Stritar's chronolog

5 reasons why Star Wars 7 will become the highest-grossing movie of all time

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 13:51:20 GMT

We’ve finally seen it! And by we I mean everybody. It turns out the thing that can really break the Internet are not a few pictures of a big ass, but a movie trailer that's been anticipated like none before it. And it came with a bang! Even though a lot of people watched the trailer on iTunes (where statistics are undisclosed), the movie already managed to attract more than 40 million views in less than a week on YouTube, beating the previous record holder by miles. This time, it’s all in, Star Wars - The Force Awakens began its journey to become the greatest movie ever. You don’t believe me? Here are five reasons why this will happen.

The original movie’s success

Did you know that when Star Wars came out way back in 1977, it became the highest-grossing movie of its time (according to Wikipedia). Neither did I, but there’s more. If you adjust the earnings for inflation, the original Star Wars turns into the third biggest box office hit in history. The movie was super huge, but we were too young to notice. Actually, most of us weren’t even born at that time, which means this one will appeal to two generations of geeks. But we’ll get to that later.

The 90s/00s sequels didn’t do bad as well in the box office, two of them managed to get on the Top 50 movies of all time list as well. Not a bad starting point for Episode 7.

The original cast

Star Wars 7 represents one of the greatest cast reunions in the history of Hollywood. More than 30 years later (the last of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, was released in 1983), everybody’s back in action. Except James Earl Jones, but Darth Vader is dead anyways (and will hopefully stay that way), so no biggie there. Can you even look at this picture and not get excited about it?

This photography of the cast of Episode 7 already became one of the most iconic in movie history. Source: Daily Mail.

It will be interesting to see how chemistry between the actors works after so many years. On one hand, you have the superstar Harrison Ford, on the other hand you have Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who didn’t manage to make outstanding careers. But if you ask me, the anticipation of the character dynamics makes the whole thing even more intriguing.

J.J. Abrams

It’s too bad George Lucas won’t return to direct the next few episodes, but he was very involved in the making of this movie nevertheless. J.J. Abrams surely is the right choice for the job, he has the spectacle material this movie needs. Of course, this means that the worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek will finally entwine for good, but who cares anyways. The ultimate no-no already happened when Ben Affleck was casted his second high-profile superhero.

Back to J.J.. The trailer he made for Star Wars 7 looks simply fantastic, and based on his other recent achievements, we surely have a lot to look forward to.

Disney

When Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012, some people thought they must be mad. Think about it again, Disney means business. They're a marketing machine which calculated even bigger piles of money can be made from the Star Wars franchise. As the second largest media company in the world, they also know how to do it. Their biggest box office hits so far include The Avengers to The Pirates of the Caribbean, but in 2015, they're out to take the gold.

The Force is already strong with Mickey - X-wing in Disneyland Paris.

The geekosphere

On friday, the new Star Wars trailer was all over the internets. The geek community collectively orgasmed while watching the 90 second teaser. The cult and fandom that’s present around this scifi classic is enormous, and after the “disappointment" of the second trilogy, we finally have something new to look forward to.

On friday, top three posts on reddit were about the Star Wars trailer. Soon, things started taking their own course. The YouTube trailer received more than 40 million views in less than a week. And it’s still one year before The Force Awakens will be released. There are so many opportunities available to Disney it’s almost ridiculous. With proper marketing, Star Wars could actually break the Internet.

Reddit after Star Wars trailer revelation.

But it’s not only about you. It’s about your dad as well. The original cast will surely appeal to the original geeks who were drooling over Leia way before you were born, while Facebook will help to deliver the message. Our parents are the ones who will tip the scale for the next Star Wars.

The Force Awakens

Almost 40 years after the original Star Wars, the stars have aligned again. Millions of fans are patiently waiting to see how Luke, Leia and Han will combat the Dark side of the Force. Unlike the pale second (first) trilogy, Disney now holds all the cards to create the biggest movie of all time. The target audience is huge, and the means for virality and distribution are better than ever. All we need to do now is to allow Disney to seduce us for a year, and after we are all wet, deliver the promise. The world is ready for the next supermovie.

But for how long? Avatar 2 is scheduled for 2016.

Backpacking in Sri Lanka

Tue, 08 Apr 2014 07:11:34 GMT

Almost exactly 4 years later, in October 2013, I went backpacking to Asia again. My wife and I decided to go Sri Lanka, since it is a bit more wild than Thailand, but still not as chaotic as India. For three weeks we've travelled around the country, enjoying the madness of urban cities, mysteries of ancient ruins, beholding the majestic nature and loving the beautiful beaches. This diversified land can offer a lot to a traveler, and you don't need that much money to do a lot of different things. You just need to be prepared for an amazing adventure that this small island on the coast of India can provide.

Jump to:

Travelling • Sleeping • People • Cities • Temples and ruins • Nature • Beaches • Food • Tea • Ayurweda • Our trip

Travelling

Sri Lanka is a relatively small island, around 300km north to south. But this doesn't mean you'll get around fast. The roads are old, the trains are slow. Luckily, there are a lot of things you can see while moving from one place to another.

We've tried pretty much all means of transportation. We've liked buses the most, since there are extremely frequent and cheap (around 1 Euro or 150 Rupees per person per 100km), and you get to meet the locals and enjoy a bit of genuine life. The buses are a piece of art themselves, often filled with kitschy accessories and huge speakers playing local music. There aren't two alike. But make sure you're ready for a roller-coaster ride - the bus drivers are fucking insane, dangerously overtaking other busses and literally pushing smaller vehicles out of the road. The driver sits on the horn, the conducter waves through the window.

A bit of a downside are the bus stations, which are extremely stressful and chaotic, but you get used to them after a few times.Try to avoid the red buses, these are run by the national operator and are a bit older, go for the colorful ones if you have the chance.

We've tried the taxi van as well, it was much faster and comfortable than the bus, and the driver showed us a few things on the way. But the ride was really expensive (around 50 Euro a day), so not really worth the money. Of course, Tuk-tuks are useful as well (not to mention cool), but not suitable for longer drives.

We've had a funny issue with the train. At one time, we've booked an expensive panoramic tour through the jungle from Kandy to Nouwera Eliya, and the train was 3 hours late. The panoramic cart turned out to be not-so-panoramic, the third class (which we took on another occasion) was almost better. Not to mention the train broke down in the middle of the jungle in the evening and another locomotive came a few hours later to tow us to the nearest station. Luckily, it was our station.

So, trust me on this one: use the busses whenever you can, they are one of the coolest, craziest and most authentic things you can do in Sri Lanka.

Welcome aboard the red bus.

The colorful one is the good one.

The stations are filled with buses and loud people.

Let's take a train instead.

Stuck in the jungle much?

Sleeping

It's easy to find a nice place to sleep anywhere in Sri Lanka. The combination of Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor works like a charm, but make sure you bring an extra telephone, so you can install a local sim card, which can help you to contact the hostels easily. You can get a prepaid one for a few bucks and it has enough credit on for the whole trip.

Except in Colombo, where we've booked our stay in advance, we've picked places as we went along. Usually, we looked for double rooms in the range of 10-20 Euro (around 1.500 to 3.000 Rupees) a night with wi-fi, but without A/C (even though it was hot in October, we've survived with the fan). In all cases, the rooms were nice and clean, so if you don't need much luxury, this type of accommodation will be enough for an average backpacker.

Colombo was a bit more expensive, and we've made another excess by booking a beach cabana only for ourselves for one night in Tangalle (both for around 40 Euro a night). Otherwise, our budget sleeping offered very good value for the money.

