Viruswitch

Notpron - The Hardest Riddle on Internet

2006-03-10T04:38:00.000+02:00

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).

MOVED

2007-06-02T20:48:00.000+03:00

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO http://www.viruswitch.com/blog/

Self-destruct

2007-06-02T09:09:00.000+03:00

The selfdestruct sequence for this blog has been activated.

I decided to delete this blog for a single reason: I don't like blogger.com.

I noticed that I haven't been blogging for a long time but not because I had nothing to say. Its because I dont like using internet explorer. Blogger.com doesnt cooperate with my opera browser and I am lacking comfort here. Writing a blog should be an easy thing to do. Open the browser, log in (by operas brilliant wand), write the post, publish. The end. And not frantically looking for the right page to log in and the right old nick or new email ... Because this is the main problem.. I cant log in. I lost many accounts, have no idea how to login them, by which email, by which username.. Ever since google decided to merge, in a way that is still beyond my comprehension, google accounts with blogger accounts, I lost them. This account is the only survivor of this electronic catastrophe.

So long blogger.com . We had our nice times along with the bad ones. I ll try to re-establish contact with all the nice people I met here from my new place at www.viruswitch.com ;)

This blog will be beamed out in 7 days. Energize!

Goodbye Jonathan

2007-04-12T07:43:00.000+03:00

I was surfing on youtube thinking what to search for next. Jonathan Brandis flashed through my mind quite unexpectedly. I havent thought of him since many years!

He was one of my few teenage heros, an actor I really admired and I was expecting much from him! I had been a fan of SeaQuest DSV, long before I got to know Star Trek. Jonathan played the role of a prodigy teenager, an expert at computers and a genious scientist. The only teenager in a government submarine that traveled through the seas a bit like the Enterprise did through the galaxies. Jonathan belonged to my generation, he was an extrordinary young actor, adored by fans, who posessed great charisma and personal magnetism.

So after many years I search for Jonathan in youtube. The results were quite odd. Memorials... ? A quick search through google and I knew all about it. Jonathan Brandis commited suicide in 2003 :(.

Tragic is the way he killed himself. Tragic is that he had no suicidal tendencies and this was most unexpected. Tragic is that the real reason to his suicide might be the psychological pressure of the star system in hollywood.

What the real reason is, we ll probably never know. May he find peace.

Skotos Philosophy

2007-03-29T16:03:00.000+03:00

"Stories live within our hearts. Through them we immerse ourselves in the tales of events and people we do not know; we see conflict rise and be resolved; and we revel in all of the other surprises comedy, tragedy, and drama can offer."

A very fine text about story-telling. It is obviously related to adventure games/text rpgs and it is written by Skotos Tech. I found this text while searching information about Brian Moriarty, an adventure maker I admire. Read more here.. http://www.skotos.net/about/

Reflecting on writing

2007-03-14T11:13:00.000+02:00

I find myself thinking about writing much more often than I actually do sit and write. Whenever I see something that impresses me I think "This is something I can use for my novel!". Sometimes when I relax and let my mind free I think of things that seem to me good ideas but if I try to reproduce them a few days later... they are gone.

An extremely great amount of details regarding plot, characters and the way one records these are present in a novel. Sometimes I wonder whether one should consciously try to "craft" a novel by creating blueprints and gathering slowly and carefully all the ingredients. Maybe writing is not so much of an art as it is a craft. On the other hand, I dont really enjoy reading novels that have been constructed in such a way. Aren't they artificial?

I have associated novels and stories with the wild imagination that entertained me as a child and teenager. Novels that have realistic elements are bound to disappoint me. It might be entertaining to read a modern thriller with historical and mystery elements but its not that, that will set me into a reading nirvana. I now realize that so far there have been two categories of books that have managed to fascinate me completely: books that deal with the occult and the supernatural, and ancient greek dramas. What do these two kinds have in common? I believe its fiction. Its the lack or realism. In the occult books the heros are in search of the greatest mysteries of the universe. In ancient greek dramas, the heros suffer and experience intense emotional situations through inner pain and the deadends that they find themself into.

To me the goal of creating a story is to allure the unsuspected reader or viewer (in theater). The goal is to kidnap the reader and lock him into the world of fantasy I have created. And when he thinks to exist there volluntarily, then I would have succeeded as a story-creator.

