Archive for March, 2009
Voyage, Voyage
Mar 31st
So on Saturday I went to THIS city
to see THIS artist
perform on Monday night, in the L’Olympia. I love her album, “This Is The Life” to bits. So I wanted to see her here, in Dublin. Regrettably she is not going to perform here for a while, and the next city she was going to play in, which also fit my sort of time planning, was Paris. Long story short: I got the ticket, got the plane ticket, booked a hotel, and off I went. On Saturday afternoon. I have come back just now. For some weird reason, from within the WiFi of the hotel, I was unable to blog. Strange.
Yeah so anyways… I did the mandatory sightseeing tour as well, or at least the things that were possible to do within such a short time frame. Saw the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, and Arc De Triomph – in this order. That was pretty exhausting.
Well I went to the Olympia, and my friend told me it would be a pretty mystical place. And after having been inside… not only is it GOD DAMN HUGE, it is indeed pretty mystical. The supporting act’s name was Joshua Radin. He’s from New York. His music is pretty good too, you should check it out. He’s unsigned. So if there’s any label who thinks he could be good, he’s on MySpace. That’s him:
And then Amy came on… and everything goes dark. You hear the drums… ponding the rhythm of a song we all love. Lights come on slowly… her band on the stage, she is on the guitar – and “Poison Prince” kicks off the gig! I was standing pretty close to front row, and the floor is shaking!! People dancing, me too, having a good time. What an experience!!
She also threw in a few songs of her upcoming album… and we got to hear them first! WIN!!
Here are my two favorite shots of the night.
I have a lot more pics… but I don’t wanna use up all my webspace. I think you can understand =D
Well… and that was my little trip to see Amy Macdonald. Incredible experience!! I gonna have to go back to Paris. Because I didn’t have time to see it all.
Dear Grays,
Mar 26th
please come by my house tonight and take me with you. I just wanna live on another planet… TODAY
One More Thing
Mar 24th
Over the last few weeks things have happened that made me think. My life has changed a bit and I wanna keep riding the wave of change. Well looks like as if this wave with me riding it is headed toward the Mac world. You see the thing is I like Macs. Nice machines eh? But right now… I don’t feel the thrill anymore. What? The Mac person has no fun with Macs? Waitaminute!!
I mean, don’t get me wrong… Macs are fun. The software is nice and cool, sexy and smooth. Aqua definitely has its advantages, the object-oriented framework Cocoa certainly makes for rapid application development. You see the thing where it comes down to me right now is the “Plays well with others” part. I think there’s a slight problem here.
As you know, in an earlier post I described that I made the switch to Linux and no longer use OS X. That in itself is not the problem… The problem is that apparently Macs don’t play that well with Linux. Ever tried to run Linux on the current generation MacBook? Well good luck… restarting won’t work (doesn’t matter which Linux) and the machine gets much hotter than normal. So… no.
Anyways… since I have too much of Mac and computer hardware anyways, I gonna start selling shit. And that also includes my Mac gear. It’s time for something else. Time to walk down the open road with cheaper hardware.
I’ll keep watching the Keynotes (no longer Stevenotes, mind you! Philnotes maybe?). And I’ll still probably be amazed with what Apple came up with again, and go oooh and aaah like the people in the keynote in Moscone West. I am not an angry user or something, I just decided for me it’s time to leave this thing as an active member of the Mac community.
So yeah… that’s all I wanted to say today. The only thing that remains with me of Apple will be an iPod nano 4th gen. You know, Shake To Shuffle and shit. I have to say that is pretty amazing =D
Time to walk the open road.
Another Madlax music video
Mar 23rd
You know, a while ago when I wrote an article about the Anime show “Madlax”, I also posted a tribute video below the article. The song used was Enigma’s Gravity Of Love.
Just now I stumbled upon another video, using the same track, but I think it carries the message much stronger than the first one I posted.
Apple’s latest burning issue
Mar 13th
According to the complaint filed yesterday in the Southern District of Ohio, the plaintiff had the “iTouch” (as the lawsuit refers to it) in his pocket during school when the unfortunate accident happened, resulting in hospital bills and other monetary losses thanks to the disintegration of the iPod touch and, well, the kid’s clothes.
As the story goes, the iPod touch was sitting in the “off” position when it unexpectedly popped and caused the kid to feel a burning sensation. At that time, he stood up and noticed that his pants were, in fact, on fire.
Not only the “funnest” iPod ever, also the hottest.
ARS Technica:
iPod touch—not lies—sets kid’s pants on fire; parents sue
Street View car caught!
Mar 13th
It is not every day that you can spot and photograph a Google Street View car, especially not directly in front of your office. I was lucky enough to capture one, after my colleague had informed that there is one outside.
That’s how a Street View car looks like. License plate says “GOOGLE 1″
It opens all doors
Mar 11th
There are about 100 objects. All of them have some super strange properties, can do things, or make you do things. I talk about the objects from the mini-series “The Lost Room”, which had been produced by Sci-Fi Channel.
The most important one however, and the most powerful one, is the key. It opens all doors, the user can access the otherwise non-existent Room 10 of the former Sunshine Motel, somewhere in Gallup, New Mexico.
