JulioBiason.Net

Here is my “Top Rated” playlist on my iPod. Just to give you some background: I sync my iPod play count with my iTunes and use AutoRate to rate the songs. You can’t see that in the latest version, but AutoRate uses play count, skip count, last time played and a decay to rate your songs (I haven’t checked the algorithm itself, even being an open source project.)

Anyway, the list:

• 009 Sound System – Dreamscape Long Edit (Annex Trax, Vol I)
• Alanis Morissette – Thank You (Alanis Morissete: The Collection)
• Annie Lennox – Walking on Broken Glass (Diva)
• Arena – Tears in the Rain (The Visitor)
• Avanatsia – Lost in Space (Lost in Space Part 2 – Avantasia)
• Avantasia – Farewell (The Metal Opera)
• Avantasia – I Don’t Believe in Your Love (The Scarecrow)
• Avantasia – Lost in Space (Lost in Space Part 1 – Avantasia)
• Avantasia – Lost in Space (The Scarecrow)
• Avantasia – Sign of the Cross (The Metal Opera)
• Avantasia – The Looking Glass (The Metal Opera, Part II)
• Avantasia – The Scarecrow (The Scarecrow)
• Avantasia – The Story Ain’t Over (Lost in Space Part 1 – Avantasia)
• Ayreon – Act III “Visual Echos” (The Final Experiment)
• Ayreon – Computer Eyes (Actual Fantasy)
• Ayreon – Connect the Dots (01011001)
• Ayreon – Day Five: Voices (The Human Equation (disc 1))
• Ayreon – Day One: Vigil (The Human Equation (disc 1))
• Ayreon – Day Seven: Hope (The Human Equation (disc 1))
• Ayreon – Temple of the Cat (Universaion Migration, Part I)
• Ayreon – Tower of Hope (Into the Electric Castle (disc 2))
• Ayreon vs Avantasia – Elected (Elected EP)
• Carol Woods & Timoty T. Mitchel – Let It Be (Across the Universe)
• CCP: Jon Hallur – Akat Montains
• CCP: Jon Hallur – Retribution
• Cohed & Cambria – Welcome Home (Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV)
• Conjure One – Dying Light feat. Joanna Stevens (Extraordinary Ways)
• Conjure One – Sleep feat. Maire Claude D’Ubaldo (Conjure One)
• Crowded House – Fall at Your Feet (Recurring Dream: The Very Best of Crowded House)
• Cyndi Lauper – All Through the Night With Shaggy (The Body Acoustic)
• Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time (She’s So Unusual)
• Daft Punk – Burning / Too Long (Alive 2007 (Live))
• Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Discovery)
• Daft Punk – Human / Together / One More Time (Alive 2007 (Live))
• Daft Punk – Prime Time of Your Life / Brainwasher (Alive 2007 (Live))
• Daft Punk – Television Rules the Nation / Crescendolls (Alive 2007 (Live))
• Daft Punk – Too Long / Steam Machine (Alive 2007 (Live))
• Daft Punk – Touch It / Technologic (Alive 2007 (Live))
• Def Leppard – Animal (Hysteria)
• Def Leppard – Go (Songs from the Sparkle Lounge)
• Def Leppard – Heaven Is (Adrenalize)
• Def Leppard – Promises (Promises)
• Def Leppard – Stand Up [Kick Love Into Motion] (Adrenalize)
• Def Leppard – Thorn To Shreds (X)
• Def Leppard – Tomorrow (Song from the Sparkle Lounge)
• Def Leppard – YOu’re So Beautiful (X)
• Edguy – King of Fools (King of Fools)
• Edguy – Matrix (Rocket Ride)
• Edguy – Navigator (Hellfire Club)
• Explosions in the Sky – Your Hand in Mine
• Garry Schyman – Praan (Praan)
• General Public – Tenderness (On the Charts: I.R.S. Records)
• George Harrison – I got My Mind Set On Your (12 Arnold Grove)
• Information Society – Ozar Midrashim (Don’t Be Afraid)
• Information Society – Peave & Love, Inc (Peace and Love, Inc)
• Information Society – Seek300 2.1 (Don’t Be Afraid)
• Information Society – Synthesizer (Synthesizer)
• Information Society – The Seeds of Pain (Synthesizer)
• Information Society – To Be Free (Peace and Love, Inc)
• Jim’s Big Ego – Cut Off Your Head (The’re Everywhere!)
• Jim’s Big Ego – No Better Than You (The’re Everywhere!)
• Jim’s Big Ego – The Ballad of Barry Allen (They’re Everywhere!)
• LazyTown – You’re A Pirate
• Men At Work – Down Under (The Best of Men at Work: Contraband)
• Michael Schenker Group – Diggin’ Hard (Sltlife Reveries)
• Midnight Oil – Beds are Burning (Diesel and Dust)
• Monty Python – Comfy Chair (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – Constitutional Peasant (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – Election Special (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – I Bet You They Won’t Play This Song on the Radio (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – Interlude 2 (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – Interlude (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – I’ve Got Two Legs (Monty Python Sings)
• Monty Python – Parrot [Oh, Not Again] (The Final Rip Off)
• Monty Python – The Knights of the Round Table (Monty Python Sings)
• Parn – Gradius Perfect Selection (OC Remix)
• Phil Collins – In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins: Hits)
• Pink Floyd – Coming Back to Life (The Division Bell)
• Pink Floyd – Goodbye Cruel World (The Wall, disc, 1)
• Pink Floyd – High Hopes (Pulse, disc 1)
• Pink Floyd – Learning To Fly (Pulse, disc 1)
• Pink Floyd – On The Run (Pulse, disc 2)
• Pink Floyd – On The Turning Away (A Momentary Laps of Reason)
• Rush – Afterimage (Grace Under Pressure)
• Rush – Bravado (Roll the Bones)
• Rush – Hope (Snakes & Arrows)
• Rush – Limelight (Moving Pictures)
• Rush – Resist (Test for Echo)
• Rush – Roll the Bones (Roll the Bones)
• Rush – Sweet Miracle (Vapor Trails)
• Rush – Time Stand Still (Hold Your Fire)
• Spock’s Beard – The Good Don’t Last [Radio Edit] (The Kindness of Strangers)
• Tenacious D – Beelzeboss [The Final Showdown] (The Pick Of Destiny)
• Tenacious D – Classico (The Pick Of Destiny)
• Tenacious D – Destiny (The Pick Of Destiny)
• Tenacious D – Kickapoo (The Pick Of Destiny)
• Tenacious D – POD (The Pick Of Destiny)
• The Galvatrons – When We Were Kids (When We Were Kids – EP)
• TISM – Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me (The White Album)
• Yes – Amazing Grace (YesYears)
• Yes – Arriving UFO (Tomato [Remastered - 2004])
• Yes – I Would Have Waited Forever (Union)
• Yes – Love Will Find a Way (YesYears)
• Yes – Saving My Heart (Union)