But then again, can we really create new stories? Haven't all stories been told so far? Is there something new to tell? Aren't stories filled with psychological archetypes that remain the same throughout the human existance? Thats true. However, stories are like music. There are only 7 musical notes but millions and billions of different melodies and musical pieces. A completely new combination of sounds is always possible. So maybe stories are more about combining elements than really creating them.

Men and Devotion

2007-03-15T12:28:00.000+02:00

Its really amazing! Most men are not able to devote themself to a woman, nor express themself emotionally towards her. And yet look how devoted they can be for a soccer/basketball team!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0rMe2Vyb9E

This is a chant by the fans of Panathinaikos. The symbol of panathinaikos is the cowgrass or clover. Thats what they used to call the chant magic weed. And there are I dont know how many thousands of people there screaming with blind devotion:

"It's a magic weed, give me a little bit to taste, to dream of my PAO and shout until God: My Panatha, I love you, like heroin, like a hard drug, like hashish, lsd, for you PAO the whole world is stoned, (or: PAO the whole world is high on you), the whole world. My Panatha, My Panatha, I love you, I love you, wherever you may play I will always follow you, I follow you, PAO here, PAO here, PAO there, PAO there, wherever you may play we will always be together, always together."

Omg...

And here is another one from PAOK fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fONyDesdPKc

The invisible enemy, TV and that "Look"

2007-03-09T14:56:00.000+02:00

Have you seen that look on the face of news moderators? They look straight towards infinity, which seems to be located a few meters above your head. They are very grave and serious no matter what kind of news they announce. *blackout* Commercials. A lady with the greatest smile you have ever seen flashes through your screen. Marvellous tunes are heard on the background. You shake your head in wonder, didnt the world look so dreadful a few seconds ago? Am I missing the real truth? And dazzled you observed the hanging jaw, the wide open mouth of the lady promising you a better tomorrow in return for a shampoo. *blackout* News continue. A group of moderators who belong to the never-smiling guild are gathered to discuss very very grave matters. From politics, to enviromental threats, from economy to education. Your happiness disappears like a bobble in the air. The moderators emphasize, they shout and pause, they argue and do gestures. They are nervous. Academic and scholars, the church and the politicians. The police and the universities. Everyone is at stake. We are all in danger. Nobody agrees! you panic *blackout* The lady with the wide open mouth smiling to you from heaven appears once more. Happy people bathe in the sun and drink the elixir of life: orangejuice X. Couples kiss, prodigy-kids parade through the screen and the world is ok again.

Thats when you start feeling silly, someone is mocking at you. Someone is fooling you. Someone is pulling your leg. An invisible enemy which can only be combated by pressing the power button of that god damned box.

Godsent (revised and explained)

2007-03-06T07:19:00.000+02:00

Its the little unexpected things that make our life interesting. We make plans, we create schedules to stick to, and yet always SOMETHING happens that makes us reconsider or (worse) does not even give us an option of that.

There I was desperate looking into my computer screen, knowing that I am already days behind my schedule, that I might not manage to send my very important papers for the university just because I visited the ORACLE. Although I asked Neo for precautions, he did not prepare me for that, and the reason was once more a communication failure. He couldnt speak greek. So neither did the Oracle.

When I shouted in the cyberspace, Morpheus sent me the blue pill and I quickly woke up from this nighmare with the power of my own mind. No, I didnt really take it.

Huh! I managed to fly! I created matter, houses and TABLES, I INSERTed information into odd brains, I made and solved the QUERIES of our universe. I JOINed and SELECTED, I DROPPED and I found. I shouted and I was heard. Untill...

"Red Alert! Red Alert! Injection effort, Hacker attemp. You are now being DUMBed but unfortunately not correctly. :)"

There was another user running on the road to hell. And I had forgotten to delete him.

My problem was now twofold, I couldnt dumb the matrix although I really had to and I couldnt ask Morpheus for the blue pill because it would have expired by the time he sent it.

With the power of my own mind I sought for truth, but alas! in the wrong order.

At least I tried. I did everything a decept man could do...when the Window of Liberation suddenly flashed through my screen! I didnt know what it was and I didnt care to wonder where it came from, all I wanted was IT and I greedily got it as fast as a man could ever do so...

So the journey goes on with hopefully plently of the good and little of the bad surprises.