Speaking of the cabana…this beach house was one of the sexiest things we've done on our trip, but not all is gold that glitters. Since the cabana was open and on the seaside, I've had a bit of a hard time sleeping because of the wind and the ocean. But it felt great to be a king in paradise, if only for a day.

Our room in Fort In in Galle.

King Fern's in Nouwera Eliya was one of the most interesting places we've seen.

Sandy's cabana in Tangalle.

A room with a view - Green Hill in Ella.

People

The people of Sri Lanka are very nice and friendly. They smile a lot and look like they enjoy life. Most are genuinely interested in you, some even want to take pictures with you. Most of them speak English and help you when you are wandering around confused. Opposite to westerners, they don't mind touching each other, and younger people openly flirt. It is very cute when boys are giving girls peanuts and other treats.

The people love their president, whose pictures can be seen everywhere. He is a bit of an emperor, with his brother-in-law running the parliament and a few other relatives on important positions. But he was the one who has ended the 25-year civil war (in 2009), so everybody is just happy to get the chance to live without fear again, supporting this regime.

We've seen a few hustlers, we've even met a junkie in Kandy that approached us with the "I remember you from the hotel" play. These guys usually do Paan, a drug that makes your mouth red and eventually your teeth fall out, but are luckily not that pushy if you ignore them. Another guy wanted to take us a few kilometers too far with his tuk-tuk to earn another buck, while one of them wanted to convince us a bus is not coming. But that a bearable cost for a three week's stay, and even unpleasant locals weren't aggressive.

Even if the people are very sweet, there is one thing that can start getting on your nerves eventually. Everybody wants to sell you something. Food, drinks, ride, accommodation, souvenirs, anything, people constantly approach you, no matter what you are doing. The closer to the beach regions you come, the more of these street sellers there are and after a few weeks, you can get really tired of it.

Taking a walk on the beach in Colombo. Life seems pretty modern here.

Cricket - the national sport - is played everywhere.

The beloved president and his family.

Youngsters flitring on the train. She doesn't seem convinced.

With a generally young population, you can see so many pupils it's almost weird.

Women preparing for a selling session on the beach.

Cities

Almost everyone's trip starts in Colombo, which is polluted city with over a million inhabitants (Sri Lanka has around 22m in total). The city center offers an interesting amalgamation of asian and modern architecture, and there are quite a few things to see around. The colonial legacy can tell a lot about the previous centuries in Sri Lanka.

A lot of people skip Colombo, but I think it's worth the trip. This is probably the closest Sri Lanka gets to India, and there's nothing like being in a carbon-monixide filled rush hour in a tuk-tuk doing slalom between ongoing traffic.

Other cities are very similar one to another (or so different than European that you don't notice the nuances), busy roads with buses and tuk-tuks, small stores filled with tons of merchandise and decorated with colorful signs, hundreds of people on the streets. Perhaps two cities stand out, Kandy, a colorful city in the middle of the mountains (and in a way even more chaotic than Colombo), and Galle, a colonial fortress in the south, where you feel like you're in Europe.

There are a lot of stray dogs everywhere, and they usually don't look really healthy, so we've tried avoiding them. Small monkeys are also a regular inhabitant of settlements, jumping from tree to tree and going through trash. These guys are a bit more cuter that the dogs, but don't seem that friendly. And of course, cows.

We've seen a few slums as well, but the government is trying to replace them with modern condominiums, so its easy to see these two one next to another. In general, there's a strong contrast between the cities and rural areas, where people usually live in simple huts, hidden in tropical flora.

The streets of Colombo.

Stuck in traffic much?

A bazaar in Pettah in Colombo.

This is how a typical town looks like. This is Weligama.

The quiter rural areas.

Temples and ruins

An interesting thing in Sri Lanka are the ancient ruins from around 1000 AD. Our original plan was to go and see a few of them, but ended up seeing only one of them (Polonnaruwa). These things are massive, kilometers wide, and you need a whole day to see everything, even if you rent a bike. Since the weather can get very hot, and the humidity is high, these ruin explorations can become very tiring, so one was enough for us.

There are many Buddhist temples all over the country (one of them supposedly contains the tooth of Buddha), we've seen quite a few of them. Huge statues of Buddha are omnipresent as well, and can be found even in the middle of the jungle.

The ruins of Polonaruwa.

The Cave temple in Dambulla.

People are praying in the Temple of the tooth in Kandy. Buddha's tooth is supposed to be there.

The statue of Buddha in the middle of the jungle near Sigiriya.

Nature

The nature in Sri Lanka is nothing short of amazing. From old forests to mesmerizing plains, from wildlife parks to tea plantations, which are simply beautiful. Not to mention there's a massive rock (hundreds of meters tall) called the Lion Rock in the middle of nowhere (called Sigiriya), and it's one of the most amazing things we've seen on our trip.

It was so calm and easy in Sigiriya, the chaotic madness just disappeared over there. Other cool things we've did was hiking in Horton Plans (and the World's end), and visiting the Uda Walawe national park, where we've seen things such as elephants, buffaloes, alligators, all sorts of birds and jackals. Our driver on the safari was a crazy guy, so we've ended up full of adrenaline and covered in mud.

There is one downside, though. The entrances to parks and historical sites are very expensive. You can pay around 4.000 Rupees (25 Euro) per person for the entrance fee, which is more than we've both spent for staying the night at our regular place.

Kandy, the cultural capital in the central region, is also a good place to explore nature, since they have a beautiful botanic garden, and you can visit a spice garden where you can see how herbs and spices are grown. Not to mention there is a huge lake in the middle of the city.

We've also went snorkeling to a coral reef in a national park called Pigeon Island, which was a great thing to do as well. Which brings us to...

Breakfast with a view over Lion Rock in Sigiriya.

Hiking in Horton Plains was definitely worth it.

Gay elephants in Uda Walawe national park. They have their own private club.

The bautiful Pigeon island.

The spice garden in Kandy.

Nature means nature. Close encounter in Sigiriya.

Beaches

One of the most important things in Sri Lanka are the beaches! Paradise beaches, hundreds of them, scattered all across the country. We've been to Uppuveli on the north and a few places to the south, and it kept getting better and better. Crazy sandy beaches and the most amazing surf spots are a common thing in Sri Lanka, but if you're looking for the most beautiful one, Mirissa would be it.

Before we went home, we've stayed our last night in Negombo, a town near the airport. At that point, we were already so spoiled, that the kilometer long sandy beach with a bit of trash and no palm trees seemed too boring to enjoy.

Even though, there's something about these sandy beaches, where you can drink cocktails and eat beautiful food while watching surfers fade into the sunset over the ocean. I love the ocean. You just can't ignore how strong and majestic it is.

Uppuveli.

Tangalle.

Mirissa.

Unawatuna.

Negombo.

To the surf-tuk-tuk!

Food

I loved Sri Lankan food. It is very spicy, but full of exotic flavors. An ordinary lunch comes with 5 different curries, which will cost you a few Euros in a restaurant (few hundred Rupees). The dishes are usually scarce with meat, but you can still get a beautiful local meat dish Kottu almost everywhere. Things get even better on the seaside, where you can get a freshly caught fish for two for around 10 Euro. Not to mention king prawns and other delicacies.

We've tried to eat in small restaurants (where the locals eat) each time we got the chance. The food is authentic there, not to mention cheap - the least we've payed for a meal was less than two Euro for both. Luckily, they had forks and knives, since the locals usually eat with their hands.

