My borrowed homecinema…

...sound like in the movies thanks to a friend.

When Quisilver_mx months ago said to me "I am going to buy new amp and I don’t know what to do with the older. If you want I can lend it to you". I couldn’t believe it.
Finally I will enjoy 5.1 sound-system in my home. I was excited.

I have a PC with integrated nVidia SoundStorm 5.1 sound card and until that moment I was using only 2.0, stereo. But he didn’t lend me just the amp he lend me a pair of loudspeakers too that I use for the center channel. I already had four loudspeakers in my room I only had to connect them properly so in 5 minutes I completed the installation. Now I can enjoy homecinema sound on films and videogames.

Remember, whenever you have something that you don’t know what to do with it ask your friends, someone will be pleased.

The slang of computer science.

"It seems that the problem was with the PCD, not the BCD"

In my job everything works using initials and technical terms. To such a level, that all the time I’ve spent there was to learn how to use this "language". Otherwise, it will be impossible to resolve any of the tasks that I’m assigned to, no matter how easy. Computers like this kind of things.

Our life is now enrich with the presence of new and estrange words: USB, FireWire, Hacker, ATA, IDE, Java, Web, http, ftp, emule, CD, DVD, RAM, PHP, HTML, C, C++, along with other new meanings to word well known: compile, mouse, pointer, run, copy, paste, delete, icon, application, protocol. This is a little sample of this craziness.

Computers are terribly far from reality, however, we have it everywhere.

A bad awakening.

Today I would kill my neighbour’s son.
-Myself, been in a bad mood.

After a great night with my friends: Renis, José, Dani, Quicksilver_mx and Tacirupeca, well, she is more than just a friend. And enjoining what we like the most, Star Wars, beers, and pizzas, from which, the fucking son of bitch of the dog, to say the least, steal one for him. Quicksilver is still crying for it, like Vader for Padmé. I went to bed at 8:15am. But at 12:00, someone felt that he doesn’t nothing better to do but ringing the door-bell until waking up someone.

I went off of my dream to the sound of the bell, irritating. When I arrive to my front door I saw him, the son of my neighbour, a naughty boy that was hitting the door. Just as I saw him, I send him to hell. A little bastard has breaking my sleeping. It’s not a time to be ringing at any door, at least mine.

Poor boy, when I get back to my room to sleep I felt sorry for him. What did he know about my long night. I didn’t listen to him. What he expected after ringing the bell for 10 minutes?

Later, my sister told me that he wanted his ball that was thrown to my garden while he was playing. I didn’t listen to him, so I didn’t return him his ball.

I think this is not going to happen again. The child might be so scared of losing his ball to play near my home. Muhahaha! (I’m so evil)

Film Rating. Droids and xenophobia.

I find interesting that Star Wars Episodes I and II are rated PG (Parent Guidance). Not that I think is wrong, but we only have to change the droids for humans to see the rating change to PG-13. It is curious, but true. In that film the droids are killed in all possible ways, thrown into a riff, beheaded, dismembered and everything filmed in detail. Imagine the same scenes but with real people. The result, a good scene for Kill Bill.

Another film in which happens the same is I, Robot. When I saw the trailers I thought to myself "it will be a robotic massacre trip for sure", I wasn't wrong. That attitude to aggression against other beings seems to me something to be preoccupied. It's clear that they are not equal, but just for that difference do we must admit violence and aggression against them? Just because they don't feel, just because they are not… humans.

I always have liked to think about droid thinking. About if they can feel or not, no matter if they don’t exist. So often, being able to feel is considered the most important quality. Lieutenant Commander Data explore it on Star Trek The Next Generation. He wants to be human. In contrast, they’re many times in which his comrades tell him that he has behave in a way more human than any other.

We know well that life forms not necessary feel. Do fungus feel? Do bacterium feel? Do virus feel? Do plants suffer when we cut off a branch? What is to feel? Is it possible to feel without showing emotions?