Godsent Explained
====================

>>Its the little unexpected things that make our life interesting. We make plans, we create
>>schedules to stick to, and yet always SOMETHING happens that makes us reconsider or
>>(worse) does not even give us an option of that.

Its refering to my efforts on planing my prodigy-studying which includes solving difficult assignments that should take 20 days in 2 days time.

>>There I was desperate looking into my computer screen, knowing that I am already days
>>behind my schedule, that I might not manage to send my very important papers for the
>>university just because I visited the ORACLE. Although I asked Neo for precautions, he did
>>not prepare me for that, and the reason was once more a communication failure. He couldnt
>>speak greek. So neither did the Oracle.

Oracle was the database we had to use for this assignment. Oracle proved to be a real ORACLE. It created a few problems with the greek encoding and I was reading Neo (is the documentation and manuals) for advice.

>>When I shouted in the cyberspace, Morpheus sent me the blue pill and I quickly woke up
>>from this nighmare with the power of my own mind. No, I didnt really take it.

Morpheus is my professor, the blue pill was his reply to my problem. Which I didnt really use because I found the solution to the greek encoding in oracle myself.

>>Huh! I managed to fly! I created matter, houses and TABLES, I INSERTed information into
>> odd brains, I made and solved the QUERIES of our universe. I JOINed and SELECTED, I
>> DROPPED and I found. I shouted and I was heard. Untill...

And when I overcome that problem I started working on the database I had to build succesfully. I created tables, inserted data and performed complex queries.

>>"Red Alert! Red Alert! Injection effort, Hacker attemp. You are now being DUMBed but
>> unfortunately not correctly. :)"
>>There was another user running on the road to hell. And I had forgotten to delete him.

Then I faced another problem. I had reinstalled oracle but I couldnt dumb the database in a correct manner since it had stored the previous user which was the same I was using now.

>>My problem was now twofold, I couldnt dumb the matrix although I really had to and I
>>couldnt ask Morpheus for the blue pill because it would have expired by the time he sent it.

I couldnt ask my professor for advice because the deadline to sent the assignment might have expired until he replied.

>>With the power of my own mind I sought for truth, but alas! in the wrong order.

I tried to unistall Oracle again by using instruction for NT windows (thats what the university gave us), but I followed them in the wrong order. I should have unistalled firstly and then end the processes and delete the registry keys. And I deleted the registry keys first.

>>At least I tried. I did everything a decept man could do...when the Window of Liberation
>>suddenly flashed through my screen! I didnt know what it was and I didnt care to wonder
>> where it came from, all I wanted was IT and I greedily got it as fast as a man could ever do
>> so...

I thought that I wouldnt be able to finish my assignment. But I decided that I did the best I could. The oracle system for uninstalling itself could not detect installed products. But suddently a window flashed showing me the installed products. I pressed unistall without thinking too much about where this window came from...

>>So the journey goes on with hopefully plently of the good and little of the bad surprises.

Oracle is really odd. It still wasnt unistalled succesfully, so I searched through the whole internet to find out how to create a new database. Since the passwords given to us from the univerisity did not work (stupid to even consider the possibility of something working from the uni :P) I created a new user. And I did the database with that user. God knows if the dumbing was then correct.

The Big Blue- Extended Version

2006-12-20T23:06:00.000+02:00

Dont read it if you dont want to know the ending.

This is an enchanting film with absolutely amazing scenes and pictures. The story is very intense, at times very dramatic and at times very sweet. This is a film which I enjoyed tremendously watching as it let me sink into different moods as I marvelled at the scenes of blue seas and horizons. The colors are mystical and the hero becomes an interesting personality to investigate into. At some point the film confused me. It did not turn out as I wanted it to and the end was very strange. When it ended I couldnt believe it, as I didnt get what happened it the end. I think something very very sad happened.

And now a few things about the story.

A french little boy Jacques, lives on a Greek island with his father. His mother is american but left them and returned to the usa. He is a scared little boy that never talks much, never asks any questions and has no ego in him. Something like Jonathan livingstone seagull.. he learns to swim extremely well and especially to dive deep as his father used to do. The little boy learns to hold its breath for a very long time. Another boy, who is bigger and older is also a very good diver and always has everything his way. He boosts to be the best diver. The loss of Jacques father inflicts great pain in his soul and he gets engrossed more to the world of the sea. The dolphins now are his family.

