Zahada

Since I'm a big fan of Riddles, I came over that site where you have to type your answer in the address bar to move to the next level.

http://www.mcgov.co.uk/zahada.html

Very cool and interesting riddles dedicated for people who want to test their abilities to think "out of the box" and on the other hand to look for the answer that is "just in front of their eyes" instead of going chasing the moon!

Just try to pass the link to your co-worker in the office and see how much it's addictive and witness the drop of productivity ;)

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Media Center or Home Theatre PC!!!

Every time I get visitors they do get blown away by the Media setup I have at home. By Media I mean the way Photos, Movies, Home Videos and Music (as well as TV and Radio) are easily available on my TV screen and controlled by remote control. Now this is neither a revelation nor an alien technology people! This is simply a PC that is camouflaged as an Audio-Video device such as a DVD or an amplifier very similar to the below photo.

As you can see this looks as simple Amplifier device that can be found in an home. Nevertheless this is a simple desktop PC that has the regular components such as Hard Disk, CPU, Memory, etc.

Now is is becoming the trend for every Home Entertainment and if you don't have one yet then I am sure you will end up having one very soon. Especially that the cost of such a device can be as low as 1000$. Before diving into the details of such a device (no worries, it will not be technical, you can continue reading) allow me to provide some basic definitions for the non-techies reading this blog:

• MCE: Media Center
• HTPC: Home Theatre PC
• HDMI: This is a type of cable that links the PC to the Amplifier and TV. Through this cable flows Audio and Video

Let us start with the Case.

As I said before, an HTPC is a regular desktop like the one you use at work (unless you use a laptop). From the inside it looks like that:

Nothing to it really, the few basic components found in any Desktop PC including an HDMI connectivity that is standard nowadays. The only addition of an HTPC is that it comes with an Infrared sensor and a remote control that allows you to navigate through the interface.

Next is the software that you can use and the capabilities.

For the software you can use any version of Windows (XP, Vista or Windows 7) that have the Media Center built-in. I would recommend that you use the ULTIMATE flavor of Vista as a sure bet to contain Media Center.

Obviously the software will scan you hard disc for photos, Videos (home videos or movies/series) and for music. These are known as your 'Media'. Below are some snapshots of how your Media will look like.

Obviously this PC can connect to the internet and download relevant information for you such as Movie details and posters, Music cover art and lyrics, it can display weather information and provide nice visualization for you photos.

Lots of extra features are found as built-in as well. To name a few you have streaming to other computers at home, creation of playlists, podcasts and access to plenty of features online (taking into consideration you have the required internet access and speed). Now the major feature that makes this product a MUST is the Radio and TV functionality that it provides.

For the radio, you can have all your favorite radio stations accessible on screen to navigate through. As for the TV the HTPC offers a full PVR functionality. What is a PVR? a PVR is the capability of displaying your TV station on your screen through the HTPC. This would allow you to Pause Live TV, rewind, skip ads,record your favorite programs/shows and of course schedule recording of multiple programs simultaneously. (If you are impressed by this last feature then you are a couch potato. You should avoid getting an HTPC and go out more. Get a Life!).

I am not going to dwell longer on this but I highly suggest you google 'Media Center PC' and spend some time reading through the results. You will be impressed I guarantee it.

Staff Augmentation

Just a quick note to let you know that we have a new member on board that will add more fun to this blog.
I will let him make the introduction.

catch you later.

All This Has Happened Before and All This Will Happen Again

The image on the left has nothing much to do with the below post except to tell you that the SciFi channel has been re-branded into SyFy. As part of their expanding universe this is a move that opens new horizons and is a proof that you can have success even in the worst financial crisis.

Last night aired the last and final episode of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) and it was extremely fulfilling. This post however is not about BSG as is but more specifically about a strange coincidence regarding the ending of the series.

For anyone willing to watch the show I advise to STOP reading this post as it will contain spoilers about the ending.

As a brief summary about the show; 50,000 humans have been wondering the galaxy over the last 4 seasons of the show after their home planets were blown to pieces by the evil 'Cylons' (the enemy race/machines). Their only hope was to find a habitable planet they could settle in. The search ends when they find 'Earth' in Season 3 and it turns out that this Earth planet has been devastated by a nuclear war and is inhabitable. As a result their quest continues throughout season 4 till they reach another planet that they name 'Earth' once again. They decide to populate the planet by creating colonies on the different continents.
According to the show, this happened 150,000 years on our planet and we are their descendants.

The coincidence that I mentioned earlier is that I am a believer of such a theory. The theory that similar colonies/civilizations existed a long time ago, mainly Lemuria and Atlantis, that were colonies by either humans from Earth or another planet. In the end, Myths of the ancients should come from somewhere other than just pure imagination. Anyway, we all know that Lemuria and Atlantis were destroyed (some say nuclear devastation) and the surviving few fled and established new colonies. The Atlantis survivors created what is currently known by Sumer here in the Middle East. The survivors of Lemuria established another civilization in southern America (this explains the 4,000 year old scriptures found on both sides of the Atlantic using almost the same alphabet).
Sumer gave birth to other civilizations such as the Pharaohs and the Phoenicians to name a few and the rest of the story would be our history books.

