What would some people say if they made a real-time strategy game called Let's Kick Arab Butt? Well, people just did, and surprisingly enough American religious organizations aren't involved. No, the local council of the tiny village of Soure which is... (some people are going to kill me for not knowing my Geography) ...somewhere here in Portugal has funded a computer game called Portugal 1111 which is, as you guessed, all about good christians against evil muslims. And look, it has nice graphics! OK, although this is perhaps the most unfortunate timing in the last 700 years, this game actually does recreate a historical event that took place 32 years before Portugal got independent, and I think it lets you play with the Arabs (didn't everyone choose the Soviets in Red Alert?), which, looking back 900 years, were actually the good guys (they at least had a fairly decent civilization back then). No, worse than coming out as an unsensible but small challenge to the zeitgeist, is the fact that Portugal 1111 isn't freeware. Come on, America's Army is!···

Cafeína, das neue version. Still meaningless to people who can't read Portuguese.···

Well, I guess it had to come to an end. FC Porto had won every competition so far in 2003, but tonight we just lost the European Supercup 1-0 against European champions AC Milan. I'm not at all disappointed, as Italian teams are the usual defensive lucky bastards on performance enhancement drugs. Porto played like shit for fiteen minutes — and so Shevshenko delivered the crushing blow. The fact that we pushed Milan to a corner and beated them repeatedly during the rest of the match is a minor one, because rule number one in European football is, Italians always win unless some people are in jail. And they are lucky lucky bastards who sold the Pope to Satan or something.···

Mark Van Hoen, producer of several electronic/alt. pop (for the legandary Touch label) projects such as Locust (not the hardcore band The Locust), Scala and Mojave 3, now has a lot of free MP3's in his website's discography section, including great tracks that are favourites of mine such as Words and Thoughts, No-One in the World (if unsure download the 2nd single LP version) or The Girl with the Fairytale Dream. Annie Williams' Folie EP unfortunately is the only complete record (and two of the tracks are present in Locust's Morning Light), but still there's a big enough lot of MP3s in the site to make me happy.···

A trillion monkeys in a trillion typewriters will sooner or later come up with the entire works of William Shakespeare, right? Well, you can try to see it for yourself, although you better wait seated. The thing is, although interesting, that sentence belongs in the realm of practical near-impossibilities, although it is a mathematical certainty. I'm certainly not very bright at math, but a basic probability calculation ends all our hopes of seeing Shakespeare emerge from chaos. The page doesn't explain it very well, but the probability of matching, say, the first 1000 characters of MacBeth (considering 80 different characters) is 80 to the 1000th power, a number so great which is way, way bigger than the number of atoms in the universe (which some scientists estimate as 30 x 10^77). To have a total certainty of generating those 1000 characters entirely from a randomizer you'd probably need all computers in the world working for a geological era at least. After all, this is exaclty the problem faced by brute-forcing encryption — in this case we'd be brute-forcing a 8000 bit key.···

John Shriley's Mental State of the Union is quite unsettling, as it basically reestates the principle that every village has its idiot, cities have many villages. And it appears voluntary drug use (legal and illegal), involuntary contamination with toxins, and poor mental health policies are increasing overall insanity, although in the end insanity itself might be a basis-consequence of society. ACB mentions an interesting fact, that the human brain is limited to managing 150 personal relationships, and after that abstraction (and I concede solipsism) starts to occur. That'd mean introverts are saner, as well as people inhabiting very small villages. But what's sane? Some 'specialists' have already labelled personality traits such as introversion, alternative tastes in music or literature, or not wanting a typical family lifestyle as mental illnesses, and everyone keeps forgetting about the major mental illness in the world: solipsism, which manifests itself in people who don't respect other's choices in subjects that are only that person's concern.···

I updated this site's old browser exclusion list (thanks shr!ek) as it seems Opera was left out. And MSIE 4.0 users will start getting greeted by the lowres page, which is still nice as whoever still uses IE4 deserves a lot worse. Anyway, the new browser array now reads "MSIE 5","MSIE 6","Mozilla/5","Opera/6","Opera/7","Safari". Is any major new browser (Konqueror for instance) still left out?···

People who got into blogging because they want to seem fashionable will again be frustrated by yet another history of weblogs, this one by Virulent Memes' Graham Freeman, an article that once again shows weblogging is actually unremarkable, exactly the kind of adjective that might trigger some portuguese people betting their fame in Blogspot accounts into suicide. Weblogging is a nice activity which fits my interests into webdesign and writing quite well, but I always looked at it in the same way a miniature train collector would see his own hobby. It hurts to see it turned into "the future of journalism" because either some 'has-been' political celebrities or some journalism interns want to use it as their springboard into fame, in the meantime suckering a lot of people in. As any good hobbyist would, I want to preserve 'blogging' from becoming synonymous with poorly written amateur political commentary once the trend wears out and the backlash starts (which is absolutely inevitable), because I know I will keep blogging. So please, bear with my frequent aggressive attacks towards those fuckers.···

