Samurai7 » Skill chips

How many lives you have?

wakizashi — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:03:07 +0000

Well, most of us usually have only one. Some of us, i will not go into that explanation, have two or more life. For various reasons, we escape sometimes to some other life. Sometimes for fun, sometimes because we cant handle it. Now, I know this is nothing new, but recently, by accident, I got into Second life. Colleagues were bugging me about it, and eventually I have installed client, revoked my old account, and started exploring…When I got there, I didn't knew what to do. Oh, well, its another virtual world, nothing new, little nicer avatars than back in old days – basically just another visual IRC.
And that was so wrong. After few days exploring, I realized that it IS another world, with all basic things world have. You have currency, Linden Dollar, which like any other currency has its value, you can have your house, clothes, vehicles and everything else what you can think of. You can have full time work there, off course, you will be paid in Lindens, but you can convert them to real life money and use it whenever you want to. There are universities so you can learn about second, but also about real life. Like I said, everything you can do in real life. Well, not everything, you cant feel your surrounding, you cant smell loads of people around you, you cant taste food or drinks there, but soon i guess you will have all kinds of emulators that will bring full experience (and i dont even want to think of THAT emulators if you know what i mean ).

But why am I writing this? Well, the way i look at it, its not ONLY second life. Simply because i stumbled on some sims (sim – simulation) where people having Role play. So, when you log in to SL, you are already in second life, but it doesn't ends there. Each sim can be different life. And believe me there are loads of different sims there. In one sim, you can be Star Wars Jedi, dreaded Bounty hunter, Sith or anything else from Star Wars universe, yet on another sim you can be pirate, dragon, escort, policeman, criminal or simply whatever you want to be. You can go very wild on one sim, being something like porn star, yet on another you can be noble samurai. Now, i don't know many samurai that will go porn star in different sim, but point is made.

So, again, how many life's you have?

Did I told You…?

wakizashi — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:38:46 +0000

Few days ago I was driving in a cab. See, cab drivers in Serbia are, well strange, and not only because how they drive (join need for speed and flatout 2 and you will get the picture) but also how they act while you are in… So, usualy when you get a cab, you only want to reach your destination as quickly as possible. Well, not in Belgrade. First some background about cabs in Belgrade…

I don't know for sure how many registered cab drivers are in Belgrade, but in Serbia, country with little more than 7.5 million people, there are 13.000 cab drivers, so I would say that in Belgrade must be not less than 5000 drivers. Pretty much for city with about 2 mil people.

You have bunch of taxi organizations and all of them are "your best buy". Discounts, nice cars and all other advertising BS that doesn't make any sense. Most of them, if not all, consists of more or less shallow people that actually don't want to work "real" job, but to get money when they need it. Don't get me wrong, not all of them are like that, but lets say most of them. Also, ALL of them thinks that streets are build for them, and them only. Red light means STOP only when there is a chance to stop since speeding is something most common thing they do. They don't respect other drivers because "look at this idiot, i will not let you pass me ever…". So I don't know what is situation in other countries but here cab drivers are like… well when you see driver that goes from one line to another with 80KMH and without any lights given, you just say "cab driver" without even looking at car.

Subliminal spam?!

wakizashi — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 10:22:18 +0000

You all probably know about subliminal advertising. For those who don't know about it, it is technique of inserting message, or picture, in commercials. Now, every second of video contains 24-29.97 frames depending of video format (PAL, NTSC). So, basically you can easily insert one frame between those bunch of frames with your message (those who saw "Fight club" movie will know about that ). So, when you are having commercial of e.g 1 minute, you can have 1440-1798.2 frames and about 60 frames of your desired message. Since eye usually cannot detect those frames you don't even see them, but since human brain works much faster than eye, those images are recorded "somewhere" in your brain, supposedly making you think about that message.

So what about email spam and same technique?
Like most of Internet users I receive great deal amount of spam. Today I have opened message, and since lots of them contains images I saw something unusual.Picture is GIF so since it supports animation, same technique is used. It reminds me on a movie "They live" since aliens are also using subliminal messages, with the difference that messages can only be seen with special glasses. Now I don't know how efficient this is since, you can clearly see sub message, but makes you kinda think about, right ?

Since picture speaks as thousand words, here it is, so check it out. Just save it on Your hard drive, or take a look at it for a few seconds.

Bye bye Pluto…

wakizashi — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:29:28 +0000

Well, as You may or may not know, on August 24th in Prague, about 2500 scientists have met to redefine space objects. I actually don't see the point of that, but hey, they are scientists right… It doesn't matter that we haven't explore seas that are here on Terra, but we need to redefine space for what we don't even know how big it is… So, they came to this proposal:

it must be in orbit around the Sun
it must be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape
it has cleared its orbit of other objects

So, Pluto fails to comply the third rule since its orbit overlaps with Neptune's one. Also recently discovered 2003 UB313, which has around 3000 km in diameter, and its larger than Pluto also added to need for redefinition of space objects.

