If you’re interested in visiting the Il Palio in Siena, Italy, Campari has a sweepstakes open which anyone can enter. At least this one is pretty nice compared to the previous contest I thought to enter, where you design the label for Campari Red. Anyways, if you’re interested in at least entering the sweepstakes, the details are here:

http://www.campariusa.com/il_palio/

You’ll have to excuse me. I have to turn on GEEK mode here.

I was looking through some articles/newsgroups about security on Windows XP. Thought it would be a good thing to know what kind of vulnurabilities to expect in this rendition of windows. And lo behold, there it was, the ever going debate on which is better, Linux or Windows.

One conversation discussed how Windows 2000 had less vulnurabilities and bugs than say Red Hat Linux 7.0. Well, while this is true, the nature of the vulnurabilities is what matters. I mean so you have say 100 vulnurabilities that give you “root” or “superuser” access on Windows, but Linux has 10 of those vulnurabilities, but has 1000 other vulnurabilities that are minor such as “apache restarts if blah blah”. Um… Ok, that’s not cool. I’d rather have 1,000 insignificant vulnurabilities than 100 that give you the “I can do whatever I want with your machine now I’m the happy hacker!” types. sigh.

Then there are the folks who talk about how unfriendly the desktop for Linux is. While this is so true, in my opinion, X-windows was never Really made to be as such until just recently. I mean it’s made by developers. People who already know where everything is in the operating system. You can’t expect just any user to understand what “root” means. (And no, it’s not about a tree – well kinda. But not like you think.)

Windows isn’t exactly the most user-friendly operating system either. But hey, what OS is there that you can’t say that about? Possibly MacOS. But that’s a different story. :)

Now that that’s out of the way, it snowed here today. How lame. I hate it when it snows, then it’s gone. If it’s going to snow, I want it to SNOW! :) But hey, what can ya do?

Ok so I’ve been running Windows XP for a few days now, and I’d have to say that I’m Really impressed. It’s improved my video playback which I did expect. Although I did seem to have problems with the dual monitor support, but I got that fixed when I downloaded the latest ATI drivers.

There are a ton of cool things in it. I’m just glad that I was able to get rid of the funky buttons and revert back to “windows classic”.

Sharing was a little odd, even on the local network. I’m obviously going to have to figure that out. Other than that however, everything is good so far.

Let’s see how long that lasts. :)

If you’ve been wanting to learn to use Maya or SoftImage, then you’re in luck. Both Alias Wavefront and SoftImage are releasing free versions of their software for your learning pleasure. (and for Non-commercial use of course) If you’re interested in trying these out, go register today:

SoftImage XSI
http://www.softimage.com/experience

Alias/Wavefront Maya PLE
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/freemaya

I talked to my friend Raina last night. I’m happy. :)

On a side note, it’s monday. I’m tired. My back hurts. But I’m still happy. :)

I could probably talk about the oscars. A Beautiful Mind – I knew it would win. I haven’t even seen it and I knew it would win. Jennifer Connelly – Good for her. She deserves an oscar. Halle Berry – Even better! She deserves it. Ron Howard – Deserved it and about time. :)

That is all.

I know what you’re thinking. “WTF!” Yes, I changed a few things around. I am now running PsychoBlogger beta 1. So… Here’s what I need, if you’re having problems with the site, then please let me know by contacting me or sending me email at webmaster@psychodaisy.com

Thanks! :)

In case you’re wondering, Yes, I will be bringing back some of the other features I had set up. I just need to get them added as modules. :) Any comments are more than welcome!

This has got to be one of the cooler things I’ve seen!

http://www.esu.lt/andrius/10/go.htm

via Jish

I loved this movie. I simply loved the action. What I especially liked were the super fast ninja vampire moves. Other than that I don’t want to spoil the movie. All I can say is go see this one if you remotely like any kind of action movie. Vampire wise, *shrug*. But action, YES!

After all these game to movie conversions and after watching Resident Evil, I couldn’t help but wonder if they’ll come up with “Half-Life : The Movie”.

Anyone that’s ever played Half-Life already knows that there is a very rich story. There’s also a “back story” as well. This of course was released later on as an add-on for the game – Opposing Forces.

In my opinion, since the story is already there, all they would have to do is adapt it over to a movie script, get your actors, get your director, and all the rest of the movie stuff they do, and bam! You’ve got a great movie.

Of course, the story will have to be altered. There’s Really no way that they could compress Half-Life into a 2 hour movie. The entire story that is. Unless they made it into something of a trilogy of some sort.

As cybrpunk was quick to point out, they would probably end up making Opposing Forces and Half-Life at the same time. It could make it as an interesing movie.

For one thing, I already have in mind Hugo Weaving as the “agent” in Half-Life. He did such a great job in The Matrix who else could you possibly have in mind? cybrpunk suggested Hugh Jackman as Gordon Freeman. While I can definitely see him as such, I think that Hugh might be a bit too short for the role. I mean isn’t Freeman supposed to be a rather tall man? Of course, this could be changed. I can’t think of anyone to better play the part Really.

Man, if they made a Half-Life movie, I’d love to watch it. Here’s hoping Sierra or Valve decides to do that.