FCHouse

Spambook

Posted by Carlo - 20/12/07 at 12:12:04 pm

Let’s face it. Sooner or later someone would have started a chain letter.

I will NOT forward your idiotic Hoax to a hundred of my contacts before Saturday. I do not believe that my sexual life can be boosted if I would do it.

In these days I have received messages where:

I was told that Facebook was ready to eliminate the “unused” accounts (bullshits)
A little baby was imprisoned in a bathroom (bullshit)
I have been selected to win something (bullshit)

How can some people go on bothering everyone around with these things?

Do me a favour. If you see one of these chain letters, try to remember my anger against them! :D

PS: if you, reader of this post, will not create another post in your blog linking this one, your blog will be attacked by a horde of spammers (nothing new), with viruses of every kind (ok, I don’t use Winzoz), and … (fill the spaces in the way it sounds more scarying to you)

Testing “Blogo”

Posted by Carlo - 19/12/07 at 08:12:39 pm

I have noticed that with Flock I wrote on this blog a little bit more. I have realized that the web interface of Wordpress is something I do not like any longer. Unfortunately Flock has all the problems Firefox has, and it crashes way too much.
I have just downloaded Blogo, an app that has its own layout to write posts and publish them through it.
I will let you know how it goes!

Uhm… it crashes before I was able to click the HUGE “Post” button…
…more than this I have to admit that I am a little disappointed by not being allowed to put an image where I want in the post. (Or to understand HOW to do it!)

Canary Wharf and the new Canon 40D

Posted by Carlo - 19/12/07 at 03:12:36 pm

I have to admit that the new Canon 40D is a spectacular camera.
I was in Canary Wharf today, and after lunch I took few pictures.

What do you think?

Tags: Photography, Canon, Canon 40D, 40D, Canary Wharf

Twitter is down

Posted by Carlo - 17/12/07 at 10:12:13 am

In these days I am using twitter more than my Blog.
It is a shame, I know, but I can’t help: it is faster and less expensive in brainpower.
Unfortunately this morning twitter is down!

Tags: twitter

If the VC said so…

Posted by Carlo - 10/12/07 at 10:12:49 am

Ok, we are officially in the bubble 2.0! Some VCs confirmed the ridicolous evaluation of Facebook.
Yeah, sure, let’s face it: the evaluation of Ford ($16.8 b) is absolutely too high compared to the social networking ($15 b).

  

..yeah yeah, whatever…

Tags: VentureCapitalist, Facebook, ridicolous evaluation, bubble, bubble 2.0

Welcome to the Bubble?

Posted by Carlo - 06/12/07 at 11:12:11 am

In this days I am looking around, trying NOT to think that another .com bubble is coming.

I cannot.

The evaluation of Facebook ($15 billion) is absolutely ridicolous. Tech companies are bought form millions of dollars just to be valued less than half that price just few months later (Skype).
I fear that technology is on a fast train running straight into a wall. There will be another crash.

History teaches that history does not teach anything.

I am one of those who wants to start a tech business, yes, but I fear that these times are not good for investing my life in something like it…

…just my 2 cents…

Tags: bubble, .com, facebook, skype

The Golden Compass

Posted by Carlo - 06/12/07 at 09:12:32 am

The Golden Compass is, first and foremost, a book. To be honest the real name of the book is The Northern Light, but once more Americans decided it was not a good name for a book. Since yesterday it is also a film, which I have watched in its first night.
It is hard for me to judge the film, mostly because I have read the book (and loved it). The comparison is not fair, because the film is not able to bring the quality of the book to the cinemas. Try not to misunderstand me, the film is good, but it is not the book!
I have to admit that I haven’t been impressed by Dakota Blue Richards, but probably this is due to the massive interaction with digital characters. The other part of the cast have seen their original (paper) characters, shrinked a little bit.
There are, however, some choices that I do not share. The film ends before the story in the book, leaving out an extremely important part of the book. The book itself is “open ended“, as is the film, but the latter one is so cute and kind… no blood during the fight, no dark characters, too pretty. The Northern Light shows character you fear and hate, it makes you lose the perception of who is Good and who is Not (where Good is a relative value). In this the film have been highly disappointing, because it was not able to delivery all this.
Clearly a two hours film cannot deliver all the book, but I have not appreciated the poor characters portraits and the lack to make the public feel the bond between the characters and their Daemons. What about the complete removal of the Church? It would have been “impolite” to tell bad things on it? Would it be hard to make the sequels with a medieval, Machiavellian church?
For the rest… a nice two hours film.