Cafeína turned three years old last Tuesday and the new version, intended to be online by then, seems to be taking much longer to do than it was supposed to. At least, the tweaks list keeps growing. For instance here's what I put up together since I came back from coffee tonight:

- Adjusted the Private Messages module layout — finally I'm adding a coherent internal navigation system for all modules.
- Members' List with more sort methods, besides the new internal navigation.
- More lists in the Top Ten module: Least Read Articles, Most/Lest Read Topics, Topics Featuring Most Articles, Greatest Commentators and Greatest Forum Posters.

And... enough for today. I don't like coding much, it's an interesting hobby when things work nicely, but can turn into a nightmare when you want to make something work and it won't, besides I find it too exausting and I can't code for more than a couple of hours. And I already ran into trouble the other day when, while working in the PDF generation code, I found a bug that crashed the server if the text contained a word (such as a long link) which couldn't fit into a single line. I stayed up all night trying to find out what was going wrong, and I couldn't bear the sight of C:\web\cafeina\ for the couple of days that followed. So please all you portuguese fans wait a little longer, it'll be nice when it's finished.···

People have realized superstar DJs are just hyped fabrications that do nothing but pressing a button with a green isosceles triangle pointing right. Club culture is out, as now it is 'cynical, exploitative and banking on ecstasy to mask the rip-off' (as opposed to the current 80s revival, which instead is cynical, exploitative and banking on cocaine to mask the rip-off). And we are left post-moderning post-modernism. Any person who ever had a five-minute crash-course in contemporary culture knows history is repeating once again, and in a few years a cynical reapreciation of the superstar DJ will lead to actual apreciation of the fingers pushing those CDs into the players (as the new hiatus will finally kill vinyl and "CDs are the new vinyl"), and then people will come along telling that rock's the reall thing and some people in Camden Town or The Village or that borough in Tokyo with the holographic karaoke bars will come up with the electro rock revival and then the 80s and the 00s and the 2020s and the 2030s when clubs appear full of kids with fluorescent geneered skin worship Eduardo Kac's psychedelic bunny while folk somewhere else delve into antique 90s triphop records and someone in Germany samples record noise out of the old Portishead record while old lady Beth Gibbons sings in a dutch gabbaclash track. And then you die. Blimey.···

It appears I write like a girl. No, not with hearts instead of a dot on top of really small 'ii'. The Gender Genie says my writing has little girlish quirks. What can I do? I'm not a native english-speaker, so perhaps I got manneirisms that seem girl-like writing to the CGI app. But rest assured, my portuguese is quite macho, as follows: foda-se, caralho para esta merda. Does this typically Northern, redundant untranslateable swearing look girlish? Cuntish automations...···

Really Simple Syndication made harder, just because we can setup our own webserver with PHP and a MySQL database, and then run this Feed on Feeds script in it, instead of downloading a simple Windows/Linux/Mac app and setting everything up with a single click. Well, I'm so nerd I didn't resist.···

Astrology is a lie. This has always been so obvious to me I can't even conceive how can someone believe Saturn rising high in the sky can cause some people having a visit from an old friend while or Mars' perigee makes others catch a cold. And if you consider 6 billion people on Earth as meaning there are 500 million people sharing the same sign, or 42 million sharing both the same sign and the same ascent, now there's a whole lot of people going on an unexpected travel abroad today. Not to mention that, astronomically speaking, there are actually 13 divisions of different spans in the Zodiac. And what about those stupid horoscopes that say "If it's raining don't forget an umbrella or you'll catch a cold". If? A 'science' that can predict the behaviour and the complex iterations of 6 billion people could certainly predict the weather as a bonus, shouldn't it? And do I really need a horoscope to sound like my mother? And what about the proven scientific fact radiation pouring out of my neighbour's TV set upstairs will act upon my body more than anything coming out of Mercury?···

Ok, lots of catching up. Let's go.···

If you read Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy (incredibly fine 3700 page reading although it has a somewhat dodgy ending), you are familiar with the concept of medical nanonics packages, intelligent patches that will insert nanotech robots in your body to perform all kinds of repairs and monitoring. That's fantasy 27th century technology for you. Except that people in Scotland claim we are four years away from having similar (although crude) things in our hospitals. Spray-on medical nanotech processors. Amazing.···

