“Star Trek: Into Darkness” : I LUUUUUUUUUUUUUV IT! =D I mean, I really really really love it. We went to watch it on Monday evening, and it’s still running in the background of my mind. Fantastic plot, awesome visuals, perfect cast…. This is definitely one of the very best Star Trek movies I’ve ever seen, and I already have the feeling that unfortunately it is, and it is going to be, underrated.

[Warning, from here on there could be spoilers.]

“Wrath of Khan”, and “The Search for Spock”, were actually the first 2 Star Trek movies I watched as a child [very little =)], and basically the first time I watched anything Star Trek. Somehow the two movies left quite an impression on me… perhaps the reason why I’ve always been such a huge fan of the franchise. The scene of Spock’s death in “Wrath of Khan” was something that really affected me… the idea, the feelings, the message… So you can imagine, for me it was quite amazing to watch the same scene in the new movie, except with the positions reversed. In fact all the “mirrors” in “Into Darkness” were very exciting for me.

I also think that the choice of Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, was basically as good as it could possibly get. =D He was completely perfect for the role. The character of Khan was always interesting, but I feel that Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance somehow managed to make something new out of the character. A much deeper, much more twisted, and terribly impressive new Khan. I’m also a huge fan of the “old Spock” cameos, and Simon Pegg as Scotty is also a completely brilliant choice.

I really cannot understand all the criticism that the movie is receiving. I just hope that J.J. Abrams keeps doing what he’s doing, and I look forward, impatiently, to the next one. =D

By the way this is pretty cool: Structure101. Last week there was an interesting talk hosted by the “Zurich Developers .NET User Group” with the topic of “Rediscovering Modularity“, which was to a great extent about the above software architecture  management tool. Aside from the fact that I managed to walk into a glass wall, [yes, really, quite the classic!], it was a great event and quite informative. And now I’m seriously considering giving the tool a try as it seems to be possibly what I’ve been looking for, for a while… If anyone here is using it/ ends up using it please let me know.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep….

Yesterday noon my mom flew back to Toronto, which has left me with a black mood and a broken heart. You’d think with everything I’ve been through in my life, I’d handle it better… well not really. =(

The distance is murdering us. Everything that I have gained here, all that I love about here, everything that is positive about the collection of migrations I’ve made, at times none of it helps the way I feel. What I’ve lost, what I’ve left behind and what I have to ignore every single day is not a small load. In the perfect world, I would not have had to leave my birth country to start with.

*sigh*…….

Ah, great, I just noticed now that the slides and all the relevant material from last week’s “Understanding Eventual Consistency and Riak” are available here.

The event that was hosted by the “Zurich FLOSS and IT geeks”, was as usual interesting, informative and well organized. Looking forward to their next one…

EPFL’s “Salamandra Robotica II”, pretty cool design! More about it here.

And for the few people who were asking about the Haskell talk I attended last week, you can read about pretty much everything that was discussed here.

Previously due to my German course on Thursday evenings I couldn’t attend any of the Haskell group’s events. Now, happily, I can. =)

A few weeks ago I attended a very informative [as well as extremely funny] tech talk titled “Neo4j And Connected Data“.  During the presentation Jim Webber made a  mention of his new book called “Graph Databases”, which is available to download from here.

During the past weeks I’ve had a chance to have a better look into the book, and simply put, I like it! =) For anyone interested in the relevant topics, I really recommend checking it out.

Few days ago I watched “Robot & Frank“. One of the better Robot movies I’ve seen. I guess I mostly liked the fact that this movie, unlike many sci-fi/futuristic movies I’ve seen, is not trying to decide or state whether this kind of technological advancement has positive implications or negative ones. Instead, it’s simply showing that it can have  pretty serious effects on the most private aspects of our lives, and our relationships, with others and even with ourselves.

Oh, and I loved the soundtrack! =)

Tomorrow at 12:00 noon [Switzerland time], year 2572 [1392] of the Persian calendar begins. Wish everyone a very happy Norooz, and a lovely start to the spring. Cheers! =)