Guatemala, crying out for help

I find myself trapped, overwhelmed and speakless. I try to scream but no words come out. I find myself  obligated to write this post more to fell better about myself than to inform. I feel myself this way because of the things that are currently happening in my fatherland, in my home, in Guatemala.

Being far away as I am in the army is really hard to get informed about whats happening down there, therefore, I just found out yesterday that one of the greatest mind in Guatemala, the graduate Rosenberg was cold blood murdered by the greatest authority in Guatemala. And these were his last words:

This action woke everybody up. We have already tooken too much bullshit from the people in power. Theres has been too much blood and death. The folk is not gonna take it anymore. We demand immediate action. And for these we need help from other countries. 

Mr. Barrack Obama: Please stop writing books and losing your time with your duagthers puppy when a neighbor country needs help. My fellow Guatemalans: Dont take this crap anymore. We need all of you tomorrow in the central park to take these murderers out of power. 

I got nothing more to say, I just hope my people start taking consciousness about the current situation and take action to, once and for all, bring Guatemala in the correct path.

With great sadness Î dismiss myself.

 

Alex Reichenbach

Its a rough world

We are living in a world thats constantly changing. What could have been an irrefutable law yesterday can be completely obsolete today. You can get from rich to poor and from poor to rich in less than a day. You can be working at alaska one day and be transfered to Tokyo next week. Yes, everything changes that fast. And if we dont go as fast as this constantly changing sometimes incoherent thing we call “society” we will fall behind and society will leave us behind. Sure being diferent is a good thing. But not “too” diferent because then you just turn into a weird, antisocial human being.

But in these changing world theres a “law” that never changes: If you are not smart enough, you are not enough. It may sound harsh but, hey, its a rough world. If you are not better than average then you wont get far. Yes you will probably get a job, yes you will be able to pay your bills but there will be a point where you will get stuck, you are going to want more beacuse the human is characterized by his will of being better, more knowledgeable if u allow me to use the word, everyday and today sometimes being average is not enough to archieve this goal. Its a story about the strong and the weak. The big and the small. David and Goliath. And in the real world David almost never wins.

And it gets rougher. Being smart is not enough either. Being smart is just an advantage, like being faster. Sure you can be faster but if you never do sport that does not help much. You have to use that advantage in your favor. And am not talking about learning π to the 600 digit. That wont help you either. You have to learn something new everyday or else, and i apologize for being redundant on this point, you will be too slow and you will fall behind. Because no mather how bad you job is theres always at least 10 guys behind you that want your job. And if those guys learn two thing everyday instead of one (this is just a metaphore) he will bench you.

If you want to be succesful in this life you have to take all the advantages you have and use them in your favour. Am not saying that will be enough but at least at the end of the day you can grab a bear, have a smoke and be proud of yourself. Not all men can be equal. But all men can get to the same level. The limit is not the sky. Al men have different limits, the objective is reaching that limit so you know you are the best you can be and you will live your life acording to the limit you have and how close to that limit you got. For that you have to work hard and change, like the whole world does, constantly. And remember: Always remain true to yourself if society alows you to (sorry its the truth).

 

Alex Reichenbach

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Science revolution on the way?

As some of you may already know the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC) is the largest particle accelerator ever built. It is also the largest thing ever built. The project is being developed the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN, French: Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire, the creators of the World Wide Web) near Geneva, Switzerland. It was said it would be ready for 2005 but they had delays and now they just announced, one month ago, it will be out for September the 10^th 2008.

 

So what does the LHC do? The LHC smashes protons together very quickly (6 million per second). This collisions cause the creation of new particles. What scientists are expecting to find is a new particle called the Higgs Boson, which they believe it exists but they haven’t seen one yet. What scientists are planning to do is taking snapshots of these collisions to see if the Higgs has been produced. But with over 6 million collisions happening every second where can you store so much data? So you only select a few collisions (the one that created new particles). But they is still to much to record, so you only take the one that scientists think might be the Higgs. Hypothetically the Higgs may turn into 4 electrons, 4 muons or 2 electrons and 2 muons. So if they see this combination they might have just created a Higgs. Scientists think they may just find one or two Higgs per day.