Virulent Memes' Graham suggests the Kerio Personal Firewall if you think it'd be a good idea to put a wall in front of that big neon sign saying "Please Infect Me" that Windows turns on when you log on to the internet. I'm not much of a firewall expert, but seems much better than that ridiculous (I don't know but it just feels weak) Windows XP firewall function. ···

DHTML Lemmings! This is the kind of thing that makes me realize I'm crap at making webpages. If I hadn't played it I'd say it'd be impossible to be true. (via The Null Device) ···

And right after I had those few somewhat situationism-related posts, the New York Blackout brought détournement to 50 million, making it the ultimate situationist event as millions suddently have their subway/train-based psychogeography completely shattered and have to walk home in a strange new city. Here in Portugal I have no memory of any blackout, except for momentary and very localized energy outages. But this gave me an interesting idea, why not having a Reduced Electricity Day once each year, in the spirit of the European Day Without Cars?···

There are people who will never allow others to have their bit of self-confidence, and there are trolls sad enough to leave the PTW forum and bring the flames to the user's own webpages. Please stop being this cuntish, will you?···

And flash mobs! Flash mobs in Portugal! At least some people intend to, although I doubt the strings 'Portugal' and 'flash mob' will ever go together. For starters, flash mobs are supposed to be flash, precisely timed. Generally, portuguese people aren't exactly the kind of persons who are on time anywhere. They are supposed to occur in unexpected places, such as... a Toys'R'Us or a carpet shop. And if I was a player I'd put my money on the inclination people might have to arrange for a flash mob appearance on an already highly public place such as a disco. And then, flash mobs are trendy as situationist thinking starts to reemerge thanks to communications technology (which I find ironic), and I wouldn't be surprised to see some flyers and posters advertising a flash meeting, which indeed is all wrong...···

As we drift towards the situationist edge, a friend of mine told me about a New York group called The Motherfuckers whose members entered a Toys'R'Us dressed as Santa Claus, ransacked the store giving toys to children there, and in the meantime filmed the events unfolding. The finished tape shows security guards 'stealing' the toys from the children while a bunch of Santas gets arrested. Funny in a devious way, but then again I'm quite a bastard myself...···

80s music: here's a few songs I selected for the GTA Vice City MP3 'radio station', it's quite eclectic but always 80s themed: Public Enemy -Gotta Give the Peeps What They Want and Terminator X to the Edge of Panic; Depeche Mode — Personal Jesus; David Holmes — Rip Rip; Marvin Gaye — Inner City Blues; Toots and The Maytals — Funky Kingston; Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force — Planet Rock; Brian Eno and John Cale — Spinning Away; The Clash — Rock the Casbah, I Fought the Law and The Guns of Brixton; David Bowie — Ashes to Ashes and Under Pressure (with Queen); Fine Young Cannibals — She Drives me Crazy; Interpol — Obstacle 1 (it's 2003 but they do sound a bit like Joy Division); The Smiths — This Charming Man. All appropriate songs to go on a rampage in a fantasy Miami Vice world.···

And still in the art world but of an altogether different kind, here's Reality Hacking, which in fact has nothing to do with computers. Some very interesting displays and concepts in public art, and I'd really like to attend one of those events some day.···

Since we are in an electronic art mood today: Assembly 2003 took place last weekend. The results are in and you can download entries from Scene.org. I haven't seen anything though, other than the 'wild' (that means, video) winner, which was yet another short flick inspired in Grand Theft Auto games, although not that good, ans surely lacking the finesse of GTA for Real, Jon Stewart's Daily Show tribute to it.···

Normally I find it quite unpleasing to start receiveing e-mail from mailing lists I never subscribed, but Jaka.org is an interesting website with a few works of art, and also I'm quite suspicious it was a friend of mine who signed me up as she'd know I'd be interested. I recommend visiting Generator and Typescape — I'm really a sucker for these things.···

