Pi in the Sky

Adaptation. The thief of ideas

Pi — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:24:40 +0000

Well, here I am with another large article no one will read just because I feel like writing it. This time it’s about movie adaptations. The title itself comes from the spanish title of the movie Adaptation. (Spike Jonze, 2002), which is a movie about adaptations from another medium to cinema. But, instead of doing some large essay about the theory of adaptations, how they have been implemented, and putting some examples at the end, I’ll do something different. I’ll just write about my opinions on some adaptations, why I have such opinions, and the relative merits and faults of such adaptations. (more…)

Feb. 14th

Pi — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:02:28 +0000

Well, today is the day of various things. First, it’s Valentine’s day, an artificial and commercial celebration, but a perfect excuse to have some time with a significant one, if you have the luck of having one. Every day should be Valentine’s, but since it is not possible, well, there you have.

Second, it’s the chinese new year. Happy new year to all the people who celebrate it; regardless of your culture, new year is always an important moment to think about the past and the future and the booze.

Third, it’s the day I’ve decided to dedicate to “thank” the genius who decided that blu-ray disc cases should be different in height and thickness than DVD cases. Since sarcasm and internet don’t go very well, I’ll say plainly that it’s the second worst thing about blu-ray (first being the price). The cases, shorter and thinner, make my original movies collection look awkward, the blu-rays disappear unless I decide to put them apart (and why if I don’t want!), and in general it just messed up a standard case size which is now 15 years old. Whoever decided to change the case to make the blu-rays to “stand out”, well, commited a humongous mistake.

Shelvez for warez

Pi — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:24:44 +0000

Stage one: badly used space.

Stage two: little corner for software(z). The bottom image gives a better view of what I’ve put there for now. I’ll have to dig up my really old software (made before Links) to complete the space. The other wall will be for old books and stuff.

Happy Groundhog Day

Pi — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:23:30 +0000

I hope you have a nice Groundhog Day. As usual, I’m watching the movie again. Did you see your shadow today?

Links from the other side of the world

Pi — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:07:51 +0000

It’s not the first package I got from overseas this year; I got the Animusic and Animusic 2 DVDs from Chris in mid January (and I’ll have to write about them!) But this package deserves an instant mention. I got it from Bwlag (real name is confidential), a great guy who is helping me in my Links golf sim series collection. Since he spent a significant amount of money in acquiring items for dumping and preservation, I offered to buy some from him so he could recover a bit. However, as you can see in the side picture, he has sent me much more than I expected. (more…)

Xtatix

Pi — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:48:15 +0000

I am proud to announce the first public release of Xtatix. It’s a demo pack in video format, consisting of more than 300 demos captured in AVI and MPEG, scattered among four full DVDs. You can learn more at the Xtatix homepage, where you’ll find all the info, including the lists of the demos included, and also a torrent file you can get and use with your bittorrent client to acquire the four DVDs.

Xtatix is a totally freeware and legal production so I’ve used OpenBitTorrent as the main tracker; however you’re also free to upload the torrent to other public trackers. I hope that you enjoy Xtatix whether if you’re a demoscene fan, or if you’re new to demos and you are experiencing them for the first time.

Back In Black

Pi — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:34:16 +0000

Yes, I’m back. Pi In The Sky opens its doors again. Time for more ludicrously long articles about the most banal and deep things. I remind you that you can change the background in the menu at the top (random background if you’ve not selected one) and that this is a bilingual pseudo-blog, so you can change the language at the top menu too.

Varchar vs. char

Pi — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:55:25 +0000

This week I’ve been on holidays, and although many people disagree with how I’ve spent this free time, I must admit that I’ve had a quite entertainment week programming again. I’m moving my old movies list entirely to MySQL/PHP, with lots of new stuff to allow me to better describe what I have movie-wise. Although small, this project has made me investigate some of the secrets of MySQL, including the long-time debate of using varchar versus char, or even versus tinytext/text fields. (more…)

On vacation

Pi — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:05:49 +0000

This coming week I’m on vacation, but with a cold. Thank you, mr. Murphy.

Tetris shelves

Pi — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:28:44 +0000

Well, finally! I’ve done these shelves during this week. I did this design myself on the weekend, spans 4×6 squares and contains the pieces L, J, Z, S and T. The main structure was done on monday, while I finished it on tuesday. Yesterday I finished putting the edges and back panels, and this morning I corrected the position of two screws which were screwing the purpose of the back panels. The structure is supported by those panels, so it can bear with being full of books. The total cost has been 58.47€, and maybe 6-7 hours of work. Not exactly ikea-cheap nor very professional either, but I’m damn proud of the result and wanting to repeat the experience.

I was planning to do something else, but decided on a Tetris theme before and after looking at this page about 30 of the Most Creative Bookshelves Designs. However, it might give you some more ideas.