You can get smoothies and lassies (a yoghurt drink) almost everywhere, so you can get a dose of fresh vitamins on a daily basis. We've treated ourselves with one of these almost everyday, but what else can you do in a country where a mango fruit can fall on your head? Eat the most amazing exotic fruit anytime you can. Except papaya. Papaya tastes weird.

However, it's not that easy to find alcohol. There are a lot of bars and restaurants that don't have even beer, but you can compensate for that when you get to the tropical paradise. There's an abundance of everything on the seaside, but the prices also tend to go up a bit as well.

Pick three.

There's plenty of fruit everywhere.

Kottu in the making.

The cheapest meal ever. Both for less than 2 Euro.

Fresh fish. Too bad barracuda isn't that nice to eat.

Tea

One of the things Sri Lanka is most well known of, is tea. It's the world fourth biggest producer of tea, which means you usually get a whole pot of tea with your breakfast. Tea plantations, which are located in the center of the country, are huge and beautiful, and you can't but admire the fact that every leaf is picked by hand.

Tea plantations also mean tea factories, but we didn't have much luck with them. The first one we've visited (Mackwood) was closed for renovation (prince Charles was supposed to visit it in a few weeks as part of the Commonwealth meeting), and the second one wasn't producing while we were there. But we still managed to get the idea about the massive size of the industry.

Even though I am more of a coffee drinker, I enjoyed tea a few times, and I can say it was very nice. I didn't know there are so many types of it, all made from the same plant. By combining different techniques of roasting and processing, this drink comes in around 20 different versions.

The tea plantations.

Tea pickers.

This is how a factory looks like. Too bad it wasn't producing.

One plant, many varieties.

Ayurveda

If you get too tired, you can treat yourself with some Ayurvedic wellness. Besides massages, this includes all sorts of weird treatments such as sauna caskets and oil dripping on your forehead, which are things you just can't usually do. It was ok, worth trying it out, but not really that special. A Thai massage kicks Ayurvedic ass everyday, if you ask me.

Would you go inside one of these?

This is the lab in which they pour oil on your forehead.

Our trip

Our trip started in Colombo, from where we've travelled to north-central regions to Dambulla and continued to Sigiriya (staying there instead of Dambulla was a great choice). We've visited the Lion Rock and the ruins of Polonnaruwa from there, and continued our journey to north-east. We've chilled out a bit on the beaches of Uppuveli, did the snorkeling on Pigeon Island and took the bus to Kandy. After a few days in the jungle we took the train to Nuwara Eliya, which is a great place to do the tea-seeing. In the morning, a driver took us to Horton Plains and dropped us off at the train station, from where we wen't to the place with the most amazing view, Ella.

At this point, we were around three thirds into our three-week journey. After visiting the Uda Walave park, we've continued our way to the south - entering the laid back part of the trip. The beaches of Tangalle and Mirissa were amazing, and the colonial city of Galle offered a most pleasant stay. Our last night was in the west near the airport on the beaches of Negombo.

We have stayed in 10 places in 20 days, and I would recommend every single one of them:

Colombo - Palm Nest
Sigiriya - Lakmini Lodge
Uppuveli - Coconut Beach Lodge
Kandy - St Bridget's Country Bungalow
Nuwara Eliya - King Fern Cottage
Ella - Green Hill
Tangalle - Sandy Cabanas
Mirissa - Calidan
Galle - Fort Inn
Negombo - Dion's

We have spent around 1350 Euro per person in total, out of which:

700 Euro for the plain tickets
200 Euro for food and drinks
150 Euro for sleeping
100 Euro for traveling around
100 Euro for the entrance fees
100 Euro for insurance and other expenses

Here is our itinerary:

This is what you can do in three weeks in Sri Lanka.

Conclusion

Sri Lanka is an amazing country, and I would highly recommend visiting it. It's wild enough to get you running around, and tame enough to let you relax after the chaos. The trip can be quite inexpensive, since even the budget rooms are nice and clean, and you can get around very cheap if you use the public transport. You will get the chance to see many busy cities and laid-back villages.

The people of Sri Lanka are very nice and polite, and there are plenty of natural and cultural spots you can visit. But in the end, you probably find yourself enjoying the paradise beaches the most, hanging out with surfers and other travellers. Good food will be your everyday partner, just be careful not to order too spicy.

In the end, Sri Lanka offers plenty of options that can help you enjoy its authentic life. After all, that is what Asia is all about - discovering beautiful places and fascinating culture.

Tablets were invented for recycling old PC games

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 21:15:33 GMT

Remember when we were playing really great games on our first home computers in the 80s and 90s? Good times. My gaming journey started with the Spectrum 48K (snowman FTW!), and slowly progressed to where we are now. Today's games truly are a piece of art, I have to give full credit to ventures such as Angry Birds and GTAs, but back then, everything was so much simpler, as if different rules applied. Games were there purely for the gameplay, and were awesome even if they came in 4-bit colors.

Luckily, these classic MS-DOS games received the opportunity to be revived. A few months ago, I played The Secret of Monkey Island on the iPad and it was fucking brilliant. Such a perfectly integrated experience, as if the game was originally designed for the tablet. Loved the humor, loved the clever tricks, loved the simplicity. It brought back so many memories... I want to play more games like that! More Lucas Arts and Sierra titles! Street Rod and Duke Nukem 2D! Dune, Syndicate and UFO! Railroad Tycoon!! Starcraft!!!

(Besides The Secret of Monkey Island, I noticed Civilization. Simcity and Prince of Persia are also available in the App Store, while The Incredible Machine seems to have been removed. Don't like the generic modern graphics though.)

These old games were great because they offered so little, but due to today's information pollution, insufficiency is bliss. Imagine a game where you don't need to be impressed with its amazing graphics or clever physics. Yes, we used to enjoy things like that, things that were pure and simple. Things like The Monkey Island, which managed to make me calm and relaxed with its plain ingenuity, besides reminding me of my childhood.

I'm not sure about the legal issues that come with it, but I am certain there's a huge opportunity in republishing classic games and abandonware on tablets and smartphones. The concepts and scenarios are there, they just need to be modified and rewritten for another device. So, if you have the opportunity to do so, please recycle one of those old PC titles, I would love to enjoy every bit of its vintageness on my mobile device before I go to bed. Because people are sentimental, and old times will always mean good times. And there are many of us who are prepared to pay money for that.

Occupy Wall Street and Other "Revolutions" as the Ultimate Reality Shows [Repost]

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:11:17 GMT

This post was originally published in November 2011 in a special two part series transatlantic blog post about Occupy Wall Street, on Nick Taylor’s thetwohalves.com, which is no longer available.

The situation isn't peachy. The global economic system is collapsing, the middle class is disappearing, and financial institutions have taken control of the fate of many countries and corporations. People are frustrated and want something else, they want a predictable and stable future. Hence the global Occupy Wall Street movement has been born, supported by various public figures and activist groups such as The Anonymous. Fueled by the success of the Arab Spring, these people are demonstrating against the domination of the rich 1% (or the ultra rich 0.1%), hoping to achieve a better world built on equality, opportunity and optimism.

When history looks upon the events that unfolded in 2011, it will probably view them similarly to 1848, when the Spring of Nations took place in Europe. But this time it's a bit different, it's a bit more theatrical. We're watching it live, and participating in it real-time. Everybody is in it, one way or another, the technology allows it, the people and the media amplify it. Even if you are just an observer, you pretty much know what's going on. People are squatting the streets, the police are trying to prevent it (violently), the corporations and political elites ignore it, some people support it, others don't.