So, all in all, Pluto is now in Dwarf category, and its no longer planet. Now, what will astrologers say to that?

According to that In your horoscope Pluto symbolizes death, rebirth, sex, evolution, degeneration and regeneration, and symbolizes the breakdown of psychological blocks that prevent evolutionary growth. My astrological sign, Scorpio, is ruled by Pluto. Will natal charts now change also? Will interpretation of natal charts be wrong, since its no longer planet? I don't think so, but I don't understand why we, Terran's, wants to redefine everything. Those planets were here long before we are, yet, we need to clarify it in our way. So, we are not bothered by global warming, that were btw caused by us, we don't care about Greenhouse effect, that will reach its final state withing 10 years or so, from where it will be irreversible and probably render life on Terra to uninhabitable, yet we want to redefine space. Terran's, WHAT IS THE POINT OF THAT?

Anyway, to conclude it.
Pluto is no longer planet.
2003 UB313 isn't going to be promoted to planet.
Life will be extinguished on Terra in about 20-30 years if we dont do something here…

Table or Div ?

wakizashi — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 01:05:07 +0000

My colleagues already know that I'm screaming about HTML and CSS for a long time. They also know that I hate tables, and that I hate combination of tables and divs. So, You may ask, why this discussion then?

Well, yes, table eradication is great, do nasty HTML source, no bunch of tr, no calculations how many cells are needed, no nested tables, no confusing colspan, rowspan and who knows what else. When using tables You are also limited with later redesign. Cells are there where they are, and no CSS can help that. Yet, why the stupid question in title then?

Well its actually simple. Accessibility!
NO WAY you will say, since divs+css are probably most accessible combination. Well, actually no. What if you have for example exchange rate list with e.g. 30 currencies? Can You make it as div based, and will it look ok with no CSS?

I didn't think so. See, when creating web page, no matter how You hate tables, for some things tables are much better. They have best presentation model, since even without styles applied, you can easily follow table. With div based table, you will get just bunch of numbers and letters, and will probably end up unreadable. So, when comes to accessibility for some reports, exchange rates or similar content, my advice is Go with the tables. Heck, a few table here and there will not ruin your visual identity in a way not formatted divs will to end user.

Look ‘ma, its something on the sky…

wakizashi — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 22:28:09 +0000

Regarding my previous post about 2003 UB313 (there is no way I call it Xena) and beloved Pluto. Here is how I look at issue.
Pluto was discovered about 70 and some years ago, in 1930. Since then no bigger object wasn't discovered. So, astronomers were sitting one night, drinking beer, eating microwave pizza. During that night, some of them were playing with telescope, you know like Bart Simpson when he discovered comet that will hit Springfield, and suddenly … BAM Xena pops in! Wow, it so far away that we can get only picture of blurred squares. But since its so far away, it must have been big. "Is it bigger than Pluto?" someone from the crowd asked. Yes, its bigger, so we have found biggest cosmic object since discovery of Pluto! Yeeeha… Let's call it a planet. Yes, but then we will have 10 planets, and we "agreed" that it can be only less than 10 planets in Sol, since it will need changing of our database field so 2 digits can fit (something like stupid W2K bug that went pretty well if You asked me, but that's different topic). Ah, yes… well, lets dump Pluto, and call it a day.

And that's the whole story. I mean, what kind of person You have to be to question status of the planet ??? Not nice if You ask me, and lets hope that Pluto cannot defend himself, or we will be in deep trouble, no matter how small it is

Save Pluto!

wakizashi — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 21:46:32 +0000

As You all might know, Sol system contains 9 planets. Last one discovered was Pluto. For comparison, Pluto is even smaller that Moon. So its not big planet. Now, some people called astronomers, recently, in 2003 discovered another planet in Sol system. The planet is so, so so so far away that its best picture looks like blur. Now, those astronomers since its much bigger than our beloved Pluto, want to claim it as another planet of the Sol system. They even nickname it as Xena (who the hell is Xena ????) since 2003 UB313 is not the name that You will easily remember. So, since 2003 UB313 is much larger than Pluto, the discussion is whether Pluto will loose his title as planet or not! What the hell??? So, we have planet discovered 3 years ago, that is so big thus far far away, that will jeopardize Pluto's title as planet. And who Xena is? Xena is fictional character, from some TV series. If it is so, then why don't we call it Wonder Woman, or Spider man, Batman, Green Lantern or something similar. No, we will call it Xena because its so better than any other name.

