Richard Allan from Facebook about safety

Today in Luxembourg the question "No privacy online anymore?" was in the air. In the evening before European Data Protection Day Mr Richard Allan, director of Policy EU of Facebook arrived to the special conference to the capital. As Facebook is a social phenomenon and even the "hero" of the film ("The social network"), Allan was hosted here like a star in the glare of publicity. Of course he was surrounded by excited luxembourgish cameramen and of course the audience bombarded him with detailed questions.

After listening to him for 2 hours I can say that he's a nice guy with a strong sense of humour. Here's one of the introductory slides of his presentation:

It's reference to the adage "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" from the cartoon by Peter Steiner published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993 (by the way the most reproduced cartoon from this journal ever). Even though Facebook's creator, Mark Zuckerberg, anounced some time ago that "the age of privacy is over", his colleague Richard Allan believes in selective privacy.

He talked about the personal management of different privacy levels for Facebook accounts, about options "Deactivate (hibernation), Delete, Memorise (for the families of facebook users who have gone)" and subject acces reaquests as well as cooperation of Facebook and DeleteMe.

The discussion had hot moments ;) (hmm, did I hear it right?)

Everything was nice till the moment when Allan got werbally attacked by one of the guys from the audience that reproached him for talking about preventing hacking instead of preparing the strategy of solving possible (sorry, "sure" according to him) large-scale attack. People are so serious about fb - imagine that this inquirer was afraid of his social security number kept in his profile :) Well, you don't have to be security expert to know that it's not a good place to stock this kind of data...

To give you some practical guidelines I will use this photo from the booklet for young luxembourgish internet surfers (by Bee-secure) that is aimed to warn them from revealing too much on Facebook. The authors suggest that beeing to honest "is not supposed to help youngsters at school or when looking for summer job"...

(Explanation for English-speaking lecturers: Sandra de Stroy 666 from Bertrange hates everything, especially one of the holidays.)

To finish with, you can take a security quizz if you want to (be more secure)...

Magic pills...

In MUDAM gallery in Luxembourg they have pills for everything ;)

The pills maker Dana Wyse has also special cloning kit...

To complement treatment Nedko Solakov proposes  "A Little Thing For Preventing From Premature Luck" - see explication:

It looks like that:

If you don't find it interesting, just take it ;)  :

Psychodelic rabbits and duck madly in love...

...or 19 Exposition international du petit-betail a Luxembourg-Limpertsberg (19th Small Farming International Expo in Luxembourg), 15-16 January 2011.

I've discovered it by chance during Saturday walk and recorded some interesting animals for you. Enjoy!

Here's the strangest hen ever that looks like poodle:

Here's the "love story" I spied during the Expo - bird in love without mutuality of feelings... Poor one. Seems that it happens to the animals as well.

And finally let me present you the rabbit Eyore-like, a psychodelic one...

Written on the wall

Just arrived, the first thing you see on the railway station in Luxembourg City, in the richest country in Europe...

Explanation: defence d'uriner = pissing prohibited (EN), zakaz sikania (PL)

Other interesting graffiti (in Limpertzberg):

English translation: "Nothing is Real, Everything is Permitted".

But unfortunately the nihilistic effect is spoiled by this smiley...

The secret of sound in UTOPOLIS

"Utopolis" cinema in Kirchberg has the acoustics studio-like. Very nice. I was impressed by the quality of sound when I heard the song "Talk to me" by Maxim Nucci included in the movie "Les petits mouchoirs" de Guillaume Canet (for Polish friends - Maxim Nucci pięknie nuci ;) !). Wow! That's why I did a little research how the "Utopolis" sound system works...

They have the THX technology: the "baffle wall" installed and good isolation of the cinema. What's this baffle wall? If you were to peel away the screen (well, I haven't tried it yet :p ), you will see a massive wall of speakers housed in an acoustic baffle (speaker system enclosure). The baffle wall is approximately the same size as the screen and this is to make panning shots and off-screen sounds more believable. Morover "Utopolis" features massive wall structures to separate the cinema from the outside distracting world and you feel cosy as in the nutshell.

Now I have a kind of audio-visual surprise for you. I saw and listened in "Utopolis" the absolutely amazing trailer. In fact every film there begins by this small advert of "Amazing life" in THX technology. Can't stop watching it... Enjoy!

Luxembourgish artists - Francesco Tristano

My new discovery Francesco Tristano is a classical music’s rising star. He grown up in Luxembourg but currently lives in Barcelona. Francesco is a graduate of Juillard School in New York where he studied from 1998 to 2003, before studying at conservatories in Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris. He won the 2004 Orleans International Contest, a highly prestigious competition dedicated to 20th Century classical music.  Although he's only 25, he already recorded many albums - the newest one "Idiosynkrasia" will be out soon!

A music lover with an insatiable appetite for discovery, Francesco Tristano excellently mixes styles (classical, contemporary, jazz, techno). Watch and listen this interesting artist:


Francesco "Idiosynkrasia" - LP out soon from InFine Music on Vimeo.

Religious accents in strange places

Restauracja "Ostatnia Wieczerza"

Kiosk "Paternoster Tabac"

Pamiątki z Luksemburga, a wśród nich souvenir - talerzyk z podobizną JP2

Serek "Niebiański kaprys - Boże, ależ to pyszne..."