These days, everyone can be a reporter. And most activists are. Equipped with laptops, tablets and smart phones, backed up by social media, thousands of tweets, blogs, pictures and videos are broadcast to the Web each minute. Uncountable number of actors, cameras and commentators make this event bigger than Big Brother, even bigger than The Truman Show. Occupy has become the ultimate global crowdsourced reality show happening non-stop, every minute, every hour, for days, even months.

The fascinating fact about this story is that you can choose the channel you want to watch. You can go directly to the source, to the people who are living it. You can consume it on the secondary level, where television and print media report their own, perhaps biased versions of what's happening. You can study the higher level interdisciplinary implications, such as these great Twitter visualizations of Occupy Wall Street or the Egyptian revolution. The Web is the playground with infinite toys.

But it's up to you if you want to get involved and contribute to the critical mass of this movement. Everybody can be a part of it, even if you're just watching or sharing information from the coziness of your living room. Perhaps you've finally been awarded with the opportunity to change the world. Probably not, but there's always a chance. And if the world won't change, you can at least participate in the show that will go down as one of the greatest reality shows of our time. Are you the 99%?

Check out the complete Occupy Wall Street series.

Do you think we are slowly reaching the end (of science)?

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 09:59:15 GMT

This was great week for science. The scientists from CERN Large Hadron Collider finally proved with great probability that the Higgs boson particle exists. Not that any of us mortals truly understand what it means for the future of mankind, but it's supposed to be quite significant, so I won't argue with that. Science has come a long way, and while we take into account a few other interesting and revolutionary fields, such as Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnolooy, Nuclear Fission, Stem Cells, Genetics, etc., we must also consider the timeframe in which these discoveries did or will take place, in relation to the history of our planet and humanity.

Imagine this: if history of Earth would be represented by one standard year, first cells would appear by the end of February, life would move to dry land around December 1st, dinosaurs would appear on December 13th, modern mammals on December 27th. On the evening on December 31st, first hominids would evolve in Africa, and 10 minutes before midnight, Neanderthals would spread throughout Europe. Around minute to midnight, agriculture would be invented, the Roman Empire would collapse 10 seconds before new year's, and the last 2 seconds would be marked by the industrial era. (source)

Makes you think about our insignificance in the history of Earth (not even the whole universe). But we've come a long way in these few minutes. The steam engine was invented 250 years ago, and look at us now. All in two seconds of Earth's history!

I think it was Isaac Asimov who said modern computerization represents the fourth big revolution in communication, after speech, writing and printing. Speech was invented tens of thousands of years ago, writing thousands of years ago, printing hundreds of years ago, and information technologies decades ago. Yes, it goes exponentially faster with each iteration, because every new generation of communication allows information to travel faster and reach more people, besides the fact that each time, global population is a few times greater than before. This enables science and knowledge to evolve even on a faster pace. Thousands of universities and scientist are already taking into account what CERN had discovered and announced, developing theories even further, making experiments of their own.

If all goes well, I think there is only one possible scenario: we will soon come to the end. Find that particle, understand that impulse, define that force. And by soon I don't mean tomorrow, or even in our generation, but in no time compared to History. Hundred, even thousand years? Why not. Ten, hundred thousand years? Sure, we have time, what are a few "minutes" more. Imagine everything we'll discover if we don't fuck it up on a major scale and our society evolves in a similar fashion as it did before.

But what is waiting for us at the end? Well, I think we are all pretty much aware of that. "Why are we here?", "What do we have to do?", "Is this real life?" and that sort of shit that brought us here in the first place. I think science has a good chance of clearing these things up one day, and then we will find the ultimate answer (or question). And Science will become one with Religion and the whole situation will be quite ironic, concerning the traditionally opposed stance they have. The only question that remains is, will we live happily ever after then, or will we just find another, greater and even more complex system, where we will have to help our Gods find their Gods?

The Silicon Valley tour, part 6: A trip to the Internet Archive

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:28:09 GMT

Those that have read my previous post about visiting the technology giants of Silicon Valley, might have gotten the idea that organizations around here aren't that welcoming to strangers. Well, that might not be entirely true. One of my stops in San Francisco also included a visit to the Internet Archive, a foundation that is trying to preserve all the information our civilization possesses. And they were more than welcoming. Besides giving Andraz and me a full tour of their headquarters, they've also invited us to one of their staff meetings, where the Archive's members and volunteers present their activities and results from their specific fields.

The Internet Archive is located in a former church in San Francisco, so there's more than enough room for all the people and hardware. Two main projects are currently taking place; one is the Wayback Machine, which makes snapshots of websites throughout history, and the other is the Archive, which represents systematic digitalization of movies, music and books, manually done by its members. A never-ending task that can only be done by activists who genuinely want to protect the knowledge of mankind, and you can contribute to the effort as well.

During our tour, 2.5 petabytes (that's 2.5 million gigabytes!) of data was mentioned, but I'm not sure if that's just one of the projects or both. This data is well protected, with mirrors all over the world. Impressive stuff, good enough to currently make archive.org the 223rd most visited site in the world (according to Alexa), get to the front page of The New York Times, and receive various prestigious awards.

One of the most fascinating stops of my Silicon Valley trip was indeed educational and inspiring, and it got me thinking: If there's a modern Library of Alexandria in the making, this would be it. Thumbs up.

Internet Archive's Headquarters in San Franscisco. It goes well with the logo, even though they came here only a few years ago.

The staff meeting, where members from various fields presented their achievements

Everyone that is an employee for more than 3 years, gets its own figure inside the church

Brewster Kahle, the chairman, passionately presenting the Archive's servers. There is no air condition, since heat is used for building heating.

The irony: since consumer hard disks are cheaper, they buy those and get rid of the casings.

This is how scanning of videos, microfilms and books looks like

Are we there yet?

Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Check out the complete The Silicon Valley tour series.

Occupy Wall Street – why it won’t go away and why it matters [guest blogger Nick Taylor]

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:27:26 GMT

This is part of a special two part series transatlantic blog post about Occupy Wall Street. Come check out my cross-branded blog post on Nick Taylor’s thetwohalves.com*.

The Occupy movement has gone global ever since it’s fiery start on September 17, 2011, in New York City's Zuccotti Park. Strangely enough, the phenomenon was initiated by Canadians, the founders of Adbusters magazine, not Americans, lending further credibility to South Park’s famous "Blame Canada" motto. But I digress.

Why should you care? It’s just a bunch of stupid hippies and jobless freaks expressing their angst because they can’t get a job with their smelly dreadlocks, right? Well, maybe not. This movement is tapping into the very core of the reasons underpinning the Great Recession, tapping into ancient history and even potentially changing the course of the political debate in the United States and around the world through its grass roots and social media approach. Click here for a global map of protest locations around the world. More interesting than the countries on the map IMHO are the glaring exceptions: quasi-communist China, formerly communist Russia and most of Africa. Freedom of expression is a wonderful thing.

The drivers of the movement are many, however one of the more powerful statistics (click here for a primer) is that the top 1 percent of Americans possess a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent. What’s making people angrier still is the drop in lower and middle class income against this top 1 percent. While no one is really talking about the reasons, it’s pretty simple. While the middle class in America grew wealthy primarily due to rising home values tied to mortgages, the wealthiest decile was predominantly invested in their own businesses and didn’t rely on loans for their wealth, so when the bottom fell out of the housing market worldwide, they were immune.

