Survivors is a typical BBC show - six episodes long. It's sort of like 28 days later, but without the zombies

The whole premise of the show is that a disease has wiped out most of the British population (and presumably most of the world), but a certain number of "survivors" got the disease and survived it. What we don't know is if this is man made - like a nation attacking another nation, or an experiment gone wrong, like the storyline of resident evil.

I find the series interesting in that it challenges preconception of how you should treat fellow human beings, and how a major event can seriously change your world view and how you act not just with yourself but with others as well. How the different groups choose to rebuild society is also interesting. It's like viewing an MMO civilization game.

I am glad that they revived the series. I am looking forward to next season.


For more information...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(2008_TV_Series)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/survivors/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1258189/

Tags: entertainment, television, BBC, suspense

I was catching up on news the other day, listening to the Engadget podcast, and I heard a reference to the eee Keyboard (or eeek! keyboard - OK bad pun). Anyway. I saw this and it reminded me of those all-in-one Amiga and Atari computer of the mid-to-late nineties. You remember the ones, the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 1200 that you just plugged into your television and off you went.


Those were the days... of course there is no floppy disk drive in the eee Keyboard, unlike those Amiga models, but everything else is there


I wonder if I can run a full speed amiga emulator on this computer and relive the days of Impossible Mission, The Chaos Engine and Eye of the Beholder

http://gizmodo.com/5124985/eee-keyboard-an-entire-touchscreen-home-theater-pc

Tags: technology, amiga, keyboard, eeePC

Ναι!

Είναι αλήθεια!


Μετά από τόσες δωρεάν εφαρμογές ήρθε επιτέλους και κάτι επί πληρωμής!


Το φετινό πακέτο MacHeist εντυπωσιάζει όπως και τα περασμένα πακέτα όχι μόνο για την καταπληκτική του τιμή, αλλά και για το περιεχόμενο του!



Η τιμή του είναι $39 και οι εφαρμογές που συμπεριλαμβάνονται είναι πολύ συνδεδεμένες με multimedia. Προσωπικά εδώ και κάτι μήνες ήθελα το Little Snapper, εφαργμογή από τους Realmac Software, τους τύπους που δημιούργησαν το Rapidweaver, και το WireTap Studio αφού όλο και πιο κοντά έρχομαι στο να δημιουργήσω ένα podcast.



Υπάρχουν φυσικά προγράμματα για βίντεο και την μορφοποίησή εικόνων και αν ξεκλειδώνουν όλα έρχεται μαζί και ένας website editor. Αν και μου αρέσει το Rapidweaver και δεν θα αλάξω website development platform μου αρέσει να παίζω και με κώδικα και με νέες εφαρμογές, οπότε δεν θα πάει χαμένο.



Όπως είπαμε, η τιμή είναι μόνο $39 και 25% των εσόδων πάνε για φιλανθρωπικούς σκοπούς!


Η διεύθυνση στο διαδύκτυο για τους νέους μεταξύ μας είναι: http://www.macheist.com

Tags: macos, software, macheist

I saw the headline.

My initial response: "Boo Hoo buddy!"

Then I read the article.

OK, I have a little more sympathy for you, but I still have a difficult time going that extra mile to really, I mean really, feel bad for you, oh former AIG employee.

I do agree that your boss was a weasel. Any stand up person would have had the guts to come out and say "no bonuses until we weather this out", but no, that didn't happen. I sympathize with you there.

I also sympathize with you because you (claim that you) were not one of the ethically challenged people that created this credit crunch mess we are in yet you get blamed. To this I respond: This is normal human behavior. People are looking for a scape goat and it's up to AIG to prove to the public that they've got what it takes to bring this boat back on course

I also think that it's valiant that you decided to work for $1 and put your time into this to fix this mess. A person of lesser moral character would not have done this.


However:

You WERE there when people were going nuts over these securities. As an MBA student in finance I was appalled by this practice because it didn't make fiscal sense (even though some of my classmates were salivating at the wonderful prospects of these securities). Yet no one at AIG stood up to stop this insane practice within your company walls? If you had said in your resignation that you tried to prevent this but you couldn't, I would be more sympathetic.