There’s too much to do against xenophobia. It is integrated in our culture. It is in front of us and we see nothing.

Today I forgot to congratulate my father.

I can’t stand these things. I remember it few days ago, I remember it the day before, and when it comes, after saying good morning, the only thing I told him was: "have a nice day"

Luckily I remember it in the job and I congratulate him his birthday. I’m not going to have the chance to tell him in person because they go for a travel.

Put the hands in "excellent" Mr Burns’ position, incline the head backwards and Muhahaha! The house all alone to me. Well, not at all, Brai will be. Poor dog, having to stand my company in the absence of my mother. XDD

The life without technology.

"Living in an Amish paradise"
-Weird Al Yankovic

Every time an electrical appliance fails or there is a power shut down, my neurons start to think how we have achieved such level of technology dependence. It worries me the feeling of impotence I felt the last weekend when the fridge got broken. Here, we have hot weather so if we don’t put the food in the fridge it would get rotten.

Some times funny things happen to me. For example, when the light went off while I was using the computer. It was right in the middle of some chat conversations and, in addition, I was angry because there was a high probability of archive corruption in eMule. Well, I decided to take it easy and do other things. Then I said to myself, I’ll watch some TV. Ouch!! (As Homer would say), it doesn’t work. Well, then I’ll prepare the lunch it’s about time. Errrr, no. It’s an electric kitchen, microwave too, unless you prepare sandwiches or salad, you’re not going to eat. OK, I’ll wait listening some music while I read. Forget about the first thing.

In that moment, you realize that you can’t do anything. Everything you own, right now, is totally useless. I’m going to have to go to the patio to let the sunlight reach me. Noooo!!! I’m a vampire!!! It will kill me!! And in the end you do it unless you have started to put order in your room’s chaos.

www.ikaru.net

Yesterday I spent my money and I bought a domain name. Now you can reach my private universe just by typing the url www.ikaru.net. It leads to my spanish blog. In order to go inside the international edition, I made another redirection, just write ie. instead www. so the url will be ie.ikaru.net and you will arrive here.

Enjoy this new era on internet.

asdf

What is asdf?

asdf is like jkl. A mixture of letters. XDD

Here you've got the first result to the google search "asdf". I've liked the artistic way it has.

asdf worth 8 points in scrabble.

Find what you want on Internet. Troops.

The other day I saw a Star Wars FanFilm called "Troops". A short-film made in 1997 that was similar to the TV show Cops but, instead of policemen, they were imperial soldiers. It was very good, in all aspects. Filmed in documentary style, and shoot "camera on shoulder". Unfortunately video file quality was terrible.

The file was the one on TheForce.net. 30MB QuickTime .mov. I hate QuickTime. Then I began to search on Google. Nothing, I only found references to that 30MB file. I tried eMule too, and I found two archives, one in MPEG that had better picture but not smooth movement at all (it lacked of frames) and another one, also in QuickTime, that in some parts was better but when movement happened it showed more compression artefacts than the others.

Suddenly, I though that could be a DVD version somewhere and, indeed, it existed. But there were no site to download it. Firefox threw sparks because of the amount of tabs I had opened in searches. And then I found something interesting. In a forum somebody commented that it had the DVD version and that he was sharing it by BitTorrent through a page of which he gave a link.

I was determinate to obtain the video so I enter the web page, a BitTorrent community. But the thing was not so simple. The torrent, the file necessary to download it, could be obtained only if we were registered users. To register in an unknown page does not look so good, for that reason, prudently, I used my "special" email account that I have for these things, and filled up the form with the habitual procedure, without giving any real data. ^^

Quickly, the mail with the registry confirmation arrived. I entered the page again and, finally, the torrent appeared. I downloaded it and my BitCommet rapidly catch it and start to download.

That was yesterday late at night. Today I’ve got the DVD version. I want to express my gratitude to the people who shared it. With things like this, who does not think that networks P2P are very useful?

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.

"This is how liberty dies - to the sound of applause." - Padmé Amidala, when Palpatine rises Emperor.

