And the end of Microsoft would be the end of copyright. Think about it. Die, totalitarian scum! ···

Remember the apocalyptic end of Fight Club? It seems that the Code Red virus is close to wiping out the entire Internet (maybe except Unix servers)! Even though the Internet is my main hobby, I can't stop giggling. I really would enjoy such a thing (that thankfully would be only temporary as not every server uses Windows) happening. I can't resist the prospect of Microsoft being responsible for trillions of dollars in damages and ultimately contributing to the demise of the American ultra-liberal civilization. The Romans had lead in their wine, the Americans have outrageous bugs in their software. Nice. (link via slashdot) ···

Yesterday I finally made an appearance in the Publico newspaper, in an article about the Agência 'paracultural shop'. I'm there, on a full color photo in Sunday's 'Local' suplement, though my friend Alex's cheek manages to steal the show. Nice. The article, however isn't so good. The journalist misspelled my name ('Duarte Sousa', they wrote), and thankfully I must say, as the journalist completely bastardised our answers in the interview. I think that's a lesson for us all.



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At last, I got everything running smoothly again. I bought a new 40Gig hard drive and Windows wasn't allowing me to copy the entire contents (system included) of the older drive to take advantage of the new, faster disk. But eventually I managed to pull that off, and everything is back to normal (with more space though). ···

This guy really doesn't like D-HTML scrollers: And wrote a jolly good article about 'designing sites' vs. 'designer sites', making a very good point. (via webactivism, which is, oddly, a 'designer site') ···

But is this worse? And why there are so much advertisements to 'exclusive' compilation CDs full of utter crap? ···

Ace, eagle, birdie, par: Why is there so much golf on American TV networks?···

Today I had the strangest dream in years. I was at the International Space Station and kept worrying about the escape pods (which were plastic cilinders) not having a parachute. And someone said that the people interested on a parachute should have brought one with them. Weird. ···

So almost everyone is on vacation, at the beaches of Algarve, in Cuba (the Alentejo village, not the island), in Spain and in Luxembourg (!). Except me, someone who hasn't left Porto for more than one day since I came back from a short trip to London in 1999. Actually, July and August are my favourite months to stay here, because the city is nearly empty. However, that's also a problem, as less people here mean less people to hang out with and practice social skills. In the end, it ends up being the best time of the year to work. Almost. <Yawn>.···

Things that don't happen only in the United States: In the conservative and Catholic-fundamentalist Leiria district here in Portugal (there's a sanctuary there because some people mistaked a solar total eclipse with the Virgin Mary 90 years ago) the GNR (national guard) decided to siege a small 200-inhabitant village during their local beer-fest, not allowing anyone to leave or enter the village. It seems the organization have decided to take the piss and be honest, stating "Come and get drunk" on the party's posters, something which left politicians and the police "incredibly shocked". ···

Hi, how are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice. See you later. NOT AGAIN!?! Since last week I'm being heavily spammed by that crap. Shite.···

By the way, soda with groselha (translation please) is a really fine drink. And it is ethanol-free.···

Making a point, re-thought: No, it's not cool to spill all your teenage angst on a blog. For centuries people have writen careful poems or private diaries, people have not published journals reminding us they are human and shitty.···

Normal alcohol is ethyl alcohol. And ethanol (an alias for the substance) is perhaps what some bloggers are needing these days. Monday I wrote about 'snifosis'. Today I felt like looking for new weblogs (outside this site's links), and everyone seems to be hating everyone, because everyone seems to have lost his/her girlfriend/boyfriend/dog. Come on, absynthe is even legal in France now. Please get drunk and stop blogging.···

I used to like my Epson 640 printer. It had absolutely fabulous quality (in glossy photo paper, that is), it was reasonably fast, and the ink was cheap. However, yesterday it just stopped printing. I fed it new ink cartridges, and it still swings them hastly from one side to the other, but the paper comes out blank. Blank! The print heads are clogged, and the only 'official' solution is to buy new ones, that cost as much as new printer. Still, I read somewhere that shoving some strange type of alcohol down the print heads, then pushing the 'unclog' button a few dozen times could work. And that's what I'm doing now.···

Ladies and gentlemen <drum ruff>... It's the Extremely Irritating Things in Webshites Special! <hi-hats>:

1. Advertising: Is there a better way to put the 'H' in 'website'? Pop-up, pop-under, giga-banners and even text-based ads suck. Of course, insistent pop-ups or any other form of exaggerated advertising will manage to take out the 'web' in 'webshite'.

2. MIDI music: Satan loves MIDI. 'Nuff said.

3. 'We are the cutting edge': Bragging will get design sites the well-deserved 'H'. Unless it's a joke.

4. 'We are the broadband cutting edge': Let me put this straight: Modems end up being faster than most cable & DSL connections. And modems are not fond of sad excuses to abuse bandwidth.

5. Graphics from hell: People who don't know the difference between a .GIF and a .JPEG shouldn't be allowed to do websites. Neither people who compress badly, or people who use excessive graphics.

