Castlevania, an old way that works.

Practically all of new videogames are made in 3D. This situation has made that many companies tried to renew their classics, and in most cases spoiling great titles. Castlevania is one of them.

Castlevania is an old saga from the times of the MSX. I didn’t really like any of them, maybe because of its gameplay or perhaps by its difficulty, until the acclaimed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night appeared for PlayStation, the best one to date. A game that was developed in 2D, unlike the tendencies.

I already have finished it 10 times, is not difficult, once you get use to it, you walk across the game easily. Despite I have played that much, I do not even get tired of it even its repetitive gameplay: walk across the screen, gather objects, finish the bad guys, and go to the next stage. But within a simple game a jewel with precious 2D graphics, smooth animation, wonderful music, and perfect control appears. In spite of that "flaw", criticised by videogame sector, they had to surrender to this masterpiece.

This tendency pro-3D continues at the moment and the last incursion of Castlevania in PS2 has been in 3D. A game that is just correct in no way better than the games appeared on Gameboy Advance which are in 2D.

I think that games, visually, do not have to be in one way or another. 3D shouldn’t be an aim by itself, it’s just a design option as any other could be. It would be great to see a new Castlevania that uses classic 2D but takes advantage of the power from the new machines making this new much better.

PD: A new 3D Castlevania is on its way. Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. They say it’s better than Lament of Innocence. I hope so.

Is it good for my son?

The other day I had a conversation with a worried mother:
- In one week it will be my son’s birthday and he wants a videogame and, because I don’t know nothing about it, I’m asking you. For sure you know more than me.
- What game?
- GTA San Andreas. In the box it puts that it is for 18 or greater, you think that is appropriate to him?
- How old is him?
- Eight.

Here it is a dilemma. That is a difficult question to answer. I started to think about the poor boy. Just a few years ago I was like him. I wanted to play with adults’ things. It’s just a videogame. If I were he I would like to play San Andreas.

I told her that the game, in that case, had a just qualification. The protagonist is a criminal, is bad, police prosecutes him, deals with drug, becomes a gangster, there are violence, blood and strong language. The game is not a wonderful Disney World. Thus saying, the game seems to be a nasty one that only uses those elements to attract attention but to be honest, it is a great game.

I asked her if she allows her son to watch violent films and she said no. If she doesn’t allow him to play, then, why it would be different with this videogame.

I told her about games for all the public that were really good. I recommended GameCube videogame station where a great videogame doesn’t mean only for adults.

This way I solved the situation. The boy will have to wait. Perhaps by now he will have a new GameCube.

Piracy

If we surf the Internet, we watch the TV, we listened to the radio or we read the newspapers, in brief, we do not live disconnected from the world, I will be right if I say that "piracy" is a subject that we are sick and tired of hearing to.

When we use the word piracy, we all know what we are talking about, the illegal sales of music. But some of you probably will have thought about some file sharing networks like eMule, Kazaa or Gnutella. Not being seeing with good eyes from music publishers or many artists does not mean that using them is piracy, at least in Spain.

When this topic is object of discussion another one arises, the canon, paying money to authors and music publishers when we buy blank CDs despite they are not going to be used to burn Music. Websites writes more about it than of hunger, war or contamination. Even me, an anonymous citizen, writes about it. I have never seen such mobilization for a thing that has much less impact to their economies than the price of water, electricity or houses. But this kind of things, people united to protest, are always a reason for joy, even more when we share their claims.

Whenever I read forums where there are people who justify piracy saying that "because Music is expensive and poor quality (not recording, they refer to compositions) they buy pirate" and as it is normal I got amazed O_O. Oh! Excellent argument. So because of such mediocre facilities of this apartment and the neighbourhood in which it is located, I am not going to pay you the rent, however I am going to pay ten times less to this other gentleman who is in the door of the apartment block in order to let me pass, because after all your apartment did not seem too bad. And you not complain, your still can rent the apartment to another person; there is enough space here. It’s clear that this comparison is unequal but it helps to not get confused. Music publishers and authors are being robbed and, in general, society looks to other side.

