I love Wikipedia, and I think it’s a great resource. I also realize that running a large server farm costs a lot of money. But the latest drive, in which Wikipedia asks for millions of Euro, is getting on my nerves. The huge banners have been bad enough, but now we get this:
I mean – really! Do you have to make it that big and obnoxious? Besides, Wales is a thoroughly unlikable man, in my personal opinion; I am now even less inclined to donate money.
Sunrise
Bought the second World of Warcraft expansion, played it for a while, and feel confident enough to post a super quick review.
The good:
The bad:
Bottom line:
Wotlk gets 3/5. This is what the first expansion should have been like – Northrend totally puts Outland to shame. There’s enough to keep the old timers happy for a while, and some of the new additions are quite nice, but it is not compelling enough to warrant anything more than a “for fans” recommendation.
I just discovered something on YouTube that let my geeky little heart beat faster. Something from the good old days, when MTV would still should the occasional white person on their shows. You know, even way back before they ceased to be a cultural icon.
YouTube has a handful of Zig & Zag clips.
Yes, I will out myself, I used to watch Zig & Zag when they were still on TV, and I liked them. Go ahead, call me a nerd. Call me weird. Hell, call me old man. If you were born after 1980, you won’t remember these guys.
Halloween is my favorite ‘holiday’. It is not celebrated here in Germany (but of course shops use it to sell candy, and nowadays Halloween party are quite common) and is probably the one thing I wish I had had in my youth. Trick-or-treat, spooky decorations, fog, scary stories, things that go bump in the night, the legend of sleepy hallow, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, ghouls, vampires and zombies.
In the past years I always had a private Halloween movie marathon. This year, I somehow completely lost track of it and so I didn’t borrow or buy any scary movies. I still have a bunch that I have viewed before, we’ll see. I’ll probably spend the entire night working on the NaNoWriMo thing anyway.
I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2008. NaNoWriMo is the National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write a whole novel in 30 days. Quantity matters, quality doesn’t. Head over to Enderra, my world-building blog that I also use for my other creative endeavors, to follow my progress (and, perhaps, watch my fail live and in color).
The German Government has approved a 70 billion Euro deal to save Hypo Real Estate bank. The financial crisis has therefore finally reached Europe, and it has done so in full force. I do not know how bad the situation of banks is here in Germany, but I can imagine that the loss of trust in the system is going to cause a great deal of agony in the near future.
I am not really worried, yet. But I do wonder how many hits the financial system can take before it starts to sink. It is important to remember that actual numbers on a balance sheet matter rather little if panic sets in and the dreaded “run on the banks” begins.
I do have the gut feeling that the situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
Oh my god, it is full of stars…
I got my first computer pretty much 20 years ago. I’ve been a gamer and I’ve followed the cool stuff the demo scene put out. I thought I was a hardened user, one which simply doesn’t get “wow’ed” anymore.
Enter Apple and iTunes to prove me wrong.
Their new visualizer is simply stunning. Words would be wasted, take a look:
Needless to say… I am currently going through my classical music collection. The Blue Danube is playing as I write this, and it is stunning.
I can’t help it, this absolutely fantastic. Maybe we will manage to build up a real space industry after all.