Exactly six years after Episode I the new trilogy has concluded. From 19th May 1999 to 19th May 2005 has passed a lot, and, since they saw it, fans of the classic films has been furious. I just disappointed. The new films, one after another did not fulfil their expectations. Not without reason, these new films cannot be compared with the others, although I enjoy them too much. I am not that kind of fan that stabs himself with a “lightsaber", because of the pain these new films produce to them. But with this last one, Lucas has changed tendency.

Last Friday, lightsaber in hand, we went to see it. Our fears soon were dissipated, the film before us could be called with pride a film from the Star Wars saga. Finally I felt "the force". And I almost cry, but don’t take it seriously, actually I cry for anything. Result, we all left the cinema happy.

It is possible that what I’m going to say can (surely) reveal something from the film, so pay attention to this spoiler warning and stop reading if you haven’t watched the film yet. Let it surprise you at the cinema.

The beginning is spectacular. What a destroyer. Image 10, Sound 10. Into a titanic battle, Obi-Wan and Anakin goes in a mission to rescue the chancellor. R2D2 has a great main action in this part with some unforgettable moments. We notice the things in a different way, everything looked better, nothing like the other two films. Now we can say that Obi-Wan is a true Jedi master. Anakin is no longer a stupid. And the hilarious scenes are made in the old style. What laughter when they were trapped in an energy field and Anakin said that R2 will come and will rescue them and he does not finish the phrase when the robot appears running away, as fast as possible, from a pair of Droidekas, whistling it’s characteristic sound. R2 charisma 10!

It was a pity that General Grievous passed without any remarkable part in the film, all the day coughing and soon defeated by Obi-Wan. In the cartoons we could see how terrible was and how he kill many Jedis without any help, although this shows how good Obi-Wan is. By the way, I do not like anything the sound of the reptile-chicken Obi-Wan mounted, if he wanted to remain hidden, with such noise, how it could be possible.

Anakin’s falling to the dark side seemed very natural. It can be understood clearly why he made that decisions although he knew that they were wrong. Freaks, like I, that have watched The Clone Wars, will recognize what Anakin saw in that hallucination in the cave. The power that he tried to use for good finished killing those he wanted to protect and in the end destroying him.

Finally the love between Anakin and Padmé exists beyond the script. Now it’s believable. I loved the videoclip while Anakin waits at the Jedi council room and Padmé in her home. What good expressed the doubts and the fears of the protagonists were.

From that point in the history things became terrible. Anakin protected Palpatine taking part in the death of Windu, somewhat strange scene. If Palpatine was frying himself, with rays, why he didn’t stop. We have seen better masks, the one of the chancellor looked to synthetic. But in addition Windu dies because he was idiot. If he didn’t trust Anakin why he gave an option to be killed. Well, Jedis makes mistakes.

Darth Sidius gave his new name, Darth Vader, to Anakin. He ordered to kill all the Jedis and raised emperor. The words from Padmé, which I have used at the head of this article, were really memorable.

The slaughter at the Jedi temple still hurts me. Poor children. Bastard, Anakin, it is not strange that you, you are scum. Darth Sidius demands more of him and he sends him to execute the treason against his allies giving them what they deserved. Anakin is now forged as an assassin.

From the Jedi slaughter, just Obi-Wan and Yoda escaped. A curious detail was the similarity between the goodbye scene of Yoda to the wookies and the end of E.T. Finally they discovered what has happened and Obi-Wan must fulfil his duty as Jedi knight.

The battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan is very good, although there is something "weak" to me. How important was the tactical difference of Obi-Wan being on top of a rock. Anakin is a Jedi, isn’t he? Then use the force. But hey, Obi-Wan’s words here are really moving, look me I am a crybaby. "You were the chosen one."

To be soft, Darth Vader, that guy with the black helmet, didn’t liked to me at all. Crying like a baby for Padmé, and shouting that "Noooooo" Although crushing the laboratory was a success. Perhaps the spanish voice actor (I watched the film in spanish) didn’t fit well in that part.