But enough about money. What this post is about is recognizing the political impetus for change evident in OWS. Some have called it the left leaning version of the Tea Party movement. And it is. In fact, I have great respect for both movements, as impossible as that may sound to Europeans. And I am not one to shy away from controversial positions, as evidenced by my post on WikiLeaks. Both organic movements were born out of a frustration with the current self-serving political structure that is willing to change absolutely nothing. So much for Obama! But what the OWS is sorely lacking is a well-defined set of goals and more importantly, a charismatic spokesperson. From my strategic marketing perspective, what they need to ultimately succeed is a leftist version of Sarah Palin. And much like the billionaire Koch brothers (whom the only viable Republican candidate for President of the US, Mitt Romney has been courting) were soon outed as the financial engine of the Tea Party, it’s only a matter of time before the people financing the Occupy movement are exposed.

The grassroots model which OWS champions, based loosely on the Egyptian protests which made effective use of social media to spread discontent with an unpopular and autocratic government worldwide is the closest the modern world has seen to a direct democracy since ancient Greece. Could this be the way forward? Say what you will, but the Occupy movement is absolutely right about one thing. Money should not equal political influence. The will of the people should. If it weren’t for the crack rock habit corporate money represents to US politicians, Congress would have changed legislation to outlaw the dubious financial instruments which nearly sunk the global economy years ago. Shame on you, elected representatives.

Sadly, while most Americans still want to believe in the Dream and many will tell you that hard work is the key to success, the stats offer a much starker reality. Income inequality in the US now ranks in the bottom third of the world, is greater than in most of the developed world (including Europe) and is in fact very close to Russia’s. Not exactly the comparison Americans aspire to. Slovenians reading this post can take comfort in knowing their country is best in the world when it comes to income equality, even if it could be doing a much better job in attracting FDI, reforming its 3rd world judicial system and job creation.

Way forward? You tell me, but change is in the making, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that revolutions can be sudden, unpredictable and harsh. France’s Marie Antoinette learned that the hard way. America was forged through a revolution. Will it be re-born through one? Or will the OWS movement simply fade into oblivion? Only time will tell, but the clock of political change is ticking, many people are fed up and the younger generations are the ones with a future to lose… Not to mention the whole world is watching.

Nick Taylor is a social media, PR and marketing consultant, blogger, politico and wannabe geek based in Scottsdale, Arizona (US). He shares his thoughts on thetwohalves.com.

Check out the complete Occupy Wall Street series.

Project 5000: Assembling a 5.000 piece jigsaw puzzle of an ancient map

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:24:17 GMT

Sometimes you need something to set your mind at ease. That's why @TejaSmeja in I decided to build a 5.000 piece jigsaw puzzle, an ancient map of the world from 1630 by Ravensburger. It took us about two months or an estimated 500 hours of effective work, but it was fun and definitely worth the time. Looking at thousand of similar pieces for hours is a great way to relax after stressful work, the progress is very challenging and the results mentally very rewarding.

We've been evolving the technique as we went along, approaching the jigsaw puzzle in the following order:

the puzzle edges
the equator and world edges
the poles and the tropic
at this point, we've split apart. Mateja started working on the pictures around the world, I started working on the map.
we almost managed to put all the pieces out of the box. About one room of space.
I worked on the world from the inside out (since meridians and parallels are the most vertical and horizontal in the center)
Mateja worked on the pictures surrounding the world one by one, since each had specific colors
we've been adding significant elements as we went along (coastlines, signs, faces, etc.)
we used regular A4 sheets of paper for categorization and transporting
the sea came last since the pieces were very similar to each other. But It became easier with every step, since there were fewer left.

Here are a few pictures representing our assembly of Nova totius Terrarum Orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula. It was fun, so if you're searching for a new hobby for the next few months, jigsaw puzzles could be something worth looking at. We will probably do another one one day, when we find a big one we like.

Opening the box and noticing there are too many pieces to fit in the room

Assembling the edges

Working on the equator and the edges of the world

Connecting the equator and the edges of the world to puzzle edges

Doing the poles and the tropic

Assembling the outer pictures and the world from the inside out

The bottom pictures are done, the world is coming together

The jigsaw puzzle is almost complete, all that's missing is the sea

The final masterpiece

Bonus: finding a piece with your name on it

Can you believe Watson got the question about Slovenia wrong on Jeopardy?

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:33:12 GMT

Slovenia made it to the spotlight again, for the first time after the soccer world cup (when Slovenia was trending topic on Twitter and top search on Google). This time, it happened because IBM's supercomputer Watson competed against human champions in the famous TV show Jeopardy. IBM's computers are known to destroy people in various challenges, Deep Blue beat the world champion Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in 1997. But chess is simple for computers to play, because it is pure logic and mathematics – the capability of a player is determined by the number of operations and actions it can calculate in advance. But a quiz is a totally different story, where the biggest challenge is semantics – understanding the meaning of words.

In 1950, Alan Turing, one of the greatest pioneers of computing introduced the Turing test, a methodology that could separate humans from computers using a set of questions, some of them formed in such a way computer wouldn't be able to understand and answer them. There are many questions which can't be answered with pure logic, the one I remember from high school goes something like this:

"Jack attended Sally's party, bring a doll. What was the present?"

The catch is in the connection between party – (birthday) – present – doll, which can't be noticed without abstract thinking humans are capable of. And today's computers still face the same problem - even though Watson dominated Jeopardy, it failed miserably on the following question about Slovenia:

"As of 2010, Croatia & Macedonia are candidates but this is the only former Yugoslav republic in the EU"

Watson's computing capabilities and knowledge banks are huge, but a question and an answer so obvious to humans presented a huge problem. Watson surely knows which countries are EU members, but it obviously didn't understand the question, thinking it was asked about which country would be next to start negotiating for EU membership, answering Serbia. The right answer was, of course, Slovenia.

The video is also fascinating from the cultural point of view – and extremely creepy. Those who have watched (or read) "2001: A Space Odyssey" may have experienced a slight shiver and carefully waited if Watson would say it: "Hello Dave". Others might have enjoyed this science fiction presentation, but besides Watson's obvious advantage in being the fastest to answer the question, it's clear that computers are still far away from being intelligent. And hopefully they will stay that way.

Trends of 2010, according to Facebook, Google and Twitter

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 07:42:29 GMT

The year is coming to an end, and our favorite big brothers all published reports about trends inside their ecosystems (Facebook, Google, Twitter). Even though the services are not perfectly comparable (information gets pulled and pushed: while you search, you pull data; on social networks the data gets pushed to you), I think they can provide a clear picture about the general state of the Web in 2010. Three obvious winners emerged, coming strong in all the charts. Apple made the iPad the most wanted gadget around, FIFA World Cup mania took over the whole planet, and Justin Bieber topped the celebrity world. I was curious about the comparison, so I've joined all three lists, gave all topics a score, and put the results into pictures. Sadly, I'm not a designer to make a really cool infographic about it, so this will have to do.