Tags: TheGolden Compass, The Northern Light, His Dark Material, Dust, Lyra, Oxfors, Dakota Blue Richards, Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Eva Green

HTML5: is this the improvement?

Posted by Carlo - 05/12/07 at 03:12:11 pm

I hope they are joking. Really. I have seen some articles on HTML5 and I can feel the sickness coming up!
When reading the “differences” between version 4 and 5 I feel like we are going to lose a lot of time.
There is no “semantic“, there is nothing that would make the useless union between contents and layout being split.
Why are we going to have something old with a new shiny dress on?
A lot of specifications are still wide open, but if there is all this interest in something new, why just a new dress with few changes?
Some months ago (years?) I wrote a post in which I explained why I thought that HTML should have been dead, but all those thoughts will still be valid for the new, shiny, improved HTML5. I do NOT think we need a new HTML. I do NOT think we need to do a find/replace of some <div> with <articles>. I think we should have needed something new, completely new. Give me a channel for the information, one for the layout. Let me use flexible languages like XML and let the web become more flexible creating something different from AJAX and JavaScript.

How many times will we need someone to update something that should be dismissed?

Tags: HTML5, HTML, semantic, layer, information

Canon EOS 40D

Posted by Carlo - 05/12/07 at 12:12:47 pm

During last months I have decided to follow my dreams, trying to do what I want to do, and in this case is becoming a better photographer. My old Olympus Evolt E500 served me well, but it was time to go for a better camera, and the decision involved a lot of parameters, lenses included. Lately the Canon EOS 40D has been in pole position.
I have to say Thank You to Fabiana, who Sunday went to buy one as gift for me! She knew I was waiting to buy it, so she decided it would have been the perfect Christmas gift! I Love her :)
I do not want to write a review (the one from dpreview is really extensive) especially because I have not had enough time to use it thoroughly. This weekend I will be in Paris (wow) and I will be able to use it over and over!

Apart from a false start (the first camera Fabiana brought home was not working, I had to exchange it on Monday) I have to admit that the 40D seems to be the best camera I have ever owned! It is fast, strong and easily and totally controllable!
Fabiana, knowing my love for the portraiture, not only has bought me the camera in bundle with a generic 17-85mm Image Stabilized lens, but also went for a fixed 50mm f 1.8 lens. I have to admit that the latter is spectacular, I am having a lot of fun taking portraits of my cats! (with these gloomy days I have not been able to test it outside)
One special note must go to the ISO metering of this new Canon. I was used to avoid ISO level over 400 on the Olympus, because of the very high noise. The 40D can shoot at ISO 1600 with an extremely low noise level, that can be compared with the ISO400 of the Olympus Evolt E500. Spectacular for shooting in low light conditions!

Tags: CanonEOS 40D, 40D, Canon, portraiture

Bank Station and escalator refurbishment: a complete failure

Posted by Carlo - 05/12/07 at 11:12:53 am

I have sent my complaint to Transport for London one week ago, lamenting the delays in finishing the refurbishment work on a specific escalator. They answer that escalator refurbishment is a need… clearly they did not understand that I was referring to the month of delay!
Today the last joke has been that the refurbished escalator (three months of hard work for the engineers of TfL) was broken… less than one week after the end of the refurbishment! Good Job!
I am now questioning myself if it is useful to send complaints to TfL. The yearly raise in the fares (well over the inflation rate), the packed trains and other bad stuff are enough to make you sick, all this without counting this ridiculous escalator maintenance (?).
I will start avoiding Bank Station until the end of this works, using Northern (ugh) and Jubilee!

Tags: TfL, Transport for London, Bank Station, Escalator, Escalator Refurbishment

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Carlo Nicora is at home in London.