ASD's "Metamorphosis" was one of those demos that made us all "think" for a while. Very deep and meaningful, and also very fresh from the design point of view. "More of this please" is definitely something that I was thinking while watching that demo over and over again. Well, I guess somebody heard that, because now we can enjoy some more of that... or perhaps I should say "even better than that". =)
Yesterday I woke up pretty early in the morning to check out ASD's new demo "Midnight Run", which happens a sequel to "Metamorphosis". It's very interesting that the demo didn't only bring me back the "Metamorphosis" feeling, but I also experienced a bit of "Lifeforce" feeling too. The visuals of this demo are extremely beautiful, and the music is simply ingenious. As expected there's a ton of depth of meaning, enough to again keep us all thinking for the days to come.
You can download the demo and read the related comments here.
What in the heaven's name just happened to the last.fm playlists?
On one hand, we now have the ability to create more than 1 playlist. On the other hand, now only the subscribers can actually play those playlists, and that is only if the playlist contains at least 45 tracks and 15 different artists!! As you can imagine I'm not happy about that at all! On top of that, what really ticked me off last night was that I noticed the new 200 track limit, which has already been applied on ALL playlists, even the ones that had been created before the updates. This of course means that large parts of some of my favorite neighborhood playlists have simply been annihilated. No backups, nothing. So now I have 5 playlists which I can do very close to zilch with, and I can no longer go swimming in the mighty playlists created by my friends.
And just to make my mood even darker, obviously the flash playlist player widget no longer works either... it did till 2 days ago... grrrrrrrrrr!!
So, anybody else sharing my mood?
Awwwwwwwwwwwww Wall-e melted meeeee! =) Well, yesterday I finally stole the time to go and watch the Wall-e movie which I had been waiting for...for... forever pretty much! And it was so worth the wait! =) This was probably one of the cutest animated movies that I have EVER seen in my life. Both the main characters, Wall-e and Evaa [Eve], were simply adorable, and the general plot was pretty neat too. I'm not going to say more since I want to avoid spoilers. I can only say this: don't miss this movie! =)
Now I'm going to wait and see if I can get my hands on the toy robot that I've been reading about on Gizmodo. ;)
For the past few weeks I was constantly bumping into articles here and there, talking about the new last.fm beta and all it's cool and new features, and of course that it would be available to the website subscribers. Well, I've been using last.fm for the past 2 years and can call myself a pretty serious user, although somehow I never found it necessary to subscribe, and I never have. So I guess you can imagine my sheer surprise when yesterday morning I received an invitation to the beta, regardless of my status. No clue how this happens, but I'm glad I got the chance to have a look inside, cause there really are some very cool changes. =) So let me see, where to start...
That's my new profile, and yes I do have a tendency of sneaking into my friends channels and listening to what they're listening to. As you can see I was stalking amvee.=) Click for larger images.
I guess I better start with the part that is the most important to me, the user profiles. When I first logged into the beta, it took my eyes a couple of seconds to get used to the lack of some of the previous version's eye candy. There's a very plain red strip on the top of the page which I'm not the biggest fan of, but perhaps that's the only part that I'm not a fan of. The first thing that _really_ took my attention and put a smile on my lips, was the answer to my prayers, a perfectly working playlist player on the right column. YAY. YAAAAY. And guess what, my Loved Tracks are now actually good for something as they're playable through the playlist player. This means that I can get much better a view of what my friends really consider loved music and not just frequently played music, and vice versa. [Yes, I can actually see everybody's profile on the beta...] The charts are still there, only with more options to play around with. And now there's something called "Library" that contains information about your listening habits, every artist you ever listened to and the track counts. The Library is customizable, you can have it show whatever you'd like, and it looks great too.
The artist pages also look neat and pretty much the same as user pages. Generally the information is a lot better organized, and it's much easier to use features like tagging or making a recommendation. Both user and artist profiles have an "activity feed" lower in the page which again, is a pretty neat fature.
