Sound and Complete

The Dictator review

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:57:33 +0200

Unless you’ve recently had a bag on your head to be specially renditioned, are related to murdered Israeli athletes, don’t like lesbian kisses, cock, dildo or pussy jokes, and unless you think that cancer, torture, dwarves, Jews, Arabs, infanticide, paedophilia, prostitution, incest, rape, anti-Semitism, casual racism or misogyny are inappropriate subjects for jokes, then it really is hard to find that much to be offended by in The Dictator.

What a neat way to recommend a movie. After reading what Boing Boing wrote I’m actually considering going to the cinema.

Swedish Telcom Giant Teliasonera Caught Helping Authoritarian Regimes Spy on Their Citizens

Sat, 19 May 2012 15:07:00 +0200

Swedish Telcom Giant Teliasonera Caught Helping Authoritarian Regimes Spy on Their Citizens:

According to a recent investigation by the Swedish news show Uppdrag Granskning, Sweden’s telecommunications giant Teliasonera is the latest Western country revealed to be colluding with authoritarian regimes by selling them high-tech surveillance gear to spy on its citizens. Teliasonera has allegedly enabled the governments of Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Georgia and Kazakhstan to spy on journalists, union leaders, and members of the political opposition. One Teliasonera whistle-blower told the reporters, “The Arab Spring prompted the regimes to tighten their surveillance. … There’s no limit to how much wiretapping is done, none at all.”

This and the idea of charging for Skype and voip connections make me consider moving to Telenor. Or Alekstra.

An update to my previous post: of course I played Diablo after they finally fixed server issues, and...

Thu, 17 May 2012 13:21:42 +0200

An update to my previous post: of course I played Diablo after they finally fixed server issues, and I have to say it’s fun. Overly simplistic for an RPG game, but fast and good looking. And since it’s grunnlovsdag today, I shall continue celebrating by killing some demons.

My Diablo III Experience

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:52:37 +0200

I’m not a big gamer, I seldom buy and play computer games. There aren’t many titles that engage me for more than a couple of days, but those that do, however, I keep coming back to for years. That’s the case with my favorite games, such as ADOM, Starcraft, Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Grand Theft Auto series (only in 3D) and Neverwinter Nights. I was told that Diablo is a similar kind of game, the one that you keep coming back to, so since the long awaited Diablo III premiered last night, I figured I could give it a try.

I also figured that it’s a bad idea buying and downloading the game last night, since everyone will be trying to do that and the servers will go down. This indeed happened, and anyway I didn’t have time to play last night, I was working until very late at night/early in the morning.

Today I had a pretty tough day (possibly due to a sleepless night), so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to slay a couple of demons and zombies. I bought the game, downloaded the OS X¹ client, downloaded 9+ gigabytes of files and… never even managed to play single-player campaign.

The message above, or some of its variants, keeps popping up, and I’m either unable to login with my Battle.net account, or get kicked out of the game after ~5 minutes of playing. I can’t resume the game, because the server awaits other party members (wtf?), and after quitting it and relaunching I’m usually not able to login again. I had what Blizzard installer called a playable game on my hard drive since about 6:00 p.m., it’s 12:24 a.m. now and I’m still unable to play. There are two observations one can make about it.

Blizzard made a huge boo boo. They are known for releasing very few games, just one title every few years, but when they do release one, it’s usually revolutionizing the genre. Their games are polished, produced with a huge attention to detail and attract enormous amounts of players. They are highly anticipated, Diablo fans waited for the latest version of their favorite game for over 12 years. So when I see that it’s past 24 hrs after the game was released², and people still aren’t able to play it, I imagine someone at Blizzard must be getting mad (not to mention how mad must Diablo fans be right now, especially those that payed those €59,99 some weeks ago when the game went on pre-sale). So in short, Blizzard, please fire some people. Preferably a lot.
It baffles me as a 27 year old male why I can’t play a single-player campaign of a game that I already paid for because of server-related problems. Are Battle.net servers down? I don’t know, why should I care? Where are the times when you could buy a new, DRM-free computer game and simply play it? Is it only possible today via Humble Indie Bundle and, paradoxically, Apple’s Mac App Store these days?

Of course you could say that it’s no biggie, that it’s just a computer game and that if I’m not able to play it today I will (probably) be able to play it tomorrow, etc., and you’d be right, except that because of how my whole Diablo III experience is, I no longer want to play the game. I no longer give a shit, and I’m pretty sure there are others like me, and the fault is Blizzard’s entirely. One, because they couldn’t prepare for the hype they themselves created, and two, because their stupid DRM-restricted Battle.net ruins the whole gaming experience. It’s just so sad that even though we have better graphics and sound, and all the bells and whistles in modern computer games, playing the old ones is simply more fun.

Actually, this deserves a note because it’s really a nice touch that Blizzard games are available for OS X. Not only that, they’re available for Macs at the same time the Windows version is released. Thanks, Blizzard. ↩
Blizzard actually made one good move here offering the game for download prior to its release. You could have all the files on your hdd and simply activate the game via Battle.net once it’s released. I understand that the idea behind such solution was to reduce the strain on the servers during the release. Unfortunately, it apparently didn’t work out. ↩

Don’t ever leave your bike unattended.

Tue, 15 May 2012 22:15:00 +0200

Don’t ever leave your bike unattended.

I bought a beta book today. Jokes aside, I think selling...

