Digital Analogy

The Rum Diary (2011)

2012-02-09T13:01:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I decided to check on a movie after quite a long time of series-munching (mostly Doctor Who, catching up with Big Bang Theory and giving myself the amazing experience of watching BBC's Sherlock). The chosen one was The Rum Diary, starring Johny Depp.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It's not a movie of epic proportions, nothing mind-blowing with it, but it still has some interesting characters and a decent plot set in the explosive 60s on Puerto Rico. The main character, Kemp, is an alcoholic novelist who visits Puerto Rico to work for a dying local newspaper. His boss needs to keep it as boring and positive as possible, because "tourists never want to read what is wrong with Puerto Rico". Kemp has different ideas. The story has a bit of everything, on just the right amount, without becoming too much of a drama, a comedy, an action or a social concerns movie. It's a fun and interesting watch at the same time. And it comes with plenty of alcohol too.

Moonblink Android projects

2011-10-01T17:06:00.002+03:00

Moonblink is known for developing the Android Tricorder, a Star Trek Tricorder app which has been removed from the Android Market by Google after CBS lawyers decided to kill it.

Despite the sad events, moonblink's page in Google Code hosts a number of other projects, some of which might worth looking into.

http://code.google.com/p/moonblink/

UPDATE: It seems the 3corder is not lost forever. You may want to do a search at freewarelovers.com - Good luck :)

AndyPad Pro: Hands On (or off?)

2011-09-21T00:01:00.001+03:00

Last Friday (almost 5 days ago) I got my hands on my brand new AndyPad Pro tablet, a low-cost Android - Gingerbread - Tablet. And now I shall write about it. Beginning with the good stuff.

EDIT: First of all, I want to state that support in the official forums is fantastic. I get responses quickly by the administrator regarding my problems, and even though solutions are not apparent or directly available, there seems to be a lot of true interest to these problems.

Games perform impressively well! Videos too. You just might want to install Mobo Player and set it to software-decoding in case you encounter videos the original player cannot play properly. The screen is very nice. It has a cool virtual keyboard (which unfortunately I had to substitute with - almost equally good - Multiling Keyboard that had support for Greek). Responsiveness is good enough (not perfect). Sorry for not elaborating on the above but that's only because I decided to elaborate on the negative aspects of the device below...

It's not a big secret on the web by now that the software needed more attention. I guess that's why the creators of the tablet are so eager to let other developers make their own, custom roms (I think Modaco is working on one already).

Google Maps and GTalk are absent. Maybe because there's no 2G/3G and GPS support on the device. I installed Maps myself and it would give force-close errors when I booted the device, so I removed it again.

One of the first things I did was to install Launcher Pro, since it works super-smooth on my ZTE Blade and eventually it does too on the AndyPad. The original launcher is not bad, but has some noticeable lag during its animation.

The only problem I've encountered that actually matters to me is related to the heart of a tablet system: its Wi-Fi. If I turn the wi-fi off while connected to a network, then turn it on again, my previously working network will appear on the list as "not in range". The solution is to long-press it, choose "forget", then scan again for networks, grab it and reconnect. If I choose to check Advanced Wi-Fi settings while connected, the whole wi-fi settings system will crash, setting the wi-fi to Off, never letting me to connect again. The solution now is to reboot the device.

Some colours of the custom theme the AndyPad rom is using are incompatible with certain apps. For example, they use a light blue background instead of the default Android black one, which can be a pain when you have light-coloured fonts in certain apps that use Android's backgrounds (the light blue in that case) instead of having their own.

The AndyPad Pro has a 1024x600 screen. Even if you load a new high resolution image as wallpaper, you'll notice it becomes badly stretched, with obvious pixelation, as if its been stretched from a lower resolution. I had to install a Background HD Wallpapers (or something like that) application from the market to have proper resolution wallpapers working, well, properly on the screen.

Twitter (any client) and Facebook (only tried the official one) display the wrong time for posts, exactly 1 hour back. For example, if someone (even myself) posts something RIGHT NOW, I will read "posted one hour ago".

Tom the Cat 2 had some audio glitches on short-duration sounds, playing a Spongebob video had me notice that the L and R audio channels sound inverted. But maybe those were just unlucky cases.

Well, I will come back with further details and more positive commentary as soon as the first (of a bunch?) custom rom or an official software update shows up. All I have left to say for now is that I have not regretted buying it, since it does what it should in respect to what it was advertized to do (though the CPU is down-clocked to 1GHz "for stability", instead of being at 1.2GHz as it says on the box), and the potential with future rom updates is quite promising.

Where's WALL-E?

