Year: 2008

Twinkle – sudden popularization of Cyprus

There was an sudden boost in searches for Cyprus yesterday.  The reason for that was a bug in Twinkle – a Twitter client for iPhone.  For some reason, Twinkle was identifying current location wrong for a whole lot of users.  Instead of being somewhere in the States, they were said to be Nicosia, Cyprus.  That probably felt very surprising for them, especially considering the fact that not many of them knew what or where Nicosia, Cyprus was.  Hence, all the searching.

There is a rumor going around that it was the work of Cyprus government, desperately trying to keep tourism levels up.  You, of course, should believe whatever your tin foil hat tells you to believe…

30, here I come!

Yesterday I celebrated my 30th birthday.  That was a blast!  I received congratulations and best wishes from more people (and bots) than I ever did.  In fact, there were so many that I can publish some statistics (numbers are approximated):

  • Automated greeting messages from forums and social services: 35
  • Phone calls: 15
  • SMS messages: 10
  • Paper postcards: 1
  • E-cards: 1
  • Emails: 4
  • IM chats: 15
  • Social networks contacts (Odnoklassniki.ru, Facebook, etc): 70
  • In person: 20

Some of these overlap, but not that much.  Messages started coming in from Monday afternoon and they are still pouring  in. Needless to say, I am overwhelmed.   A huge thank you to all of you!  You made my day.

Subscribe to PrimeHome channels with remote control

I’ve had PrimeHome for quite some time now. So I don’t know of this feature was there before or if it is one of the recent additions, but it’s pretty cool. Apparently, you can subscribe to additional TV channel packages with just a remote control. No need to call or drive to any of those PrimeTel shops, no need to fill any forms, and, most importantly, no need for any waiting.

Here is how it works. Go to the menu and select the channel that you don’t have but would like to. You’ll see a static PrimeHome screen, with a line at the top saying something like “Press red button to subscribe”. Press the red button on your remote control now. You’ll be asked to enter your PIN and once you do, your STB will reboot and you’ll have the channel enabled. You’re done.

A few things to keep in mind:

  • You can easily subscribe with remote control, but not unsubscribe. To unsubscribe you’ll need to visit their shop and fill the form. Maybe you can do it over the phone too – I’m not sure, but it’s for sure not as easy as subscribing.
  • When you subscribe with remote control, you don’t subscribe to a single channel, but a package of channels to which it belongs. Check the list of channels and prices for each package at PrimeHome web site before subscribing.
  • When you subscribe with remote control, you will be shown a warning that the minimum period for your subscription is two month. I don’t know if the same policy applies when you subscribe through phone or from inside of their office, but it’s worth knowing. If you get yourself an expensive package, you’ll have to pay for at least two month of using it.

That’s about it.

Alpha Dog

I just watched “Alpha Dog“.  It wasn’t the movie I was looking for, I just grabbed it by accident.  It had a cheesy title, way too many people on the cover, and an overall B-movie feel to it.  I got it anyway, just to have some extra movies to watch over the weekend.  I’m glad I did.

I think there should be more movies like this. And then, hopefully, there will be fewer cases such as the one shown in the film.  Nobody wanted for things to go bad.  But those people who could have kept the situation under control, weren’t near enough.  Then things started spinning down.  Then they continued.  Then nobody knew what to do and how to get out.  The result – dead teenager and a few more broken lives.  Who’s fault?  Everybody’s. The kids themselves are guilty of what happened.  Most of their parents are guilty.  The society as a whole has the part of that guilt…

The film like this, with all its messages, thoughts, and story developments could have easily survived with weaker technical sides.  Gladly, the film was done excellent on all levels.  The cast was very good, and even though Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, and Justin Timberlake are in, they aren’t the highlights of the film. OK, maybe with the exception of Justin.   The photography was very interesting at places, and helped to create the atmosphere (especially that scene with parents waiting for the kidnapped child at home).  The soundtrack was great too.

Overall, a strong 8 out of 10.  A must see for parents with kids, fans of criminal drama, and those who simply like good movies.

Live Free or Die Hard

I just watched “Live Free or Die Hard” DVD, also known as “Die Hard 4.0”.  I was trying to catch it in the cinema, but somehow that didn’t happen.  I’m glad I finally caught up with it.

I was something anxious and worried about this new “Die Hard” episode.  After all, the previous parts were so good, and it’s been more than 10 years since the last one (the last one was “Die Hard: With a Vengeance” dated 1995).  With this new one be as good as those parts?  Isn’t Bruce Willis too old for this?  I had no clue, but follow-ups to some other films of the past proved to be worthy (*cough*Rambo*cough*) – that gave me hope.

“Live Free or Die Hard” turned out to be as good as the previous movies.  And maybe even better.  For one, special effects and the whole visual craft went a long way since John McClane had a gun in his hand.  Even watching it on a 15″ screen gave me shivers sometimes.  I imagine how impressive some of these scenes looked in the cinema!  Sometimes, of course, it goes a bit too far – like in that scene with a fighter jet, truck, and bridge – but in action movies with Bruce, Sylvester, and Arnold it is always better to go a bit too far rather than not come close enough.

Another thing that I was worried about before watching this film was the computer theme.  The 4.0 is the title of the film suggested that there will be a lot about computers.  Plus I saw the trailer, and it was obvious that we are back to square one with graphical user interfaces for searching, tools with progress bars for password breaking, and all sorts of communications, security, and general IT terminology.   Well, the computer side of the film was as bad as you can get it.  But, on the other hand, it was so unrealistic from the very beginning, that I had no problems abstracting it away from the real life.  Meaning that in my mind there was this natural separation of how computers work in real life and how they work in this particular movie.  So that wasn’t a big problem.

Overall, the film was very nicely done, entertaining and in the same mood as the previous ones.  So I got what I expected and even more so.  I’ll give it a firm 7 out of 10.