 

And now that this is upon us I have some questions, ¿Is there going to be a Science Revolution in the near future?  ¿Are we going to die?  ¿Is it going to work?

 

Now that I have asked the important question lets go step by step. I can’t talk too much about the last one but it better works well because it wasn’t cheap.

But, is there going to be a Science Revolution in the near future? I do think so. I mean if the answer to the 2nd question is no and Stephen Hawking is right. There are already a lot of ideas to test in the LHC. For example the Big Bang recreation. Scientists think that if they smash protons really fast they will be able to stage the Big bang which, by the way, no human was able to see.

 

Other you could have heard about is the one called “Strange Matter”. Strange Matter can be defined two different ways:

The first one states that strange matter is simply quark matter containing the three types of quark: Up, down and strange. In this definition it says that strange matter is extremely dense. It states that when nuclear matter is compressed beyond the strange matter hypothetical density, both protons and neutrons, will dispose into quark matter which as I said before it is most likely to be strange matter).

The other definition is a little more complex and states that strange matter (quarks) is more stable than nuclear matter and that the true state of matter is quark matter. This means that when nuclear matter decays it converts into strange matter. This assures that strange matter is the lowest state of matter and that everything will, or does, eventually, convert into strange matter.

 

Strange matter has never been observed and it is, at the moment, only possible at mathematical equations.

 

I am going to make a parenthesis here to try and answer my second question: ¿Are we going to die? Well duh! Eventually. But what I mean is if we are going to die because of the LHC.

 

Well two scientist, one from the U.S.A., Walter Wagner, and on from Spain, Luis Sancho, assure that one, or the combination of the two experiments above are going to end humanity and part of the universe. There is even a lawsuit that claims CERN should immediately stop the work on the LHC. Luis Sancho assures that turning it one is like playing

Russian roulette with two bullets and the world as the head. Their only problem is that they don’t have any physic or mathematical explanation for what could happen and obviously the science community doesn’t back them up.

 

So under my last statement let’s leave those pessimists aside. These are not the only two experiments planned on the LHC. For me they are the most interesting one. There is also time travel. It is back to the future all over again and with a larger machine. Lot of scientist state that time travel its impossible. I mean if we would invent time travel in the future, where are all the time travelers? And isn’t time something the human invented? But there is one theory that could make sense in someway. It says that you could just travel to the place where the technology already exists. This theory sounds more logical but it still doesn’t explain why there would be lot of different dimensions for every second in history. So now according to some Russian scientists, this machine is not planned to be built with the LHC, but it is likely to come out as an accident.

 

So in my opinion the LHC will solve our current energy problem and our dependence on oil. So get prepared because a new technology revolution might just be ahead of us and creating strange matter, recreating the big bang or time travel (this one seems to be the less probable) are just a little closer than yesterday and further away than tomorrow.

 

                                                        Alex Reichenbach

 

P.S.: On Thursday I am attending a superstring conference so expect a post about it very soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Windows Vista makes a last stand: The Mojave experiment

Windows Vista was released on January 30, 2007. Many things have been written about it, mostly of them negative. It is the first time that Windows users are actually downgrading to an older version (just ignore Windows Me because I take that as a joke). Windows Vista is, at the moment, a huge fail.

People just hate it. But why do they hate it? Well first, PC makers said it will require more processing power, graphics capabilities, and memory than the typical computer has. This means if you are a normal person with a normal computer then you will not be able to run Windows Vista with all its features. Second: Software makers complain that the security features are holding them back, not letting them do all the things they wish to. This, and the fact that there are more XP than Vista users, is the main reason why software programmers are not creating exclusive Vista apps and games.