There are more things I could say, and these are just some that I have remembered. But I’m exhausted and this post is getting to large. When I think about this film, despite the amount of failures or things that I have not liked, I’m fascinated that, globally, I really liked it.

The force was with us.

ADSL is so expensive.

Here in my country, Spain, broadband internet connection is a luxury so expensive that people has to think twice before subscribing "good" speed internet.

Despite advertisement that states we can have ADSL 1Mbps for 30€/month + taxes (16%) = 35€/month, reality is much more different. Only few cities in Spain, and only in certain areas, are provided with that access. The rest have to accept just a simple 512Kbps for about 30€-37€/month + taxes (16%) = 35€-43€/month

Not only the price is terrible, the quality of this services are low and technical assistance is expensive and, in many cases, useless.

The minimum salary in my country is just 512.8€/month from which we have to pay direct taxes (15%) so we only get about 435.88€/month. Paying ADSL means 8.03%-9.87% from that salary. A lot, don't you think?. OK, it's true that people who has ADSL earns much more, but it gives us a reference to what I'm talking about. To make a better analysys we can use the average income which is 1026.43€, paying taxes (15%) 872.47€, so ADSL means 4.01%- 5.16%. May not seem to much but, belive me, it's a lot.

In this new era of technolgy and internet we have to make great efforts to aford communications. Politicians say that it's alright, of course for them that earns much more than ordinary people.

I've tryed to find every number to make this document as much accurate as possible. I hope that all data was right.

Today is the day in which the saga ends...

...and I am not going to be able to see it 'till tomorrow. Impatient I am.

Finally we will see the evil Anakin Skywalker, the terrible General Grievous, the Lord Sith fighting and giving a lection to Yoda, the wookies defending their planet, and much more. Many of them will die, what a slaughter we can expect in this episode.

Like always, the film looks good in trailers, although there is an advertising fence with Darth Vader that, rather to seem bad, seems to be laughing out loud.

May the force be with us.

A painful memory.

May I wasn't on New York the 11th of September,
may I wasn't either on Madrid the 11th of March,
but I still cry.

Yesterday I watch "The Guys" (2002). A film in which a captain, from the New York Fire Department, who has lost eight men in the 11s attacks to the World Trade Centre, prepares the eulogies he must deliver with the help of an editor (Sigourney Weaver).

It makes tribute to the firemen of New York who died, altogether 343, saving the life to thousands of people, but also to all of those who, in their own way, help the others.

Whenever I see the images, I feel the pain again. And when I see a film like this, I cannot avoid crying.

Metallica. Black Album.

All that is, was and will be
universe much too big to see

time and space never ending
disturbing thoughts, questions pending
limitations of human understanding
too quick to criticize
obligation to survive
we hunger to be alive
-Metallica - Through the Never

One summer, I’m not sure, a cousin of Tacirupeca, heavy, introduce me to a group that I hadn’t heard before or, rather, I had not have conscious of hearing to. A cassette, my walkman, and Kill 'Em All sounded in my ears. Lying in the bed, I listened to those heavy noise guitars with that “hells” sound for hours. Ride The Lightning, after Master of Puppets and finally... And Justice For All. How disappointing was to have to return without a copy. After that pair of days, I forgot Metallica.

Time later, one day, I saw a videoclip on TV, it was a slow song but with great energy. The title I did not know, but I recognized the band. I had to find that disc.

To obtain it, things weren’t easy. To but a disc I always had to go to Seville because, where I live, there weren't music stores. But the most difficult thing was to find out what song and in what album it was. I couldn’t afford buying all the albums. I would have to be able to listen to them before buying anything, but no friend of mine had albums from Metallica, so I went to Virgin Megastore.

I spent more than one hour and a half trying ALL the albums from Metallica, until I found the song, Nothing else Matters, which was in the Black Album. An album without title whose cover was in black and we could hardly distinguished a serpent and Metallica’s logo. I bought it. That was something unusual for me. The money that my parents gave me was low and buying it supposed me two months of deprivation, but it was worth the trouble.