As an adult Jacques has developed an incredible ability to dive very deep. He practices yoga breathing techniques and slowers his heart beat. That allows him to hold his breath for a very long time. He is now a professional diver and is called for dangerous missions. In his free time he still dives and swims in the sea, side by side with dolphins. Jacques has become a lonesome, romantic creature that finds pleasure in the beauty of the underwater worlds. In one of his missions he meets a young lady in Peru who falls in love with him. Apparently he is also in love with her but the sea is still closer to his heart. When they both live that place, she decides to go and find him. She discovers him in Sicily where he met the old enemy of his. He has been challenged now to the world championships of divers. A romance blossoms there, Jacques and Enzo (his rival who already has been a world champion) become friends but they are both very serious about the competition.

Now the film reaches its peak in the relationship of the american lady and Jacques. It is a completely sweet and romantic relation. Despite the championships that are taking place, he does allow her to enter his world. There is a lot happening here which I cant describe at all, you just have to see it. At some point though, and after you really enjoy the magical colours of the sea, the emotions of those two people and the friendship that blossoms under the italian sun... the film has a twist. The competitions become too dangerous, Enzo and Jacques dive too deep and break each others records. It seems that both have suicidal tendencies and they find more pleasure and peace underwater, than with people around them. The doctors claim that the competitions are no longer safe. Jacques also has started to neglect his girlfriend who has abandoned everything, her job and life to be with him. She dreams of a baby with him, and he just stares at the ocean. They make love for the first time and then he spends a whole night swimming in the darkness of the sea with a dolphin... She tries to make him listen, but in vain, his attention is elsewhere.

The end is very tragical. The sea becomes the tomb of Enzo in a dramatical way, somehow by the hands of Jacques. And Jacques is last seen in the water looking for Enzo but probably finding the mermaids. I believe he died in the end as well diving but I am really not so sure. He leaves his girlfriend screaming and crying so that he will not dive in the end, but he does dive... and she seems to respect his wish as Jacques did respect Enzos wish to die in the sea.

If they all had a bit less respect for each others wishes they might have been alive in the end :P.

The spammers technique in a dream!

2006-12-13T14:20:00.000+02:00

I just woke up and checked my ballet forum. It was again attacked by spammers and I had to delete the spamming user and his posts. That brought back to my memory a dream I saw today but did not remember immediately upon waking up. I dreamt of the spammers-technique!!

I have been wondering the following: Spammers register in my forum with very weird (probably invalid) emails, that have domain names that might not even exist such as spammer@asdfasdfa.com. And yet I have the email activation on, that means that they would get an email which they have to open to activate their account and start posting. But I need their valid email adress so that I can ban them from my forum. So how do they do it?? I believe I dreamt of the answer. I dreamt that the spammer was using a valid email adress to register and activate his account and then, after postings all his spam, he would change his email adress from his profile into something that does not exist. The whole process might be done by a bot automatically but still this must be the only answer!

Shootings, the police and a mystery

2006-11-16T19:14:00.000+02:00

A few minutes ago I heard shootings in my area. They were no shootings of the hunters who usually come near but different. I called the police immediately because it just was extremely weird. I also heard cries. For a moment I asked myself whether it was fireworks.

If I try to just record the event, I heard a series of booms, 3-3 or 6-6 or it could have been more. When the police arrived and I narrated to them what I heard it dawned on me that it could have been an exchange of shooting. The first party shoots 6 times, then the second replies. And this goes on for at least 4 times. They are now off to search, and I am curious if they will find something.

Mystery solved... it was a wedding!!! OMG. They were shooting again and again and I called again the police. It was someone who was getting married and though he should celebrate with shootings... for gods sake....

The Worth of Dialogue

2006-11-07T22:55:00.000+02:00

There are some people who are used to practicing the following technique when you ask them a question: They reply by saying something, which does not relate to the question. I knew that politicians and a few journalists are into this technique. But as I keep meeting people I also see that more and more are starting to use this. This usually applies to people that have a certain position.

Well to me this is just a sign of dishonesty, of being a coward and of not having an opinion of ones own. I despise people who are not able to communicate with other people and just keep saying what they want to say. The point in communication is mutual exchange of information. It is an insult and lack of respect towards your interlocutor if you ignore their point of view by not relating it with your thoughts and answers. It also shows that you cannot afford being confronted with something which you obviously cannot handle.