Como eu ando sempre com os fones de ouvido, o pessoal costuma me chamar primeiro no MSN/GTalk. O Bedin senta exatamente na minha frente. No momento, estamos trabalhando no mesmo problema, sendo que ele está cuidando da API enquanto eu estou olhando a interface. Ele me manda a API e, na sequência

(12:16:02) Guilherme Bedin: ele nao os atributos direto
(12:16:08) MSN: ele nao o que?
(12:16:16) Guilherme Bedin: atributos direto

Segue uma discussão ao vivo, onde o Bedin me explica exatamente o que quiz dizer, mas incluindo “é MSN, eu posso até te chamar de miguxo.” Quando os ponteiros são acertados, ele volta:

(12:28:34) Guilherme Bedin: sai para fofuxo
(12:28:44) MSN: po miguxo, nao brabo
(12:29:17) MSN: haha, engoli o verbo tambem sem querer.
(12:29:40) Guilherme Bedin: viu para bom miguxo meio verbo basta

It’s been around 3 months that I’m away from World of Warcraft. Not because I’m trying to give up my addiction or because I’m pissed with something Blizzard changed; the problem is that I don’t have a proper place to sit down and play for hours like I used to. Also, internet is not that good here, and latency is a problem with WoW. Due these problems, I kept thinking about going back to Guild Wars, the first MMO I played.

Guild Wars have a different movement model, which makes it easier to play without a mouse (and, thus, without a proper place to sit.) Also, some places (the outdoors, outside “outposts”) have their own instance, so you don’t need to worry about someone coming and messing with your game and, better yet, since you can enter those areas alone, you don’t need to worry about latency that much, since you’re running most of the area all by yourself (thus, solving the latency problem.)