When I remember this, I think, without a doubt, that it will have been simpler now, but to me, having to look for it had its enchantment.

Thus, in that year, 1993 or 1994, it was how I acquired Metallica’s Black Album.



One song from each album:

Seek & Destroy	(Kill ‘Em All)
Creeping Death	(Ride The Lightning)
Orion	(Master Of Puppets)
To Live is to Die	(...And Justice For All)
Through the Never	(Black Album)
Waste my Hate	(Load)
Prince Charming	(Re-Load)

Gmail Contacts Groups

I guess that some of you will have a Gmail account, the best web-mail of history. (Google does not pay me). If you do not have an account, you can ask me for an invitation to you.

Those who have used mail programs will have been able to see that contacts could be organized in Groups. Gmail does not have groups at the moment. If you are used to them, it can be terrible to organize yourself in Gmail. Luckily there is a little trick.

Gmail allows us to write comments ir our contacts. There, we can write some type of code, for example, the name of our company. Then, if we search for the name of our company, it will return us all the contacts that have it in the comment.

Simple trick, isn’t it? but very effective.

Remember that these searches include contact’s names, as well as what we have written in any comment, so avoid using as a code things that you will usually write in a comment.

Hoy no me levanto...

...estoy que no ando.
-Mecano

Translation: Today I don’t get up, I'm that I don't walk.

Alarm clock goes off. I turn it off.
It sounds again. I turn it off once more.

– Get up, get up! -Sounds inside my head.
- I don’t want to! -I answer.

I’m so fine here, for what get up. To drive in a traffic jam to work, to seat down, to program and to return for lunch. For that, I prefer to remain here with my dreams.

Apple Macintosh. Another World.

I've been always jealous of those how own a Mac, that piece of art made computer. Whenever I see one, I though why I have a PC instead a Mac. Then I look at my close environment and I get the answer, none of my friends has one.

I only have seen a Mac, outside a shop, three times in my life. I'm not kidding. The first time was from one of my father's friends, the second in a marketing company, and the third in a video studio. That's all. Each time, I had that silly wooa! feeling while looking at them. They're beautiful. Ops! I forgot when I saw that freak with a Powerbook in a Lan Party crowded of PCs.

To be honest, until I have more income this situation is unlikely to change. Macintosh Computers are too expensive to buy one just to give it a try. I think Mac mini is the product for me but buying a Mac seems somewhat traumatic, like moving to Linux. OK, ok, the world of Apple is much easier than Linux but look, I'm used to Windows XP.

I have been using Microsoft's Products since MS-DOS 5.0. So I feel comfortable using it. I know where the things are, I have the programs I like to use, I'm also used to them, and I can do everything that I want with my windows system. So when I use another operating system is like a nightmare. Every time I try to do something, the same thing came to my head, "if it were Windows I would have finished ages ago".

Despite what I have said I still dream with that beautiful world of Apples.

I’m a freak. (Star Wars’ Fan)

I am getting prepared for the arrival of Star Wars: Episode III that will be release on 19th May. And to make a more Star Wars Ambience I have made some things.

I have watched animated series Clone Wars, that counts what happened between the end of Episode II and the beginning of Episode III. I expect to repeat with my sister and my girl in a few days.

I am playing Lego Star Wars, a summary of the three episodes with characters made of Lego dolls and the sets too.


I am also playing Republic Commando where we assume the role of an elite clone squadron commander. Yes, one of those Jango Fett’s clones. Beginning in the battle of Genosia, leading this squadron makes us feel the universe of Star Wars from a completely different point of view. Outstanding.

And the other day, going further, I bought a toy lightsaber. Now, while I am seated in front of my PC, from time to time, I give some strikes to the air.

I am freak, there’s no doubt about it.