The Lost Room Titlecard
The key is described as:
Niessen 612a key with attached key fob stamped with Sunshine Motel logo and “Room 10,” color brown. Opens any hinged door with a pin tumbler lock and turns it into a portal to the Lost Room. From the room, the user can exit to any location of their choosing provided that location has a door of similar construction. The door doesn’t need to be of the same proportions as the door in the Room, as much smaller doors are used at two different points. The user must also have a clear picture of the door they wish to go to or else the room will pick a door at random. It’s one of the seven Objects used in the “Conroy experiment” to open a “tear in reality.”
Now I have gotten my hand on the key… if it opens all doors and gets me into the room remains yet to be seen – but also, maybe it’s better not to test it. Pics or it didn’t happen? I know! Sure thing:
Thing is I wanted to order this thing from eBay in the States. But this guy doesn’t deliver here. So my sister got it for me, and gave it to me today! Nice birthday present!! Especially since I’m a big fan of the show. =)
Head over to Games
Mar 11th
So since I play a lot, I have decided to dedicate a part of my website to games. Gaming related posts won’t appear in here anymore. The old ones will be kept for nostalgic reasons.
Head over to Games to see the new blog.
Apocrypha – what excites you the most?
Mar 9th
So we are only hours away from the release of one of the biggest achievements in EVE Online history, the Apocrypha expansion. This update not only adds incredible elements to the game, it also updates the visual aspect. I have heard there are new Warp Drive animations, as well as effects for certain units you can activate on your ship. Like Armor Repairers for example.
Apocrypha brings Modular Ships – up to 3,325 possible configurations… There has to be one for everyone
This is the complete list of changes coming:
Wormholes
Appearing randomly throughout New Eden, these gateways to the unknown open up access to thousands of new solar systems, new technology, new resources and deadly new enemies. With the news scanning mechanics, you’ll eventually find these.
Tech 3 Strategic Cruisers
Custom build your next ship! New technology found in Wormhole Space allows players to research, manufacture and fly the next generation of cruisers. Thousands of combinations are possible due to the modular subsystem design Tech 3 brings to EVE Online. Entry level into flying a Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser is lower than that of Tech 2 ships. At first we’ll be introducing three variations for each of the five modules, with the rest to come Soon (TM).
Tech 3 Production and Engineering
Pillage wrecks of Ancient race ships, salvage relics of ancient technology. New Experimental Laboratories allow you to reverse engineer the relics to build the blueprints for manufacturing Tech 3 components.
New Player Experience
Rebuilt from the ground up, the new player tutorial reveals the many career paths a player can embark on, while arming them with the knowledge and gear necessary to start carving their niche in New Eden.
Epic Mission Arc
Spanning multiple regions of space, this all new mission arc will take players on a journey through all four empires, starting at character creation. As the story progresses and the rewards grow more enticing, pilots will be faced with the decision of which side to fight for in the final battle.
Attribute Respecs
Character attribute distribution can now be rearranged in order to diversify or specialize skill training.
New NPC and NPC AI
The Sleepers lay in waiting beyond the wormholes, guarding resources and technologies considered to be of significant power and value back in known space. They will not give up their treasures easily, as they are masters of teamwork and maneuvering. Expect an enemy that works as a team, identifies your weaknesses and protects its own.
Skill Queue
Players can now schedule automatic training of multiple skills. The new interface offers filters, a graphical display of the total queue and the ability to pause or resume the queue at any point in its progress.
New Ship Fitting Panel
Completely redone for usability, the new fitting screen offers several tools for new pilots and veterans alike. Players can now import and export their ship configurations. Saved configurations can be shared with other players or simply used to quickly equip a new ship. Suggested configurations are also available at NPC corporations for those looking for some quick advice on fittings.
UI Exporting
There is no shortage of customization in EVE, from overview settings to ship fittings. Now players can export their favorite settings, catalog them for easy reference and share them amongst corp mates.
New Art and Effects
As part of our ongoing effort to bring cutting edge graphics to EVE’s players, almost every effect in game has been redone, from pulse lasers to gate warping and from shield hardeners to energy drain. In addition, almost everything within wormhole space is new, including the wormholes themselves and gorgeous new nebulas which are a taste of things to come.
New Sound Engine
An assault on all the senses! Improvements have been made to offer a crisper, richer sound experience, such as unique sounds for NPCs. We’ve set the stage for some amazing future improvements.
Premium Lite
Our Classic client has been retired to make way for Premium Lite, bringing higher quality graphics to users with lower end PCs.
Premium Mac Client
Graphics take a leap forward for Mac Users! The beauty of Trinity engine graphics shines through in the Apocrypha release of the Mac client.
Russian Localization
EVE Online now boasts complete language support ingame, new Russian knowledge base, and expanded customer support team for our Russian players.
All this information is taken from EVE’s website.
I think for me it’s mostly the addition of thousands of new systems through wormholes. Out of the 5,200 systems right now in EVE, I may know 10 or 15, and their routes. After almost 3 months. So you can see it’s quite complex.
So prepare for some waiting for the patch… it’ll be released some time tomorrow. Probably in the early hours of the day.
Full website
EVE Online: Apocrypha