2011-08-25T14:42:00.001+03:00

I am among the people who are eager to try the new cheap AndyPad Android tablet, released in September. AndyPad UK shared in their twitter account this excellent picture to the left, a mass-up of most of the well-known robots in entertainment history.

Can you find Wall-e?

Pleiadian Dreams

2011-08-23T23:38:00.001+03:00

I've been looking for this album everywhere. Are you into atmospheric slash space slash new-age soundscapes? This is for you then. An occultist guy named Puzuzu (and NOT Pazuzu) released this album in 2001. Anyone was able to download the songs from the once great mp3.com website. Some years ago I seemed to have lost it, but recently thanks to a friend from YouTube I managed to get hold of the songs again. So, here it is, Pleiadian Dreams, by Puzuzu:

https://rapidshare.com/files/2076492957/Puzuzu_-_Pleiadian_Dreams.zip

World of GreeceCraft

2010-03-17T10:41:00.004+02:00

The following picture, which I created last night after coping with some boredom, is dedicated to those who are both familiar with the Scarlet Monastery instance in World of Warcraft AND the recent breakout of a scandal concerning a greek monastery called Vatopedio... The Greek goverment decided to put taxes on the wealth of Church, and the priests are feeling... somewhat disturbed. Perhaps the best solution is raiding and looting! :P Special thanks to Kostas "Starfighter" (don't kill me) for igniting my inspiration, through a Facebook comment!

Exclusive! New instance loading screen: Vatopedium Monastery

Flowish

2010-03-16T12:33:00.002+02:00

Sometimes, as I work (or not) on something, either at workplace or at home, there are bits of thoughts and feelings which seem to just instantly flow through me and then they're gone. Like a millisecond's glimpse of a past life, only that I know it is of this one. Those still memories and emotional sparks, are hard to keep up with, because they fade as fast as they appear, like dreams in the morning. But their significance feels huge (cough). I need to catch up with them, it's not much different than trying to catch a fly with a beer-cup. They sometimes seem like little jars containing life, waiting to be grasped while on air, expecting to be opened and examined.

Z-day, strikes and... torrents.

2010-03-12T10:28:00.002+02:00

Gamato.info is - sorry, was, probably, the largest Greek torrent site around. A few days ago it was shut down by the police and some of its administrators were arrested. The police states that the money lost from the illegal content shared from the tracker has been almost 2 billion euros.

Its users claim that this is a tiny amount, compared to what the government has stolen from the Greek people the last 20 years, a situation that has brought the country near the edge of bankruptcy.

Today the first Z-day 2010 events for the Zeitgeist movement (http://thezeitgeistmovement.com/) take place in Greece at Syntagma Sqr. at 17:00...

...and Coincidentally, protesting against the shut-down of the most famous greek torrent website/tracker "Gamato.info" takes place at the same time and place.

All these happen the very next day after one of the most important strikes that took place in Greece, against the new harsh economical measures the government tries to settle, in order to increase its income.

Interesting times for Grecia, right?

Windows Live - Now Playing plugin for Foobar v1

2010-02-11T15:27:00.002+02:00

It took me a little while but I discovered a plugin for displaying the current playing song from the Foobar player in Windows Live Messenger, that works with foobar versions 1.0 and above :)

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66346

White Noise

2009-11-10T13:14:00.003+02:00

Nothing can be everything all of the time and exist in peace. As in sound. All frequencies together simply produce noise. It's funny, though, how all colors simply produce pure white, which is never perceived as noise. Maybe this means that only "light" has the power to be everything at the same time and get away with it.

Musical Ignition

2009-11-05T10:41:00.000+02:00

Τελικά έχει διαφορά το αν θα ξεκινήσεις τη μέρα σου ακούγοντας Opeth και Pain Of Salvation ή το soundtrack της ταινίας “Amelie”. Πάντα επιδίωκα να ακούω μουσική που θεωρούσα ότι αντιπροσώπευε την εσωτερική μου κατάσταση, ενώ σπάνια θα προσπαθούσα να κάνω το αντίστροφο, δηλαδή να προσαρμόσω την ψυχική μου κατάσταση στη μουσική. Εδώ που τα λέμε δεν θέλει και ιδιαίτερη προσπάθεια. Ούτως ή άλλως η μουσική σε επηρεάζει. Αλλά τι κάνεις αν λατρεύεις ένα καταθλιπτικό συγκρότημα και θες να νιώθεις και όμορφα; Η αλήθεια είναι ότι δεν είναι όλες οι στιγμές ίδιες, και σίγουρα δεν θα θες πάντα να νιώθεις σαν τις πεταλούδες την άνοιξη ούτε σαν τον κακό σου τον καιρό. Και τα νεύρα είναι απαραίτητα για την ομαλή λειτουργία του πνευματικού μας οργανισμού, και η θλίψη, και η μελαγχολία, και η σύγχυση, γιατί υποτίθεται ότι ωθούν σε ψυχική ενδυνάμωση. Και μετά έρχονται και οι πεταλούδες. Λαλα. Χοχοχο.