---
2005-May-13: I forgot to say thank you to my friend Renis. If it not were for your information I wouldn't have been now a happy padawan with his lightsaber. Thank you master.

MGS3 or how to be able to laugh at themselves.

I suppose that there will be more than one that has enjoyed this game that, in my opinion, is a piece of artwork. Hideo Kojima (its creator) has known how to take originality to the videogames world with a game that improve the system of the Metal Gear Solid and adds many new features. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I want to comment a curiosity that the game has.

When years ago Metal Gear Solid 2 (MGS2) was released, they introduced a new character, Raiden. In the West, this was found unpleasant although for me was OK. For the fans it was disappointing not to be able to play all the game with Snake, three quarters of it were played with Raiden, an adolescent who did not have anything in his room because it was only a place to sleep, and that man compared to Snake was a person without charisma. It seems that the English dubbing had some responsibilities on making Raiden so unpleasant because, in Japan, Raiden has good popularity. In any case, I have not been able to verify if the voice in Japanese is far better than the English, I do not have the Japanese game so I can’t make an idea about it.

During the promotion of this third part, phrases like "Snake is the true hero" were used to make clear that Raiden was not going to be the character to play. Here the curious thing begins. The history of MGS3 is chronologically previous to the one of MGS2. At certain point of the game we must end Ivan RAIDENovich Raikov, curious detail if we take in consideration that he is exactly like Raiden. In addition in that part there are several details more. In the locker which uses Snake, there is a poster of Metal Gear Solid 2, and in Raikov’s tanga, there’s a symbol of the Lightning. Interesting, isn’t it? But wait, I have not finished. Written in katakana, Raidenovich is read "Raiden no bitch", that translated from Japanese would be "Thunderbolt's bitch". They call colonel Volgin "Thunderbolt". Apparently, Raikov is the gay lover of Volgin, I would say "Volgin’s bitch"

That was the curiosity. For all of those that enjoy MGS3 and hate MGS2, personally, from a gameplay point of view, I prefer Metal Gear Solid 2. Sorry fans of Snake, the Substance is to me more entertaining if I want to push the buttons. And there is no lack of Soliton radar! In addition, I am a fan of the katana. From the point of view of history, without a doubt, MGS3 is awesome, far better than MGS2 and doesn’t have that paranoid argument. I love both of them.

In order to understand MGS2 a little bit better I recommend you to read the following article:
Dreaming In An Empty Room

I’m in Dilbert!

Today I enter Dilbert’s web site to read a comic strip and I found that there was a new employee in the company in which Dilbert works. I have felt so identified with that poor man that I put these two links to the strips in which he appears.

First day on the job
The New Employee

Were they really on the moon?

This is old but very interesting to read. In 15 February 2001 The FOX (USA) emitted a special program about the journeys to the moon with the title "Conspiracy Theory: Did we land on the Moon". In that, they interviewed a series of persons who thought that NASA lied about the travels to the moon and, furthermore, that everything was a fake. In the program the explanations were not put in judgment.

Luckily there are people who analyze these things, here I put a pair of links that destroy one by one the arguments that these people alleged to say what they said.

Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax

Are Apollo Moon Photos Fake?

Firefox, comfortable surfing

I have been using Internet many years and few are the times in which I saw a free and open solution giving, literally, a punch to Microsoft. It's normal that this happens when an application, so good, demonstrates better solutions than any other before to the everyday problem of navigation.

In a world of PCs and Internet Explorer, Firefox is a clear path to forget about the suffering of pop-ups, spyware and in general almost every other problem that usually we had with IE. In addition, it has support for extensions that allow the programmers to add new functions, and skins to personalize the aspect it shows. It allows navigation by tabs, now we are able to open more than one web page in a single window so that in our tasks bar we only see one application although we have open 25 pages simultaneously Web.

Like all program under development, it has undergone many changes until arriving at the present version. The things that it had to solve to make it easier to new users have been polished, for example the installation of plug-ins necessary to see Flash or Java. The project has reached maturity in its development. If you do not have it, what you are waiting for? It is free and opensource. You don’t lose anything by giving a try.