Other things is that lot of people, mainly knowledgeable people, says it crashes. Well it does. But only for users who demand more of it. If you are a normal user it will probably not crash. But if you already heard from some computer geek that it does then you are going to get skeptical and get convinced it crashes. This provokes people not to even try using it.

I use Vista a lot and I can tell you: It doesn’t suck as much as people say. I mean it’s not Windows Me. But I don’t like it either. I prefer XP by far (and Linux, better yet).

So now that Vista is going down quickly Microsoft decided to do something to save their beloved Vista: The “Mojave Experiment”.

In this experiment they take “random” users (you never know) and ask them questions about vista. As expected all of them say it sucks. They say they have only heard bad things abut it. The theory is:

 

“If people could see vista first hand, they would love it”

 

So they ask some questions and tell them to rate it and the qualification goes from 0 to 2 of 10. And here is when the fun part begins. They tell them they will release a new version of Windows: “Windows Mojave”. As expected all of them want to try it. So they let them try it. Almost all of them love it and there are rates between 9 and 10.

Of course there is no Windows Mojave. It is the same, unmodified Windows Vista.

Click here to watch the video.

Microsoft it desperate to get Vista in the market and this is the start of the Vista last standing. Will it work? We all know Microsoft is very good at marketing and all we can do is wait. Hope you have a nice weekend and see you next week.

 

Alex Reichenbach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

StarCraft 2: Ever becoming a reality?

“Power Overwhelming”

 

Since, at least, one and a half years, gamers have been hearing news and there’s been lot of expectations for the sequel of one of the most played real-time strategy video game or RTS.   

As some of you may know StarCraft is one of the first blizzard creation, and the only one that really succeed in his first release (ever played Diablo I or WarCraft I? Guess not they only succeed with their sequels). Among AoE II (Age of Empires II), StarCraft, was the first video game to have a playable internet server (Also known as Blizzard’s Battle Net).

 

 

But expectative is getting lower and lower as time goes by. A demo is available on the StarCraft official site. But Blizzard has not given further news. Its almost like the project its stuck. Or maybe they are real marketing genius and they are creation lots of expectation so it is going to be a market Boom when it comes out.  

Personally am looking forward on playing it. I always liked Blizzard video games (I used to play lot of WarCraft II and Diablo II and at the moment I still play WarCraft). But how much time do we have to wait? If it is a marketing trick I think it is going very wrong and they are waiting too long. And if it isn’t ready yet, Blizzard is losing lots of money.

 

I have spoken with some gamers that used to play WarCraft and I asked them about StarCraft II screenshots and demo. What they told is: It looks too cartoonish, it doesn’t look like what I imagined, and I think it is going to be a deception. Click here to watch a full resolution screenshot. 

Textures are really hot and that battle looks epic. But it DOES look cartoonish. If someone would show me that screenshot and ask me form what game it is, I would not answer StarCraft. Probably a new version of Red Alert (which btw is coming out soon).

 

I mean: Does that screenshot look anything like this? StarCraft used to be cool because it was primitive and gross in its own special, cool way. I think making a cartoonish StarCraft is a big mistake. Are people going to buy it? Of course. I am going to buy it. Is StarCraft II BattleNet going to be a huge success as in WarCraft II, III and StarCraft? Am not so sure. 

It looks laggy. I mean it is really nice to have such textured, high-detailed terrain. But if people still lag with WC II and StarCraft I expect SC II to be impossible if you don’t have a 1.5 MB+ connection and a decent computer. I don’t know if they are going to be able to do such a playable environment as they did with WC III. One of the pros is that it still has a map editor and I expect it to be as the one in WC III.

 

Well we can do nothing but keep waiting. Maybe someday soon well be able to finally enjoy SC II. And if you are too impatient I recommend trying the beta version.

 

Alex Reichenbach

 

About hulu.com

Hello there again. First of all I hope you had a nice back-to-work Monday. Mine was really boring at school. Good for me, it wasn’t a total waste of time, and I found a topic for today’s post.