#	Google (points)	Facebook (points)	Twitter (points)	Total (points)
1	HMU (10)	Chatroulette (10)	Gulf Oil Spill (10)	iPad (21)
2	World Cup (9)	iPad (9)	FIFA World Cup (9)	World Cup (18)
3	Movies (8)	Justin Bieber (8)	Inception (8)	Justin Bieber (16)
4	iPad and iPhone 4 (7)	Nicki Minaj (7)	Haiti Earthquake (7)	Haiti (13)
5	Haiti (6)	Friv (6)	Vuvuzela (6)	Oil Spill (10)
6	Justin Bieber (5)	Myxer (5)	Apple iPad (5)	Chatroulette (10)
7	Games on Facebook (4)	Katy Perry (4)	Google Android (4)	Inception (8)
8	Mineros / Miners (3)	Twitter (3)	Justin Bieber (3)	Nicki Minaj (7)
9	Airplanes (2)	GameZer (2)	Harry Potter (2)	Friv (6)
10	2011 (1)	Facebook (1)	Pulpo Paul (1)	Vuvuzela (6)

I've only left out "HMU" (Hit me up) and "Movies", because the first is an expression, and the second is a generic term. Hope you like it, see you around in 2011.

Apple's strategy of becoming a content provider might simply be ingenious

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 15:38:22 GMT

Apple is an interesting corporation. Some love it, some hate it, but the fact is, Apple has become the biggest technology company in the world. An interesting turn of events, from a company that nearly went bankrupt a few decades ago, to a player that we know today. Looks like Steve Jobs really is one of the greatest visionaries of our time, as his comeback in 1996 together with the introduction of the iMac and the iPod managed to turn things around for Apple. Looking at these facts in 2010, the iPod may turn out to be even more important than it seems, creating a digital music revolution and providing the foundation for Apple's strategy of becoming the world's dominant commercial content provider.

Apple was always known as the great innovator, and all of its products and services(!) strive towards perfection. This vision of making things people want and need (or don't need but still want anyways) has moved beyond hardware and software, towards a new direction – providing both free and payable content in any form. And because of the loyalty and fanaticism of their customers, they are one of the few that are actually able to make this work on a global scale. And be aware content is more than just actual news, it's multimedia (music, videos), it's software, it's books, it's just about everything, and Apple was the first to notice this potential and put it into action.

It all started with the iPod (2001) and its biggest sister, the iTunes. Today, iTunes is the largest music retailer in the US, with over 10 billion songs purchased. With the introduction of the iPhone (2007), its biggest sister, the App Store became one of the largest software marketplaces in the world, selling more that 6 billion applications in two years. The next gadget, the iPad (2010), was launched with a bigger sister too, the iBooks, which is currently messing up Amazon's Kindle operation, even though the success of this story is still hard to estimate. A few weeks ago, Apple also introduced the new cloud powered Apple TV (2010), which will enable selling (actually renting) fresh HD movies and TV shows using the iTunes platform. And to complete the circle, there are rumors Apple will also provide a subscription service for newspapers, supposedly the iNewsstand, which could actually become the biggest of them all.

So, how did a "personal computer" company come to this position? If you ask me, the answer is simple – Steve Jobs. This visionary was able to predict where the future will go and if you look at the situation today, when this business model is proven to work, it's really trivial. When personal computers were on the rise, it was obvious business and sales will be in hardware and software. But in the present information era, where billions have access to the web, overloaded with information, it's almost obvious that business and sales will be in providing content: data and information in all forms.

Besides Apple TV, Ping, a social network on top of iTunes, was also introduced on Apple's last "mass". I won't speculate on how cool it is, because I haven't tried it and am not sure if I will. But the fact is that iTunes has 160 million users and generates a lot of revenue. Ping actually represents a first integrated wide scale social market place, which probably is the future of social electronic commerce, so it will be interesting to see what will happen. No matter how cool, adding a Facebook Like button on Amazon simply isn't real social commerce.

That's Apple, once a computer manufacturer, today a diversified technology and media corporation with great know-how in electronic commerce and providing content, while pioneering (again) in social commerce. Besides owning a complete set of platforms for providing and selling different types of content, many of them market leaders, they also offer beautiful hardware and software infrastructure for their implementation. Something we will be seeing in most living rooms of the future?

Arthur C. Clarke envisioning the World Wide Web in 1968

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:10:06 GMT

One of the greatest thrills in my life is when I stumble upon a visionary prediction in any form – text, movie, novel, painting, etc. Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most acclaimed science fiction authors of our time, did just that in his famous novel 2001: A space odyssey. Most of us are acquainted with the plot and the scary artificial intelligence named Hal. The whole novel is really revolutionary for the age, but the thing I found most intriguing when I read it, is the detailed description of the technology we know today as the World Wide Web.

1968 was a year marked by student protests, the Vietnam war and the death of Martin Luther King. The Apollo program was well on the way, but would still need to wait one year until men could land on the moon. 1968 also marks the year when Intel, one of the biggest microchip manufacturers in the world was founded. Personal computer was still ages away, but the global network Internet was already being designed. This year UCLA was selected to be the first node of the incoming new network. Since then, things evolved and formed the modern computers and the Internet as we know today, but let's take a look at what our author had to say about it then, in 1968.

"There was plenty to occupy his time, even if he did nothing but sit and read. When he tired of the official reports and memoranda and minutes he would plug his foolscap-sized newspad into the ship’s information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him. Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen, and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination.

Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man’s quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousand of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word ‘newspaper’, of course, was an anachronistic hang-over into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorb the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites.

It's hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg.

There was another thought which a scanning of those tiny electronic headlines often invoked. The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry of depressing its contents seemed to be. Accidents, crimes, natural and man-made disasters, threats of conflict, gloomy editorials – these still seemed to be the main concern of the millions of words being sprayed into the ether. Yet Floyd also wondered if this was altogether a bad thing; the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull."

Pretty impressive. His vision goes even beyond technology and well describes the role of modern news and media. Predicting all of that in 1968 can only be marked as pure genius, and is a great example of why so many people love sci-fi. Sadly, Arthur C. Clarke passed away in 2008, but shall be remembered forever for many things. Perhaps space travel did not make it as far as he foretold, but looks like he knew how technology, information and media will look 40 years later in stunning detail.

Evolution of men and its representation in James Bond movies

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:11:18 GMT

If you didn’t notice, things have changed quite a lot in the past 50 years. The perception of the world changed and so did the people. One species that went through extremely significant metamorphosis is the human male. Once strong, rough and commanding, now cute, femininine and emotional. A term used more and more often for urban men is metrosexual, representing someone that looks a bit gay even though he is heterosexual, taking care of his looks and appearance.

The mass media and pop culture have been giving people representations of stereotypes since the dawn of television. People have been giving it back. It doesn’t matter who was more influential, the fact is that this evolution of society has been documented and can now be studied. In our case we will focus on a figure of a man. To make things easier, pop culture brought up a perfect case study, represented in a series of films about one perfect alpha male, detective James Bond.

Since Dr. No was filmed in 1962, the mentioned 50 years passed. In more than 20 films, James Bond was portrayed by different actors representing different ages. If you compare all the different looks and different behaviors of actors representing the same character, you can perhaps get a clearer picture on how the society of each time was perceiving a perfect male. Amongst other things, James Bond definitely got less hairy and more buff. You could say he’s not that handsome anymore, now he’s a bit beautiful.

Comparing Sean Connery and Daniel Craig we can wonder in which novel James Bond actually thought about shaving his armpits and waxing his chest. We can also wonder in which novel he’ll start to pluck his eyebrows and wear a bit of mascara. Perhaps he and his Bond girl can then do it while they are getting their legs waxed. It may seem far fetched, but cultural changes between consecutive Bonds are massive, so don’t get surprised when something like that happens.

