How to cure Insomnia

Since I can remember myself I have been having problems with sleep. These problems have manifested in various ways, the latest one: Insomnia. But! There is hope and I found the cure!

Mathematics! Everynight I solve problems until I cant tell the difference between the numbers. The numbers slowly hypnotize me. When I cant solve any more problems I start reading historical notes about maths and they slowly put me into sleep. I swear that mathematics is so utterly boring that your mind is going to fall asleep immediately, if that is the only way to avoid the torture of numbers.

And yet I have been reading some completely interesting semi-philosophical stuff related to maths, like the fibonacci sequence or the mathematical triangles, or the pythagorian mystical school. Mathematics, music and the mysteries of life are very closely related!

To Generalize..

I just read this quote that thrilled me. For reasons I really do not feel the need to analyze.

"To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledge are those knowledge that idiots possess."
-- William Blake

It reminds me one of those discussions that a specific kind of men (sorry for ther rest of you guys) lead stating the great truths of the universe about mostly the sexual habits of the species of men. Limiting people according to any of their characteristics is a generalization to me, and maybe even paves the way for racism. Its like blaming a whole mass of people for the weakness of one (and yes this was refering to being unfaithful).

The Philadelphia Experiment

Area 54, Einstein's lost ship and the Philadelphia experiment were all terms I had heard but never really troubled researching into them. One of the reasons to that was the fact that they are favourite subjects of the esoteric branch. I might not have anything against esoteric but the Philadelphia Experiment myth refers to something purely scientific. Now after watching this pretty movie that dates back to 1984 I can understand why there has been so much talk about this experiment. The hole in the time-space continuum and the disappearance of the ship due to electromagnetic fields and nature's storms as a source of force, all seem like a possible scenario. The us navy rejects the Philadelphia experiment though, from what I read on the internet. The subject of the movie is intriguing, just like any good science fiction is. What makes this film particularly interesting is the fact that its very old and it is filmed in a very different way than modern sci-fi films. It has a particular charm in it and the love story that blossoms inside the mystery is convincing!

Google really knows everything?

I often look at my google ads on the sidebar; they can be very enterntaining sometimes. Other times the ads are completely dull. But this one made me laugh:

"The Secret To Happiness
Want more Joy? Experts Discover the One Secret to Joy and Happiness."

It seems that everything has entered the internet, even life's greatest mysteries. I hope they are not stored in a password protected site. I want access now.

The little fox

As I was driving home tonight I saw two bright and big spots on the road. "Too bright to be the eyes of a cat", I thought. I quickly slowed down and had to stop the car completely and quite suddenly. Luckily no one was driving behind me because he would have surely crashed on me!! :)) I didnt want to run over the poor creature. I expected that it would go away the more I aproached with the car, but it ran towards the lights and thats why I had to stop completely. When I stopped it raised its head and had a look and then disappeared in the bushes. I have no idea what that creature was. It was jumbing like a rabbit, it had a tail of a fox and ears in the shape of a triangle. But it was really small so I dont think it was a fox. Some other strange animal of the woods it must have been.

PS: I finally found out where this peculiar creature escaped from.

Hearts of Atlantis - My Film Review

Hearts of Atlantis. What a film! A poem! So true and natural like the way its actors performed. So beautiful and cruel just like life turns to be. Every moment of it is a sucess. The mood of the film is generally sad and nostalgic because it also stresses on the worth of the few moments of happiness. This contrast makes it particularly sad. It reminded me at times of the magic of my own childhood.

The story is about a boy who meets a mysterious man. He changes the boy's life in many ways, he is wise and mysterious, full of secrets and hidden abilities. He reads a lot and teaches the young boy to apreciate the value of books when his mother is lost in her own fake world, seeking worldly success and neglecting her son. But there is much more to it that the simple plot can confess.

