Faridkot for about four years but would return to see his family once a year and frequently talked of freeing Kashmir from Indian rule.

Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear. The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence.

Läs mer: One World, Many Minds: Intelligence in the Animal Kingdom: Scientific American