There was another thing drawing me back to Guild Wars, though: The gorgeous scenery. I’m not kidding: There is one place in the first game (they had 3 expansions already, I own 2 of those plus the original game), which I could sit and just keep looking at the screen for hours. I may have taken a screenshot a long time ago and used as wallpaper, so gorgeous it looked.

This weekend, after fighting for ages trying to run on every way I could think of (VirtualBox, wine, free version of Crossover), I finally managed to make it run thanks to the paid version of Codeweaves Crossover (still on trial, but I may buy it.) And I spent a good part of my weekend playing the starting areas again, just to remember how to play (not to mention that I may have messed up my skills/talent points on my previous characters so better start clean.) And, after that long, one question that I asked myself while playing WoW never pop up:

Am I that character or a person playing that character?

I know it sounds weird, but I asked that myself several times: When I’m playing… Am I the character? Or Not?

Truth is, I never really found a good answer for that. Yes, I get immersed in the game and its story but I can’t quite make it if I’m that character running around killing things and getting gold for that.

Thing is, even if Guild Wars looks better and have a more natural look on everything (i.e., the characters have a more human look, the animals based on real ones really look like the real ones), it doesn’t give that impression of immersability that WoW have, even if the later have a much more cartoonish look.

In a thought, Guild Wars should provide a bigger immersability than WoW: It looks more natural, the events look more like real life, the locations are more real life but, in the very end, it doesn’t feel like the game “traps” you into itself. WoW, in all it’s cartoonish way with dwarfs, elfs and blue goats from outer space still is capable to dragging you out of this plane to somewhere else.

Experiment continues…

^{or “It’s not the change, but it’s the seed of it”}

So Apple announced yesterday their new product, the iPad. Some people call it table, some people call it a big iPhone/iPod touch, some call it “balloon boy”…

But, in the end, it’s a game changer. Not directly, but it put the seed to change a lot of stuff.

PDAs
If you had any hope PDAs would come back, well, forget it. Although most of the smart phones have PDA features, their small screen isn’t so good for most of the stuff the “real” PDAs do. The iPad big screen (compared to most smart phones), with it’s non-really-tiny keyboard (even being virtual) kills most of it.

Kindle
The Kindle seems to be the first target of the iPad and Jobs even said the iPad wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the pioneer work from Amazon and now they would “stand on their shoulders.” Well, at the first look, it doesn’t look so much of a challenge:

• Kindle costs about $230, the low entry level iPad costs $499 (almost twice);
• The Kindle screen offers higher resolution (824×1200 vs 768×1024) and have a better ppi (150 vs 132.) And let’s be honest, when you’re reading a text, it doesn’t matter if the screen is gray scale or color, it’s black text over white background.

So, why the iPad affects the Kindle market? First of all, the iPad is not just a eBook reader: It also have a browser and email client and, althought Kindle also have a browser, it’s fairly limited. So, when you count that you have a small device that can do more than just read books, it may be worth paying twice for it.

In the very heart of the situation, though, is the fact that Apple is selling books. Let’s be honest, the Kindle is nothing more than a vechile to Amazon sell books without worrying about the logistics of sending a bunch of paper sheets with ink on them to a person somewhere in the globe. Apple iBook store will go head to head with Amazon on that and, after the 1984 fisasco, it’s image is somewhat scratched. And let’s not forget that Apple managed to convince a bunch of corporate luddites that music can be sold without DRM (even after selling them with DRM for a long time — I know, I was there when they switched.)

Netbooks
Small form, can connect on most WiFi networks… Sounds a bit like a netbook, doesn’t it. Well, not a first glance. A netbook like the Dell Mini 10, which comes with 160GB (10x more than the entry level iPad), 11.6″ screen (against a 9.7″ screen) may sound like an undisputed winner, specially when it costs $399 against iPad’s $499. But when you think about what people do with Netbooks, it mostly email, web and text editing. But when you add the latest Windows version, it’s price jumps to $520. And it can still go higher if you replace Microsoft Works (bundled) with the latest Microsoft Office.

Apple redesigned their iWorks suite to fit the small screen of the iPad. And they are offering each of the 3 applications (Pages [word processor], Numbers [spreadsheet] and Keynote [presentation]) for $9.90 each. So you can get a small office suite for about $30. Which is around the same price for the Dell Mini (although you’ll have to deal with a virtual keyboard instead of real one.)