6. Slow webserver: Why? Even free hosts like Geocities are reasonably fast, and paid hosts are even faster. No mercy for l33t kids who insist in hosting their websites in their own webservers with a 14.4kbps connection.

7. D-HTML scroller: Aren't people still fed up of this toy? Sometimes we might need small scrollers, but what about the mouse-wheel friendly <iframe>?

8. Short scrollers in weblogs: And God forbid D-HTML scrollers.

9. Mega-promotion tools: I understand the odd 'Rate me!' button or the odd webring, but not a whole page filled with crap. And hide that stupid counter, please.

10. 'Skip-less' Flash intros: Unlike many I still see a purpose on the Flash intro. However, sometimes I'm not in the mood for such bells and whistles, and a responsive 'skip' is handy.

11. Corporate Flash website: 100%-Flash might be acceptable for designer sites, but not corporate webshites. Just imagine trying to copy-paste a few contacts, or some information. Bummer.

12. Ultra-table: Most weblogs might push this a bit. It always sucks to wait for a table containing 200K of data to load, because you can't read the contents. This site will only show 7 entries per page to keep the table small. Having a full month of content inside is a sure way to get your site awarded an 'H'.

13. 'Snifosis': I hate weblogs that are too personal. Nicely introspective ones are good at times, but the "my girlfriend dumped me yesterday and my goldfish died, please have pity on me" is just plain crap. Get yourself together, and get yourself some real friends!

14. 'We offer leading e-commerce solutions': No you don't. You are broke! Which is nice.

More annoyances will be published as the web evolves.···

Sunday's bittersweet stand-up comedy: If there's something that really bothers me, is people thinking webdesigners lack sex appeal. I mean, people can't tell the difference between a webdesigner and a web programmer. The later are geeks, the former (where I am included) might have geek knowledge but are trendy and cool, right? I mean, we webdesigners dress tastefully, are slim and sexy, while programmers are fat, ugly and dress crap clothes, right? Right. So it bothers me most females don't recognize this. Girls want the totally overrated 'guy-who-is-in-a-band' (note: not necessarily a musician or a singer). Girls want the actor (good luck as most are gay). Girls want the artist (as most artists are communists they all smell badly and don't bathe). Girls even want the bloody paper-designer (see 'artist')! We webdesigners are clean, actually do something, and are pushing the limits of the new media, fighting against the evil corporations who stifle free speech. We are technically-minded Indiana Joneses, and we are not anti-social. Girls: we are dream men. (note: most webdesigners not named Eduardo are actually sad geeks) ···

'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas': I missed it the first time, but through the magic of VHS (I am still not conviced why do I need a DVD) I was able to watch this great movie by Terry Gilliam, featuring Benicio del Toro and a bald, cigarette-smoking, unrecognizable Johnny Depp. Las Vegas through the eyes of a drug addict? Great idea, great movie. ···

The evil Sircam virus: You know, it's like "Hi, how are you?, I'm sending you this infected file I've randomly selected from a sucker's My Documents folder in order to have your advice." I've received a dozen of these both in the English and Spanish flavours, and I've immediatelly deleted them. It's very, very dangerous. In case you weren't smart enough not to open the attachments, the removal instructions are available.···

A few years ago, I recorded an audio CD at home containing a few tracks I had downloaded by a Finnish guy called Lassi Nikko. People would tell me it was crap, that it was electronic music from loners to loners. I always had a hidden talent to see the future when music is concerned, so now take this: BrothomStates (Lassi Nikko) is Warp Records' newest star. His debut release called Qtio EP will be out August 6th, and a full length record (Claro) will follow on September 17th. In the meantime you can download a few live bootlegs and a full-length MP3 album from his own website, and get some of his older XM/S3M/IT releases (on the 'Dune' alias) on Scene.org.···

Making a better mousetrap: Here's a new comment system for IF THEN ELSE, as always I have refused to use BlogVoices or some other pre-made, corporate and nearly-uncostumisable shit, and hand-coded my own PHP comments system from scratch. ···

Now Microsoft is in serious trouble. (via Barra Ponto) ···

Weee! I just got the results of two of my exams, and I've had 170/200 in History (without ever having that class, I've just read a small 100-page book and watched a lot of documentaries), and 168/200 in English (without ever reading 'Jekyll and Hyde', one of the required books). Definitely it's time to say: Which is nice. ···

They Rule is perhaps the darkest exercise of good Flash-based information architecture. Meet the American corporations' chairmen and their often invisible liasions. (via kottke.org) ···

Last week we've had a sexy Periodic Table for Geeks, now we have the sex-based Periodic Table for Men. ···

A completely daft piece of news: Plastic has an article about the current generation's (that means people with 18-21 years right now) movie tastes. So it seems they like action, stupid comedy and teenage heros, and dislike nudity and escatological jokes. Generation Boring? I'm glad it only spans people between 18 and 21, so I'm out since I'm 22.···