When the film starts the boy is a grown up who comes to attend the funeral of one of his best childhood friends. There he gets to visit his old home and the story starts to unfold before his eyes, and our eyes as well!

Before watching this film and the beginning of it I was not sure I was going to enjoy it. The cover of the dvd is bizare, the old man in the film is also a weird person. The scenario does not clearly reveal who the man who didnt talk about his past was, but after the first half indications start to arise. It took me a long time to understand the meaning of the title "Hearts of Atlantis". In the end I was quite sure that this man had been a medium hired by the FBI during the "war against communism" as a newspaper in the film puts it. At times the film reminded me of another known film which is played by Sean Connery and an older young man whom he teaches to write I think. I just cant remember the title.

The old man is played by the great Antony Hopkins and the young talented actor is Anton Yelchin

Reinstalling Windows Adventure

The past week has been an endless effort to reinstall my windows system. For a few days I was looking for my bootable windows cd without any success. Then I burned a bootable cd and a bootable dvd but none of them worked. The reason? The reason was that my computer was set up in a way that it boots from the hard disk. So I had to change that setting in the BIOS. Thank god I still had the motherboard box around with some important manuals and cds inside, so I could read in there how to enter the BIOS World! There are two things in the computer that I fear the most : BIOS and the Registry of windows. Mistakes in them can prove fatal for the computer, although in the registry you can only mess your windows installation (which I have done!). I am not so sure how bad misconfiguration in the BIOS can be. Anyway, I had to enter the BIOS for the first time to change the sequence that the devices of the PC boot. I got great help from my friends at the antivir forum (amazing how these guys help) and I finally got to install windows! The installation was very quick, it only lasted 30 minutes and then I happily started to configure windows, change the settings, install drivers, programms etc. Until I installed the service pack 2. A disaster! The pc booted after the installation and could not open windows. I had no choice but to reinstall windows! Now I am downloading for the past 24 hours :P updates. I will create then an image of my system and try to install sp2 again in safe mode. No drivers installed yet but some programs. I hope it will work.

Secret Program Code : INTP Greece

This is so funny. The investigation of the greek scandal about the mobile phone spies has revealed something remarkable. It seems that the guy who killed himlsef knew all about the spies and was working along with 4 other members of vodafone on a secret program. This program had as its code-name the word INTP (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving) which the most rare MBTI personality test type. Now me being an intp myself and having some intp friends as well, we set up a greek INTP forum some months ago. Now we all hope that this is going to boost our forums popularity since the Jungian Typology is almost unknown in greece.

Nothing more than computers

Stardate 239802394892 and my windows media player does not open. I try to beam in incomplete microsoft drivers and we had two victims.

Media Player dies on the spot, Spyware Guard goes on strike and deactivates itself.

More and more programs refuse to open in the devasted planet windows xp pro sp2 of the VIRUSWITCH quarter.

Time to change our course Scotty.

I am Root

Check out the Hacker Story I wrote last night in "Another Galaxy". I had a lot of fun writing it.

PS: "Root" is the most powerful user or access level in computer systems (mainly in linux). The dream of the hacker thus is to be "Root" to have unlimited access in a system. Another funny (to me and to everyone else definetely dull *LOL*) word game is that the whole hacker community is often called "underground" which really is the place for "Root"s :)).

Notpron - The Hardest Riddle on Internet

Notpron is an interesting online game that calls itself the "Hardest Riddle available on Internet". It has been developed by a german guy (DavidM) with some help of his friends and consists of a great number of riddles. The solutions to the riddles, guide one through the site and the different levels.

This game requires some computer and internet knowledge and a lot of intuition. I am currently on level 11 and I can say that it is not your mental abilities to combine information and to process it that will make you solve the riddles. It is your instict that will tell you towards which direction should you channel your thoughts. One receives a number of hints from each page and I initially thought that each one of them plays an equal and important role in solving the riddles. Wrong! Sometimes you need to dwell and deepen only in one hint when all others are only there to mislead you. Unfair!?