We are not going to tell how obscure can be the musical business, in which music publishers limit market to reduce our freedom to choose, limit the variety of artists, only promote what they want, and, in addition, they put anti-copy systems that avoid the normal use of products. We already know that. Discussion on this subject is inevitable, but is only one side of the problem.

Our constitution, approved by referendum, already contemplates the protection of author rights, so if a situation, in which these rights are being harmed, occurs the government has to look for a solution and if it is necessary to write laws. But they don’t have to cross the line. The canon on VHS or Cassette had "certain" sense, but in the case of the CD it is completely nonsense.

I hope that politicians will stop what they are doing, step back and think again.

PD: In Spain the interchange of music by networks P2P, as eMule, is not a crime, although, they are taking in consideration measures to compensate the "losses" that this new situation causes to the business.

Private Parts

I'm not talking about mine! I'm talking about the film of Howard Stern.

And who is Howard Stern. He is somebody of that I have had only one reference, his film. He is a man who was able to have an outstanding success on NBC radio station (USA). He is an authentic famous on radio and, also, on television.

And what have a star of the U.S.A. show business with me if I'm a Spanish, I suppose that nothing, just like Oprah Winfrey. But something has his film that the day I found it on TV I couldn’t get my eyes of until it finished.

It is a very good film. It has many memorable scenes: sex by radio, a woman swallowing a sausage of 30 centimetres, or how Howard was able to drive crazy his boss "Pig Vomit". But apart of this, dealt with comedy style, it has magnificent and realistic dramatic parts. Annotation, this film is based on real facts described in its autobiography.

Until what point we can make public private things?

Wikipedia, a new concept in knowledge database.

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

This is the statement that we can see when we enter its web site. It is a different philosophy to approach an encyclopedia. I heard about Wikipedia about a year ago but I didn't ever go inside. What a fool! It's incredible; you can find great articles about many things. It's free, open and if something is missing we can add information or change it. Yes, we can edit it.

It's crazy but works. We go in, we edit, and we leave. We can call it OUR encyclopedia. It's the first time I realize what does sharing knowledge means. Thousand of people contribute to make it bigger, to improve it, for free since 2001. It's like in Star Trek but now.

By its open nature, vandalism and inaccuracy are problems in Wikipedia. But I will take the risk. Also Google is inaccurate.

If you want information about anything, try this before Google.

More information about what is Wikipedia can be read on its own encyclopedic article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

There are many other related Wikipedias in diferent languages. They are not just a translation, they have diferent articles. www.wikipedia.org

Garfield, The Boss

The one in the photo is my personal moneybox-Garfield, a gift from my girlfriend. I do not believe that I could find a more unreal cat and, at the same time, more similar to a real cat. Ever since I was a little boy I’ve been loving cats. I really like them. I know that their greater hobby is doing nothing, but who doesn't agree with them?

Garfield is egoist, is fat and only spends time to eat, to sleep and to watch TV. He doesn’t find interesting hunting a mice. To eat, if he is able to choose, he will always take lasagne :-P. John tries to give him a more diverse diet but, when he gives him something that he doesn’t like, Garfield finds a way to change the plate with him. He drinks coffee in cup. He has a master on the handling of the TV remote controller. And although he can’t stand the dog of John, Odie, he loves it.

But there is a characteristic that I like the most from Garfield, he hates Mondays. ^^

Space, the final frontier...

...These are the voyages of the starship, Enterprise.

With these words one of the most emblematic and productive science fiction series begins, Star Trek. Five series and ten films make this product something huge to take in consideration. Such emblematic characters as Mr. Spock or captain Kirk came out from this series, successful to such a level that a space shuttle has the name of the main ship of the star fleet, Enterprise.