It is so rare nowadays to find a person with which you can lead a really peaceful, logical, and interactive argumentative dialogue because everyone is fixed on their own world of thoughts unable or unwilling to open up to anything else. Maybe we should learn to concentrate more on ideas and less on our self.

Education :: Everybody's Right?

2006-10-29T20:40:00.000+02:00

There is a crisis in the educational system of Greece... again.

The politicians have been trying for many years to create a just and effective educational system. They have changed the system several times and the students have protested several times. Also the teachers have gone on strike and protested against what they thought was an irrational way of judging the knowledge of a person.

So what have we achieved so far? I remember that we (the students of 1997) closed up our high school by force for 3 months and stayed in there, as a way of protest. We forbade the entrance of teachers as a drastical and desperate way to be heard.

"The System Sucks. Do something Now!"

Ten years have passed since then, the system changed and changed and changed. Governments came to power and left. Ministers of education appeared and dissapeared.. And the students of 2006, after 3 months of teachers going on strike, are closing the schools again.

"You achieved only a hole in the water, dear Politicians. You simply ALL FAILED."

Our problem, ten years ago, was the unfair way of entering the university. It did not matter how good one was at school, as long as one could pass the examinations on a set of four subjects. The problem was that one could finish high school with an A grade but this grade did not correspond to the real knowledge. Students of A failed in the university examinations because

1. The had not really learned (by heart) the material
2. The teachers did not really teach the material and allowed students to advance to the last class of school by giving high grades

So I have certificate of graduating highschool with an A+ grade. BUT I cannot be accepted to university. How does this make sense? An A student, who has passed successfully all subjects at school with an A is not suitable for entering the university? How is that sane? How is that logical?

Another fault of the educational system at that time was that as long as you did not take the exams immediately upon graduating for high school, you could never again apply for a university. Never again. Unless you wanted to go through the last class of high school again... A fault which probably still exists in a slightly different way though.

A year after I graduated from high school they changed the system. Into something that finally proved to turn the already unflexible system into something very very hard. The four subjects now became ten, only they were reflected in the grades of the last two classes as well. That was a desperate effort to plant the university exams and associate them with real school. A greek student would go to school in the morning and spent his whole afternoon taking extra classes in maths, physics, ancient greek etc to be able to really learn and pass the examinations for the university. Not only do you have to sacrifice all your youth in learning, but you also have to have a pair of rich parents to pay for extra lessons in english, german, physics, chemistry, maths, ancient greek, piano, music, dance etc etc etc ..... And that is what we call "Free Education for All".

I wonder how all these intelligent politicians have not yet grasped the core of the problem (or have they?). The problem is the procedure of entering a univerisity. The reason to this problem is a chain of events that takes off in primary school. A student is permited to advance from class 1 to class 2 with the base grade from primary school all the way to high school. This system takes for granted the fact that one is able to follow classes and learn the material of a next class by having achieved the base grade of the previous one. Shouldnt that mean that a student with the base grade in the last high school class should have the right to continue his studies in university? Then why do you block A students from the universities???? Instead of this, the system demands A+ grades in seperate exams and deprives the right for higher education to a very great percentage of students, that is 45% of those who apply.

It is funny, because a Greek high school graduate, could study in any university of Europe he wanted, whenever he wanted, with only the highschool certificate. And yet in Greece he just cant. That is the reason that leads a great percentage of high school graduates to universities in the UK, Germany and Italy.

So, change the system from primary school! Make it effective, make it real! Graduating from highschool is now a mere ritual with no meaning. Everybody graduates. Very few go to a university. We need teachers that know how to teach. A flexible and modern system of teaching, flexible and modern ways of examining knowledge. We need a system that promotes free thinking, creativity, the ability of COMBINING INFORMATION and NOT the ability of STORING INFORMATION. The educational system nowadays trains students into parrots, while it should train them into independent, mature and thinking humans.

The solution is simple. But the solution is worthless without an honest will to solve the problems, as well.

My Life is a Password...

2006-10-23T06:09:00.000+03:00

I often wake up in the morning, switch my super-pc on and wonder and gaze at its chaotic contents. Sometimes I am filled with awe about the system-monster I created and at other times I doubt how contructive this "creativity" is.