And really, I don’t think the harddisk size actually matters that much. Most people that use a netbook for email, web and small editing really don’t go that deep into the 160Gb (which is mostly used by the operating system itself.)

Not saying that the iPad is a clear winner, but it has a nice place in the netbook market.

Telephony
Wait, what? Telephony? What the hell!

Well, it’s one of the small gems hidden in the iPad. Together with the launch of the new device, Apple is releasing a new SDK, version 3.2. This version removes the restriction of VOIP applications.

Now think about it: You have a VOIP application that can run on your Wifi (and 3G) tablet and on your 3G phone (since the same OS runs on both iPad and iPhone/iPod touch.) This is big. With the price of a data transfer, you can talk to anyone in the world, anywhere you are. Old telephone companies must shiver with the prospect of landlines going to be canceled ’cause people won’t need them anymore.

(Edit) MID
MID (Mobile Internet Devices) is an area where Nokia pushed a lot. The N900 is the latest of that line of devices, which started with the N770 and, as far as I know, it’s the most famous (and successful) line of MID devices so far. Again, the iPad goes head to head against them and, due the screen size, I must say it’s almost a loss for Nokia.

On the other hand, if you remember that on every new series Nokia simply stop any support for the previous operating system (the N770 with Maemo 3 lost support when the N800 was launched and now the N800 with Maemo 4 is out of support with the N900 and Maemo 5), basically means Nokia shot itself pretty good in the foot. If only they cared about their older systems (the first iPhone STILL can get the new OS) they might had a chance. But too late.

So it’s all good?
No, not at all. The iPad, although (as I believe) is a game changer by concept, it’s new that big in the real world.

First of all, it’s the lack of multitasking, which is, let’s be honest, a stupid move by Apple. It have the power to do so, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like buying a Ferrari and going all around on second gear. The only hope is that, at some point, Apple releases an OS that it’s capable of multitasking properly (if not, it will have to be jailbroken.)

Second, it’s the centralized model around the iTunes Store. As an old user of it, I thought it was really amazing that I could get music easier than pirating it. But it’s not all roses about it: I was living in Australia and the Australian Store, although selling the soundtrack of “Across the Universe”, didn’t have the full version of some albums: Most of them are only complete (2 discs and all) only in the US store. And, worst of all, there is absolutely NO WAY of buying ANYTHING in Brazil. This is completely stupid. And you can believe some more stupidity may come, like not being able to buy some books in the original language due your region (or worst, no books at all.)

Third, no Flash. Oh wait, that’s actually a good thing.

(Edit) Fourth, the lack of ports. For everything you need to connect on the iPad, you’ll need a converter. A huge mistake here. Imagine if that came with a simple video output. BLAM! Install Keynote and you have a nice presentation tool to carry around!

Summary
I really believe the iPad is the start of a new generation of computing devices. I want my PADD and walk around the Enterprise with things to show to the captain. But the centralized model Apple insists on pushing may do more harm than good (well, maybe not at their home.)

(Edit) In case you’re asking yourself “so, he means I should get one or not?” the answer is “no”. I’d like to get one myself ’cause I’m a gadget guy (I walk around with a phone and an iPod touch, sometimes I carry my N800 with me, I have a Palm T|X in a box, a GPS thingy somewhere and just thrown away one of the first iPaq models ’cause it was not working anymore) but I’m pretty sure I’d save the money to buy something else. At the same time, as it’s the first iteration of such line of devices, I guess it’s better to let the people with huge piles of money to buy it right now and wait for the next generations. Unless, of course, you have huge piles of money or is a gadget guy (with some money to spare.)

One of my friends like to use the expression “balloon boy” to everything that gets a lot of attention but it turns to be a lot less interesting in the end.

Go is a new language created by Google that recently went open source and generated a lot of buzz in the interpipes.

As someone who have been working as programmer for almost 20 years and worked with almost a dozen languages and, on top of that, have a blog, I think I’m entitled to give my biased opinion about it.

One of the first things that got me off was the video pointing that the language is faster. Or the compiler is. Honestly, pointing that you become more productive because your compiler is fast is utterly wrong. If you’re aiming for a new language and you want people to be productive with it, make it so it’s easier to write code right in the first time. If you need to keep compiling your code over and over again till it does the right thing, you should probably check if there isn’t any impairment in the language itself that prevents right code to be written in the first place.