Megapowerful virus alert, please read at least until the links: Microsoft really blew it this time. Always with user friendliness in mind, they managed to devise a backdoor so large that we Windows users can be infected with a virus just by doing absolutely nothing while being connected to the internet. Forget about opening dangerous Outlook attachments, visiting malicious URLs or downloading infected warez off Kazaa. Just sit tight, do not move, and you'll get infected. You probably already are. I did. A couple of days ago XP reported an error and gave me sixty seconds to save any open files until reboot. I did try to get to a Vice City save point but didn't managed. The computer rebooted. On restart I got suspicious on what was going on. Visited a couple of websites and found out about the MSBlast worm that is infecting almost all Windows computers. I Ctrl-Alt-Deleted and saw its process running. I killed it, deleted the file. Then with a quick check I found out the bloody thing had a startup registry key. Deleted that. Blessed MSBlast it is just a proof-of-concept worm designed to coordinate an attack against Microsoft Windows Update servers. Think of the destructive potential of the thing if it just disrupted you hard drive on execution. Then I dug deeper. Downloaded and installed the patch which plugs the hole, so Microsoft tells us, then headed for the Gibson Research website, my usual source of security paranoia, that also provides some tests and apps to plug a few other holes. Apparentely the problem is that Microsoft made a lot of backdoors into Windows. Just run the command prompt and type 'netstat -a' to find out a lot of useless ports open. And the problem in this particular case is port 135, the gate that the virus uses to come though. So, why the fuck is it open? It seems it is useless for 99,9% of Windows users and programs, so why is it on by default? XP has its stupid little firewall which even interferes with Microsoft's own apps such as Messenger, but I put it in place until I get a better and smarter one, so that this closes outside access to port 135. And that because you cannot close the port, even though it is not needed. And so, Windows is ridden in vulnerabilities because shit no one uses is turned on by default, and among that shit there are some big turds you cannot turn off, even though you don't need it. So I'm pissed. Wouldn't be smarter if everything came turned off, and whoever was feeling suicidal could then turn them on? I prefer working with Windows than any other system, but this kind of things make me wish Windows Holocaust comes soon while I got my computer turned off (unless Microsoft also manages to make virus writers able to infect computers that are turned off — everything is possible nowdays), Microsoft gets sued to oblivion, senior Windows networking designers are hanged upside down in Madison Square Garden to be stoned by a crowd of appaled users, and Windows finally gets it source open and all this filth is stripped out.···

Here's the first taste of what's to come in Cafeína, the big change I hope to have online by the site's third birthday in a couple of weeks. The screenshot features a big square where the text should be (for compression purposes), but the rest is final. At least, for the classic weblog-like view, which is the first module to be sorted so far, and which isn't much different from the old version. Habituées will also notice cosmethic enhancements in the survey block, and the new user block which replaces the old 'who's online'. But here's a list of To-Do enhancements:
- Although users will be able to choose the 'classic' weblog-like view (as in the screenshot), anonymous visitors will be greated by a new frontpage layout, which will use IFRAMEs to tidy things up;
- Random head images (as you have been enjoying in this website for ages), made by multiple authors;
- Readable URLs!;
- 'Status' module, which will include staff member's personal journals and a changelog — I considered giving users their own journal but I decided that hosting 500 weblogs overnight for free could be a bad move (that is, it could become an unnacceptable bandwidth drain);
- Users will still be able to download articles as PDF, but they will also have access again to the old HTML print page;
- The left side menu responds to whether a user is logged on or not. Anonymous users will no longer be able to access the PDF fanzine, it's fair it is a registered user perk;
- Plus a few other enhancements: us admins at last have a WYSIWYG editor, the 'Hi-Scores' modules includes games scores (which were paradoxally missing), old/lowres browsers will be mercilessly shoved into a lowres version and too many to list here cosmethic glitches will be treated.···

Futebol: Enough posts without mentioning footy. FC Porto did an arse-kicking pre-season without losing any matches (including victories against Paris SG and Deportivo La Coruña), while our rivals Benfica and Sporting did not. Yesterday Benfica lost against that footballing superpower known as Moreirense (oh, well, at least they are a Primeira Liga club), but Sporting managed to save the preseason defeating Manchester United's reserves 3-1 at their new stadium's innaguration(ok, that's unfair, but Giggs and Scholes didn't play and Van Nistelrooy only entered the match near the end, so it seems Man Utd could have won if they really wanted to). Nice to see though, was when priests of four different religions were there blessing the new ground at the same time — I guess Sporting wanted to be on the safe side, after all one will never know which religion is right...···

Ah, I was a bit tired of Verdana, so main text is set in Lucida Sans (those who don't have it will still read Verdana) until I grow sick of it and settle back to Verdana as usual. And by the way, titles are supposed to be in Trebuchet now, or else you are looking at plain boring Arial.···

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry Flynt enter the race for California governor. What the...? But admit it, it's an imagination trigger for near future fiction. Picture 2017: Newly-elected President Arnold Schwarzenegger engaged in an artificial war against an Axis of Evil, so that the American people forget the halcyon years of Hilary Clinton administration, and the fact an Austrian defeated actual winner Larry Flynt thanks to rigged Microsoft voting machines. Er, wait...···