“6 degrees of heaven bacon” – Dean Winchester

Hahahahaha I found that quote from this week’s Supernatural pretty darn amusing! =D

So as usual I’m pretty late to the whole movie gig, but oh well, I guess it’s better late than never eh? Specially when it comes to a movie such as this.. I couldn’t possibly miss this one. =)

So we went to see Avatar last night… and I can’t begin to put into words how impressed and moved I am by this movie. Would you have seen me in the theatre though, you’d have been able to tell for yourself. Specially if you would touch the scarf around my neck… lets just say that if was completely wet. I had tears all over my face for the bigger half of the movie. So much beauty, so much emotions… ahhhh…. [And I have to add, it wasn’t just me.. the company was weeping too! 😉 ]

This movie sends so many deeply meaningful messages through. There’s so much to think about here. And I have to admit, even though I knew I was watching a movie and not something real, there were times that I just wanted to explode with emotions. I couldn’t help totally falling in love with the “Na’vi” people.  And there were times I really wanted to punch that sodding “Colonel Miles Quaritch” hard enough in the jaw to completely redecorate his face. And guess what… finally someone managed to picture a race of alien beings that are in fact prettier than humans. Much prettier that is. =D I mean…. oh man…. BLUE….. =D 😉

Now I’m going to wait for the Blu-ray, and the soundtrack CD. It’s certainly a completely different experience when you’re watching it on IMAX 3D, and feeling like the tree branch is about to splash you in the face… but the Blu-ray would still be quite welcome, and better than nothing. 😉 But what I really wish for, is a couple [or more] of sequels. Not that it seems very likely at all…but it’s still ok to wish for it, right? =P

Aaaaaaahhhhh….. So dreamy…….

This is something that I’m very much looking forwards to getting my hands on. It could very well be a life saver for me.

“On Monday, National Instruments announced one such platform. It’s called LabView Robotics. In addition to LabView, the popular data-acquisition application, the package includes a bunch of tools specific to robotics. It can import codes in various formats (C, C++, Matlab, VHDL), offers a library of drivers for a wide variety of sensors and actuators, and has modules for implementation of real-time and embedded hardware. NI says engineers could use the package to both design and run their robotic systems.”

IEEE Spectrum: National Instruments Introduces LabVIEW Package for Robotics Design

Hahaha.. look what I just found on Channel 9 forums. This is pretty amusing. =D And, well, self explanatory.

So I just watched Lost season 6 premiere on Space channel, and it was simply mind blowing. =) LOOOOVVVEED IT! As I expected, it caused much more questions than giving any answers… and that’s exactly what we love about Lost, isn’t it? 😉

At the end of season 5, after Ben’s trial, I knew with a 100% certainty that John Locke the new, the smoke monster, and the black dude were all the same. It was very clear given how he manipulated Ben to kill Jacob. But I’m wondering, what the heck is his name? =D And where’s “home” that he wants to go to? And what happens no that Jacob’s dead? And what did Juliet mean by “it worked”? And .. and… and… and… I could go on forever.

But you know what? I also have another really BIG question that I really have to bring up here… Sayid Jarrah is supposed to be Iraqi right? Then can somebody tell me, why on earth he has an IRANIAN PASSPORT????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m half Persian. I was born in Iran. I have an Iranian passport. I know what an Iranian passport looks like. Below is a screenshot of the scene showing Sayid’s passport [thanks to YouTube!], right beside a photo of the first page of my Iranian passport. As you can see, it’s exactly the same. [Click to see the full size.]

Something tells me that this is not a part of the Lost mystery plot. So I’d say… it’s a rather sad mistake. Iraq and Iran are 2 different countries.. a fact that SOOOO many people seem to not realize.

Anyhow… aside from the above booboo, I really enjoyed the first episode, and I can’t wait for more…. ah… please… moooorrre…. moooorrrrrrr Lost… MOOOORRRRE… =))))))))))

On one hand, I find the ideas here extremely interesting. On the other hand, I’m not feeling to well about the kind of information Google can have on a user’s every single move. Hmmmmm….. still a very intriguing proposal. 

