It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Published January 10, 2007When a few months ago I heard about Sylvester Stallone releasing yet another Rocky movie the first thing that came into my mind was: “Oh please, not again. Give us a break.”
Well, I had the privilege of watching Rocky Balboa last night and like many other people I was left shocked.
It doesn’t happen too often to go see a movie having no expectations (well, actually expecting something really crap), and then while the story unfolds you realize you are actually watching a masterpiece.
Congratulations to Sly for closing the Rocky saga in the best way possible.
On a different subject, after the good movie I pointed my Quicktime to the Macworld keynote that took place in San Francisco to discover what my hero Steve Jobs has been secretly working on for the last two and a half years.
I honestly still have to collect my jaw from the bedroom floor, but you can check it out for yourself here.
Windows Vista? No Thanks!
Published December 13, 2006Nice review of the upcoming Micro$oft operating system from the Wired News webmagazine:
Why You Don’t Need Vista Now!
My favourite part of the article:
When I tried to plug in my peripherals, my troubles with Vista began. Since I was missing a 5.1 sound driver for my speakers, an audio device error screen appeared when I connected speakers to the PC. I had to plug in a set of headphones in place of my speakers to get the sound to work.
Also, Vista didn’t recognize my Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 5150 printer when it ran the initial peripheral-compatibility check. When I tried to load the printer driver software anyway, it would not install. A Google search did not reveal any readily available drivers, so I gave up. I ran into the same problem when I tried to install my Logitech webcam — the driver wouldn’t load.
Excellent work, uncle Bill! :D
When huge animated GIFs ruled the web
Published November 27, 2006When I think of the internet the way it was nine years ago, when I first connected to the net with my brand new Pentium 150mhz and internal 33.6k modem, I realize how lucky I am to be part of the few people that can actually say “I was there when it all started”.
Back in these days:
- A download speed of 5 kb/s was pretty good.
- Altavista was the leading search engine on the internet, and when Google came out people made fun of them saying they could never overcome Altavista’s monopoly in search engine technology.
- Oh yes, did I mention we did not have Google?
- You had to pay a monthly subscription to dial up to your ISP provider and connect to the internet, and pay for the phone call as well.
- You had to pay to have a decent email address.
- There was NO instant messaging. No ICQ, no MSN or Yahoo messenger.
- To play online (to actually play Doom, since that was really the only option we had), you had to dial the phone number of the friend you wanted to play with and you had to pay for the call.
If you are one of us, one of the nostalgic guys and girls that would like to travel back in time, even for a few minutes to remember the good old internet days, make sure to once in a while point your broser to the: Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Trust me, you will like it ;)
In Jack Bauer we trust
Published November 24, 2006I have almost finished watching season 5 of american tv series “24″ (3 episodes left) and I have to admit that overall, it is a great show.
A perfect mix of good action, adrenaline, violence, and story twists that can keep anyone hooked on the screen for hours.
HOWEVER, I would beg the director to *please* invest some more cash and pay a good technical supervisor to review the huge amount of IT and technology bulls**t that happens there every 12 minutes or so.
I remember once a friend of mine studying medicine and surgery doing the same remarks for the tv series “E.R.”: nice show overall but full of technical crap.
I explained him at the time that I thought that was not so important because at the end of the day it was just fiction, but now I think I understand better what he meant.
And for the record:
- Government computers do not use proprietary operating systems featuring huge login screen with font “Arial 72 bold” to input username and password.
- You can’t decode a 128bit encrypted file in 12 minutes. “Chloe, can you decrypt it?” “Yes, will take me a few minutes” … lol, sure.
- Working in an IT tech department and shouting statements such as: “I think I can track him down, I can use his IP address!!!!!” only makes you look retarded. (it would have the same effect of someone working in a pizza shop and shouting “I think I can make it more tasty, I will use mozzarella!!!!!”)
- You can’t recover *any* data from an hard drive that is partially melted and burned down for being caught in an explosion.
and last, but not least:
- You can’t interface your palm computer to ANY terrorist laptop, cell phone, missile tracking machine, microwave oven, fruit blender, mp3 stereo player and expect it to work.
At least, not unless it is made by Apple ;)
How to ruin your reputation in 1:25 using a Paris Hilton wannabe
Published November 20, 2006I have always admired Nintendo.
Since I was little I have always seen the Japanese brand as a synonym of quality gaming products and top entertainment.
This until today, when a friend sent me a Youtube link to the new advert for the next-generation console, the Nintendo Wii:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq71KsfnjSk
Erm … did I see something similar before?
(Hint: YES.)
Not commenting the fact that the Apple adverts are extremely funny and well elaborated while the Nintendo one only gives you a deep desire to shot the retarded blonde girl impersonating the Wii on the face, the true question is, why not creating something original?
Was it really necessary to recycle someone else’s ideas to this level and by doing so join the club of the copycat monkeys led by Microsoft?