Cristiano on Tech/Life

So now it’s time for this year’s resolutions. I hope these ones are a bit more realistic than last year’s ones.

• Get healthier – I used to go running, and I used to weigh about 20KG less than I do at the moment. To be honest, I don’t care about my weight, but I do care that when I stop sporting I tend to feel worse and worse over time. So my only really must-accomplish goal for this year is to get healthier. I hope to lose some weight but it is more important to sport more and feel better over time.
• Finish or fail my master’s degree - This is kind of no brainer. This is my last year to finish my master’s degree. And to be honest: I don’t care anymore. But as it does seem like a waste not to finish it I think I have to give it one more try.
• (Co-)Organise more BarCamps - I have been involved with 2 BarCamps in London last year and although I’m not sure if I want to be in charge of organising another one I will definitely want to be involved in as many as I can spent time on. So, who is up for BCL8?
• Watch 52 movies of the IMDB top 250 – This was on my list for last year but it failed because Mel and I never set aside some time for it. Now we have a big screen and decent audio in the bedroom we might try it again. Plus we’ve actually been watching more and more older movies recently which means we’re kind of in the mood for most movies anyway.
• Fall in love with photography again – I haven’t really been making any photos last year because I guess I was pushing myself too much. I want to go back to the hobby I loved in 2008 and bring my Flickr account back to live.

It’s the time of the year again for New Year’s resolutions and so I start by looking back at the resolutions from the last year and how I did.

• Project 365 & 52 Themes – I completely failed on this. I came to about 100 in the Project 365 but gave up on the 52 themes after only a few weeks. I realised something very important: I am not a pro photographer and don’t want to be one. For me photography is really just a fun hobby, and as soon as it turns into something else it takes all the fun out of it for me.
• 52 Movies from the IMDB top 250 - We did try this, but somehow ran short on time. I think we maybe saw about 8 but simply never put aside any time to watch all the other ones. I guess we might have a better chance this year with a big screen in the bedroom.
• Try Linux - This is the only thing I really did, and only a few weeks back. With the arrival of my Dell Mini 10 I gave Ubuntu, Xubuntu and Mint Linux a try, but I realised it’s not for me. I agree with my original point that Linux is the best server OS out there, but for desktops it’s just not there yet. Like my friend Reinier said: why is Linux so innovative when it comes to architecture, but not when it comes to UI?

I guess I’ll have to do a blog post tomorrow with my resolutions for 2010 but I give it another night’s sleep to come up with some more achievable ones than last year.

Taiwan ‘Hack Girls’

[Edit: I had to replace the video with an older one because the original one has been pulled. This one doesn't have lap dancers but it sets the scene quite right]

Bad Yahoo! Very bad!

I’ve been working for a while now on a redesign of my own sites, which include my main site and my blog. Today I’m proud to release the first step of this new design namely this new fancy blog design. It is built from scratch and it’s interesting to have built a Wordpress theme like this for a change. I managed to add in some cool things, like nested comments and a sidebar widget for my “Small Talk” category.

The theme also has some custom fonts and some CSS3 magic, which means the site is best viewed in Safari or Firefox on a Mac, but don’t be afraid, it also works in almost every other browser, including IE6.

A few weeks back I attended the London Bloggers meetup, sponsored by Starbucks coffee. They were there to promote their new instant coffee with the “great marketing name” of “VIA Ready Brew“…. Not sure who came up with that one.

So, Starbucks Instant Coffee, sounds like a bad idea from the start right? That’s at least what I thought but I have to admit that this is probably the best instant coffee I’ve ever had. I mean, it’s no espresso or anything but it’s definitely better than any of the other instant coffee I’ve ever tasted. Traditionally instant coffee seems to be highly chemical stuff that looks more like dried up turd than actual ground coffee. Starbucks’ instant coffee on the other hand actually looks like a really fine blend of espresso coffee, and actually also smells like real coffee.

In the end the taste is still nothing compared to a good espresso machine, but admittedly most Starbucks customers (and this is even more valid for Brits) like to add loads of stuff like milk, sugar and vanilla to their coffee anyway. I’d say Starbucks VIA Ready Brew is a really good way to get some semi-decent coffee of you’re on the road, or on holiday, and it definitely beats most other instant coffees any day. Though, if you want some real coffee, make your way to a real Starbuck (expecting loads of slack from anti Starbucks pundits) or to any other decent coffee place in London.

Starbucks VIA Ready Brewis available in Starbucks stores all across the world and goes for about $10 per 12 sachets.

I know I could write down some traditional new year’s resolutions like last year, but everyone knows (and nobody cares) that I need to eat more healthy, sport more, etc, etc.

So here are some of my more geeky new years resolutions for this year.

Before making my 2009 resolution I thought of looking back at my 2008 resolutions and see how I managed.

• Get my MSc degree: Well, that was pretty much a big fail. I didn’t get far even while I managed to get some small things done. I managed to get my literature project done which leaves me with the big last hurdle.
• Work on my health: I have to admit that this was a relative success. In the first half year I started running, and although I have not run much in the last few months, I reached the main goal: feel healthier. At the end of 2007 I was constantly feeling tired and unfit, but due to some semi-regular exercise I have managed to get some stamina back. I haven’t lost any weight yet, but that as not the goal anyway.
• Organize events: It’s so weird to imagine that a year ago I had never organized an event. A few months later I was running one GeekDinner after the other with Melinda. We have some new Geek Dinners planned for 2009, and I’m also involved in the next BarcampLondon and the first PhotoCampLondon.
• Read more books: This is a semi-win. I haven’t read much this year when it comes to books, but I’ve read more eBooks, and more audio-books, and even the occasional paperback! I still have quite a few books to read, but my daily commute to work has enabled me to get through books more consistently.
• Wake up more early and more regularly: Well, given that I recently got a job with regular office times, it seems I managed to get this resolution in the bag. Not completely by choice though, but still a win.

So, 4 out of 5 wins, that’s not bad. What shall I promise to do in 2009? Read in the next post.

I don’t understand that part of the British audience that first complained about the Ross & Brand debacle and then complained about Clarkson in the first episode of the new Top Gear season.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!

Let me get it right, ok, the majority of people LOVE to watch idiots like Russell Brand because he is so outrageous and surreal. People make money because of the high viewing numbers of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and Top Gear. So why are these guys suddenly to blame for what we, the UK viewing, have always encouraged them to do?

It’s like teaching a kid loads of bad habits and then slapping them in the face when you notice other parents are watching! Plus what I honestly don’t get is why Ross, Brand and Clarkson are to blame for all this.

IT WAS ALL RECORDED!

Yes, the radio show was pre recorded and so was Top Gear. Which means that the material went from hand to hand before anyone decided to put it on the air. Even worse: there were loads of people probably on location (studio directors, producers, god knows who) that could have told any of them: hey, are you sure this is wise?

I don’t want to discuss wether or not what they did was right, wrong, distasteful or unethical, because that’s not my point. My point is that the scape goats are far from the only ones to blame, and the biggest blame probably rests on the viewers who complained about it!