Which brings us to my second peeve about Go: The syntax, as presented in the tutorial. Syntax, in my opinion, is the biggest feature any programming language have to offer. If the syntax is straightfoward and easy to understand, it makes easier to have multiple developers working on the same code; if the language allows multiple “dialects” (or ways to write the same code), each developer may be inclined to use a different approach to write the code (which basically does the same thing) and you end up with a mess of a code where most developers would feel like rewriting than fixing a bug or adding a feature.

The first thing that caught my eye was the “import” statement that at some point uses a name before it and a block in the second example. Why two different ways (well, three if you count that one is probably optional — in the middle of the statement, nonetheless!) to import other packages with the same command?

Variable declaration also feels weird. “a variable p of type string” is longer to read than “a string p” (comparing var p string := ""; with C way string *p = "";). And that goes on. If you keep reading the statements in their long form (expanding them to natural English), all commands start to feel awkward and adding unnecessary cruft on the code, things that could be easily dismissed and force people to do less typing.

The “object” interface seems derived from JavaScript, which is a bad idea, since JavaScript have absolutely no way to create objects in the proper sense. And, because object attributes and members can be spread around instead of staying grouped together, like in C++ and Python, you can simply add methods out of imports. Ok, it works a bit like duck-taping methods in existing objects, but still can make a mess if you add two objects in one file and people decide to add methods just in the end of the file: You end up with a bunch of methods about different objects all spread your code, when you could “force” them to stay together.

So far, those were my first impressions of the language and, as you can see, it was not a good first impression. Focusing on compile speed instead of code easiness/correctness seems out of place for current IT necessities and the language seems to pick some of the worst aspects of most languages around.

A few years ago (two or three), I saw Richard Stallman at FISL where he said that things like Webmail were bad ’cause you don’t have any control over the software it runs in the server. In a way, he is right: How do you have any control over your data if you don’t have any control over your software? How can you be sure that the server isn’t doing something nasty with your information since you have no way to request the source code?

Requesting the source code is one of your rights if you are using a GPL-licensed software. That way, you can be sure that the application is not sending your information to someone else or looking for things it shouldn’t. But the GPL says that distributed software should have its code available; in a web 2.0 world, nobody is distributing any software: it simply is there. Therefore, even if you run a GPL application, do lots of modifications, because you’re not distributing it, you don’t need to make your changes available to the world.

The thing that was bothering me, though, is related to some web apps/websites I used at some point. They had this pretty cool thing and I was wondering “Is that something I know, like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or whatever?” but, in the end, I couldn’t find anything that would say what they were using in the backend. And, just now, I was wondering how the GPL would apply to such websites.

Besides the GPL, there is another very useful license: The modified BSD license or simply “BSD”. The only rule the BSD license requires (compared to the “5 freedoms” GPL enforces) is that you can’t remove the copyright from the original authors. You may add your name, but the original copyright must appear somewhere. I wondered, then, if the GPL would have such requirement. I’m not a lawyer, but I think this does:

5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.
[...]
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.

That, to me, sounds exactly like the BSD. So, if you’re using a GPL software in your webserver, you must point, somewhere, that the engine behind your powerful site is copyright the original authors.

Now you must ask yourself this: How many websites out there are using WordPress with a modified theme that completely removed the “Powered by WordPress”? Or sites that chose (not sure why) the GPL version of the jQuery and didn’t mention that anywhere?

I know I had some troubles with Apple and OS X since I got my MacBook Pro, but I think that, when someone does something right, you should say it.

So, in the end of 2007, I decided to give myself a MacBook Pro as Christmas gift. I had a computer, but the battery wasn’t that good, and the graphics weren’t that good, and the machine was a bit outdated… And I heard wonders about Apple hardware. So, why not? And, on 23rd of December of 2007, I became the owner of a 15″ MacBook Pro, the aluminum case.

Fast forward about 6 months after that. Apple announced the recall of such models due a problem with the NVidia chipsets. At the time, I did check the serial number and, as such, I had one of the laptops that could be affected by this problem. But, heck, everything was running fine, so I didn’t worry about that.