Well, I cannot agree with the fact that our beloved Pluto will probably loose its title as planet. I don't care if Xena will be or not tenth planet of Sol, but I would hate to loose Pluto. I mean, we have discrimination all over the world, and do we need it in space to? "Look, some blurry object in telescope! Lets call it a Pancake and make it another planet in Sol, and instead we will drop….. Mars. Yes, Mars is small enough and it has stupid name. No more mars, welcome Pancake!" Sux. Claim planet, give them whatever stupid name you want to, but STAY AWAY from current planets of the Sol system. Stop the repression, size doesn't matter!

There, just my 2cents.

A Poem…

wakizashi — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 13:22:35 +0000

"Looking out the window of Your room onto a wet rainy day,
Main street under the sleep gray afternoon sky.
The light on Your face are soft and dim
under the lace curtain and the streets are EMPTY.
In the distance there is a flash and a rumble.
Clouds silver sky like a giant wooden ships
on the black and evergreen sea kept with foam."

Well, this poem, among others can be found in a video game (believe it or not!) called "Interstate 76", and its not some soft jump and run game, but hard core driving and interstate madness! Can You believe that?

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Shooting star

wakizashi — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 11:59:23 +0000

Last night I saw a shooting star. That actually remind me of an "old" days, when I was much younger, and great happiness when I saw shooting star. Back then, I remember that I was very happy when it happened, though I have feeling that then it was much often than now. Maybe its because back then I had less worries to think about so more time is left for examining nature… Or could it be because back then I didn't take for granted when nature "speaks"… Anyway, the thing is that last night I just thinking "huh, shooting star", and back then it would be more like "wow, did you see that, shooting star". Where that energy goes? When did I became so indifferent? Well, that probably goes with years, and we often said that it is actually wisdom and not indifference. I mean, who are we fooling? I didn't think that even kids believe us. So, that reminds me that back then I would probably wished for something, since it is common thing to do when You see shooting star. Back then, it would probably be some, from current point of view that changed through years, some silly thing, like "more wishes, to some girl fall in love with me, new pair of sneakers" or something alike, but what to wish now, from THIS point of view?

Last night I saw a shooting star… and I made a wish, altought it sounded silly, but I wished for best in life for my little son… suddenly it wasn't so silly after all…

To web or to Web 2.0

wakizashi — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 20:21:34 +0000

Ok, first post that makes some sense, i think…
Wtf is Web 2.0? Well read definition and after visit this site. Now really… Do we need this? Where else internet come to? It is already on our computers, as it intended to be in the first place, but it spreads like plague. You have it on consoles, tv, refrigerators, cell phones and God knows where not…

Now, in addition to this post, let me remind you to Johnny Mnemonic (yeah, another William Gibson's short story). Nerve Attenuation Syndrome – a disease that causes people to shake as if their circuits were overloaded. Could it really be possible? Could nerves can be overloaded? Well I hardly believe that my nerves were overloaded when I was 10 years old, and playing with matchbox and majorete cars. Nowadays, I saw movies of kids, playing games, and getting REALLY angry while playing them. Or very scared. So, back then, there was no reason to overload nerves. Simply go out and buy the bread and milk, instead of programing refrigerator to do that for you. Sit back and enjoy favourite show on TV, don't bother to go up and switch channel – use remote! I mean, what is the point of all that "integration" presented in Web 2.0?

Will it make pain go away? Probably not, but it will definitely make content more attractive. Now, what I don't understand is in what way?? It is already attractive as it should be. Internet is IMHO source for information, and I need that information quickly. Off course, it would look nicer if it is formatted in some way, but it still needs to be fast to get. Well, not! Try searching something that first crosses your mind. E.g. "candlestick". And what did you get: about 4,360,000 hits! Well that is informative enough, but it will take a few life spans to browse all that. I mean, this is some random item, nothing special, plain simple candlestick! What about plain and simple "sex": about 787,000,000 hits, and generated in 0.06 seconds. Google database is God knows how big, yet its there at the grasp of your click finger (its no longer called pointing finger, cause it doesn't point to anything, but clicks left mouse "ear") within blazing fast 0.06 seconds. And with Web 2.0 it will be faster? Damn, how faster will it be? Will results be shown before i even click search? Doubtfully, but it will join all current technologies into one great all knowing thingie that will make our lives easier. Ok, lets look at the "bigger" picture of how it is presented at O'Reilly seminar
Does it looks great or what? FYI, click on thumb to open bigger version of it, so You will see how simply that is. I mean, we are creating something ridiculously complex to make our lives easier?? Where will it end?

Well it will not be soon for sure, and Im afraid to think what Web x.0 will bring to us, poor souls…

Stay tuned it will be continued…