The Register reports (Penguin-free Linux 2.6.29 kernel released) that the new Linux kernel release has ditched the usual penguin mascot, Tux (below), in favour of  a new one.

The new mascot, Tuz, is apparently a Tasmanian devil, and has been selected for this release to publicise the plight of the Tasmanian Devil, which is suffering from a particularly nasty infectious tumour disease (see for example my article In the Journals - Tasmanian Devil Tumours).  The new mascot's quite cute, particularly as he's sporting a penguin beak mask (El Reg suggests it's hiding a facial tumour).

The fallout from the revelations of just what is on the Great Australian Firewall blacklist continues, even as Wikileaks is still submerged.  The Age reports (Labor's blog-watch plan hits Whirlpool of dissent) reports the latest utterances of Stephen Conroy, the minister behind the assault on internet freedom:

THE Government will begin trawling blog sites as part of a new media monitoring strategy, with documents singling out a website critical of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for special mention.

This is the kind of story that fuels my worries about the database state we in the UK are walking into.  The Guardian reports that The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has examined a sample of 46 UK government databases and found significant issues (Right to privacy broken by a quarter of UK's public databases, says report).

46 databases, including the new ID card database and the DNA fingerprint database were examined to see whether they met standards of privacy and effectiveness,  Of these, 11 were found to be so failing they should be scrapped.

A list of websites supposedly blocked by the Great Australian Firewall, most of which (but by no means all) are porn sites, has been posted at Wikileaks.  Since the list was posted, there have been recurring reports that Wikileaks has been blocked or shutdown.  It's also possible that high traffic in response to this and other stories has overwhelmed the Wikileaks servers. 

According to Wikinews, blocking is taking place (Portions of Wikileaks, Wikipedia blocked in Australia):

Cyclingnews.com reports that a German laboratory has developed a test for genetic doping.  This is quite interesting, as there have been reports that genetic doping, if not in widespread use at the moment, may well be the next battlefront in the war against doping.

I have always understood that genetic doping would probably involve either insertion of genes for biochemical factors that might alter or enhance physiological response to exercise (either impacting endurance or the capacity to respond to training stress), or transient expression of such genes.  Likely target tissues would be muscle groups.  These sorts of techniques carry considerable risks - insertion of exogenous DNA into the human genome can have dangerous consequences - in particular one might worry about the potential to induce cancerous tumours.

Sunny;  Temp: 7°C;  Wind: WSW 8mph;  Hum: 67%;  Press: 1031mB;  Vis: Very good

It's been a very pleasant week here - mostly sunny, though rather cold first thing in the morning.  Not an excellent week of training, unfortunately.  I did manage a 20 mile morning road training ride on Tuesday (this was a mixture of level 2 and level 3), but later in the week I wasn't very well so didn't do further sessions.

So, after contributors to the nodpi.org forum posted publicly available information that incuded Kent Ertegrul's phone number, legal threats were made (Shoe on the other foot).  Presumably nodpi.org is a big enough thorn in Phorm's side that they decided to have go at them.

As usual in such matters, it's spurred the indefatigable band of anti-Phorm activists on to deeper investigations.  Read for example this contribution to the Trouble at Mill thread at the nodpi.org forum.  The author provides many supporting internet links.

Over at the nodpi foums, there's a discussion about some rumoured employment changes regarding Phorm in Korea (Trouble at Mill).  Some of the emails contain Kent Ertegrul's contact details as they were at that time, and these have been looked at to see if the veracity of the Korean story could be checked.

One of the posters googled Ertegrul's phone number and found:

Here's the cover picture from the February 2009 issue of Genetics, which just arrived in my office.I think this counts as art!  The caption is Adult heads of Drosophila melanogaster mass-fractionated for RNA extraction. Or, to paraphrase Edmund Spenser, "Dead skulls and bones of flies, whose life has gone astray." For further details see Telonis-Scott et al. (pp. 421-434).  The full citation is: Telonis-Scott et al (2009) Sex-Specific Splicing in Drosophila: Widespread Occurrence, Tissue Specificity and Evolutionary Conservation. Genetics, Vol. 181, 421-434, doi:10.1534/genetics.108.096743

There's a new Phorm web presence, which seems to mark the beginning of a new PR offensive.  The new site, called "inphorm", is a nicely laid out website featuring more spin from Kent Ertegrul, the Phorm CEO.  It should be be named "misinphorm".  It can be found at http://www.phorm.com/newsletter/01/article01.html.

