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Vedettes de Paris: It was night and windy and Paris...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:49:00 +0100

Vedettes de Paris:

It was night and windy and Paris wouldn’t sit still enough for normal photography from a boat on the Seine. 25 second exposure it was.

Pigeon garage sale: Or something. It was either someone really...

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:24:00 +0100

Pigeon garage sale:

Or something. It was either someone really upset with the contents of their bag or an art performance of sorts. The pigeons were just spectating.

Dear Amazon, Your puny math skills make me laugh. Bitch you...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:20:02 +0100

Dear Amazon,

Your puny math skills make me laugh. Bitch you better deliver that camera packed in a box of caviar instead of polystyrene pellets, in a stretch limo hanging from a helicopter and have Paris Hilton and/or Britney Spears dressed as a bunny rabbit complete with a mustache and puffy tail (underwear optional) hand it over personally while singing “Money money money” and spraying Crystal champagne over herself in a very (how else?) pornographic way.

Or you could just sell it for 1200EUR and send it via UPS.

Cordially,
Me

This is the Eiffel Tower. At night. But you probably know that...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:42:39 +0100

This is the Eiffel Tower. At night.

But you probably know that already. It’s pretty self-explanatory. What you don’t know, but might have guessed, is that this is taken from the top of the Montparnasse Tower. 59 floors and 10.50 Euros above the ground. Nice and windy up there, pack a nice tripod or your camera will flail all around the terrace and ruin your shots (pro tip: hang something heavy to the tripod - like your backpack full of stuff - to hold it in place).

Anyway, while my camera didn’t flail all over the terrace in the wind, hitting people over the head, kicking their compacts over the rail and generally creating a very unpleasant social situation, the 70-200 mm lens sure pushed the stability limits of the tripod. Luckily I came prepared with a handy remote for the camera, which helped a bit.

OMG! WHAT have I done?

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:21:18 +0100

OMG! WHAT have I done?

Parc Tuileries: Hi-hat installation in the middle of the lake in...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:02:00 +0200

Parc Tuileries:

Hi-hat installation in the middle of the lake in Parc Tuileries in Paris. I don’t know if people are meant to throw coins or just rocks at them. What’s certain is that there was a strong scarcity of small rocks around the lake.

This is good news. Or is it? I guess the good news is that IE...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:46:17 +0200

This is good news.

Or is it? I guess the good news is that IE usage is declining. But. Internet Explorer is still the leading browser. What’s wrong with you people? Stop it already. Get Firefox. Or Chrome. Or Opera. Hell, get Safari. Any one of them are faster and safer and better in every way than IE. And web developers will thank you.

There is, however, hope out there in the form of Google Chrome frame for IE (which swaps IE’s engine with Google’s Webkit implementation.) I don’t think that that’s going to make much of a dent into IE’s market share though. The only people using it are probably already using either Firefox or Google Chrome anyway. And some very few (I hope) that really like IE’s interface and wouldn’t have anything else. This needs to come built in. And pre-set.

Angry Mac Bastards - Day Power Start Mix (NSFW, duh) Ah, the...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:14:00 +0200

Angry Mac Bastards - Day Power Start Mix (NSFW, duh)

Ah, the weekend is right around the corner. What better way to start it but with some serious swearing. This is a high energy multi-swear-words concentrate from two of AMB’s podcasts with an added soundtrack acting as a texture agent.

Don’t press the fucking play button unless you can handle a shit storm of swearing. Really. I fucking mean it. Consider yourselves warned.

Now, forget about power starting your day with shit like cereal (bio) or special mixed seeds (organic) or other useless junk (organic).

Some suggestions of use for using this as your power start mix: connect your laptop to a powerful amp and speakers, crank this baby up and hit the play button, stand in front of a mirror and lip sync to the words. Bonus points for breaking a sweat while doing it. Minus points for breaking the mirror (plus 7 years of bad luck if you are superstitious.) Take a shower and brush your teeth. Your day is all power started. You’re welcome.

If this doesn’t increase your body’s Chi, I don’t know what will.

Meet the Angry Mac Bastards here or you can look for them in the Podcasts section of iTunes (the explicit label is quite an understatement.)

Do you miss writing? I mean the actual act of handwriting, not...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:48:23 +0200

Do you miss writing?

I mean the actual act of handwriting, not writing auteur-wise. It seems all the handwriting I’m doing these days is on shopping lists, and even that’s not going to last as I’m looking for a shopping list app for my iPod touch.

I find myself being sometimes overly detailed on my shopping lists just to maximize the enjoyment of actually using a pen and paper (well, post-it) for once. Especially if it’s a nice pen and then I feel a bit guilty for not using more (there you go pen, I wrote a nice big long shopping list with you, are we good now?)

When was the last time you held a pen in your hand and actually wrote with it? (shopping lists excluded)

Speaking of bigger is better: single serving air-plane style...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:42:14 +0200

Speaking of bigger is better: single serving air-plane style bananas.