It has taken me many hours to solve each of the harder riddles (they get harder after level 4), I would say a riddle takes approximately 4 hours of thinking and staring at the screen, maybe trying out some random stuff. Most of the times I am able to solve it on the next day (after a reboot the mind seems to be able to think in a more multidimension way).

I would recommend this game to people who have a loooooooooooooot of spare time. It has conquered much of my free time, something I am not grateful about *LOL*. Another thing is that it requires extremely much patience and coolness. If you are in hurry you cant solve this, and unless you are a genious or gifted with a sixth sense you need A LOT OF TIME to solve these. Most of the times I get really annoyed that I cant solve the riddles and give up. I am starting to think that level 11 has touched my limits.

Here it is, if you dare:

Play Notpron

PS: When I started this game I decided not to google for the solutions (cheating is not fun). Some levels require googling but it is done in a safe way by placing -notpron after the search terms. The levels that dont have a google bar do not need googling. However, if things get really hard, the author of the site gives some hints until level 9 and then there is also the forum that can be of help with hints (no spoilers).

When Politics messes with Faith

I have yet to make more research on this subject but if everything that this article states is true, then we have one more example where democracy dramatically fails.

We are talking about a law in India that is to forbid any practices of black magic and aghora as well.

Crimes have been conducted in the name of black magic and satanism, just like crimes have been triggered by politicians who have misused major religions such as catholicism and islam. I believe that anyone who misuses an idea and hurts the universal laws of democracy and the humand rights should be punished. But to forbid the belief in a certain ideological system without any particular reason is a fact worth of wonder. Can you set a limit to a mind? Can you censor my thoughts? And how will you do it?

My questions are:

- How will the government of India define the term Black Magic? How will it define the practices of Black Magic that are on their greatest part purely mental and psychic?
- Aghora meaning the fifth face of Shiva, is a great part of the Indian Philosophy, Tradition and Mythology. How can it erase such important parts of the past great indian civilization due to an unknown, inexplicable and unreasonable fear?
- How will the prohibition of all "evil" practices prevent real black magicians from carrying forth their work?
- Doesnt the Indian Government have more important issues to attend to than creating questionable mechanisms of public misuse?

I would like to know all parameters of this law but so far google has only given me another result that dates back to 2005.

The Clean Monday in Greece

Today was the "Clean Monday" or "Ashmonday" as it was known among the older generations. The Clean Monday is the monday after the fourth and final carneval sunday. It signifies the beginning of the 40-day period of fasting. On the 41th day it should be Easter Sunday. That is why women used to clean all their kitchen stuff on that day using ashes because they thought this purifies them from the meat. The christian orthodox fasting is a very interesting one and has a set of rules about what one is allowed to eat and what not. For example olives are allowed but olive oil not. Meat is not allowed but fish is. On Clean Monday people go out on the countryside and have picnicks with the traditional bread made for that day especially called "Lagana". Its a flat white bread. We also eat a lot of halvas on that day (a sweet out of sesame cream and sugar or honey). The funniest part is that kids get to fly kites through the air. So you can imagine that the greek sky is full of kites on every Clean Monday. I am not sure how this custom was established. This year the weather was very bad here unfortunately, we had very strong winds blowing that prevented most people to go out. I have a Pocahontas kite resting on the wall of my room from last years Clean Monday. I didnt get to fly it this year again. #$%$!

Enigma: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park

"Enigma" is one of the most brilliant films I have ever seen. Not only the complicated plot (based on the book by Robert Harris), but the way it is directed along with the excellent performance of the actors, compose a very impressive result. Every scene has a subtle meaning, every look of the actors is significant, every scene has its own tale to narrate. Until the very end, the director (Michael Apted) brilliantly guides the audience and reveals secrets of the long woven riddles. "Enigma" justifies its title through the film but does not let the viewer down. The solutions do come and they are unexpected.