Another important thing occurred in this feminization process - James Bond became a bit less charming. The old school acts and seduction methods the original used have been replaced by modern ones, quite boring and lame. A simple task of ordering a drink could once be made legendary, but now such things are loosing it’s appeal and look weird. Today it’s more important which telephone someone has and which brands he wears, because wits are not that appreciated anymore. All in accordance with the figure of a modern male, looking good with not much smart to say.

The way the future man will look is probably up to the women and their expectation of men. This will probably manifest in the form of which pop star they will idolize the most. Seeing the hysteria over that vampire guy, it looks like it’s futile to resist. The ultimate question, is James Bond imitating a stereotypical cool guy or is a stereotypical cool guy imitating James Bond was probably answered with that thought, so I might as well go put on some hair conditioner.

The decline of web forums

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:05:53 GMT

The Internet, specially the World Wide Web as we know it today is all about interaction. The first generation of web applications supported little of it. Most of the web was "official" authorial content, but at some point the world was ready for a step forward. User generated content was manifested through forums or discussion boards, which gave surfers a newly discovered access to tons of "unofficial" knowledge. The boom was driven by user interaction and necessity of sharing ideas and thoughts. Looks like times are changing again and forums are dying, at least in the form we knew them. What the hell happened?

An important thing happened, and we call it Web 2.0. The new generation of services supporting networking, cooperation and higher levels of interaction made hierarchically structured knowledge repositories separated from authorial content obsolete. Today, the content became integrated with interaction to form even richer content. I think three types of services that did most of the kill: wikis, blogs and new types of user interaction. I wouldn’t put chats or instant messaging in the same category, because they were around since ever (f.i. IRC) and they leave nothing behind (at least publicly), making them useless for broader crowd and future generations.

Wikis

Wikis are actually some type of a forum, where people gather content and knowledge. Instead of having knowledge scattered around in threads with comments and replies, all the users are working on the same "article", making it better and better as time and knowledge progresses. Few people know that wikis are not just Wikipedia (which is by the way a great example of human interaction achievement), a lot of companies use the same engine to build their knowledge base and web portals use them to build their web presence.

Blogs

With Web 2.0, people went from anonymity behind nicknames to front row participation and ego building. Instead of participating in forums, millions of bloggers started making synthesis of useful forum threads to short and highly informative blog posts with an interesting side effect - building personal brands. Google’s page rank and other search engines did the rest, making forums less important and good blog posts better ranked and easily found.

New types of user interaction

There was a time when the only interactive thing you could do on the web was writing or replying (perhaps vote on a poll which had nothing to do with a content, at least technically). Today, you can post, view, like, dislike, support, comment, vote etc.. This fact gives users more flexibility on how involved they want to get with the content and the content becomes more informational. Knowledge is not hierarchically structured anymore, it’s rather scattered around the web in forms of multimedia (text, audio, video, etc.), with interaction activities attached to it (likes, comments, etc.). That makes it fun and more interesting, and if it’s good enough altogether, it will get synthesized and rebuilt into another form of information.

I think there is still space for forums on the web, but mainly in the functionality of huge chat rooms. On the other hand, general portals will probably be shifting more to combined approach, without the "Forum" link, but with integrated Web 2.0 services and approaches. This doesn’t have to mean using friends and connections, it can easily be the form of better support for different interactions and focus on participation of users around authorial content. Good news for users, bad news for portals.

Backpacking in Thailand

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:34:06 GMT

November was a great month, my yearly vacation finally arrived. To make it something special, my girlfriend and I went backpacking in Thailand. The country is beautiful and diverse, with metropolises and jungles, highways and paradise islands. The people are also really nice and the food is great. Even though it wasn't cheap, Thailand is a place definitely worth visiting.

Our path started in Bangkok. After a few days of sightseeing, shopping and meeting some friends we took a bus north. Ancient ruins, nature and hikes were amazing, but we decided to fly to Kuala Lumpur to do a bit of change in the culture (Malaysians are mostly Muslim, compared to Buddhists in Thailand). Finally, for the grand finale, we stayed on the tropical islands for a week to gather our strength to return to the western world. The map below displays our journey and the pictures display the highlights.

Bangkok

Bankgkok, the capital of Thailand, is an awesome city. With around 8 million inhabitants, it's packed with sights, temples, palaces, parks, markets and busy streets. The buzz doesn't end even during the night, and tuk-tuks are the coolest and most rational way of getting around in the chaotic traffic of the urban jungle.

Sukhotai

Traveling north, we stopped at the ancient ruins of Sukhotai, a great city of the past. Now it rests among the trees and reminds tourists of the large ancestry of empires long gone.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is the cultural center of the north and offers travelers a good starting point for many activities, such as adventures, treks, safaris, cooking schools and one of the greatest things we did on our trip, elephant training. These creatures are colossal and beautiful. After a few hours of activities it's hard not to fall in love with them.

Kuala Lumpur

It's becoming obvious that Asia is the continent of the future, but we had to check it out for ourselves. The capital of Malaysia is a modern city with skyscrapers and monorail, but it lacks some of the cool vibe Bangkok has.

Ko Phi Phi

First island we visited was Phuket, but it turned out to be packed with massive tourist resorts. After one day we ran away to Ko Phi Phi, and it was just what we were looking for. A tropical paradise with long-tail boats, white sand beaches, palm trees and beatiful see.

Ko Phangan

Thailand's famous Full Moon Parties are known all around the world, where tens of thousands of people dance away until sunrise. Sadly they happen only once a month, but we were still lucky enough to catch the Black Moon Party and get loaded on buckets of alcohol under neon lights.

There you have it, three weeks of cruising around Thailand. Seeing the people and society there and comparing them to our materialist western civilization made me wonder about a lot of things. Perhaps it's because of Buddhism, perhaps it's because of other cultural or economical elements, but people there seem happy and you get drawn to that. I felt really safe everywhere I went, which sadly can't be said for many western cities. The story of civilizations continues to intrigue.

The Dune universe - world's greatest saga

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:26:46 GMT

Many people are familiar with the Lord of the rings, which became even more popular after the movie trilogy a few years ago. It's a typical saga, with novels and stories covering events on a scale of tens of thousands of years. This approach brings fanatical belonging of the readers, because studying generations of people has a huge appeal and insight into life long conflicts causes strong sentiment. The technical focus of LOTR is mostly on mythology, culture and linguistics, but sometimes it comes out too naive. People (except Frodo) are mostly black or white and most of the motives are quite superficial (and sex doesn't exist). After all, it's supposed to be a tale for children. So, in case you would like more complex stuff in your saga, you should definitely check out Dune.

Frank Herbert's Dune is a bit similar to LOTR, the whole plot (14 novels I think) extends for millenia. The story is about planet Arrakis, also known as Dune, which is the only place in the universe that produces the ultimate drug in existence, called Melange (Spice). Spice gives you higher level of conscience and prolongs life. Everybody wants and needs Spice, and the plot built around that is very complete, creative and fun to read. The whole story makes Dune a perfected alternative universe filled with complex political situations, religions, manipulation, psychology and other "adult" themes. It's freaking awesome, and it is known as one of the best sci-fi novels of all time.

The political situation of the Dune universe stands on a tripod between the emperor, noble houses and the spacing guild, which holds the monopoly on space travel. If that wasn't enough, other sources of power also exist, such as CHOAM (the biggest manufacturer of goods), the witches Bene Gesserit (with their breeding program for creating the messiah), the Tleilaxu (genetic specialists), Ixians (technology monopolists), the Mentats (human analytical computers), Swordsmen of Ginaz (superior warriors) and of course, the Fremen of Arrakis (the native people of Dune who live in sietches in the desert and tender the worms). Many players and interests - infinite possibilities of conflicts.