Secondly, when you were asked to work for $1 you had a choice. In my opinion you made an honorable choice, but you essentially became a liable volunteer at AIG. With the current mess they are in, you surely must have known what was to come? If the environment is dysfunctional you can do something to fix it, you can moan about it and do thing, or you can leave. I don't fault you for leaving, or feeling used and abused, however with things this bad, did you think that things would be honkey dorey in the office? Why are you whining?

Finally, with the company in the trouble it's in, I know that you had contracts, and I know that it was very weasel-like of your boss to not come and ask for renegotiations, however you (and others) had the option of turning down the bonus, but you did not. I disagree that it's appropriate for the government to hang you out to dry by public embarrassment, but in this economic environment it would make sense to not give bonuses in order to get things back on track.

Bottom line: I still say boo hoo for you. I did not hear you complaining the last 10 years when you were getting compensated as you were.

Maybe you should read Seth Godin's book called Tribes - it may enlighten you

Tags: newspapers, opinion, idiots

One of the games that happily took my 50 drachma coins back in the day was Snow Brothers. The game controls somewhat like bubble bobble in that you have a character (a snowman) going around a static screen and you attack firebreathing monsters with little boomerangs made of snow. Throw enough of them on an enemy and you make them into a snowball that you can roll onto other enemies.

The end goal, if I remember correctly, is to rescue your girlfriend (aren't most older games pretty similar in objectives?). I never got really far in the game - maybe up to the third boss (so 30 stages?), but it was a great game to play on those afternoons after school!

Tags: video, games, video games, arcade

Αυτός ο καιρός είναι αρκετά σχιζοφρενικός!

Στις αρχές του Μάρτη είχαμε κάτι ωραίες μέρες που έκανε λιακάδα και 10-15 βαθμούς κελσίου. Αυτή την περασμένη εβδομάδα, τουλάχιστον αρχικά, μας τάραξε στο κρύο και στον άνεμο! Το κακό ήταν πως το γραφείο ήταν σαν μια παγωμένη τούνδρα (ευτυχώς ήταν καλύτερα από το παλιό γραφείο!)

Απορώ πότε πια θα έρθει το καλοκαίρι...

Tags: καιρός, περίεργα

In the past I've experimented with many blogging platforms. I've used blogger for a long time, and wordpress too! I've experiemented with LiveJournal which isn't really my cup of tea, and recently I've tried Vox, which is nice but can't really import my posts from other platforms.

I've been looking to consolidate some of my blogs where I don't post as frequently with my main CA blog (what you are reading now), but I've been experiencing some issues.

I would like to be able :
to easily intergrate the blog with my rapidweaver site,
to easily take my categories and tags and easily import them
to easily take my existing posts and import them
to maintain images and formatting of my current posts

I know that there is a WordPress way of integrating a WP blog with Rapidweaver but it seems like it's too much work. The blogger plugin for Rapidweaver only takes categories and not tags.

I guess this is more or less a summer project (or a project for when I graduate and have more time).


Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Tags: blogs, technology, opinion

Όπως είχα γράψει πρόσφατα, έκλεισα τα δύο μου Ελληνικά μπλόγκ, το «Είμαι Φοβερός και το Ξέρεις» και το «Ένα μήλο την ημέρα». Η αλήθεια είναι πως ήθελα να έχω κάποιο μέσω για να γράφω στα Ελληνικά και να έχω κάποια επικοινωνία με την Ελληνική μπλογκόσφαιρα μέσω ενός μπλόγκ.

Η αλήθεια είναι τα μπλόγκ τα έκλεισα για κάποιον σκοπό. Το ένα μήλο την ημέρα είχε πολύ εξειδικευμένη θεματολογία και δεν είχα το μεράκι να κάτσω να γράφω για το θέμα Apple με συνέπειά όπως παλιότερα. Αν και θα γράφω για την Apple, δεν θα γράφω τόσο συχνά ώστε να χρειάζομαι κάποιο μπλόγκ μόνο για αυτή την θεματολογία.