Not all the features are working as of yet. As you can see in the screenies, Videos, Charts and Events are yet to be added. But from what I've seen on my 1st day, I can say that last.fm did manage to make an even bigger fan of me than I already was. Way to go guys, and thanks for inviting me. =)
Well well well, I was notified this morning by Optimus [thank you!] that the actual entries for the IDC 2008 are finally released and ready to be voted for. And I have to say, oh boy, aren't they awesome! I mean I started with the Cocoon demo and the music caught me right away, and of course the graphics were nothing short of marvellous. Then the Firlight & TBL demo with those cute little buttons [dude, I want some of those! =)] and the scary dissolving faces gave me round eyes. Next was the MFX demo and it's cool style, I specially liked the beginning of this one. Then came the Inque demo with again fantastic music, and all the orange juice. I mean they even have ASD labeled orange juice. ;) Last but certainly not least was the beautiful beautiful Still demo. The music is just otherworldly, and the visuals, oh, the visuals... no words, I'm speechless. As I mentioned before, Still always has a way of making me happy. =)
So, big Kudos to all the competing teams, and now it's time for you all to go and see the demos for yourselves. You can either watch the demos on the IDC website, or download the real-times here. Enjoy. And, well, wish me luck too as I have a competition of my own to face, tomorrow. =)
=""( I read the news last night on GateWorld. Don S. Davis, one of my favorite actors, and the player of the role of General Hammond, one of my favorite Stargate characters, passed away on the 29th. It appears that the cause was a severe heart attack. This made me very very sad....
I've been using RSS Bandit as my feed reader for a few years now and I'm a big fan of it. I even posted an article about there here [in 2005], and I like it now as much as I did back then, or even more. The cool thing is, apparently these folk never stopped working on the project and making improvements to the software, and now as a result, there's RSS Bandit Phoenix. This is a new version of RSS Bandit who's alpha installer is now available for download through the RSS Bandit Website. Phoenix has all the old Bandit goodies, as well as a whole bunch of kool and new features that make it even more of a joy to use. So whether you're already a Bandit user or you've never heard of it before, and if you're as much of a feed freak as I am, do check Phoenix out. =)
The great sea battle off Cape Trafalgar in October 1805
So, the martial discord randomness meme got me too. =) I have been tagged by Hrafn Thorisson to come up with 7 random facts about me and post them here along with a random photo of a martial discord [above].
Of course I have to mention the rules: 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird. 3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. 5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.
Now we have a technical glitch. =P I can't exactly tag 7 people for this! Why you ask? Because I already did! =)) Less than a year ago, Optimus passed something to me that was similar to this meme, and at that point I asked "who wants to do this?" and I ended up tagging every English speaking blogger I know!! So I'm afraid I can't have them do it again, although the rules are different and so I'm writing this. [There may be overlaps though! =P] So I guess I'll leave it open. If there's anyone who would like to re-write this, let me know! Or maybe I'll figure out who didn't write it last time. =)
As to my own 7 random facts... there we go:
1 - When I'm asked about my origins, I usually say "Persian - Welsh", cause those are the major 2. But if I go into the details, the answer will look more like this: "Persian - Welsh - Turkish - Indian - Russian". =) Oh, I also am legally Canadian.
2 - When I had just turned 9, one day in school the comp-sci teacher of the high-school kiddies caught me messing around with QBasic in the high-school computer lab. And that's how my coding career started. [She started teaching me stuff and....]
3 - I have a sort of an affinity with the colour blue. I loved the colour ever since I was a kid [apparently it was the first colour I showed reaction to as an infant], which is why my friends put the "Aasemoon" nickname on me. Aasemoon is Persian for sky. [And I love height too!]
4 - I hate coffee with a passion. And everybody I ever come across, guess what, loves coffee!! My friends, family, colleagues, class-mates and school buddies.... somebody rescue me!
5 - I love LEGO. I'll never grow out of this. =)) I still buy LEGO, build stuff with LEGO and enjoy it. Yeah.
6 - I'm an optimist by nature. I believe in a higher power at work and I believe that everything happens for a good reason.