Without dwelling on the subject any longer, BSG is based on that theory and if you guys are interested in some interesting reading I highly advise a book by David Icke called Children of the Matrix (NO, it has nothing to do with the movie). David Icke is a sick person and his theories are quite disturbing and are just the imagination of a sick mind. Nevertheless, in all the mess he has written, some gems and theories can blow your mind. So I advise you read this book and focus on the history theory and not on Icke's theory that we are nowadays governed by Alien descendants (that is just sick!).

On the other hand, for all the religious people reading this (if anyone is ever reading this), YES I still believe that god created us all, including the humans that came to earth (13 years of Catholic school surely harmed me in lots of different ways that I can not get rid of).

Bottom line is, watch the series to expand your imaginary horizons with SyFy and read the book while focusing on the human race history.

.Tel

I am not sure you guys heard about the .TEL initiative that will be available for the public in a couple of days but it is something truly interesting.
Unlike the .com and the .org and the rest, this Top Level Domain is expect to bring a kind of a small revolution to the 'online' community. If you are interested, I highly suggest you have a quick read on http://www.telnic.org and then quickly go buy your domain. It should cost you around 20$ per year to have yourName.tel.
If you still want to know what .Tel is, well I can say it could be described as the internet phone book where every user would have his .Tel entry containing all the information the user wants to have there. Your business card in that case that you would be handing over to people you meet will just include yourName.tel from now on. So whether your address or phone number changes, all you need to do is update your .Tel and you will still be reachable.

Eventually your mobile phone address book will be pointers to the .Tel of every contact.
Plenty more services can be built on top of that and sky is the limit, but now is not the right time to detail all that. So check it out and prepare yourself to hear a lot about .Tel in the coming few weeks.

Piracy: A Global Warning Effect!!

We have all had our share of pirated 'stuff', from books, to music, to movies or to software. We are all guilty. Nevertheless, this small act of piracy that each of us does (excluding me as I do HUGE acts of piracy) is shaping the way we deal with creative media.
This post is my take on Piracy.

Starting with the most common type and that would be MUSIC.
You remember the old days when we were forced to buy albums composed of 1 or 2 good songs while the rest of the album sucked? Well those days are gone now with the MP3 revolution. So now we can pick our songs and pay for each individual song without having to own an album. 2 side-effects though are noticed and these are in my opinion considered benefits.
First is the marginalization of the production companies that used to push on us Album sales. this is a kind of a 'middle-man' concept that we can do without.
Second, the creativity of the artist. To get enough songs sold (to make the price of an album) every artist is forced to generate 12 excellent songs to sell. As compared to the previous scam where 2-3 songs are included on a shitty album of 12 songs (Hence the 12 good songs are distributed over 3-4 albums, released one after the other and 1 year apart). So creativity gets a boost while mediocre music gets the garbage treatment.
So in the end, even though music piracy is bad, the side effect of it is a tremendous benefit to music lovers and artists alike.
How does that affect me: Well it doesn't!! I download my MP3s for free since 1999 and till now I have a huge selection of around 7500 hand-picked song that I am truly proud of.

The next very interesting type of piracy is GAMING.
Now that is a case study by itself. As part of the software initiative to fight piracy the developer companies came up with an idea to assign a KEY to every game copy sold. We all know that this never worked and every single key got cracked as soon as the game is shipped. Now that led to an ingenuous solution.
You remember the way we used to buy games, spend days playing them and once we get to the end of it we start regretting the 70 or so dollars spent on it. Not because the game sucked, but because now this game will be have to be shelved till it becomes obsolete in a couple of years. A replay was out of the question no matter how creative the game developers tried make it. This Led to piracy and the gaming industry's answer was Online Gaming. This offered a replay value to the game for years to come.
So now we ended up with a 70 Dollar game that you can finish in an average of 15 hours, but offers an online mode to keep you happy and entertained whenever you feel like it. And this online mode will only work with your UNIQUE key. So no more key sharing (unless you are not interested in online gaming).
How does that affect me: I'll still be buying the games that offer a creative online mode and will still indulge myself in pirated copies of the rest.

This brings us to the media that got the worse out of the Piracy phenomenon. This would be the MOVIES.
Now unlike Music and Gaming, there is no benefit whatsoever that could be derived from Movie piracy unfortunately. The movie industry is hit hard by piracy and no creativity can be obtained without the studio money. Some faint trials were made to self produce a movie either by selling shares or by starting small and growing or by sharing profits with the audience. All that came to a blunt reality that movies require the huge studio machine to get made.
How does that affect me: Well in this chunk of piracy I do not see how I can make a difference. So my movies will still get downloaded for free so that I get to enjoy them in the comfort of my home.

I don't know what to make out of this post. I am easily categorized as a 'hardcore pirate' that would easily receive a life sentence if I were in the USA for example. Nevertheless, I can not but admire the efforts performed by the gaming industry to reach a solution to bypass piracy. The other medias should also follow the Gaming industry by adapting to the new digital age and be creative enough to achieve their own piracy bypass (which is not visible for the time being).

