Pulp Blogging

Do you know all those cheap newspapers they sell at the city square kiosk? They are printed on the cheap recycled paper, which looks yellwish. If it doesn’t, than it gets yellow from time, but very shortly after you buy it. These kind of newspapers always carry really strange and weird stories about aliens, superpowers and such. In Russian, these are called “yellow press” (word-to-word translation).

There are similar newspapers in many countries of the world, I guess. Additionally to such newspapers, there are cheap books about pimps, drug lords, supercops, etc. They are roughly of the same quality and value as those “yellow press” newspapers. These books (and sometimes journals) are known by the name “pulp fiction”, if I am not mistaken.

Considering all of the above, if I am writing some “serious” stuff like this post about Keanu Reeves soul, using only free (as in beer) software, then does it mean that I am doing “pulp blogging”? Or am I writing “yellow posts”?

Keanu Reeves sold his soul to the devil

Yup. This is the conclusion we arrived to today. Olga, Hazard, and I were watching yet another movie with Keanu “acting”. I mean everyone knows that he cannot act. But if you look closely, you wil find something more.

No matter what scene he is delivering, what words he is speaking, what role he is speaking, he does not show any emotions. Not even one. His eyes are as empty as beer bottles around my house. When he hates someone, he just says “I hate you”. When he loves someone, he just says “I love you”. When he wants to know what time it is, he just says “What time is it”. His speech lacks intonations. His body language sucks big time. And his eyes are empty. Always.

Now, how can you explain this? Looking totally empty and emotionless on one hand, and having huge salaries for acting in box-office breaking blockbusters on the other hand – that is just … well, strange at least. The first and only explantion that came to us was that he sold his soul to the devil. We cannot see his soul in his eyes, and he gets whatever is that he asked for. Oh, and if you are not convinced enough by that, just check out some really strange and mysterious facts from his life at his trivia page at IMDB.

Sweet November

Sweet November” was on TV. It is a pretty good romance movie with somewhat original story, although not unseen before.

The movie is nicely paced and with good character development but screwed up dialogues and slightly unsatisfying music. The biggest mistake was, of course, hiring Keanu Reeves instead of a real actor. Tough luck for Charlize Theron, who had to pull most of the movie by herself. She was as lovely as always though. She can act, she is very natural, and she is extremely energetic.

Nothing really more I can say about this film, so it gets a 6 out of 10.

P.S. Check the trivia page for this film.

Open Source Software: developers survey

I have recieved an invitation to fill in the second survey developed by University of Maastricht (the Netherlands) to study Free/Libre/Open Source Software. The first one was about two years ago and I barely remember it.

Anyway, these guys could use some help, so if you are in any way participating in FLOSS (I hate this word) community and have some time on your hands, check it out. It took me “You took 35 min 58 sec to fill out this survey.” There are slighly more than 40 questions.

Below is the full text of the email that they have sent.

Continue reading Open Source Software: developers survey