Fast forward again 7 months, January 2009, one year and about 1 month since I got the laptop. There I was, playing EVE online when something weird pops in the screen. It was some sort of blur, some lines drawing in the wrong place and the game locked. At first, I ignored it, ’cause the Mac version of EVE was kinda bad. Turn off computer, turn it on again and I’m back. I did some coding and decided to play WoW. A few minutes in the game and I get the same wrong drawing and the same locking, which is quite unusual for WoW. Turn of computer, turn on again, and I get a warning saying that I needed to turn of my computer to reboot. I gave the computer a few minutes, turn it on again, talk to some people on IRC and… blur and locking, and the same message after rebooting. But, even after waiting, it still didn’t come back. I kept getting the same wrong display and same warning. And I took pictures of the screen.

Time to use that recall Apple offered. One year after buying the MacBook, I lost the receipt, so I took the computer back to the shop I bought it, “My Mac” in Bondi Junction. I showed the problem, which weirdly worked fine for the first 2 minutes and told the guy that I knew about the NVidia problem and that the serial number was one of the affected one. As it needed some tests to verify that it was a NVidia problem and not something else, the guy asked for about a week. Well, sure, no problem with that.

I got a call about 4 days later. The guy said that, and I quote, “I plugged an external monitor and got the same drawing problem, so it’s a problem with the logical board.” The repair cost: $400 (or so I thought) and it would take another week. One day after that week, I called the shop. The guy told me that there was a change in the price and it would, actually, cost $1700, but because he gave me the price of $1400 before, it would make it for $1400 plus service. Ok, first I must say that I actually have problems hearing people over the phone and the guy had some thick Indian accent. That was too much and I said no. Unfortunately, I had to pay the service of $100.

Why I didn’t replace the logical board, after all? Well, I’m a computer guy and, although I write software and know shit about hardware, I know that if your video card is broken, it doesn’t matter if you change the monitor. It simply doesn’t make sense. So, as any terminal disease a doctor gives to you, I decided to go for a second opinion: Apple itself.

I took the notebook a Saturday morning. I was kinda expecting that I could just drop it there and wait for their tests, as I did in the My Mac. But Apple, being not like others (“Thinking Different”, I think) said that I should book a Genius appointment before dropping it for repairs. So, without a choice, I booked on for the next Monday.

Monday, I explained the same thing I did before to the guy in the Genius Bar. He said it could be a memory problem and, thus, would try changing the memory. At this point, I kinda felt stupid: I was not using Apple official memory, I bought some 4Gbs after a few months. If it was the bad memory…

Anyway, the guy when in the back, and came back a few minutes later. He said that he replaced the memory, got the same problem, so it needed to replace the logical board but, because it was under the warranty (the NVidia warranty), they would replace it for free. The repairs would take 3 days. When I signed the paper confirming the repairs, there was a clause saying that it could occur a fee of $100 due service. Well, I payed $100 already for a service that would charge me $1700, paying $100 for a free new logical board seemed pretty cheaper.

One day after those 3 days I was in the city and decided to check the Apple store. The consegliere told me that, due some backlog, it would take some more time, maybe to the middle of the week. Well, no problem. Monday, 7 days after I took the laptop to repairs, I got a call from Apple saying that the service was complete. I rode all the way to the city to get it back and was greeted with a surprise that even the service was free because of the warranty.

So, there you have it. It doesn’t matter where you buy your Apple stuff but, if you need repairs, better look for the official Apple store.

Let me start this by saying that, although I like The Who, it’s not one of big bands in my playlist (as in “I’m don’t think I can be called a fan yet”.) But yes, I do enjoy a lot of their songs so, although not almost peeing in my pants like they were Def Leppard, I went to their gig in Sydney. That proved to be a smart move, after all.

The show started with Dallas Crane. The description of “alternative rock” sounds perfectly for them. I got a little bit late into their show and I thought “hey, they sound like a hard-rock Beatles”, only to get a completely different type of song next and then think “They sound like The Police”. Also, unfortunately for them, it seems the audio was bad equalized and drums and the second guitar had a louder volume than the rest — so you would hear the beat taking over everything else. Really bad.

Then we had Counting Crows. Now let me be honest and say that it took me 2 songs to remember that their greatest hit was Mr. Jones. Yeah, I lost contact with them since that song. But, for some reason, all the songs they played sounded most the same (you can blame me for thinking that — I’m far away from being a fan.)

