I rarely log on to mySpace anyway, as I'm more into facebook. And after seeing a sponsored link from Scientology three times today on the Space (twice small like that, once the full bottom of the page), I sure won't log on there more often. You got to have at least a bit of a look at whose ads you accept, Tom. Or get one of your many friends to improve your filter software.
Funny videos on that Scientology site though, full of logical flaws and oddball argumentation. And a great kind of slogan at the end of one: "Increase your survival across all dynamics."
Should use it for a yogurt with some kind of special dynamic bacteria that benefit your stomach, shouldn't we.
Funny videos on that Scientology site though, full of logical flaws and oddball argumentation. And a great kind of slogan at the end of one: "Increase your survival across all dynamics."
Should use it for a yogurt with some kind of special dynamic bacteria that benefit your stomach, shouldn't we.
Louis is anyway brilliant, but this episode seemed to be one of the most amazing I've seen (a follow-up with more details, by the way, here).
After spending years in places where that sort of thing isn't either, let's say, entirely uncommon, this still was a very interesting piece; a story that I seriously hadn't known to exist. At least not in this direct simplicity, in this shockingly unromantic, almost technological, kind of way. It's as if you do a database query for a wife/husband (which, on dating websites, is precisely what you do - but still, then you (probably? hopefully!) get to communicate beyond question lists).
Then again, it's always Louis' strength that he doesn't expose people or make them look purely stupid. Yes, some of them do look stupid, but in these cases it's not because Louis tries to make them look stupid - it's because they are so beyond and over the edge that there is not enough about them to genuinely try understanding them. In this particular episode, I think Louis as a host is truly at his best, managing to make a viewer understand each and every character in the show to at least some extent, exploring the why rather than the how, and precisely with this makes it a thought-provoking piece of TV.
After spending years in places where that sort of thing isn't either, let's say, entirely uncommon, this still was a very interesting piece; a story that I seriously hadn't known to exist. At least not in this direct simplicity, in this shockingly unromantic, almost technological, kind of way. It's as if you do a database query for a wife/husband (which, on dating websites, is precisely what you do - but still, then you (probably? hopefully!) get to communicate beyond question lists).
Then again, it's always Louis' strength that he doesn't expose people or make them look purely stupid. Yes, some of them do look stupid, but in these cases it's not because Louis tries to make them look stupid - it's because they are so beyond and over the edge that there is not enough about them to genuinely try understanding them. In this particular episode, I think Louis as a host is truly at his best, managing to make a viewer understand each and every character in the show to at least some extent, exploring the why rather than the how, and precisely with this makes it a thought-provoking piece of TV.
My favorite airline airBaltic comes with a rather amusing surprise today.
It's after 16:00, our plane from Berlin is delayed (scheduled departure was 14:35) because of some technical problem discovered after the plane had arrived. It's one of these Carpat-Air-planes that airBaltic seemingly leases because their route network and thus plane needs had grown faster than their fleet could.
Actually, the plane had arrived to its position at the gate short before the scheduled departure time, and all that followed after that were a few announcements in German and a few in ridiculously bad English telling that due to some technical problem and that news would follow, and later that the plane had to be moved to another position to investigate the matter, and of course that news would follow.
So we're waiting for a while already. Then suddenly, boarding is announced. And around the time boarding is announced, I receive an SMS by airBaltic, saying:
"BT218 TXL-RIX 16May 2:35pm is delayed, estimate 4:30pm. Please keep to original check-in deadline. We apologise for any inconvenience."
Silence is golden.
It's after 16:00, our plane from Berlin is delayed (scheduled departure was 14:35) because of some technical problem discovered after the plane had arrived. It's one of these Carpat-Air-planes that airBaltic seemingly leases because their route network and thus plane needs had grown faster than their fleet could.
Actually, the plane had arrived to its position at the gate short before the scheduled departure time, and all that followed after that were a few announcements in German and a few in ridiculously bad English telling that due to some technical problem and that news would follow, and later that the plane had to be moved to another position to investigate the matter, and of course that news would follow.
So we're waiting for a while already. Then suddenly, boarding is announced. And around the time boarding is announced, I receive an SMS by airBaltic, saying:
"BT218 TXL-RIX 16May 2:35pm is delayed, estimate 4:30pm. Please keep to original check-in deadline. We apologise for any inconvenience."
Silence is golden.
Eurolines a while ago launched their "Lux Express" buses, for example on the Riga-Tallinn route. Free coffee and free newspapers, which is nice to have, and - wireless Internet on board, which is necessary to have.
I've turned into quite a plane guy in recent years, and must admit to my own environmental shame that I tend to fly a short distance like Tallinn-Riga rather than to take a bus. The time it takes is similar: Riga to Tallinn, door to door, takes me a little more than 3 hours (taxi to airport, check-in and all that, taxi to center). The bus takes a bit more than 4 hours from city center to city center, which for me would be four and a half hours, door to door.