7 - I'm a proven and recognized musicphile. I listen to music from morning to night, while working, studying... doing whatever it is that I may be doing. I enjoy almost all genres, types and styles of music, and I can effectively change my own mood or improve my energy levels using the right combination of tracks. I'm however not an audiophile, because although I love high-quality sound, but I enjoy music regardless of what sort of device its coming out of.
Ok, that's it. Now since as I said I can't just re-tag everyone, if you're up to writing this, give me a shout and I'll tag you! =P
So today's supposedly the FF 3 download day, but up to this moment I haven't been able to get a hold of Mr. Firefox 3 due to apparent server overloads. I mean, come on, when you get _that_ many people to actually _pledge_ that they're going to download the same thing on the same day, why wouldn't you see to it that they actually _can_ do what you so badly want them to?
What I would like to know right now, is whether any of you, dear readers of this blog, have actually been able to download the oh so popular FF 3. Let me know if you have! =)
Update: Late at night I was finally able to download FF3. What makes me very very happy is the fact that the problem with Silverlight is solved! Yes! Silverlight now works with FF3.
Captured by the Phoenix Mars Lander a few days ago. Love it. [Click for full size.]
On other news, today I watched the panel discussion on the future of the web [Tetherless World Research Constellation]. Very informative, but no comments for now, as I'm still compiling a good part of it in my head.
As you may have already noticed through my twine feed, the IDC 2008 final competing teams have been selected, and the application demos are now available to watch through the IDC website. Similar to previous years: 5 teams, 5 fantastic demos, and 1 heck of a dilemma when it comes to voting, which you can do as of the end of June. =) The competing teams this year are Cocoon, Fairlight & TBL, MFX, Inque and Still. As for how I feel about the demos, well, I really can't tell yet. I've watched each demo 3 times so far but I still have quite a few more rounds to go. But so far, I can say this, Still always has a way of making me glad I watched the demo [hence the pic!], and to top that, they brought in the duckie again! =D I have to add that the demos are not available for downloading as of yet, but I will let you know as soon as they are. So for now, go watch some demos and enjoy!
P.S.: Does the "fat guy" in Cocoon's demo remind any of you of "Baron Vladimir Harkonnen" of Frank Herbert's "Dune"? Cause that's who he reminds me of somehow! =)
UPDATE: Well, I think Optimus' comment just confirmed my suspicion. The application demos are almost all parts of previously released demos, except for some reason [I could be very well wrong about this] the Fairlight & TBL demo seems newish! So lets just wait and see if there will be other demos popping up.
A lot has happened and I've been way too busy to post, and lets confess, the small little bits of time that I usually find here and there to do some blogging and similar stuff, have recently been all eaten up by Twine. =P [Yes, blame it aaallllll on Twine! =D] Oh by the way, apparently I have a new set of Twine invitations. If anybody wants to be invited, let me know. [if you "really" want it though!]