RAID's odyssey

As now I have a job and a pay, I’m going to be able to afford an upgrade on my PC that I have been wanting for a long time, hard drive. I have decided to improve my system performance and to do that I am going to make use of a characteristic from my motherboard (and now in almost any other) that is the hard drive RAID.

RAID comes from "Redundant Array of Independent Disks", and it is a method to combine two or more hard drives in a single logical drive, we could have 4 hard drives and the system will only see one unit. And for what? I will explain to you.

There are 9 types of RAID configuration that I read about, but from time to time a new one is developed. My motherboard only works with 3 basic types, although useful, and those three I will explain. Depending on which mode we use we will have some characteristics or others. It is like buying a vehicle. According to what we are going to do we will buy a tourism, a 4x4 or a van.

JBOD (Just a Bunch of Drives) it consists on adding hard drives to the virtual unit. This way we can combine, for example, 4 hard drives to make a single logical drive. When a data is saved, this is stored in one single hard drive, there is no redundancy and if a hard drive fails we lose only the information that had been stored in that hard drive.

RAID 1 (Mirroring Data) is a way in which security is priority. A hard drive will be the main one and the rest of them will serve to keep an exact copy from the main one (therefore they must be of the same or higher capacity than the main one) If at any time the main hard drive fails, automatically, the system would use the next hard drive. A system useful for places where losing information and not been able to access the information is not an option.

And finally, RAID 0 (Striping Data), the one I want to use. With this RAID performance is optimized. For optimal results it is required that the hard drives were the same model. The units of the RAID are used in parallel to read and to write data so, theoretically, performance is multiplied as many times as units we have in the RAID. It does not give any improvement on security as RAID 1 does. If a hard drive fails, we will lose all the information as always happens in the domestic systems.

See more on Wikipedia

Darth Vader's Blog

Okay, I admit it. I cut off the kid's hand. Everything went downhill after that.
-Darth Vader

Atention! One the news today, Darth Vader has his own blog. I don't know how I end up going into a place so dark, but the journey, thru the most personal feelings of this "evil" being, has been so... funny.

The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster

Beakman, a freak teaching science

At the present time the television plays a very important role in our lives. It does not just entertain us, it provides information and a cultural reference. Television’s educative role is undeniable.

Quality television is what people want and often we heard them complaining because is not the case. Bad TV programs arrives at all levels but people consume it despite their complains, programs that entertain without giving any good thing.

Something that it is particularly interesting, partly fed by this situation, is that quality is confused with educative. A quality television does not have to be educative. And so often quality is associated to certain type of programs like documentary or educative series. A program by the fact of being a documentary doesn’t mean that is good, going further, in general, good documentary, like almost all productions, are an exception.

With interesting contents only few products are pleasant and entertaining programs. People want quality but without losing amuse that they from television. Beakman's World is the best example of this.

Knowledge in the most entertaining way.

Beakman, a somewhat eccentric scientist, from its laboratory and with the aid of its companions, explains all type of scientific phenomena. Using real and amusing examples, and with the counterpoint of his two companions, he is able to give a humorous touch to the most complicated explanations.

It is an infantile style program so it is done to be understandable to anyone. It is the best one of this kind that I have ever seen. I do not know if they continue emitting it but I would like to see it again. Now you know, if at any time you find Beakman’s, enjoy knowledge.

An interesting day for numerology

Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number; its number is six hundred and sixty six.
Revelations 13:18

(Just as Bruce Dickinson says on The Number of the Beast)

Today is a rare date, 05/05/05. If we study numerology pseudoscience we would understand the meaning of this number clearly, a prelude of great events that in the worse case would conclude within a year, a month and a day when the beginning of Apocalypse (the end of history) take place because it will be 06/06/06.

I do not want to anticipate the end of all days, so don’t start to run and shout scared, at the moment I am not a prophet nor I can see the future. Just I wanted to emphasize the peculiar thing that today seems to me. I think that this is a good day to initiate a project, a date that everybody will remember.