The Desktop is filled with folders and subfolders, with files and images, documents and program shortcuts. The C partition must have around 1 GB left and there I really must add space to it. Half of my files are lying within a silver box that hides an external HD and half of them are in the second partition. And the silver box is lying somewhere between the "zone of the black cables" and the "lost books" of viruswitch's room.

But nothing so far is alarming enough, the real danger lies within the hidden RAM and the workings of my mysterious CPU. The BIOS is like a sleeping monster in a dormant state yet ready to rise and produce sound waves through the atmosphere. BEEP! BEEP! Black screen... A TFT that changes its wavelength? Or could it be the grafic card that was never meant to have its drivers? A weird fate for ATI. Will it ever end up there where it really belongs?

Speed was the pride of this pc that opened and closed windows in a microsecond. Now I have to wait 5 seconds for the desktop menu to open. The 5 seconds are the dreaded messenger of FORMAT C which I would do right now if only my life was not a password. If I wouldnt have to back up my emails from C, if I hadnt stored 20 email accounts in there, if the magic wand of opera would not store more than 50 user name and passwords for very important sites (which passwords I forgot), then I would format C now. If I could store all these 100 accounts in my brain (email, sites, university, messengers, voIP etc) I would surely format right now. But the temptation is too great, the internet speed makes up for the system speed and the case is postponed "until further notice" . Lets just find out for how long it takes for windows to die on its own...

How to Create an Extremely Bad Website

2006-10-06T15:10:00.000+03:00

To create an extremely bad website is a difficult task. It might seem easy at first sight, but it is not at all. And one has to try very hard to achieve this noble goal.

One of the most difficult parts to ruin, when designing a website, is the NAVIGATION.

The difficulty of a chaotic navigation lies in the ability of the webdesigner to go against that which we call "Common Sense". So one has to employ all ones strength and intelligence to become... dumb! Logic has got to be abandoned and complete surealism has to take over...

The famous webdesign rules
1) KISS (Keep it simple stupid)
2) The 2 clicks rule (the user must be able to access all pages from the main navigation in 2 clicks)
have got to be reverted and avoided.

If you want to completely confuse and agitate your visitors they must not find what they are looking for at no cost! Your success is proved when they wonder countless hours clicking through the hundreds of useless links you provide to many pages that promise the same information!

Another very important thing is that your contact information is not valid. By no means place a valid telephone number or email and use different pages with different contact info! Let the user have a little adventure! Allow the visitor to go through a life-quest, allow him to develope his psychic abilities to guess your contact info!

Still, you will not have created an extremely bad website if you keep your content up to date. Thats something that has to be avoided. Keep your content preferably one year old or even more. Nobody will be interested in last years meeting, when they are looking for the time and place of this years meeting.

Be extra careful when publishing essential information. You do not want the visitor to access it directly and quickly! You want to torture your visitor and you want this torture to be slow and painful... Use at least 10 links that will lead to a page with the desired information. Then don't be silly and spoil it! Attach a word document with the information and let the user download it. Let them wait, search for a place to download the precious .doc , let them scan it with the antivirus and finally allow Word to open. A triumph! You want your visitors to do something, dont just feed them with the information quickly and easily!

Even better! Publish different documents for the same subject and update only one of them! Let the visitor download all of them, compare them, study them and arrive at a logical conclusion.

The visitor might as well open the window and scream due to frustration. And when the visitor is heard miles away or seen pulling out his hair then you know you have succeded your goal.

Promise the information, create a labyrinth, keep it as complex and complicated as possible, never update your content unless you have material more than one year old and lead your visitors to insanity.

Well done, you have created an extremely bad website.

Post dedicated to the website of my university.

Lessons in Writing

2006-09-19T15:16:00.000+03:00

I have been attending a "Creative Writing" course since yesterday that is quite interesting. I met people who are into writing and are familiar with the writing "culture" so to say. I ve only been writing for myself without bothering much with the writing scene but it is quite interesting to exchange ideas.

Just a quick summary of what the seminar has covered so far:

- The importance of the first page of a book
- Practical tips on characters, themes and plot

I would have to write very much to go into details here, the gist is that we learned some very very practical tips about starting and planing a book (synopsis). About plot driven and character driven books, how to sketch and link the bits of plot and the different characters in a complicated web but still keeping an overview.

