This entry is by no means technical, but it shows perfectly the vast difference in budget available to two very well known companies: Google and Opera.

I just stumbled upon these two videos. One of them is almost three months old. Although it doesn’t prove much, it is quite spectacular with its fancy high speed camera at 2700 shots per second.

Chrome versus Potato

The other one … well… it isn’t as spectacular as Chrome’s. Seriously, it isn’t. But …. OMG!!! This is genius. Exactly as scientific as the first one. Not as visually appealing. But tomorrow morning I’ll still be laughing.

Opera versus Potato (Parody)

Some months ago I blogged about my adventures with an online scammer. I had some good laughs with emails going back and forth, and it was really funny seeing what kind of things actually makes people take  the bait. Disturbing, but funny.

Well, it seems like all the charade I had during several weeks is nothing compared to what this guy accomplished: he actually managed to ship a lot of worthless heavy junk, at the scammer’s expense, of course. The death threats he received afterwards would make for some of the best tag-lines ever.

It turns out there is a whole Community out there that have made a hobby out of scamming the scammers. Looks like fun!

They even have a brand of laptops to bait the scammers. The name is … wait for it … Anus Laptops. As you can see, just the brand name is more than enough to produce some peculiar conversations. OMG! Simply genius!

Last weekend I went to the wedding of my good friends Álvaro López Ortega and Lidia Fernández Gago. I don’t fancy weddings, but I must say I loved this one. The couple made sure we all had a great time, and had several surprises ready for us to enjoy the party.

If you click on the image you’ll download a MIDI file of a piece that was played on violin at the ceremony. The Super Mario Bros theme, by Köji Kondö. Hey, you gotta love those geeks! ;-)

Congratullations, Alvaro and Lidia! I hope you have a fantastic -well deserved- Honeymoon. Best of wishes to both of you on your new life.

I just took this image to a local shop to print on a T-Shirt. Man, do I love it :) I could have bought it online, but I figured this would be quicker.

If you don’t know what the joke is about, you’re clearly not watching the Big Bang Theory.

It turns out the game was invented by Sam Kass some years ago. Kudos to you, sir.

Awesome show. True story.

What? You’ve never heard of  Barney Stinson either?

UPDATE: A reader just sent a variant that is even more absurd. Don’t hold your breath: Rock, fire, scissors, snake, human, tree, wolf, sponge, paper, air, water, dragon, devil, lightning, gun.

Yes, it is true. I’ve been scammed. Sort of.
The other day I listed for online sale some computer equipment I had laying around, and this was bound to attract scammers. I don’t know why, but it happens, and it turns out almost always these guys are from Nigeria. It could be that laws there are not very strict with these matters, or that it is a traditional way to make ends meet in a tough situation. But it’s no wonder most eBay auctions specifically forbid Nigerian bids.

As I was saying, I received several fishy offers. Note that I’m posting the scammer’s private information on purpose :)

For example:

[...]
Received: from [196.3.183.73] by web59915.mail.ac4.yahoo.com via HTTP;
[...]
From: kerry jones <kerr_jone@yahoo.com>
[...]
Hello,
  am kerry by name am now in united kindom for a
purpose.....am sending this item to a friend in lagos nigeria....i will
like to let you know that am paying you through pay pal....i will want
you to send me the total cost include the shipping cost to
lagos-nigeria..you can also call me on this phone number now
+447024017578..please get back to me asap.

It’s astonishing how many guys fall for it. I guess the phone is a VoIP UK number, but hey, guess what?

This friendly guy that is “now in united kindom for a purpose” is writing from Lagos, Nigeria! GeoIP sure is a nice thing. Which by the way is supported in Cherokee, in case you’re wondering how to use that on a web server. Pretty handy.

You know those times when you stumble upon a good idea and think it is plain genius?

Alvaro told me about it this morning and I just had to share it with everybody. This is what you will find if you visit http://apache-es.org, a community in Spanish built to talk about Apache and system administration.

The “aviso” part is a warning:

Apache-es.org, the only Q&A site about Apache that is running Cherokee!

As I said: plain genius!

This weekend I had a little accident with the mountain bike. A truck came out of nowhere in the middle of the mountain -like they always do-, I got surprised, fell and took the hit with my bare hands. I’ll be spending some days with raw-flesh-style palms.  What can I say? I’m a fashion victim. Sort of.

Anyway, I was having my injuries treated at my sister’s when my nephew came by. He’s a three year old, so every answer I gave him about the accident raised another question.

This one was priceless:

Uncle, do you want my training wheels?

But it is not omnipotent. Leave that to Q. I stumbled upon this funny answer from back in 2005 and I had to share it. That guy is a genius! ;-)

I’m curious how I can make Python print text in color.

That depends strictly on your printer. With my hp LaserJet 1200, no way — not even Python’s power can overcome the hardware’s limitations in this regard… it’s a black-and-white printer and that’s all there is to it! If I did have a color printer, then I would have Python produce the appropriate postscript code, or “escape-sequences” in whatever printer-specific language a given printer requires to have it output color text (or, depending on my operating system, printer driver, filters, etc, I might have to send appropriate “escape-sequences” or whatever to the DRIVER in order to convince it to drive the printer appropriately).

Ok, this is officially not something to blog about. Especially if you want to keep your girlfriend and go on being one of those rare Slashdot readers that actually have one. But Alvaro just gave me a little something he and Lidia brought me from their last trip to Las Vegas.

Isn’t it great? ;)

UPDATE: Just when I believed it was so obvious, a friend asked me about the meaning of this. And there I thought everyone knew the Starfleet Insignia from Star Trek. I think the one in the mousemat corresponds to the periods between 2351 and 2371. Not quite sure about that. I can’t say that I’m a hardcore Trekkie anymore. Listen to what I’m saying: Sometimes I even forget whole Star Trek races! Unforgiveable!. Luckily every single computer I’ve had since the early nineties has been named after one, so at least those … ;)

It is rare for me to post something not related to computers. Some could say it is rare for me to post. Period. But lets just stick to the first sentence or I might very well get lost before I even finish talking of what I wanted to tell you about in the first place.

What was that again? Ah, yes! Posting about non-computer stuff. There is always a first time.

Yesterday I went to the Teatro Bellas Artes to watch a show called ¡Comicapela!. The group of performers is called b vocal, and I must say everyone had a great time with them. A really comical show with all five team members singing a capella in a Bobby McFerrin fashion. Yes, that’s right. Every single instrument was voice made.

I really enjoyed the evening. They’ve been there since June-11th, and the representation lasts until July-13th, though it is possible that the show gets extended until the end of the month. Here is a link to buy the tickets. If you have the chance and you’re Spanish spoken, the show is totally recommended!