Year: 2004

On instant messaging

Pretty often I get complains from certain people that it is impossible to chat with me online in real-time. The thing is, I do use only two protocols for instant messaging: ICQ and IRC.

IRC is by far my favourite one. I like joining a channel or two for a topical discussion. Lately though I’ve been pretty busy and that changed. All I do now is get on the channel with some specific subject, like #perl or #fedora, ask my question, get a set of answers, and leave. Quick help so to speak. IRC is best for real-time discussions, but it needs an agreement on time and place beforehand. If you want to talk, I’ll be all ears.

ICQ is different. ICQ is good for passing a couple of messages back and forward. Also it is pretty indicative about the status of the person – if he or she is open for talk, or busy right now, or totally disconnected from the web. Keeping a serious and time consuing discussion with several people via ICQ is a headache. Also my personal problem with ICQ is that I always forget to switch it on or to switch it off. Popup messages are annoying and distructing, so I switch them off. Taksbar notifications are useless, since my taskbar is a hiding thing. This all makes it pretty difficult to notice when new messages are coming.

Anyway, since I was begged to get online so many times, I ‘ve slightly reconfigured my desktop and I am trying to get used to ICQ. I am using it now for three days in a row. If you don’t want me to quit it once again, now is a good time to message me. My Unique Identification Number (UIN) is 14956994.

Online MIDI Database

If you have one of those mobiles that don’t yet accept mp3s as ringtones, but already accept MIDI (hint: SonyEricsson P800), you’ll be interested in good quality, full length MIDI collections. I came across one such – MIDI Database. It provides a whole bunch of songs by a whole bunch of bands in a whole bunch of music genres and all for free. There are also links to commercial MIDIs in case you need some particular song. Good resources overall. Might be also interesting for keyboard musicians.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Hazard, Olga, and I went to the cinema to see “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow“. I was somewhat expecting this movie since the trailer was good and pictures from IMDB site were excellent. It turned out to be a complete disappointment.

This movie had a lot of potential. Probably, more than any other bad movie I have ever seen. So many things were imagined, thought over, designed, and worked at that they could easily make 10 sequels for it. The problem is that nothing of it actually stayed on the screen for more than 10 seconds. Gigantic robots that could transform from flying machines into walking warriors, airplanes that could fight under water, flying air platforms, fantasy world with dinasour type of creatures, space rocket with all sorts of animals flying into space, and much much more – all of that was perfectly designed but never shown appropriately. Even Angelina Jolie in tight leather uniform (German kind) with only one eye stayed on the screen for as much as 2 minutes overall. All of this was such a loss. Pity.

Another thing which was very original but harmed a movie a lot was the retro-type of shooting. Just yesterday I learned how give pictures a glow in Gimp and suddenly I get a whole movie done like this. Low saturation, high contrast, dark shadows, and glow over everything and anything is very very very tiring for the eyes.

And on top of all that, PG rating killed the story. Imagine having a movie about the war and the end of the world without a single drop of blood and anyone saying one cursy word. Very unrealistic and boring. Call me spoiled.

I will rate this film as 4 out of 10. All 4 points are due to the guys who were designing and creating decorations, machines, costumes, weapons and other items. Really great job.

The Belgian House

Hazard, Olga, and I went out today to check out a new place with Belgian beer. The place is called “The Belgian House” and it is located across the road from Molos promenade (nearby the traffic light for St.Andrews street). The place is small, nice and cozy. Outside, the biggest distruction is the road. Inside is very nice, but it wasn’t airconditioned, and thus a bit warm. We set outside.

Waiter provided us with a good service given with a strange accent of English, not heard before by me in these places. Comprehensible and OK though.

There are two separate menus: one for food and another one for beer. The food menu is very skinny and is actually just a couple of pages stempled to each other. There’s a set dinner with a good choice for starters, main course, and the dessert. The beer menu is much nicer. It has this solid look and feel to it. It is a rather thick book in leather with beer history, Belgian history, and a connection of Belgia and beer. Every beer has its own page with history, ingredients, characteristics of smell and taste. That is nicely done.

All beer comes in small bottles (about half a pint) and poured into branded glasses by the waiter. Most of what I’ve noticed costs about 3 CYP per bottle, which is kind of expensive (local Carlsberg is about 1-1.50 CYP per pint). Hazard and Olga settled for Leffe, while I tried a couple of new ones.

The first one I tried was Maredsous. It comes in three different flavours: green cap (6% alcohol), red cap (8% alcohol), and black cap (10% alcohol). I went for red cap. It had an excellent smell of brewery, but a rather harsh taste. It was too carbonated and had strong taste of spirit in it. The second one I went for was Duvel. It was a much nicer kind. Both the smell and the taste were much softer than from Maredsous. Very enjoyable indeed.

From the food department, Vladimir had some mussles for starter and some stake for the main course. Both were enjoyable. I’ve tried a piece of stake and it was pretty yummy and juicy. Olga and I settled for a snack plate which consisted of few small pieces of cheese, meat and salami. Very appropriate for the beer.

Overall it is a nice place to go to once in a while. I think it will be more enjoyable in the winter, when it would be not so hot on the inside. The lack of draught beer and high prices for beer don’t make it a good choice for an average outgoing.

On digital postprocessing

As I’ve already mentioned before, I am thinking a lot recently about digital postprocessing. It is not only the question of wheather I should do it, but if I should than how much changes are OK. Also, if postprocessing images say in the photo album, should I process all of them or just those that suck or stand out the most.

At times like this, opinions of other people are appreciated at most. If you have anything to say on the subject, please use the comments or email me. In order to show you where are my borders of a lot of changes and of a little changes, I postprocessed the image from yesterday submission to ‘Picture of the day’. To the left is image with few touches. To the right is image with slightly more obvious alterations.