A revolution in the 60’s. To know the history of Star Trek is to know the goals of science fiction. When it was released, Star Trek appeared as a revolutionary series mainly because of the topics it talked about and it approaches to them. The technology, nowadays, continues being a promise: space travels, teletransport, etc, have not even been developed but where the series surprises is in the human aspects that it represents. Star Trek showed the equality without making differences between race, sex or religion among the human beings. A united world where did not matter to be Russian or American. For a series that was emitted in the “heat” of the Cold War, and inside a society with a clear social inequality against women and black people, the stellar ship USS Enterprise was a dream that travel thru space with a multiracial crew where there were Russian officers, women of confidence and a great sense of cultural diversity.

Nowadays it’s still alive and the emission of Enterprise remarks this, although it is cancelled. This is going to be the last season but it will not past too much until we see a new one, the world of Star Trek is as vast as the universe.



The Series:
Star Trek The Original Series, 3 Seasons
Star Trek The Next Generation, 7 Seasons.
Star Trek Deep Space 9, 9 Seasons.
Star Trek Voyager, 6 Seasons.
Star Trek Enterprise, 4 Seasons.

The Films:
Star Trek I The Motion Picture
Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek III The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV The Voyage Home
Star Trek V The Final Frontier
Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VII Generations
Star Trek VIII First Contact
Star Trek IX Insurrection
Star Trek X Nemesis

In the beggining was the command line

That's the title of an essay I read today from the author Neal Stephenson, of whom I didn't hear about before. As a result, in the future, I will pay attention to his books. Enjoy.

In the beginning was the command line

Making suggestions.

You have downloaded MSN Messenger last version and there is something you don’t liked, tell to Microsoft.

I have written to Microsoft saying that I find very aggressive the publicity, from the one to buy emoticons, wallpapers and other “silly stuff”, to the great MSN Spaces, that is integrated in this new Messenger. Although integration of MSN Spaces in the application is a good point, turns out disgusting when we have to see that publicity over and over again and that icon of "my space", those things absolutely useless for those how does not want to use MSN Spaces and have their own blog. More things on screen to saturate the program.

This experience has driven me to think about how our suggestions can help to make a program better. Probably sometimes you felt that to the program that you use lack something or did not make certain things properly. The next time, let its developers know. You will help them to do their work, and, if they make the modifications, you will help all of those that, like you, wanted what you requested but never wrote a suggestion.

There are many programs that have a service to receive your requests, suggestions and compliments. Search them and use them. Requesting is free!

Techniques to remember a name.

Unfortunately I am terrible at remembering people's names. I still remember a situation in which I completely forgot Luciansky's name (the true one). (Excuse me pal)

Today I fall in a Web page which gives seven advices for this "disease". Here, I put the five that I found especially interesting:

• Be Interested. According to the article, many people forget names because they are too focused on themselves when they are introduced to someone.



• Write their names in their forehead. Apparently Franklin Roosevelt amazed his personnel with its capacity to remember the name of almost all the people that he met. He used to imagine the name of that person written in his forehead. So use your favourite hilighter color and paint their foreheads, virtually.



• Imagine that you write their names. If you move your fingers a little bit while you, simultaneously, tell yourself their names it helps to remember them.



• Relate the name. Try to associate their names to an image or celebrity familiar to you. For example if they introduce you to Arnold, imagine him like a Terminator finishing their enemy.



• Use it frequently. Try to use his name three or four times during the conversation. When you met, when you ask something, when you left, etc.

It's good being able to met people and tell them "is a pleasure to see you again (put the name here)", if you can't, try to use this phrase " I remember all about you perfectly, but your name has slipped off my head".

Mounting Sephyrot's PC.

Yesterday I went to Sephyrot’s house. He has bought a new computer, following my advices, and we were mounting it. The model: AMD64 3000+, Motherboard GigaByte K8NF-9, 1 GB of RAM and GeForce 6600 GT Graphic Card. Being clear, a huge machine.

The operation began at 22:00 and it did not finish until 1:00 but it was worth the effort. The new "tiny beast" works flawless. We were testing its kindness until high in the night, about 5:00 (we’re crazy). The games run marvellous. We used 3DMark05 and 3DMark03 to see how good it can handle 3D Real Time Images. Results without surprises, perfect. The system didn’t hang up at all, opening several windows didn’t make the system run out of response and, furthermore, it makes less noise than his previous PC. ¬ _ ¬ I’m dying of envies.