They might not taste better, but they are more exotic. And have a higher peel-to-pulp ratio than normal bananas (which, unless you are eating the peels as well, is not very good). But they are so tiny and cute! It’s like eating tiny tasty fingers (not that I like eating fingers). Yum!

Moving up

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:53:00 +0200

On upgrades and other site-related stuff. Read all about it here.

Errata

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:40:58 +0200

It has been brought to my attention that my formulation of “plastic pinhole lens” is not properly… formulated. That basically a pinhole is not a lens per se. It’s just a whole, not a lens.

To my defense you can hardly call the Moto V3’s lens a “proper” lens, it’s basically a transparent lens cover, so that the dust doesn’t get on the sensor. And by that I mean 1 (one) dust covering the whole sensor. Or, in case of bigger dust, getting stuck in the pinhole, thus blocking it and making it into a no-hole lens. Now that’s an interesting concept right there: no-hole photography. Hmm…

Lo Fi without the Fi

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:32:06 +0200

It has a horrible plastic pinhole lens, a dreadfully tiny sensor and a resolution to match (640x480px). It has more lens flare than anything I’ve ever seen. It zooms by cropping to the center of the picture without even bothering to upscale it. It’s REALLY slow, so that even after it shows you that you took the picture you should stay still for another 2 seconds, or you’re actually gonna take a shot of your feet. But damn it, it’s always in my pocket. It’s the Motorola V3 camera. It also does video. Haven’t got the nerve to try that though.

However, matched with the amazing Toycamera Analogcolor software it can become quite a fun toy. Unless you’re looking to print the images larger than a stamp. Which you shouldn’t. They are going to look like crap.

Just look at all these great fun images (it’s a link to a Picasa album featuring more images taken with the Moto V3).

You should totally get that Toycamera software, by the way. It’s simply great fun no matter how lo or hi fi your images are.

Free vs. Neuf

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:41:03 +0200

Prestory: The following piece will most likely not appeal to you (or provide you with any useful information) unless you are living in France and are undecided about what ADSL service to get (limited to Free and Neuf). Of course, you can just read it anyway for the fun of it.

Backstory: The previous place had ADSL service provided by Free (which is the name of the provider, not free as in free beer). The new place already had a contract with SFR Neuf, and we decided to keep it as to not go through the pains of switching ISPs. Unfortunately we took that decision just by looking at the Neuf site, before actually experiencing the Neuf service.

Story: Just by looking at their websites, Free and Neuf seem quite identical for ADSL service. Both charge the same monthly rate for roughly the same amount of TV channels and unlimited phone destinations (a few more at Free), and roughly the same Internet speed. However, there are just a few details that while looking minor, they really make a difference.

Let’s begin with the Internet: both ISPs give you a modem/wireless router (the Freebox and the Neufbox respectively). The difference: the Freebox has N wireless connectivity and three antennas (antennae?) for a very strong signal. Not much to say about it, it’s ugly grey plastic made to look like some kind of metal box, but it’s fast and smart about the wireless routing part.

While the Neufbox is the belle of the ball (oh so pretty… it’s milky white) with no external antennas to cramp that baby’s style, it only has G wireless networking and a much less robust signal (my iPod touch only gets 2/3 signal bars even when right next to the box!)

It’s also not a very good wireless router. I had to manually assign the IP addresses to network devices as (dum)belle there kept giving them identical IPs and creating all kinds of unpleasant situations in which two conflicting devices would be knocked offline.

And the Neufbox has some really, and I mean REALLY, strong white activity LEDs on it. That baby sure likes to advertise itself. It’s not like a soft night light, it’s the stuff that won’t let you sleep. Fortunately they can be turned off via the web interface so that you won’t be forced to throw a thick cloth over it leading to the thing overheating and setting your place on fire.

Moving on to the TV service: When SFR Neuf sent us the new modem, they didn’t send the TV decoder as well (for reasons unexplained), so we eventually figured out that we had to order that separately (free of charge). Which is weird, we are on the Internet+TV+Tel plan, why would they ever think we’d just love to pay for TV service but not actually benefit from it?… Anyway.

About the TV decoders: Free’s comes with built in HDD for DVR functionality and USB ports for adding more capacity to the DVR. Neuf’s only has the USB ports to which you can connect an external drive (you can order one with built in HDD but it you have to pay a 5EUR/month rent on it - umm, no thanks).

Both ISPs advertise TV on PC service for free (viewing live television on your computer), but only one actually delivers on the promise. And it’s not Neuf. Neuf’s uses some server on their network (that doesn’t actually work) to recompress and broadcast the channels over the network. While I managed to connect after an extensive exploration of their forum and having to add each channel stream by hand to VLC, the video is 320x240 and awfully compressed, which is just unacceptable after experiencing Free’s TV on PC service. Basically it’s a joke, something so that the marketing department can have the “TV sur PC” checkbox.