Το Είμαι φοβερός και το ξέρεις έγινε πια τοξικό. Με όλες τις περιπέτειες που είχα πριν κάτι χρόνια κατέληξα πως ήταν καιρός για μια νέα αρχή. Για όσους ενδιαφέρονται για την ιστορία, και περισσότερα για τους λόγους που το έκλεισα ας δουν τα δημοσιεύματα στο Φοβερός. Τα μπλόγκ φυσικά είναι αρχειοθετημένα και είναι ακόμα διαθέσιμα για ανάγνωση μέσω της κεντρικής σελίδας, και της σελίδας «media».

Οπότε λοιπόν το αγγλοκεντρικό μπλόγκ CA γίνεται πια πολύγλωσσο, και από εδώ και πέρα θα γράφω και στα Ελληνικά και στα Αγγλικά

Tags: Γενικά, νέα

I wasn't sure about this series when I first stated watching it but I have been convinced that it is good! It doesn't get a high score on IMDB - I don't know why!

This series has an interesting start. It wasn't picked up in 2004 when it was first shot, but because of the great writer strikes of 2007 in the US, the australian television execs gave it a second look and they gave it a go. Hey, if americans on strike give us great foreign shows, I say strike some more! (no disrespect meant to toward the writers guild! I just find that there is a void of good foreign shows on american TV).

Anyway, this series reminds me of Flashpoint (a canadian production, but currently also available on CBS). It follows a team of police officers - not quite SWAP (like in Flashpoint), but also not just patrolmen (Is there a something in between in the US?)

If it's not on a local station - go torrent it. It's worth watching.


For more information see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_(2008_TV_series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1258216/

Tags: television, entertainment, australian, drama, action

A while back I saw this comic book cover generator on one of my contact's profiles on Facebook.

Since I had nothing to do the other day I went through the generator and made myself info a super hero - batwings and all!

If you've got some time to waste and want a comic book cover of your alternate persona, head over to:
http://www.cpbintegrated.com/theherofactory/

Tags: personal, entertainment, Silly, comic

Back in the early 90s I had a super nintendo system. I didn't have that many games. One of the games I was dying to get was Inspector Gadget and luckily my mom pulled through and made my day one of those birthdays .

The game was really a straight forward platformer. Penny get abducted by Dr. Claws and Gadget is off to rescue her in typical gadget-esque fashion. He does get power-ups throughout the game, such as the mini-gadgets that attack enemies in front of you, suction-cup arrows, and the helicopter blades that allow him to float through the air (among other things).

I remember going up all the way to the amazon level and then dying...and dying again...and again. I never got to the end (my SNES and all my games were stolen when someone broke into my friend's house to whom I had loaded my system) but the game was nevertheless fun to try to beat. I never felt like I was gridinng through the levels. I did feel frustrated in the amazon though.

If you see this game on an SNES, emulator or gametap near you, give it a try.

Tags: video games, video, games, SNES

I enjoy finding cool mods for computers, be they Mac or PC.


I cam across this mod a few weeks back. Having used Apple ][ and Apple IIgs computers back in the day I thought that this was pretty cool!


There is just one problem with it, no access to ports! The mac mini appears to just be stuffed in the casing on an Apple ][ disk drive. There appears to be no effort in making the ports in the back of the Mac (USB and Firewire ports for instance) usable.


Good try though!


Now if we could only cram an iMac into an Apple IIgs casing...or into the 20th Anniversary Mac casing

Tags: technology, apple, appleII, macintosh, modification

I've added a number of podcasts to my RSS reader in iTunes. When possible, I try to get enhanced podcasts so that I can get the 'chapter' option that enhanced podcasts offer.

In the past five years I've grown to really like to listen to a number of people because of the news, insights and opinions that they provide. Of course, just like a newspaper, I don't want to listen to every topic that someone podcasts about, like things in the "news" section of podcasts because chances are that I've already listened to straight news about that industry that week.

One of my frustrations on the 2 hour long podcasts is that I don't have the option to look at the chapters, see the topics and then pick which chapter I would like to listen to based on the chapter's topic.