Sephyrot, greetings to you, maybe in the following years I’ll have one.


¡Vaya lío de cables!

Babylon 5, The Series

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind. Ten years after the Earth-Minbari War. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call. A home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal - all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

Every time I have tried to explain somebody what is Babylon 5, the only thing that I can give is a general description in no way good enough to describe how the series is and how good it is. You may think I'm bad explaining myself, and, in this case, you might be right, but let me tell you in these few lines, what is Babylon 5 for me.

There was a time, many years ago, when they emitted Sea Quest DSV for the first time, in which the series, that had something interesting for me, were just simple histories. One day, in the evening, I was watching TV, channel "La 2", and there it was, Babylon 5, a series that didn't look like anything I saw before. An enormous space station, ambassadors from different worlds, aliens, interplanetary wars, and one history of gigantic proportions. I did not hear about this series before. It had had been emitting for a time and I was missing it. I just began to see it when they were finishing the first season. Damn.

If I had to compare the great scale of this series I would compare it with something as enormous as "The Lord of the Rings". It is not a conventional series, but it is not either a tremendous innovation. What makes it great is the way in which all the good great histories are mixed to tell a unique, exciting and thrilling adventure. In it, unlike other series, the dialogs are not conventional simple phrases. Each thing that happens in Babylon 5 has its consequences at all levels. We can enjoy twice these conversations because the second time we hear them we know the history and we can rediscover hidden and double meanings on them. The characters are not flat, they change because of their decisions and these changes are not unnatural, every change has its reasons like in real life.

Babylon 5 is a TV series that I enjoyed a lot the first time and much more the second time.


Space Station Babylon 5

Links:
Información en imdb.com
Una enciclopedia de Babylon 5
La Página Oficial

Canon, money compensation to artist.

Here, in my country as in many others, we have laws to protect copyrights and we respect and appreciate them. But in the digital revolution this rights are becoming a new way to increase the annual income of some people in a suspicious way.

Musicians, composers and producers now receive a compensation for the CD's we buy, that is what we call "canon". So for all the things that we burn in our CD's whereas it's music or not, we pay about 22% of the total retail price of a CD. That's a lot of money, and even more than the taxes. The say that this canon it's to compensate the money loss that piracy makes. Considering the sales, such percentage is not a compensation is a high profitable business. As a result, We are fighting against this measure but it's like fighting a titan, unlikely to win.

I understand that there are rights to preserve but things are getting to far. And the music industry is draining our money using every thing that they have. I hope that we can change this.

Goodbye PS2

It was lasting too much. Yesterday, finally, Sephyrot recovered its Play2. :_( I didn't have time to play Metal Gear Solid 3 on high difficulty level, but I manage to complete it on easy level and I did have time to finish Devil May Cry too. I think I have played enough for not being a PS2 owner. :-D Thanks my friend.

The last time I bought an album.

I think that the last time I bought an album was more than 7 months ago. And no, it is not because of the piracy or of being able to download from Internet. Simply, the life is a matter of priorities. There are more practical things to buy, that compensate more, than a disc. For example: I was able to change my old 14" PC Screen, which featured Blurry Screen Technology, saving money for several months.

About money I cannot complain. My parents give me money every week. But I'm always in need, the reason, I cannot pass a weekend without eating outside at least once. But 25€ are enough only for eating hamburger or pizza, and going a bar to take a pair of drinks. Luckily, this situation is about to change; the next week I’m going to receive my payment. Finally I will have money. I will be able to buy things, but I want to save money so I will have to resist the temptations of Digital Cameras, Computers, Video Game Station, DVDs, CDs, and Guitar Amps. Whenever I see the albums of my favourites groups at sale (8.95€) I feel the desire to ruin myself buying everything. How I will be able to resist without buying anything.