Hearing about these buses with wireless Internet on board changed the picture for me. After all, if going by plane, I'm completely offline for about 90 minutes. If I took such a bus, I'd de facto have a mobile office, could work as if I was at office, but leave the office in a different city. Very tempting.
But unfortunately, that's where the fun part is close to end.
I've turned into quite a plane guy in recent years, and must admit to my own environmental shame that I tend to fly a short distance like Tallinn-Riga rather than to take a bus. The time it takes is similar: Riga to Tallinn, door to door, takes me a little more than 3 hours (taxi to airport, check-in and all that, taxi to center). The bus takes a bit more than 4 hours from city center to city center, which for me would be four and a half hours, door to door.
Hearing about these buses with wireless Internet on board changed the picture for me. After all, if going by plane, I'm completely offline for about 90 minutes. If I took such a bus, I'd de facto have a mobile office, could work as if I was at office, but leave the office in a different city. Very tempting.
But unfortunately, that's where the fun part is close to end.
A banner I saw today on the website of a German online game I'm playing. What's interesting about it is that I do actually believe that they did that spelling mistake on purpose - because this particular screen is only shown for a very brief period of time, barely enough to read the words. So I actually think they use the spelling mistake in order to catch your attention - cause if they wanted you to read this, they'd give you time for it, wouldn't they.
So either this is completely bloody stupid (if they just didn't bother to time their banner, AND made such a spelling mistake); or pretty damn smart (if it's meant to do what I think it is). You decide.
So either this is completely bloody stupid (if they just didn't bother to time their banner, AND made such a spelling mistake); or pretty damn smart (if it's meant to do what I think it is). You decide.
Wireless Internet isn't something very widespread in Kyiv (many of my local acquaintances disagreed - but that's because they haven't recently had a chance to compare). It was very sparse one year ago when I was living here, and even though a dozen or so hotspots in the centre city have been added since by various providers, many of them appear not to be working properly, some are switched off since days.
And the bottom of my list of favorite Wifi providers is certainly taken by notorious Radiospot Ukraine. Already one year ago, every single time (!) when I wanted to use one of their paid hotspots, there were no scratch cards available at the location of the hotspot. Seriously: Every single time, at every single place. I don't know when or where or how you can actually get those cards, without which you won't be able to access the network. Every place at every time just told they ran out of them.
Obviously, I expected some positive development on Radiospot's logistic side, so to say. But no - in the hotel where I spent my first night in Kyiv this time, they had no Radiospot cards, despite advertising their hotspot heavily on the premises. In two coffee shops I tried out, they had no scratch cards left. In another cafe I visited yesterday, they had run out of these cards. Quite incredible - it's simply too much failure to be a coincidence, and I wonder how come nothing has changed in a year...
Shame on you, Radiospot Ukraine. It's 2007, and it's high time you join us in this year.
(Update in November 2007: And I thought something would have changed, there were years to change it...; but no, still, there are a handful of places with free Wifi available - and by now quite many with Radiospot hot-spots. But still, for no comprehensible reasons, the Radiospot prepaid cards are never (!) available when I go to any of these places. And 'always' is really too often to believe in coincidence)
And the bottom of my list of favorite Wifi providers is certainly taken by notorious Radiospot Ukraine. Already one year ago, every single time (!) when I wanted to use one of their paid hotspots, there were no scratch cards available at the location of the hotspot. Seriously: Every single time, at every single place. I don't know when or where or how you can actually get those cards, without which you won't be able to access the network. Every place at every time just told they ran out of them.
Obviously, I expected some positive development on Radiospot's logistic side, so to say. But no - in the hotel where I spent my first night in Kyiv this time, they had no Radiospot cards, despite advertising their hotspot heavily on the premises. In two coffee shops I tried out, they had no scratch cards left. In another cafe I visited yesterday, they had run out of these cards. Quite incredible - it's simply too much failure to be a coincidence, and I wonder how come nothing has changed in a year...
Shame on you, Radiospot Ukraine. It's 2007, and it's high time you join us in this year.
(Update in November 2007: And I thought something would have changed, there were years to change it...; but no, still, there are a handful of places with free Wifi available - and by now quite many with Radiospot hot-spots. But still, for no comprehensible reasons, the Radiospot prepaid cards are never (!) available when I go to any of these places. And 'always' is really too often to believe in coincidence)
Just like probably millions of other people, I'm standing around in Second Life for ages by now. Logged in once or twice, found myself impressed by what's going on in there, but then...:
a) didn't have the time and patience to figure out where the really interesting stuff happens, or how to tweak my avatar, and how to do pretty much anything
b) got bored of that kind of conversation with other avatars that reminded surprisingly of chat site communication in the mid to late 1990s, and of the style of communication on electro parties in the early 1990s; and that you can still get if you go to a mediocre club and pick out the wrong people
c) found the visual aspects mediocre
d) got sick of having to use a special software to get in there, particularly after changing my computer twice, and since I'm going online predominantly from wireless Internet zones
e) forgot the whole thing, just as seemingly most people did, including the media who apparently have by now forgotten the whole hype they had co-created (probably in knowing or unknowing cooperation with a PR agency)
Don't get me wrong - I am still impressed by the idea, and by what happened in the early days there, and by the quick cleverness that made some people make quite some cash in there. Fair enough. But I do believe that after a few log-ons, it simply doesn't catch on personally. It's impressive in the big picture, but not very interesting in the personal view. Unless, of course, you are one of the same kind of people who lost themselves and their real lives in the early phase of chat boxes back in the late 1990s, where they could re-model an identity to replace the RL one they were obviously not very happy with, and where they could be whoever they had always wanted to be. Later, things balance out, and chat boxes were more and more abandoned (I believe) when this artificial reality didn't satisfy any longer; now we're more on the dating websites, which are essentially the same but with a more honest approach.