Most of these podcasts are post processed by audio engineers so why not create an AAC edition with chapters? This would be useful not only for joe-average, but also for people in education that want to use podcasts but want to skip to a particular section.

Tags: technology, podcasts, entertainment, education

Yet another (short) series on BBC that is worth watching.

This series follows the adventures of a Martin Shaw, a catholic priest, who happens to be an exorcist. Of course the Vatican isn't completely on his side which makes his job not as easy. As the series starts out they seem (to me anyway) to be skeptical of all this exorcism hog-wash, but as the series goes on it gives us (or at least me) the impression that the Vatican is taken over by demons.

The series is pretty good, and it's only six episodes, so it's worth investing your time to watch it if you're into spectral drama. I hope it gets renewed next year!


Here's some more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparitions_(TV_series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1140939/

Tags: television, entertainment, BBC, drama

One of my RSS feeds deals with all of the free apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Initially I looked at every app just in case there was something I wanted, but now this whole "FREE" and "LITE" bullcrap is driving me nuts.

Apple claims that there are a gazzilion apps on the app store. OK smartypants, how many of those apps are "FREE" or "LITE"...in other words DEMO versions of full apps? How many of them are useless fart apps?

When I see "FREE" next to an app, I ASSUME that it is free, as in "a free, fully featured app" not "a free demo".

I would seriously like to see *real* free apps, not just a boatload of //free demos//

Thus ends my rant for today

Tags: technology, apple, itunes, applications, rant, iPhone

One of the video games, from my childhood, that really stand out on the Amiga platform for me is Chuck Rock. This game is a typical side-scrolling platformer. The overall plot isn't that sophisticated. Chuck's wife (or girlfriend) is abducted by an evil doer and Chuck being the cavalier caveman that he is must go rescue her.

Along the road there will be some dinosaurs that help chuck on his noble quest, and some that will impede him by draining him of life. Chuck can attack these bad dinosaurs by either throwing stones at them, or by attacking them with his belly (this approach resorted to a lot of button mashing because I couldn't figure out when to press the button to attack and not be hit back).

I think the thing that really comes to mind when I think of Chuck Rock is not the game itself, but rather the introduction to the game. It was a pretty cool intro! (see video).





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Rock

Tags: entertainment, video, games, video games

A lot of people will consider what I am writing as heresy, but I do think that people should retire some of their blogs if they have multiple blogs going. In the past month a retired my two year old blog called Ενα μηλο την ημέρα (an apple a day) which is a Greek blog on Apple related news and tech. I also retired my first Greek blog called Είμαι φοβερός και το ξέρεις which I've had for five years now.

Now why retire those blogs? or any blog for that matter. For me it was both a maintenance issue, and and issue of inspiration. While I still do like (almost) all things Apple, I have neither the necessary income to buy cool new things, nor the time to test them out. Therefore the lack of content really killed this blog. Of course there's opinion and conjecture, but then you're a person on a soap box. This doesn't always build community, and one of the reasons to have a blog (other than telling people your opinion about things) is to find like minded individuals.

On the maintenance side, having four fully fledged blogs means a lot of writing, and when inspiration is an issue, maintenance becomes an issue too. One of the things that brings people back to your blogs (in addition to quality content) is the concepts of συνέχεια and συνέπια as an acquaintance of mine says. I guess I would explain these two words as continuity (συνέχεια )- do you add blog posts, and frequency (συνέπια ) - how often are these posts available. Do you post once a day? Once a week? Once a month?

With this blog, there is no issue of either. I write about video games, movies, television, school, books, personal stuff and work sometimes. There is always something to say. Both of my now retired blogs were thematic in nature and thus even though there was continuity, there wasn't always frequency - thus the audience isn't always there. So why throw out your opinion if you are not going to have someone respond back to you every now and then?

So using the rubrics of συνέχεια and συνέπια, blogs should eventually be pruned. Don't delete them, keep them in your archives, but do make it a point to retire them. Like a book, a thematic blog can have a good end.

Tags: technology, blog, opinion, thoughts

Here's and interesting (short) animated documentary on the history of the internet.