Until March 12th, 2008, hulu.com was only a private beta. When the beta testing was announced I immediately signed up. Unfortunately I wasn’t picked as a beta tester. Main reason: It is only available for the United States and, as some of you may know, I am from Guatemala. So, for 4.5 months, I waited for it to come out. And finally it came out, on March 12.

Lucky me, it was still only available in the U.S.A. So I just gave up on it. But today, when I was really (and I mean really) bored in my Spanish class I took out my laptop and started digging up old articles. And there it was again hulu.com. Still only for the U.S.A.  Again disappointed but, since I was so bored; I decided to read the news. And I came onto really interesting stuff.

Ok maybe am going way too fast. The first thing some of you may be asking at this point: “wth is hulu?” Well hulu.com is a free website that offers high-quality streams of your favorite shows (and movies). No it’s not illegal. No there’s no hidden trap. It’s REALLY free. As I said before (and maybe you are already tired of hearing this) it is only available in the United States.

Ok now that I educated you on the basic hulu.com am going to throw you some interesting facts:

·        Hulu got 5 million visitors in the first month they were open for the public.

·        Hulu reported 63 million streams in the first 30 days.

·        According to a Silicon Alley Insider article, hulu, is expected to earn $45-90 million during its first year.

Maybe 45-90 M isn’t that much. Not a huge success yet (the initial investment according to techcrunch was about $100 M). Unlike youtube, hulu has full, high-quality videos from your favorite shows, brought to you directly from the distributor (Newscorp and NBC/Universal, Sony, MGM, etc).

Now the question everybody is asking is: Should youtube (google) be worried? Is there a big market loss caused by hulu? Or do they aim for different type of market?

In my opinion google should be worried. Of course a lot of people won’t change hulu for youtube. I mean you can’t watch 10000 compilations of funny cats videos in hulu. And of course you cant upload your own homemade videos on hulu. But hulu aims for a market that was (until 6 months ago) a youtube market. I mean you’ve never been able to watch full family guy episodes in youtube, but you still try to find them. Well I was searching for some today and all I found was short scenes or rick rolls. But they still have views, and that means, youtube should still care about them. And even more if (as planned) hulu goes international next year.

In conclusion hulu is a fresh, breathtaking, webpage that you should remember for those boring rainy days or when you don’t have money to pay for cable tv. It also proves that there are still lot of website ideas that may succeed but have not been developed yet. So you just keep thinking, who knows, your billion dollar idea may be around the corner.

Alex Reichenbach

 

 

 

 

 

1st (hope not last) post

Well, first of all, hello. This is my first post and I wanted it to be a really interesting one. I was never really interested in having a blog until, a few days ago, my very best friend, kmel (http://kmels.wordpress.com/), started blogging. Well actually, even after that, having a blog was not one of my interests. But I offered kmel I would write for him from time to time. Just to help him out making his blog more interesting. But to do that, I had to create a wordpress user. So when I registered I accidentally clicked on the “Gimme a blog” checkbox. And now here I am.

 

I really don’t know how this “blogging” thing goes but I think it would be quite smart choosing a topic first. I think the topic election and the 1^st post are actually the hardest part of blogging. If you don’t do it right (or if you don’t do it at all) your blog will be a huge fail. The topic choosing is a very important issue. If you pick a monotonous topic or a topic that you don’t really like just to fit in the bloggers world then it will be really hard to keep posting stories since you can’t really write of something you don’t like (or you don’t know about).

 

So having this in mind (and considering my 1^st post is already getting too large and boring) I asked myself: “What do I like (and know) the most?” Lots of answers came to my mind: football(soccer), old music, computers, math, physics etc. But I won’t do a blog about music or soccer because it would be (excuse me if I offend anyone at this point) a very mainstream, common people, ordinary blog.

 

Then I decided to put as a main topic to my blog: science and technology. All those things that fascinate and intrigue us, which we want to know more about.

 

So here I finish my 1^st post, hopping you are not glad it’s over, but looking forward to read the next one.

 

Alex Reichenbach