Zoned

2009-10-02T16:42:00.000+03:00

Let me introduce you to Zoned's music...

Taken from his website:

"The material you find here is my creation. Mostly conjured with Reason 4, my steadfast PCR-800 MIDI keyboard, the awesome Echo Mia MIDI soundcard, and nighttime jammin' ...

And, should this music please you so much you want to use it for something, don't hesitate! It's free-as-in-beer to use. However, you must give me credits for the work (obvious). Also, the music cannot be used for a commercial project. :'D"

Social Wallpapering

2009-09-17T15:00:00.000+03:00

Here's something for all us wallpaper lovers :) It is a nice effort to organize high-resolution wallpapers from around the web, for more technical details you can check the FAQ in their website.

http://www.socwall.com

A post-punk/coldwave/synthpop blog

2009-09-16T23:01:00.000+03:00

A neightbour (and friend!) of mine suggested the following blog as a source of some rare pieces of "post-punk, coldwave, synthpunk, minimal wave, synthpop, and various other combinations of these styles.", as it says over there. So here's the link, enjoy ;)

http://systemsofromance.blogspot.com/

Suburbia

2009-08-30T19:50:00.000+03:00

It is a funny feeling, sitting here, in the suburban railway of Athens, typing down random bloggy stuff on a netbook, while watching the buildings and the compiled garbage in the corners of streets move back in time. Now playing: Pain of Salvation - In The Flesh. And now it moves faster and faster. I hope the destination is not dark and cold.

Where are we going? Where are we coming from? "Next station: ROUF" - the stream of thought is violently interrupted by the 180dB loud voice of the driver.

Lothlorien - Greenwood Side

2009-08-25T13:35:00.000+03:00

This is a link to download this rare (over here, at least) album by the celtic music band Lothlorien. It has some of the most beautiful celtic music I've ever heard.

http://tinyurl.com/loth-greenwood

Monkey Island Special Edition

2009-06-05T10:30:00.001+03:00

we'll be waiting...

Nobody's Here

2009-05-31T12:53:00.000+03:00

To Kevin ;) You should check him out indeed... Thanks a lot for following this blog, even though it's not so actively maintained...!

Hello, it's good to see you here
Come in, can I offer you a beer?
And they say this what it's like forever
...Roll this up, it's deadly...
To feel, feel like there's nobody here
...Feel like there's no more fear
I wanna feel like this for a year...
...Feel like there's nobody here...

To live and lock yourself away
Relax, it doesn't matter anyway
'Cause it's all a lie, it's true
I think, I guess, I know, I think, I know
...Fuck off...
Why can't I remember?
I feel, feel like there's nobody here
...Feel like there's no more fear
I wanna feel like this for a year...
...Feel like there's nobody here...

Heroes, they take my breath away
Zero the dials
See how the breakdown breaks ground
And zeros the miles

2009-05-30T09:50:00.000+03:00

The way it goes, is the way it goes.
I'm all right to go
The way it goes, is the way it goes.
I'm all right to go
So go...
...you go.

They took their things and headed for the coast
Denied of all in life they needed most
Loves forgotten child
born into the wild

Come to the coast, come to the coast, come to the coast
it will find you...

The fallout from the California glow
Toronto's frozen over this every man should know
I've forgotten now
Won't you show me how?

Coast.

Go.

Run away, just run away from here.
Just run away, just run away my dear...
'Cause love's forgotten child...
So go into the wild
...Come.

Somebody took me away...something controls me...
Somebody took me away...something controls me...
Somebody took me away...something controls me...

The Zeros - Prehatching the rennaisance of the century

2009-05-27T11:53:00.000+03:00

The current decade will be gone (RIP), blown up into pieces, obliterated into past memorabila in just a few months from now.

I was thinking how things have been for music these last 9 years.

Every decade has a unique character in its general musical tendencies. The Zeros Decade wonderfully applied its name qualities on music itself. A lot of bands came back from the dead to remind us why they disbanded in the first place (not all of them, hopefully), experimentation experimented on itself resulting in a reproduction of its own source of inspiration... There came to be a fatigue in the evolution of music. Everything seems to have already be combined with everything else. Only in these last couple of years have new things appeared around, with terms like "procedural compotition" and new electronic instruments such as the Yamaha Tenorion.