If Neuf’s TV on PC service got its own paragraph because it’s just so bad…

Free’s TV on PC service deserves its own paragraph because it’s just THAT good. You only need VLC. Free use VLC’s autodiscovery system so you only need to choose from File -> Services Discovery -> Freebox TV and your playlist will be automatically populated with TV channels. Most are standard TV resolution (which is pretty good), but some are HD! And they all look really nice. It’s perfectly in sync with the TV signal, which means that you are actually accessing the same high quality TV stream that the decoder accesses. That is just brilliant.

About the telephone service: they are basically on par, no complaints on either service.

Now, if I were to only have used Neuf without any prior experience of Free, I would have thought that Neuf has pretty good service. But unfortunately for me I was spoiled by Free for three months, and Neuf just feels like a downgrade.

Endstory: If you are in France, and can’t decide between getting Neuf or Free, let me help you: get Free. Let’s summarize what the positives over Neuf are, bullet point style:

- Faster N wireless router with better signal

- TV decoder with built in HDD

- excellent TV on PC service (especially since Neuf’s is basically non-existent)

- a few more included TV channels and free international telephone destinations

However, if you only are interested in the telephone service, then any of them will do.

BLAST! From the past. An image from the times when black and...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:31:05 +0200

BLAST! From the past. An image from the times when black and white was actually the cheaper option to color.

Notre Dame queue

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:18:00 +0200

Notre Dame queue

Behold! The most expensive wireless router in the world! The...

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:52:31 +0200

Behold! The most expensive wireless router in the world!

The free wireless became a nuisance more than a usable service (how many times can Messenger disconnect/reconnect per minute? A LOT). So, finally gave in and connected that pile of old time Internets to the phone line, and what do you know? The thing works, at a blazing 300KBps no less (which really is blazing compared to the measly 50KBps tops-if-it-actually-worked of the free wireless).

My eyes became all watery when the Google Reader page loaded up instantly and Gmail no longer forced me to use their “lite” HTML version. It felt like that first taste of broadband when all you ever had was dial-up. Long story short, I was having a moment with the ancient modem, until I went to set up its Wireless Networking.

Cue vinyl record player music abruptly interrupted: it has no wireless! NIGGA WHAT?

So it was time to put the most expensive paperweight in the world to work and pimp it into the most expensive wireless router in the world. (The screen went back with the dead during the move from old digs to new digs, of course, since I had to… you know… shut it down during transport).

Anyway, we are now using 2k dollars (in 2007 ahem) to route cabled internet to the airwaves, so that our other display-working laptops can have the magic that so many people take for granted, WiFi. If that’s not luxury and opulence… I don’t know what is.

My first soup. I mean “chorba”. Ingredients: pork...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:49:53 +0200

My first soup. I mean “chorba”.

Ingredients: pork meat (approx. 400g) cut into small pieces, two tomatoes, one carrot, one and a half onions, one green pepper, one egg, parsley, salt and pepper, and some lemon juice.

If you can read Romanian (and understand it too), you can go here and prepare it yourself: Pork Chorba. I didn’t do the exact thing, as I was missing some stuff, but it came out just fabulous as well.

If you can’t read Romanian, here is my way: boil the pork meat for about half an hour (and skim the foam that gets formed on top of the water), then add the veggies all nicely cut up (that’s everything except the parsley, salt and pepper and egg). After the veggies are done all moist and souped up (except the tomatoes which will probably completely dissolve by then), add the salt and pepper and the parsley. Beat the egg with some lemon juice and then take the pot off the stove and add the beaten egg.

Let it cool until edible and enjoy!

Don’t worry, this is not becoming a cooking blog. The more advanced cooks probably laughed out LOUD at the simplicity of this soup and then pointed out what it was missing to make it ABSOLUTELY fabulous, not just fabulous.

Anyway, I served it with some cream. I was really missing the taste of actual home made soup (which did not come from an envelope made by Knorr or Kraft or… Kodak? you know, some chemical company) and this really hit the spot.

See? The Internet really does empower people.

This is not the way to surf the Internet. The new modem should...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:12:00 +0200

This is not the way to surf the Internet. The new modem should take about two weeks to arrive via post. Until then, it will be thin and lite here on andreiiancu.net. You might wonder how the hell am I able to post this, since the Internets are right there in a pile of cables and ancient hardware. Say hello to the friendly neighbor’s unprotected WiFi network. Highly unreliable though. I guess everyone’s usin’ and abusin’.

New digs Same brown carton sealing tape smell. Except that now...

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:54:00 +0200

New digs

Same brown carton sealing tape smell. Except that now it’s all about unpacking. And about what goes where. It’s a bit like formatting a new disk drive. Since this picture was taken from on top of the big pile of stuff, you can’t experience the complete madness.