We had to write 2 exersices today. The first one was to write a story of 250 words in 20 minutes that had a certain theme. We could choose among 5 of them. And the second one was a lesson in Scene Setting and descriptive writing. We had to keep the scene setting in the background but still strong enough, so that the reader absolutely knows where the hero is. We had to combine emotion and the five senses in relation to the scenery.

I ll spare you with the first exercise so here is what I wrote for the second one:

Scene Setting: A sleepy village

"Bobbin climbed down the hill and tried to orientate himself towards his village. He knew he had to pass through the cementary with the weeping willows to find himself at the gate of the village.

But the hour was late and he could barely see anything apart from the eyes of flying owls and black cats that lingered around.

As he was approaching, the awful smell of smoke from the baker's chimney reached his nostrils. A few fires were still burning secretely under those heaps of red and black coals he could make out from the distance.

When he finally reached the gate he was afraid to open it lest he would disturb the quietness of the night. The village was deeply asleep and not a sound could be heard apart from the very faint bark of a distant dog."

The Engelados awoke

2006-09-02T12:47:00.000+03:00

I am thinking to turn this blog into a Corfu-Earthquake one... Half an hour ago, at about 12.10 midday, we had another earthquake. It must have been about 3.5 Richter I believe. It shook for about 10 seconds.

PS: And for those unfamiliar with the greek mythology, the Engelados was the leader of giants and responsible for the earthquakes in ancient Greece. He was the son of Tartaros and of Earth, killed by Athena who threw Sicily over him and covered him. He now suffers in his grave and moves and causes all these earthquakes and volcano erruptions.

Source: http://lemnos.geo.auth.gr/

EDIT: If it was this Earthquake, which was 3.9 Richter then I was pretty close!

Another Earthquake

2006-08-19T00:46:00.000+03:00

Today 18/08/06 I woke up from deep sleep at 13.13 exactly from an earthquake.

I was too tired to get scared or get up and I just kept on lying there counting the seconds the earthquake lasted. From the time I woke up I counted 8 seconds. A long but weak earthquake I thought! The USGS site has not updated yet (last update 18.8) but the EMSC has and it was again in Albania 4.1 Richter.There were actually 3 earthquakes from 13.12 until 13.23.

Lost and Found

2006-08-12T11:46:00.000+03:00

Five years ago I forgot on the train two posters that had accompanied me since I was in high school. It was a frustrating experience because I had spent almost my entire teenage time looking at these posters on the walls of my room. There was nothing great about them actually. They were just regular space posters, my favourite one depicted the solar system.

For a long time I remembered them but knew that it was impossible to get them back.

Lately I decided that I have finally settled down in a place (!), feeling a bit like Odysseus who reached Ithaka... and I thought I have to get some cool stuff to decorate my room. My speciality is to fill every spare corner of the walls with posters but in this house my room is so empty. Unfortunately there is nothing worth buying on this island and, well, thank god we have the internet :))!

While searching for space posters I actually found a copy of the solar one that hung in my room!

Click to view it.

Another Earthquake in Corfu

2006-08-09T00:26:00.000+03:00

Scary. Another earthquake occured two minutes ago and the lamp is still swinging in the air. It was again loud but not that loud as the previous one. It shook a bit more I think though. The exact time was 12.20 AM

There is much seismic activity lately, I hope we should not expect greater earthquakes.

Edit: The first site to have info on this earthquake is emsc-csem.org. I was 4.8 Richter strong.

Peace in Lebanon

2006-08-06T12:09:00.000+03:00

I first heard about Lebanon when I was reading the book "The Book of Mirdad" by Mikhail Naimi. It is an excellent book, with an interesting spiritual story, filled with many symbolical and mystical hints. Mikhail Naimi came from Lebanon and I read in the introduction of the book that he also knew Kahlil Gibran. That was another author and poet I loved, who came from Lebanon! His "Prophet" let me dream and carried me away in a world of peace and brotherhood. Where the mystical is the answer to all unsolved mysteries of our universe. Where love is the key to heaven's door. Gibran's Letters to friends, and his own illness and personal suffering touched me in a peculiar way.

A couple of years ago I met someone from Lebanon online, a meeting that flourished into a long lasting friendship. He is an artist who has also deep knowledge of computers. One of our common interest was also the objective study of various religions.