At least that's how I feel about the last decade.

But still, the last decade has also been very, very special.

Another quality of the Zero's name that applied itself onto music is this of a Zero Point. The 00s, while prehatching it, became the Big Bang for a whole new universe, called "The Internet". While evolution in music in terms of inspiration and originality was set back, its very relation to the known world is radically changing, and it will not be very far in the future (probably the next decade) that we begin to see its effect on sound itself.

There is a term going around, "open source", that derives from free software (software that can be freely redistributed and altered, resulting in an evergoing evolution of the software). The free software and the open source philosophy is beggining to be applied on other things as well. Music is one of them. Global, "unofficial" and "uncorporated" cooperation is something being applied on software at the moment, making it hard for companies like Microsoft to keep up. A couple of automobile companies are trying to do the same with their automobiles. Medical departments are trying to do the same. It's been reported. And it's also happening in music. And it will happen in many other things. The world will gradually switch to the "open source" model, not because it's the New Thing, but mostly because it works better for everyone on the long run.

It's intriguing to ponder on what the open source philosophy can make of music and the music industry as we know it. We can only wait... and listen.

The fear of...

2009-05-16T16:58:00.000+03:00

...reaching an end.
But does anything really end?

Luc Arbogast

2009-05-15T10:30:00.000+03:00

This medieval dude down there is called Luc Arbogast, he is from france, and you can check his myspace site HERE...

Current 93 - The Frolic

2009-05-11T10:20:00.000+03:00

Live gigs and geeky deeds

2009-04-26T14:12:00.000+03:00

It all began when I was born.

Nice start, huh? But I will go on in a very different style.

Yesterday I went to the Exumer live show, On Stage club (in Athens, for all you non-greek readers who possibly don't exist - prove me otherwise with your comments :E). I knew very little about this band, so the main reason I went was because Convixion, a band some friends of mine have, was playing, first in line as well.

They φακινγκ rule, I must say.

Continuing this totally unbiased (as far as I can take it) review, I should note that they probably had the best sound of all 5 (or 6?) bands performing that evening. That was probably because Panos "Misdeal" and his experienced ear built-in-since birth device was behind the console taking over the sound. One of the very few thrash live shows that the guitars doesn't sound so "muddy" and "yoghurty". Their few new songs (which are yet to be recorded)such as "I come alive" are slightly better than the old ones in my opinion, more mature, more complex, and probably more fun! (allthough "Drink metal" might accompany them as their all-time classic until the end of times - maybe ALL times).

The rest of the bands were quite cool as well, less melodies around though (of course, it was a freakin' thrash metal gig). Exumer seemed to have let some of their fans dissapointed, but also left most of them with bruises and great memories of boots and the ooze-covered wooden floor approaching their face at quite a rate

The end (of the "review")

...but The Beggining of today's good deeds:

AT around 19:00 pm, greek Ubuntu users, with almost no idea of one for another, are gathering in Monastiraki to celebrate the new Ubuntu Linux release, called "Jaunty Jackalope" (v. 9.04), while eating wonderful souvlaki.

Later this evening, I'm definitely going to another gig, "Sad Lovers And Giants" (well-known new/dark wave band), in Gagarin543958can'trememberthenumber live stage.

Maybe i'll post a review about that one as well.

Goodbye, till our next meeting.

Amiga Kickstart Roms (Tosec v.0.04)

2009-04-17T13:57:00.001+03:00

It recently reoccured me, this retroxperience feeling that makes me want to bath among bits and bytes of the past. Amiga 500 was my first computer and anyone who once owned an Amiga knows it stays with you. Forever.

So, for anyone who's been looking for these, here they are, the kickstart roms for use with any Amiga emulator (winUAE is my favourite in Windows, haven't tried one in Linux yet)!

Amiga Kickstart Roms (Tosec v.0.04)

Penumbra

2009-01-10T14:30:00.000+02:00

Ok, I guess this can be one of the scariest game series you can play on your computer (whether you have Windows or Mac or even Linux on your PC, they come in all platforms).

I haven't played too much of the 1st part called "Penumbra: Overture", but I've completed the 2nd one called "Black Plague". It doesn't take much to come along with the story once you know more or less what's going on with the previous game, even if you haven't completed it.