The Second Life thing was sure fun at the start, as it was basically a "chat box mixed with visual aspects and located in an adventure park"; but again, after a while, all that 'parallel identity' stuff becomes boring, even for those who were fascinated by it in the beginning. It is, actually, good to see that even the most insecure and sometimes socially rather challenged characters do get bored of playing a cool role after a while, and apparently rather go out and face themselves and some real people.
And for those who really enjoyed chatting, there are still chat boxes around (plus, every new generation needs something like that to play around with); so will Second Life probably be around for a long while for those who really enjoy it. Just someone should remove all those inactive characters who are standing around everywhere.
a) didn't have the time and patience to figure out where the really interesting stuff happens, or how to tweak my avatar, and how to do pretty much anything
b) got bored of that kind of conversation with other avatars that reminded surprisingly of chat site communication in the mid to late 1990s, and of the style of communication on electro parties in the early 1990s; and that you can still get if you go to a mediocre club and pick out the wrong people
c) found the visual aspects mediocre
d) got sick of having to use a special software to get in there, particularly after changing my computer twice, and since I'm going online predominantly from wireless Internet zones
e) forgot the whole thing, just as seemingly most people did, including the media who apparently have by now forgotten the whole hype they had co-created (probably in knowing or unknowing cooperation with a PR agency)
Don't get me wrong - I am still impressed by the idea, and by what happened in the early days there, and by the quick cleverness that made some people make quite some cash in there. Fair enough. But I do believe that after a few log-ons, it simply doesn't catch on personally. It's impressive in the big picture, but not very interesting in the personal view. Unless, of course, you are one of the same kind of people who lost themselves and their real lives in the early phase of chat boxes back in the late 1990s, where they could re-model an identity to replace the RL one they were obviously not very happy with, and where they could be whoever they had always wanted to be. Later, things balance out, and chat boxes were more and more abandoned (I believe) when this artificial reality didn't satisfy any longer; now we're more on the dating websites, which are essentially the same but with a more honest approach.
The Second Life thing was sure fun at the start, as it was basically a "chat box mixed with visual aspects and located in an adventure park"; but again, after a while, all that 'parallel identity' stuff becomes boring, even for those who were fascinated by it in the beginning. It is, actually, good to see that even the most insecure and sometimes socially rather challenged characters do get bored of playing a cool role after a while, and apparently rather go out and face themselves and some real people.
And for those who really enjoyed chatting, there are still chat boxes around (plus, every new generation needs something like that to play around with); so will Second Life probably be around for a long while for those who really enjoy it. Just someone should remove all those inactive characters who are standing around everywhere.
One for the strategic planners, that is, also for the creatives (who are supposed to understand what the planners tell them):
You can't seriously expect to understand the motives behind people's actions if you never dare to honestly investigate your own.
You can't seriously expect to understand the motives behind people's actions if you never dare to honestly investigate your own.
My new notebook came with Windows Vista installed, and after a few days, I am not yet sure if I should find it annoying or very nice. Probably I'll enjoy it in the end, as it really seems to come with a number of significant improvements, and of course because it does look more stylish (of course the design ideas seem to be all stolen from Apple - or copied, however you prefer to call it). And the small annoyances, such as some more time-consuming folder browsing and a difficult-to-navigate control panel, or some functions that I don't yet understand - well, they all seem to be annoying primarily because I'm still used to XP. If I'll be as fast on Vista as I was on XP within a week or two, I'll be happy I guess. Anyway, Vista runs pretty fast so far.
As for the stylishness issue, here's a screen-shot of the window selector. It isn't really anything you need as the good old ALT+Tab still works, and looks different - it's just eye candy made by Apple and implemented by Microsoft - so or so, it looks pretty good.
And in case you don't have a clue why I'm talking about chicken - just look up the word 'vista' in a Latvian-English online dictionary...
As for the stylishness issue, here's a screen-shot of the window selector. It isn't really anything you need as the good old ALT+Tab still works, and looks different - it's just eye candy made by Apple and implemented by Microsoft - so or so, it looks pretty good.
And in case you don't have a clue why I'm talking about chicken - just look up the word 'vista' in a Latvian-English online dictionary...
Strange Monday morning today. I read the online edition of the Economist, and there's an invisible sponsor. Only a few minutes later, I'm still reading, there's an invisible ad. Not overly effective I suppose.
Older items