“Today a group of DNS and content providers, including Neustar/UltraDNS and Google are publishing a proposal to extend the DNS protocol. DNS is the system that translates an easy-to-remember name like www.google.com to a numeric address like 74.125.45.104. These are the IP addresses that computers use to communicate with one another on the Internet. By returning different addresses to requests coming from different places, DNS can be used to load balance traffic and send users to a nearby server. For example, if you look up www.google.com from a computer in New York, it may resolve to an IP address pointing to a server in New York City. If you look up www.google.com from the Netherlands, the result could be an IP address pointing to a server in the Netherlands. Sending you to a nearby server improves speed, latency, and network utilization.”

Google Code Blog: A proposal to extend the DNS protocol

Oh… boy oh boy…. I’m about to make myself a few enemies….

Given the kind of relationship that I have with music, I often get asked a lot of music related question… “How do you like this singer? How do you like that album? What do you think of blabla’s latest track? What’s your current favourite?” and… you get the picture. So in the past couple of days, quite a few people asked me what I thought of this year’s Grammy Awards. And I said… “let me think about it a bit, I’ll tell you…”. Mainly because I just wanted to have enough time to “defuse” first, before saying something that would possibly offend anyone. But it looks like no matter how much time passes, my opinion on this does not, at all, change. So I may as well say it… I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone’s opinions, I absolutely do not mean to… this is JUST my personal opinion.

So here’s what I think… I think that the day this year’s Grammy winners [with the exception of perhaps 1 or 2] win the Grammy Award, is the day I stop watching Grammy. Permanently. Good music has officially left the world’s popular music scene. [Again, with a few exceptions… too few I’m afraid.] And that about sums it up.

Of course good music still very much exists… but you have to dig pretty deep and pretty hard to find it. And for the larger part, it’s NOT on the shelves of the music stores. And even if it is, it nearly never wins any awards. Can anyone tell me, when the last time was that Mike Oldfield won any awards? [Well as far as I know it was 1975 Grammies. He has released a gazillion albums since then.] And how about Amethystium? And how about Craig Armstrong? And how about all the ingenious “Creative Commons” musicians? Who’s supporting those?

Would it have been up to me, this year’s Grammy Awards would have gone to: Sleepthief, SinQ, Brian Culbertson, aMUSiC, Röyksopp, Massive Attack, Keiko Matsui, Mosaik, Brian Tyler, Schiller, and may more….

So now I’m going to go and enjoy listening to SinQ’s “Hyperism” series… ingenious electronic music….

Oh my GOD I looooooooooove the new LOST trailer for season 6! It’s ingenious….

Yes, you may laugh at me all you want… but here’s my latest eBay adventure. =P I incidentally came across possibly one of the last survivors of the floppy disk era, a 9 year old external [USB] Microtech floppy drive that has somehow been sitting  in it’s box somewhere waiting.. getting bored… not being used…! =P 

Well you see, I still have a load of my old floppy drives in some really nice colours [ 😉 ], containing old games, a heck of a lot of code [yeah like code I wrote when I was 9!], graphics, and all sorts of other odd and even things. And obviously none of my notebooks have a floppy drive. And somehow, I have this nostalgic feeling towards floppy disks / drives… =D Well, lets just say that I really had to have it. 😉 Here it is:

My Microtech floppy drive connected to my notebook.. [and those are the different colours that the lead can have [there’s like 15 or so of them.. =))))] …

Ok, I want one of these…. =P

“The AR Drone is one of the first consumer products to combine robotics with augmented reality. The quad-rotor vehicle carries two cameras and can stream video to an iPhone via Wi-Fi. On the phone, the live video is overlaid with flight controls and additional graphics for a variety of games.”

IEEE Spectrum: Augmented Reality Robots Take Flight