Another interesting thing in the novel is the flow of thought, which is solved really good. The movie (which I don't like that much, even though it's by David Lynch) tries to imitate that, but in my opinion fails quite miserably. The book does it much better, and the main mantra, used by all Bene Gesserit educated is quite inspirational:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Reading about prior generations of protagonists and antagonists and knowing how historical events caused the current situation makes the Dune series one of the best novels ever written. It can keep every sci-fi fan occupied for years, which is the time needed to come through the whole saga that totals in more than 5.000 pages. If you're into that sort of books, you should go for it - and then you will be able to understand why Duncan Idaho is the ultimate.

Slovenia vs. Slovakia - a (football) match made in heaven

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:57:58 GMT

Slovenia and Slovakia share a common problem. They are both victims of identity theft, because they, well, they look the same. They have a similar name, they have a similar national flag, they even have a similar post socialistic "my previous country is now ten countries" story. Luckily, they also share a similar newly appointed capitalistic EU success. Slovenia and Slovakia are the first two transitional countries to enter the European monetary union. We did it two years before. And we won the football match yesterday.

As a part of qualifications for the world cup 2010, a football match happened in Bratislava, Slovakia, between Slovenia and Slovakia. Some foreigners who were watching it, probably thought "what's wrong with these guys, why is a country competing against itself?". Because it's two countries, you idiot. Slovenia, Slovakia, don't you see the difference between an "n" and a "k"? Well, no. The truth is, that's understandable, Slovenia and Slovakia look the same. Or is it Slovekia and Slovania?

George W. Bush confused Slovenia and Slovakia once. Other great performances include playing the wrong anthem on political and sport events. Awkward and embarassing indeed.

The story of a country, trying not to be another country, is a bit sad. It influences people, identity and patriotism. Almost everybody I know feels this itch in the back of our country's recognition and branding in the global society. But it's too late (and not acceptable) to change the name or at least the national flag after so many years. Therefore we have nothing left but to make the most out of it. I wonder how Slovaks feel about it.

This unique situation could actually become a competitive advantage for both countries. Hey, we are the only two countries in the world that look the same. Who cares about the other 200 countries, they actually resemble each other even more - none of them have another country that's the same as theirs. Perhaps we are even some lost cousins that went separate ways sometime in history and will be reunited one day as the first same double country in Europe. Infinite possibilities.

After these thoughts I feel better and a bit proud to be a part of this funny situation. Go Slovakia (as long as it's not football)!

You should know about Dual

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:46:41 GMT

Two people are a pair and a pair deserves special treatment. Three or more people are a pack and a pack deserves special treatment. Two people act quite homogenic, as it is a natural form of a (sexual) pair who raises offspring and lives life together. Usually, one is dominant, but in some cases, harmony is possible too. When you add the third person, the story changes completely. Politics arise and people start influencing and manipulating each other, both consciously and subconsciously. I'm actually quite neutral on that, because it's probably the only possible way of human interaction. Many proverbs on the subject have been written and you have to admit it's one of the most interesting things going on.

Somewhere in Europe there is a small country called Slovenia. Most of the people don't even know it's there, but those who are a part of it, love it's nature, culture and people. Slovenians aren't obsessed with generals and war heroes, they rather worship their artists, writers and poets. For a country with 2 million people, that's not so hard to understand. Slovene language was only thing that held them together through different times, countries and governments. I think Slovene is beautiful and I'm very proud it's one of the few spoken languages left that still uses dual in grammar.

Dual (as opposed to singular and plural) has been used in different variations by many languages throughout the history, such as Greek, Hebrew and ancient Celtic and Germanic languages. It's still in use in some modern languages, f.i. Scottish Gaelic dialects, Welsh, Breton, but fully functioning as a paradigmatic category only in Sorbian and Slovene. That means that Slovene doesn't use dual only for shaping nouns, it uses dual for forming verbs too.

If you say "we went somewhere" in Slovene, you explicitly tell how many people were involved, because you use a different form of both "we" and "went" for dual and plural. English uses the same verb form for singular too (most cases), and the number can be distinguished either from the noun (using I or we) or with additional explanation. There is no grammatical difference between two or more, only singular and plural exist.

When I first started thinking about this phenomenon, I didn't have an opinion about it, dual seemed natural for me, even though not using dual appears less complicated. As I've grown mature and started noticing life, people and behavior, I also started appreciating dual. Today, I'm a fan.

I like to think Slovene uses dual because of politics. So you can easily express if there was politics involved or not without saying how many people were actually there. The truth is that's probably not the case, but it doesn't matter anyway. My only hope is that we will be able to keep this precious speciality as long as possible in this globalized society where English is the only way to go. Or is it Chinese?

The deflation of words - from SMS to Twitter

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:52:38 GMT

The information age brought us another interesting shock - the deflation of words. Most of the people surfing the web don't have the time to stick around and read novels. They want information and they want information fast. Sometimes I even lose hope in multimedia, when I don't feel I should watch a 2 minute long video, because 2 minutes is far too much to get to the point. The point should be straight forward and the point should be reachable in ten seconds.

I really try to keep my blog posts around 4-5 paragraphs because I introspectively see how I react to information. A post more than one monitor long does look like it is well thought and scientifically supported. So, if it looks promising, I tag it with "To read". But the problem is I've never actually done it and read it. Instead, I rather look for new, actual and aggregated information.

The concentration of information started with the SMS, when a guy called Hillebrand noticed 160 characters is quite an optimal size for information. About 30 words or a few sentences. It turned out he set the standard for one of the most popular mobile services, text messaging. More than 20 years later, the history is repeating itself, and a concept called microblogging is taking over the world, with Twitter as the most noticable service. Small chunks of dense information that are suited for the sci-fi society we live in, using 140 characters.

This minimalistic approach is moving to commercial (promotional) web too. Using short and strong facts, without too much redundancy is the only way to get somebody to read how good and competitive you really are. It's an art to be able to tell a lot using a few words, but microblogging practice will surely help people to be able to express themselves briefly and effectively.

Is this fact good for culture and literature? Probably not. But it surely is good for information flow and science.

(This post has 1928 characters.)

Billion = Trillion: who is the one that can't count?

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:53:07 GMT

There are a lot of cultural differences around the world and between individual countries of the western civilization. On which side of the road should I drive, how hot the weather is or perhaps most importantly - how big this beer is. The reaches of different measurement and interpretation are immense, so why should counting be any different.

How big is a billion? There are two different ways of naming big numbers, and they are called the Short scale and the Long scale. The long scale numerical system was used first, but in the 17th century, when traditional six-digit groups were split up into three-digit groups, short scale slowly came to use. Today, short scale numerical system is in use mainly in English speaking countries, while long scale is used in central Europe and around the world.

I personally prefer using the long scale, as it is mathematically more correct. Actually, I have no other choice, but it seems easy to represent something you were born into.

So what is the main difference? Long scale numerical system uses a word Billion to represent million millions or million square (1.000.000² = 1.000.000.000.000), and a Trillion is a million to the power of three or million billions (1.000.000³). On the the other hand, short scale uses "one more" for every new term greater than million. In this case, Billion represents thousand millions (1.000.000.000), Trilion is a million millions (1.000.000.000.000) etc., so yup, billion equals trillion.

It's an interesting world we live in. And different date formats are a pain in the ass for software developers.