As a final thought, keep in mind that the most profitable industry since the start of the Financial Crisis is in fact the gaming industry. No piracy crisis nor financial crisis could shake it's foundations.

Let that be a warning to all the remaining industries.

Risk Management

People my age usually fill their time by playing Poker or other 'grown up' games. They even make a Macho game out of it by introducing a different name (aka flavor) like "Texas Hold'em". They even make it look Cool by having a glass of bourbon and a cigar accompany their overnight. Me on the other hand I play RISK. Why you say? it brings out the child in me? Makes me feel different than the others? Well, that is pure bullshit!!! The real reason is that it is not that different than poker as you would realize below.

The gang of people who want to become players is growing by the day (sorry, it is a game of just 6 and our clan is full) and most of them are hard core Poker players (still are in fact). Now here is the catch!! The way we play Risk, or the TWIST that we use in our gameplay, is what makes the difference and renders it a more interesting game than poker. As a matter of fact, being a poker player makes you better in 'our' RISK game. The better 'Poker Face' you have the longer you would survive. I do understand that no matter how exciting I make it look you would not be able to appreciate unless you try it. Nevertheless I will briefly state OUR game rules and I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out how the game play will flow. The game flow is as follows (6 players):

1. Each player gets 18 men, country cards distribution and a Personality Card (don't show it to anyone). There are 6 personality cards: 4 WHITE cards and 2 BLACK cards.
   
   
2. All players would close their eyes, the 2 BLACK personalities only would open their eyes briefly and identify each other silently before closing their eyes again. Then everyone would be allowed to open their eyes so that the game begins. By this, only 2 players on the table know they are BLACK (hence partners) while the 4 other players do not know the other WHITE players nor do they know who the BLACK players are.
   
   
3. The aim of the game is for either BLACK or WHITE to win (using the game play detailed in the boardgame user guide manual.

Obviously the scheme is for the BLACK to impersonate himself as a WHITE using every treachery known to man in order to destroy the other WHITES. Obviously the same wicked technique would be used by the other BLACK partner assisting him. The key is to destroy all WHITES without being identified as a BLACK nor to expose your partner/partnership. Debates will heat up, lies will be abundant, promises will be broken and backstabbing would be name of the game. Weirdly enough, a certain addiction will get hold of you after your first game.

To feel Macho we name the game GODFATHER RISK and to be Cool we accompany the game with a flood of bourbon and cigar (Vodka or Sambuka or any other hard liquor would do).

Without dwelling on this subject any longer, I highly recommend that you try it sometimes. It is as fulfilling and satisfying as Poker and is a nice change.

PS: I don't hate poker nor the players. It is just that I suck in Poker.

Spotify

With all what is taking place in Sweden with the PirateBay trial and all, we still get simple ideas that makes a difference out from the Sweedish. A company in Sweden released SPOTIFIED back in October, it is a new service that would eventually offer FREE music. The downside is that you will have to put up with some ads on your screen (I can live with that).

It is being said that Spotified might be the new Napster that we were all waiting for.
I'll Keep an eye on that.

Rock the Boat

With a new job, an 18 months old baby and a completely new life started after getting married and moving into a new house, I thought that things will eventually become stable and routine will take over our lives. A routine that I always struggled to obtain but never was able to get hold of.
Anyway, a weird type of satisfying routine eventually settled in and just when I was ready to realize how comfortable I was getting with it, something came up to shake it off all over again.

I went for a general blood work last week and was hit by the fact that my Triglyceride levels were soaring up through the roof. Checked with my Dr. yesterday and a new shuffle in my way of life was dictated to me.
No more waking up at 6:30am anymore! This will have to be at 5:30am in order to have a 50 minute walk before showering and heading to work at 7am (dropping my kid in daycare on my way no later than 7:30am). Oh, did I mention that I have to take a 0% carbohydrate breakfast as well before leaving home? (that is mainly a fiber concentrated cereal that doesn't taste right which needs to be taken without milk cause I am Lactose intolerant).
In Brief, in addition to the exercise I will be stuck with a Low Carb, 5 meal a day, diet without a single grain of sugar allowed. All that for 2 months and then a re-test.

As a result we'll be spending plenty of time in the kitchen preparing the 5 no carb meals a day and getting to bed at 9:30 in the evening in order to get some sleep (did I mention I am insomniac too?)
So with a kid around that drains most of your remaining energy and fills most of your relaxing time with his 'bezerkness', the kind of life that I was trying to establish will have to be drastically changed.

When people used to say that a stupid blood work shuffled everything in their lives I used to laugh at them and consider that nothing can be that dramatic. You can always recover in a way or another. But "at what cost" is the question I never thought of. Well, now I realize how something as stupid as Triglyceride can rock your boat in a way you have never imagined. So my advice to you is:
"Don't get above 30, don't get kids and definitely don't do any blood works"

Getting older sucks (you don't need me to tell you that) and I can't help getting reminded of the Baz Luhrmann song "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen". Check it out. It is the type of song that you get to appreciate its message the more older you get. Now that is sad.