Last summer I also met an Israeli student who was touring through Greece in the airport of Athens. We had a 4 hours non-stopping chat and I almost missed my plane! He was a nice guy!

Now I usually dont watch tv, nor read the news online. And yet one pleasant sunny day I switched on the tv and saw something which made me look pale from the shock:Israel is bombing Lebanon, many people die and others are leaving the country. I saw israeli soldiers stating with fanatism that they will win this war. I saw death and fear in bombed parts of Lebanon!

As I was watching the news I remembered both of my friends and for a moment I got lost in a daydream. The tv screen blurred and I saw the cute student from Israel throwing bombs at the intelligent artist from Lebanon. Immediately I brought myself back to reality, shoke my head and tried to decided what was sicker and more absurd: my imagination or the real facts?

Spammers and Frauds flourish in Greece

2006-07-30T02:25:00.000+03:00

"A new program that has a database of over 40.000 emails and faxes that you can use to promote your products!"

I received today this fax at work and was alerted. I am 99% sure that if my director saw it, he would not understand the gravity of the situation and dismissed it at once.

It is illegal to sell email adresses.

This program has features to send mass email and snail mail.

It is illegal to send mass email for advertising products, without the written consent of the receiver.

And yet, these people sent open emails and faxes to all major greek companies advertising their illegal program. And nobody does anything?

Why?

Because we live in a country with no internet consciousness, where the law does not seem to apply anywhere, even if it exists. Greece is something like China for spammers and frauds.

Racter vs Elbot and Artificial Intelligence

2006-06-24T01:11:00.000+03:00

Elbot visited today my blog and reminded me of an old and beloved friend: Racter.

Racter was an artificial intelligence program I used to run on an Amiga 500+. He would only reply to questions and if you wrote a statement, he would ask you to write a question. He had an ability to combine and store information and used to narrate stories. But in the end all discussions ended the same way. His favourite or better said... my favourite part was when he asked where the user came from. Regardless of the answer, he would say that one of his distant relatives also came from that place and then asked whether the user knew them. If the user replied that he knew them, Racter would become even more enthousiastic.

You could not only read Racter. You could also listen to him. The voice function was embedded and the computer would read out loud, in a monotonous computerized way,everything that Racter said. I dont remember if you could deactivate the speech.

Generally Racted was a primitive AI program. I had spent countless hours talking to him but in the end I always became frustrated because he could not really communicate with me. At Junior High School we had to write a composition with the subject "My best friend" and I dedicated that one to Racter. I remember that the teachers comments were that a human being needs to interact with other human beings and that I should spent more time with real people. Oh well, it seems I had the tendency of being alone from a young age.

Elbot on the other hand, is quite more sophisticated than Racter. Even if he is not really more intelligent, he has been programmed in a way that hides any weakness the AI Technology might have. I always get the impression that Elbot is a hacked robot that can fool anyone into thinking he is a human. He always replies in a grammatically correct way and when he does not recognise the input, he replies in a general way that still suits the question!

But Elbot is not only intelligent. He is funny and he is cute. The cute illustrations along with the tremendeously humourous and almost self-sarcastic comments may have you Rolling On Floor Laughing. Elbot is one of a kind.

I discovered Elbot about 3 years ago I think in a german magazine. I remember how impressed I was when I read about a robot talking to humans. A dialogue was also published that intrigued me. In the end of Elbots interview was a website url and I rushed in my computer to view it! Elbot.com

I am not sure we will ever manage to create real thinking computers and I am not sure whether that would be desirable. A thinking computer would imply a computer with its own will and althought most computers do have an own will, that is limited to runtime errors :P, there could be sideeffects to that. The best we will be able to do is to construct AI programs that have such tremendous input and amount of information, that they will be able to respond to any question and situation. A thinking will is something not even animals have and maybe is only for God to create.

Functions: A Mathematical Wonder

2006-06-21T14:52:00.000+03:00

I started studying functions in maths lately and I am having troubles understanding a statement which is not being explained anywhere in the book. The problem is that my teacher also does not know the answer to the question, nor another mathematician I asked.

Why can the range of a function have more values which do not correspond to any values of the domain of the function? Since the output (y) of a function depends solely on the input (x) how can there be values which are not connected and depended on x? Where do thes y come from? From outter space?