So last Sunday we watched the entire broadcasting of Phoenix's landing on Mars via the NASA JPL website. I have to admit, it was incredibly exciting. In those last 7 minutes my heart just about exploded out of my chest, and when it finally landed and sent through the "ok" signal, I had tears in my eyes. Since then I've been constantly on the watch for new pictures and data received from the lander. A large number of pictures taken by the lander can be found here. Do check it out! =)
To be quite honest, I've never liked delicious very much, instead I prefer the link directory in my own website. I don't use Flickr in any serious manner, never have, and I just post my photos in my own little private self built online photo gallery. I find Twitter quite useless, and I have an official dislike for MySpace and similar services. I guess one of my major issues is that I don't like to sign up for 292384 different services, and have 292384 different profile pages, and 292384 accounts, to do 292384 different tasks for me [and often even repetitious tasks!]. I find that my friends and family, as well as all other people that I know and care about, tend to find it quite comfortable to just go to my website, read my blog, have a look at my new links, news, pictures and everything else as it's all in one place. I get the feeling that I'm not a fan of disconnected / decentralized / all over the place data, which is one major reason why I like the whole set of ideas behind DataPortability [hence the "I Support" logo]. Of course I have a Facebook account which I was pretty much forced into signing up for, given that some folks I know only keep in touch that way. But well, I only log into it every once in a blue moon. I have a passionate dislike for what they do [or don't... when it comes to things like Google Friend Connect] with your personal info [yeah... "those"]. In general there are a lot of things that I don't like about current social networking websites. The constant competition among users to add to their popularity scores by going around and randomly adding people they don't know, have no interest in ever getting to know and have no common interests with, bothers me. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy it very much when somebody adds me to their network because of... well... "something", anything other than being just another face in the list. I enjoy getting to know people who like to share something with me very much. But I'm sick and tired of constantly receiving add requests from people who don't even read my profile before pressing the "add" button. What royally boils my noodles though, are the people who send you rude messages if you don't accept their add request. Fancy that! There's also the spam, the chain messages, the conspiracies and cyber bullying that result in people committing suicide and tons of other annoyances. Interestingly enough, yesterday I came across this article that summarizes the best of what bothers me. So instead of writing it all down again, I just direct you to the article. So, with all of the above reasons, the only social networking capable websites that I seriously use, are the very few very special ones that I find worth it. If you Google my nickname [Aasemoon] you'll see that I've given a try to almost everything that's out there, including some very recent social networking / bookmarking websites like Zigtag, Mento and Myrl, but out of all of that, here's what I actually use: Shelfari - Although I have had my share of disappointments with it, as I receive too many really annoying spammy messages in there, and therefore I have cut out of all social networking capabilities of the website and I'm just using the shelf [and for that, it's the best]. last.fm - I love this one... just love it... absolutely nothing else like it for the purpose. And of course, the most recent addition is twine. This one has impressed the heavens out of me so far. =) I didn't just come across twine. I was Googling for something with the capabilities that twine has, and that's how I found out about it and eventually joined the beta. So far, I love it. I have to confess, my approach to twine has been a very self centred one. Ever since I joined the beta I've been mainly playing with different features trying to find out exactly what twine can be for me. I also have to mention that sometimes I have a way of using tools in ways that I find beneficial for me, even if how I use that tool isn't exactly the intended purpose of the tool [as long as I don't bother anyone else, that is!]. So that's exactly what I've been doing with twine, and here's the result: I'm now using twine as my ultimate social bookmarking tool, my 1 line blog, my image blog, my twitter, my interest profiling tool and a whole load of other things, and in time I'm sure I'll find more uses. I have created a few twines related to my interests where I and other interested people post relevant links, pictures and all sort of data. That's very cool because I get a chance to have a look at what other people with similar interests are looking into, and I've ended up learning a lot that way. I've also created a public personal twine, where again I and others post all sorts of things... anything that any of the members of the twine might find cool. That's also where I post images, thoughts, notes.... it's very multi purpose. I also have a personal personal twine, that only I can see or post stuff to, and I mainly use it for testing twine related stuff or collecting articles to read later. Another thing I like about twine is how alive it seems to be. I constantly see changes, improvements, new features and new ideas. I guess a large part of that has to do with the fact that the developers of twine are very open to suggestions from users. I know that there's a lot more that needs to be done before twine goes public, a lot that the users and developers want to have before they can call it ready. But even as it is right now... I'm really enjoying it, and honestly I'm a little surprised with a few articles I've read here and there on the web talking about people's disappointments with using twine. Hey, it's beta after all... come on! I'm only hoping that the day twine goes public, the spam protection capabilities will be fully "there". Other than that... I just want it to go public so that I can show off with my twines. =D ;)
This weblog is a
collection of my random thoughts. It's as simple as that. What I write here
is for my friends, or anyone else who might find it worth reading. This is
not a tech blog, a science blog, a lyrics blog or...although you might find
either one of those topics in here "randomly". I appreciate comments very much, so
if you have any thoughts about something that you read here please drop me a
line and let me know. So...after all this, welcome to my weblog, thanks for
visiting and enjoy your stay! =)
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