What distinguishes this film from the normal detective ones is that it is much more complete. Romance, danger, frustration, nostalgy, war, spies, love, wits and mystery are components of equal importance that enrich the film in a unique fashion.

The plot is about an english mathematician (Tom) during the second world war that managed to brake the Shark Enigma, a code used by the germans to communicate. What really adds to the atmosphere of this film is that it narrates the past as an equally exciting adventure that interacts with the present and dominant story. We cannot comprehend the actual adventure without the bits and pieces of information and emotion that the scenes of the past full of nostalgy reveal.

Tom had a nervous breakdown due to the woman he loved and returns to the Bletchley Park after being treated. The Bletchley park is the place where all messages are decrypted and analyzed, thats where the Shark Code broke. The germans change the code unexpectantly, his ex-girlfriend disappears and a number of mysterious facts make Tom and the roomate of his ex-girlfriend believe that there is something very serious going on. Together they break a number of security rules to find out more about the codes, their common friend, political crimes and spies. This developes into an exciting adventure when at the same time war breaks and the codebreakers desperately need to break the new one.

I dont want to spoil this so if you want to find out what happens you have to get the dvd ;).

Wordpress 2.0.1 Multiple Vulnerabilities

The Neo Security Team published a number of errors in the programing of the well known blog software "Wordpress". It might interest those of you who use it. Unfortunately no patch is yet published for these bugs and exploits that seem to be critical.

Read more here.

Nasa Daily Astronomy Picture :: Paraller Universes

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060301.html

This is a computer enhanced illustration of our universe(s). Reminds one of the great eye of LOTR. I find this picture fascinating.

My Dog Phobia and its exceptions

I have always been afraid of dogs. I dont know why but they invoke an inexplicable fear in me. In our city there used to wander around (and still do) many stray dogs. When I was young whenever I saw one I changed my path. Once at a friends place, she told me to pet her dog. A dog that seemed very fierce and was barking all the time. I didnt want to but she said she will even hold his mouth. I reluctantly approached to slowly touch his head and woof!! the dog got away and tore my shirt apart! Luckily and due to my fast ballet abilities he didnt get to really bite me.

The first dog that won my heart was the dog of my uncle who was living next to us in the summer. It was a beautiful big black dog, woolf-like, like the ones that they use in the police force. What a clever dog he was! His name was Rex. I liked him but my phobia never let me touch him. But I knew he wouldnt hurt me, his eyes were very friendly. Once I was sitting around the place he was and wanted to give him something. I went home and got a piece of food. I returned but didnt know how to give it to him since I couldnt approach. So I was holding my hand very high above my head with the food in it until I decide what to do. Suddely the dog jumbed so high! took the food out of my hand without biting me! That was really amazing. Why cant I trust these animals that seem to be able of having good intentions as well?

The next dog I loved was a very small black one who showed up on the beach on day. She had no home, was beautiful and followed me home where I gave her soup! Since we couldnt keep dogs, my aunt took her home. I think I even touched that dog.

Those were two exceptions of the only dogs I have liked.

When I went to germany to study, I thought that country is the paradise of those afraid of dogs. No matter where you look, no stray dogs! None! Can you imagine how it feels to walk around in a city without any fear? Unfortunately there were other "stray" things to be afraid of which we didnt have in Greece, like drunk people in the train station and drug addicts. But thats another story.

A few weeks ago a black dog showed up at our home, we tried to sent him away but he always comes everyday. At one point I gave him some food because I though its a pity. He was so weak. And I am in a great dillema now. Everytime I return home he is there outside the door and I cant get into the house due to my phobia. He thinks he must come near me. And I dont want that. And I cant send him away or let him starve. The only temporary solution I have is the broomstick... Today a friend just went to him and kicked him away! So that I can go into the house! And then the dog tried to run to me! And he cryied. I am very disturbed and havent got the slightest idea what to do with this matter.