The main story seriously misrepresents the Phorm system.  Remember, as it currently seems to work:

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The morning dawned and it was a bright and sunny morning, and ideal for tandeming over to Ivinghoe for a cream tea.  It also meant a chance to try out the new GPS data logger.

I thought it would be nice

{mosmap width='500'|height='400'|kml='http://www.robertsaunders.org.uk/cycling/maps/090315b.kml'|zoomType='Large'|zoomNew='0'|mapType='Map'|showMaptype='1'| overview='0'|text='sv DWO'|tooltip='DWO'|marker='1'|align='center'}

As a racing cyclist, I'm pretty aware of the equipment restrictions put in place by the sport's governing body, the UCI.  While many of these restrictions are really aimed at safety (such as prohibiting the use of aero bars on road race bikes), many seem to be just a reaction to increased technological developments.

Thus, we are faced with regulations that among other things aim to

The morning dawned and it was a bright and sunny morning, and ideal for tandeming over to Ivinghoe for a cream tea.  It also meant a chance to try out the new GPS data logger.

I thought it would be nice to ride the Longstaff tandem, as it's a bit more sprightly than the Dawes touring tandem.  We set off via the Brickhills and out to Stewkley.  I think this tandem is quicker because the gear ratios are a bit closer - the downside of course is that we don't have quite such a range of gears, so climbing can be a bit of a trial.  The ride out was pretty uneventful, and we saw quite a few cyclists out enjoying the spring sunshine.  There was another tandem at the cafe when we got there, with a Dawes Galaxy Twin.  From the rear window of the cafe, we could see a pin windmill in the distance. Apparently it is Britains oldest mill (it looks to be in a bit better nick than a similar one at Brill), though it hasn't worked since a storm in 1904!

White Cloud; Temp: 9°C; Wind: W 16mph; Hum: 83%; Press: 1011mB; Vis: Very good

 I have to confess to having had another poor week's training - I had intended to force evening turbo sessions, but frankly working 8am to 6.30pm, cycling home, then cooking and eating dinner means that by the time I've let dinner begin the digestive process it's rather late to blast myself on the turbo.  Still, since last week's event, I cycled every day (even if some of those days were merely the 12 mile commute to work), and I managed one level 2-3 session and a set of 1' intervals.  With the usual excuses now out of the way, on to the event, billed as a two-up team time trial.

Hot on the heels of news that Psion seeks to enforce ownership of the word "netbook",  The Register(So, what's the f**king difference between a Netbook and an ultrathin?) presents a useful flowchart which will you whether you are the proud owner of a netbook...or a plain old laptop...or a handheld....or an ultraportable PC...or an ultrathin...

 Now, as a proud owner of a (rather venerable) Sony Vaio nini notebook, an OQO UMPC, a Pocket PC, and a rather large IBM ThinkPad, what I really need is a princely purple PC formerly known as a Netbook..

There is a meeting at the House of Lords this morning about

The Internet Threat: Who needs privacy when we can have relevant ads?
Online Privacy and the Interception of Internet Communications

You can read more on it at NoDPI (Press Release: House of Lords - A Round Table Event).  Participants will include:

The Register has a report on the House of Lords privacy meeting (Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament), and it sounds as though sparks were flying.

It would seem that comparisons have been made between the pathetic response of the UK government to the far more robust attitute of the US government:

Google have announced they will be launching behaviourally targeted advertising (The Guardian: Google introduces targeted display ads on sites including YouTube).  However, as a poster on the nodpi forum points out, there are significant differences between the Google strategy and that of Phorm:

Phorm uses intercepted ISP traffic - Google collects its OWN data and is easy to block.
Google is just a website - Phorm infiltrates an entire ISP network

 The Register - Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament

The Times - Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee wants ban on snooping on internet users