Thu, 10 May 2012 01:56:00 +0200

I bought a beta book today. Jokes aside, I think selling incomplete books is a terrific idea.

Summer School in Algorithmic Game Theory, Samos (Greece)

Tue, 08 May 2012 21:33:39 +0200

Summer School in Algorithmic Game Theory, Samos (Greece):

I just saw this announcement on the [LOGIC] mailing list, and it seems like an great summer school. Not only is the topic and the confirmed speakers list awesome, but also the venue — a hotel on a small island in the Aegean Sea.

Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to attend, because of DEON, but if you’re interested in game theory and algorithms I don’t think you can miss this.

"Philosophy’s just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality."

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:09:32 +0200

“Philosophy’s just math sans rigor, sense, and practicality.”

- Today’s xkcd is pretty awesome.

1859's "Great Auroral Storm"—the week the Sun touched the earth

Sat, 05 May 2012 22:16:04 +0200

1859's "Great Auroral Storm"—the week the Sun touched the earth:

(…) here’s hoping that after we’ve given up on attempting to tweet or Instagram the moment, we’ll do what our ancestors did: just look up in the sky, marvel at the sights, and try to have a good time. For centuries, most of us have worked with the comfortable notion that “space” is Up There and we are Down Here. In the late summer of 1859, the human race discovered that it’s all connected.

Something interesting to read over the weekend: a story about how the Carrington event impacted Earth.

I suppose most linux and OS X users use the default Bourne-again...

Thu, 03 May 2012 21:30:17 +0200

I suppose most linux and OS X users use the default Bourne-again shell not knowing there’s a much better alternative: zsh. It’s a great shell with tons of features like automatic spelling correction, editing multi-line commands in a single buffer or history working between many running instances of the shell. But the best thing about zsh is the degree of customizability. You can have your prompt display basically anything (branch name and status of a git or mercurial repository included, as in the screenshot above), and make autocompletion work even for homebrew recipes.

Up until now customizing zsh required some skill and tweaking, but for those of you who are as lazy as I am, there’s an easy way out now, and it’s called oh-my-zsh. It’s a repository containing an easy to configure set of plugins and themes. Just curl/wget the install script and run it, or clone the repository and install it manually, and enjoy the power of zsh!

MIT and Harvard announce edX

Wed, 02 May 2012 23:19:08 +0200

MIT and Harvard announce edX:

Harvard University and MIT today announced edX, a transformational new partnership in online education. Through edX, the two institutions will collaborate to enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners.

I’m taking two online courses organized by Stanford using Coursera (“Game Theory” and “Automata”), and I’m quite satisfied. Of course it’s not as good as taking an ordinary course, but then again my university doesn’t offer courses on either of the subject, and it’s much easier to integrate online courses into a travel-intensive schedule.

The news about the edX are exciting then, although having everything available via Coursera would simply be more convenient.

Why the iPad Is My New Laptop — Shawn Blanc

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:36:57 +0200

Why the iPad Is My New Laptop — Shawn Blanc:

Shawn Blanc:

I once again find myself using two computers. Except this time it’s my MacBook Air that serves as my “desktop” while my iPad is now my “laptop.”

An interesting article about how iPad can become your sole mobile computer. Hopefully I will soon post an entry about how useful an iPad is for academic purposes, stay tuned.

3 qualities of successful Ph.D. students: Perseverance, tenacity and cogency

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:31:40 +0200

3 qualities of successful Ph.D. students: Perseverance, tenacity and cogency:

(…) you have to be willing to fail from the moment you wake to the moment your head hits the pillow. You must be willing to fail for days on end, for months on end and maybe even for years on end. The skill you accrete during this trauma is the ability to imagine plausible solutions, and to estimate the likelihood that an approach will work.

Matt Might’s article on what it takes to get a PhD is painful to read, but true and insightful. Read it if you’re hesitating whether to go to grad school or not (or if you’re hesitating whether to drop out or not…).

My home village.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:29:04 +0200

My home village.

GitHub does dotfiles

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:30:14 +0200

GitHub does dotfiles:

While I like having all configs written by myself, some Github dotfiles repositories are awfully useful.

Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:31:05 +0200

Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies:

A link to printable posters: A3, A2, and even A1 sizes available.

"Sure, I trust Google to index the contents of all my files. Why not?"

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:34:45 +0200

“Sure, I trust Google to index the contents of all my files. Why not?”

- Daring Fireball Linked List: Introducing Google Drive

As all evidence suggests, this movie will be beyond epic.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:31:15 +0200

As all evidence suggests, this movie will be beyond epic.

Till death...

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:31:20 +0200

Till death...:

The law in a certain village requires that any wife who can prove that her husband has been unfaithful must shoot him before sundown on the same day. Every wife reasons perfectly, and all the wives know this. Further, every wife knows instantly when another’s husband has been unfaithful but never whether her own is.

One day the mayor announces that there is at least one unfaithful husband in the village. In fact there are 40 unfaithful husbands, but the wives do not know this. What happens?

A very nice version of the famous Muddy Children puzzle has been published at the Futility Closet. Philosophers and logicians, please use this version for your talks from now on.

» The war on RSS Cloud Comedy, Cloud Tragedy

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:39:00 +0200

» The war on RSS Cloud Comedy, Cloud Tragedy:

If the lords of the Internet have their way, the days of RSS are numbered.

An insightful post by William Vambenepe about how RSS is becoming less and less important to everyone. As a person addicted to RSS, I find all this very sad, and unfortunately quite convincing.