Then, them. The Who. It’s hard to imagine that, at 64 and 65, Townshend and Daltrey can have so much energy — specially Daltrey, which didn’t stop a second. Even the few minutes he could rest, he would stay in the stage and do something, like spinning, running in circles or playing tambourines. That’s one thing that, to me, seems to show how much he was enjoying being there. Not that Townshend was out of stage all the time: He also performed incredible well, with new riffs and chords for some old songs and going into length in his solos.

The playlist order was kinda strange to me. Usually, artists play their most famous songs in the end, but they played the famous ones (Baba O’Reily, Who Are You, which appeared in TV series recently) right in the beginning, leaving some less known songs in the end.

Anyhow, one night I won’t forget too soon.

The Playlist:

• Can’t Explain
• The Seeker
• Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
• Fragments Of Fragments (not sure)
• Who Are You
• Behind Blue Eyes
• The Relay
• Baba O’Reily
• Eminence Front
• 5:15
• Love Reign O’er Me
• My Generation (without the lisp)
• Cry If You Want
• Won’t Get Fooled Again

And the encore:

• The Kids Are Alright
• Substitute
• Pinball Wizard
• See Me, Feel Me
• Tea & Theatre

For a while, I’ve been ranting about the new “Star Trek” movie by J.J.Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. This morning I finally realized why it bothers me and why the line “OMG, boobies in Star Trek?” makes me giggle.

First, let’s take a look at the list of main Star Trek characters in the series:

• The Original Series: James T. Kirk, Spock, Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Montgomery Scott, Hikaru Sulu, Pavel Checkov, Uhura (and let’s throw Christopher Pike just for the sake of it.)
• The Next Generation: Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker, Geordi La Forge, Worf, Beverly Crusher, Wesley Crusher, Deanna Troi, Data.
• Deep Space Nine: Benjamin Sisko, Kira Nerys, Odo, Julian Bashir, Jadzia Dax, Quark, Miles O’Brien, Jake Sisko, Worf (yes, again), Ezi Dax.
• Voyager: Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, B’Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, The Doctor, Neelix, Kes, Seven of Nine
• Enterprise: Jonathan Archer, T’Pol, Charles Tucker III, Malcolm Reed, Hoshi Sato, Travis Mayweather, Phlox.

  Go on. Go clicky-clicky and try to find the two that doesn’t fit. I’ll wait.

  Did you spot the two?

  Ok, the answer is: Wesley Crusher and Jake Sisko (although I made it hard for you to noticed why Jake doesn’t belong there.) They are the only teenagers in the whole list of series that were main characters (there we some kids in “Voyager”, but they would appear in only one or two episodes.) All the others look like they are in the late twentys or early thirties (with a few exceptions that look more like they are getting into their fourtys.) And that also includes non-human, ageless forms, like Odo, Data and the Doctor, and the ones with longer lifes, like the Vulcans. Even the youngest crew of all series, the Voyager (they were going into final training before going officially into service when they were transported to the Delta Quadrant) looks like they were in the later twentys.

  And that’s why the new Star Trek bothers me. All the actors (with the exception of McCoy) look like they are in their early twentys and in full operational status already. Even in the original series, when the Enterprise goes into its official mission of “explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations”, Kirk looks like he’s in the late thirties. And now you have a Kirk that looks like he just out of puberty.

  Yes, there were boobs in the TOS. But they belonged to mature females, not some out of puberty, hormone full chick.

  To me, it looks like the tone of Star Trek changed from “When you get out of your studies and do some real life training, you may be a member of the most important ship of the human race” to “jump into the most important ship of the human race! All you need to do is be able to talk!”. Sign of the times, maybe, when you’re supposed to finish college and be a full experienced whatever-they-call-you-in-the-field. But, still, Star Trek looks a little bit tainted with an “easy way to get there” view.

  But, then again, I’m an old trekkie (although I never remember if the proper way is trekker or trekkie…)

• I should stop reading Planet Bazaar or I’ll soon switch to it. #
• By the way, Mitter network layer redesign proposal: http://code.google.com/p/mitter/wiki/NetworkRedesignProposal #
• Some writers ruined Star Trek, but J.J.Abrams wants us to forget it ever existed: http://ping.fm/k6gzN #
• (or, at least, makes us wish we never really saw that.) #

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