So... The gameplay is based on the much beloved 1st person perception with its best point being the vast interaction with the enviroment via a physics engine which allows you to pick up barrels and through them at will and according to mouse motion, open doors and drawers by draggin them etc. This kind of control makes you experience the enviroment in a very natural way and that's what makes the game scarier. As you get used to the way games "work", you might lose the feeling of actually being into the game itself (at least I did), so this refreshing approach really does the trick! You also get this constant feeling that you're going to be attacked by something unwordly and have your hands ripped off. Dark corridors, a lot of closed doors, not having any profound way to defeat the... um, I won't elaborate here ;) - a fantastic audio experience which freaks you out even more, and a relatively common story which unfolds in quite an uncommon way and coming down to a pretty uncommon finale, this is a must-play for someone who likes good horror in gaming. It's not perfect, ok, but what this title offers really compensates for its flaws.

So head over to http://www.frictionalgames.com/penumbra/ and get a clue ;)

Ubuntu Intrepid kernel update

2009-01-10T14:06:00.000+02:00

I read that Linux kernel v. 2.6.28, Torvald's Christmass present to the people (heh) had several nice improvements, the most appealing to me being the new graphics thingy (yes I know THAT much), the Graphics Execution Manager. I wanted to see if it would improve the graphics response around the interface. And it DID! :D But I had to install the latest nVidia drivers (180.x) to get the kernel to work allright. So I guess the result is a combination of the drivers and the kernel.

So, I thought of patching the 2.6.27 kernel manually, which I didn't, hopefully. I risked using some of Jaunty's repositories to install only what I needed (that was, all the required .28 kernel files plus the latest gfx-nvidia drivers) and It all went fine. I removed the repositories immediately after. I think it worthed it.

My first comic strip :P

2008-11-21T12:35:00.000+02:00

Here's a little something I made using Inkscape 0.46... Kind of childish, I know, but I had to do it! Ponder over it. Maybe not too much, though ;P (click on it to see the full sized version)

Kind of dead blog, ain't it

2008-10-11T14:19:00.000+03:00

I have a long time to post something here, but I'm not going to declare this a dead blog. Because, hey, I'm writing a whole new post here! :P

I think I'll repack the old content somehow and start over with something more relevant to the title. Thank you Dionisis for trying to follow up, sometime!

I'll see you all (all 2 of you!) soon...

"Καταλάθος" νομιμοποίηση του mp3 sharing στην Ιταλία!

2008-02-02T16:58:00.000+02:00

Διαβάστε ολόκληρο το άρθρο εδώ...

You know it's true...

2007-11-30T21:06:00.000+02:00

"Outer space exists because it's afriad to be in the same planet with Chuck Norris"

"God could make the Universe in 1 month. Chuck Norris gave him 1 week."

"(untranslated) Ο Τσακ Νόρρις μπορεί να κάνει μία τρύπα στο νερό. Κυριολεκτικά."

01011001

2007-11-30T20:57:00.000+02:00

The new album of Ayreon, featuring names like:

Hansi Kursch
Daniel Gildenlöw
Tom S. Englund
Jorn Lande
Bob Catley
Anneke van Giersbergen
Michael Romeo
Derek Sherinian

...and many more...

To be released near January ending. You can check the teaser trailer (yep, that's true) and anything else here!
All us Ayreonauts out there will be waiting for the album bitting our nails off!

MAME and more torrent paradise...

2007-11-29T18:16:00.000+02:00

You can check this cool little tracker here: http://tinyurl.com/2km2da
You need to have a non-free mail account in order to register there (maybe the one your ISP gave you when you signed up, but you hardly ever use it because you have 10 more accounts in yahoo and gmail? hehe...). And, of course, remember to seed...

Armagetron Advanced - a Tron Clone

2007-11-13T10:45:00.000+02:00

Pure fun! Bike around the arena trying to "wall" your oponent(s). This game is a clone of Tron and comes with many, many options and multiplayer mode (you will find dozens of user-made servers to play in). And it's open source and free :) Get it all here!

MOO!

2007-11-12T17:23:00.000+02:00

Below can enjoy some piece of animation that I sooo enjoy watching (and listening to!). This guy that made this (Cyriak) is good in both audio and visual aspects of his creativity, and he's a proffesional. Warning: People with cow sensitivity issues might not want to watch this...

Exile remake!

2007-11-12T17:14:00.000+02:00

Exile... this name must bring a lot of memories in many ex- Amiga- heads.

...And it's going to bring even more now that there's a remake for our PCs! It's been developed for quite some time and it's finally available for download :) You can check it out here: http://exile.ovine.net/

First post, yay

2007-11-12T14:41:00.000+02:00

So, this is my first post (and hopefully not my last) in my own personal blog. It won't be that personal though ;) I will usually post here mostly on computer related stuff and whatever may seem interesting to me. So... let's roll the dice :)