The seven gummie sins

There are thousands of curiosities on Internet. People dedicate themselves to do all kind of extravagances, madness and other weird things, and I still don’t know why they do it, what is clear is that stuff looks great in a web page.

In this blog I do not intend to compile curiosities from the network, but I have enjoyed this photos, so I propose you to visit this link to see a very peculiar version of the seven deadly sins.

The seven gummie sins

My Mp3 Player

That thing in the photo is my Mp3 Portable Player, a Pendrive Mp3. With just 256Mb memory is all I need, I think so.

At the moment, mp3, forms part of our life. It’s the standard for portable music, whether RIAA like it or not. Thanks to it, I can record and play my music in a way I couldn’t imagine possible when in 1991 I bought my first CD, Gun's N' Roses - Use Your Illusion II.

Now, if I wanted, I could go out to run. I would take my music with me without having to load with a heavy Walkman or Discman. This kind of player is the minimum on size and weight.

Its capacity is limited so I cannot put all my music inside. Adding or removing songs is always a problem, I like thousands and I always want to listen to the one I don't have in that moment. In addition, sometimes, I use it to transport archives different from music. It’s a storage data unit, like hard drives or the diskettes. Useful in some critical moments.

Its sound quality is not so good, it has certain background noise, but, at least, with an AAA battery, I have about 20 hours of music playback.

Spyware, that bad thing from Internet.

I do not have problems of spyware or adware. Luckily, and unlike some people that I know, my system has certain apprehension to catch these things. Although in the past, when firefox did not exist, I had a pair of problems that ad-aware solve quickly.

Spyware and adware is not just a problem that is only related to Explorer, hundreds of programs that claim to be anti-spyware are another problem as well. Many are bad and they do not achieve the goal that they say to be developed for, others deceive the user with false detections and ask them to buy payment versions to clean that spyware, payment versions that are not specially good neither, in addition, some uses aggressive methods, like pop-ups, to scare the user and making him to buy their products, and, in some cases, they get to be worse than "usual" spyware and they obtain information without the knowledge nor the consent of the user.

In this site, you have a list of the, unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware, software as well as a list of advices and good programs to fight against this problem.

It seems that they are taken this situation seriously and in this article you can read how New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has sued a company that secretly installed spyware on millions of home computers.

It is curious what this company said, "Intermix does not promote or condone spyware, and remains committed to putting this legacy issue behind it as soon as practicable." Just a month ago they stop distributing its spyware software and, after that face washing, they expect us to accept like an act of good faith and not force them to pay for what they have done. Then, if someone give up committing crimes that he used to do, he should not be condemn. So, according to their opinion, they agree that it’s fine that if I had robbed cars, to everybody, for a couple of years, and after that I recently give up, I should no longer be obliged to pay for it and I can keep all the money that I obtained with such an effort. Uhm... I don’t think so.

Links:
www.SpyWareWarrior.com
Intermix is just the start
Spitzer Targets Spyware, Sues Intermix

A not so long time ago...

...in a place not so far, far away.

Star Wars

Episode S
The Great Shit

These are times of difficulty to George Lucas. The more radicals fan associations, fed up with his repeated destructions to the most important saga of cinema, have taken positions in front of Skywalker Ranch doors. Their conditions: don’t make any more, never more, never.

His friends, S. Spielberg and F.F. Coppola, have come to continue their unconditional support to their friend, and from whom they feel a great devotion although he has made much more mistakes than them, directing much less.

More and more disappointed with new episodes mediocrity, although interesting idea, fans keep control, with the force’s help, of their anxieties to buy more Star Wars merchandising. Deep inside they like the new films, but not as much as the others and that drives them too crazy, a lot.

Lucas promises to improve the situation with a revenge of the Sith. He affirms that it will be the best one of the three, although fans knows that it is not a difficult goal, but being Lucas, they think that it only will be better in one thing, special effects.