For most geeks among us this is common knowledge, but it's a good video to get those among us who don't know much about the origins of the internet up to speed

Tags: technology, history, internet, video

One of this season's ITV series that I enjoyed watching is Demons.
It takes place in modern London (if I am not mistaken), and it follows the life of the last of the Van Hellsings (Luke) who just found out that all that was written about vampires and demons is true.

Philip Glenister (or Life on Mars fame) is his godfather who apprentices Luke into the world of cleansing this world of half-lives (their term for anything that is not human).

It's a pretty interesting series, and I don't want to ruin it for everyone, but what struck me is the stark contrast between this series and Sanctuary. This series takes the view that all demons are bad and must thus be purged whereas Sanctuary takes the view that these beings are part of the ecosystem and we must all learn to peacefully co-exist with one another.

Demons reminds me a bit of the steampunk genre with the weapons they use.

Here's some more info on the series:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demons_(TV_series)
http://www.itv.com/Drama/cult/Demons/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1157595/


More info on Sanctury:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_(web_series)#Webisodes
http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302522/

Tags: entertainment, telephony, ITV, scifi

One more service to bite the dust - Yahoo! Briefcase

I started using it when it first came out but in recent years it's taken a back seat and I started using box.net, iDisk and google docs for the various cloud-drive requirements.

Tags: technology, yahoo, rip

To tell you the truth, this was a somewhat non-memorable game.
It is true that it had some great graphics, compared to other games I had played on portable platforms at the time. The story is essentially Mickey falling asleep on a fairy tale book, and he becomes the protagonist that saves the land.


The stages in the game were good. As I see screenshots of the game, my memory is jogged, but it's nothing like some of the NES, gameboy and Amiga games that I haven't played in a long time, yet still I remember,


Land of Illusion is a standard platform game, and it took me a while to complete as far as I recall. It was quite an amazing game, at the time, but for some reason it failed to make a lasting impression on me.


I kinda wonder what the deal is, because most game gear games that I have, and that I have written about, are games that either sucked really bad (and I remember that), or didn't make much of a lasting impression other than "I had that game, I played it, I completed it, it was OK". Weird...

Tags: video, video games, gameboy, games, sega, gamegear, disney, disappointment

This article was an interesting read on IGN retro.

It's an article about the origins of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM).

It brought back lot's of memories of similar gaming magazines I used to buy in Greece at that time

Look at that first cover!

The graphics are indeed indicative on a bygone era!

Tags: video, games, video games, magazines, retro

It's funny to think that my PowerBook G4 is now obsolete...or vintage as TUAW puts it.

Amazingly, my PowerBook runs with few problems, and I can still do (almost) everything I need to do on it - if you exclude the brain aneurism it had a few years back and it can do WiFi, Accelerated Video and Audio.


I post this from my obsolete Mac. The funny thing is that an obsolete Mac is still better than an Obsolete Dell

Tags: technology, apple, computer, powerbook, obsolete

Monk is quirky.
Monk is obsessive compulsive
Monk is a crime solver
Monk is a show you should be watching.

This series, now in its final (8th) year, follows a former police detective Adrian Monk. He has a big case of the OCD and it's this quirkyness that makes the series funny among other things. Monk's life hasn't been easy, and after his wife is killed in a bomb explosion, this throws him in a loop. He leaves work and eventually starts working as a police consultant on difficult cases to get income to pay his bills. (apparently freelance work is less stressful than a full day of 9-to-5...anyway).

The series is smart. Initially I thought it was kind of dumb, but I've warmed up to Monk. Each episode is self-contained so you can pick it up from any point in the series, in my opinion anyway.

I hope that USA makes a spin-off series with Stotlemeyer and Disher - that would be fun.

Tags: television, entertainment, hulu, comedy

Not the iPhone 3G (meaning that it runs on HSPA),
but the 3rd Generation (3G) iPhone...in other words the third iteration of the phone.


I know it's just a model, but it's pretty cool.

Make the Camera a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and I'm game

Tags: technology, apple, iPhone, concepts