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Not a Good Year for SCI-FI

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:47:04 GMT

I'm going to be brief here, but I have to say that 2008 has not been a good year for science fiction. No, I'm not talking about bad movies or lack of good books or anything like that, I'm talking about much greater losses: in March we lost Sir Arthur C. Clarke, one of the greatest writers in the genre, and now, in November, we lost Michael Crichton. It's so weird, Michael Crichton was young (66 years old), looked a lot younger than that and seemed to be well and fit, but unfortunately what nobody knew is that he had cancer and was fighting a private fight with it, which he has lost.

I remember reading The Andromeda Strain when I was a kid, it was the second book of sci-fi that I remember reading, right after Isaac Azimov's I, Robot, and those two books got me hooked. And I don't even consider him "just" a sci-fi writer, because he had so many other great novels that escaped this genre, like Rising Sun and The Great Train Robbery, and I liked them all.

I would like to pay my respects to him and to say that I am very sad for this loss, the second great loss to sci-fi and to good literature this year.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:41:09 GMT

Today I read the news that Sir Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday, aged 90. I can't begin to say how sad that makes me, and I decided to write a little about it here, my way of showing my respects to him.

From the great Science Fiction authors that had a big influence in my childhood and my teenage years and that helped shape the geek I am, he was the last one alive. I can't help thinking that from now on there won't be new books by him, that his production of amazing stories that would bring me not only a lot of entertainment but also a lot of knowledge, is no more.

Also, I can't think of anyone that is still writing and that is as good as these writers that I've always praised, and that makes me even more sad. Good Science Fiction is really hard to come across, and these authors that I'm talking about are Philip K. Dick, which died when I was 2, Robert Heinlein, which died when I was 8, Isaac Azimov, died when I was 12, and now Arthur Clarke.

No more new books by these guys, and actually, except of Arthur Clarke, there hasn't been new books by these guys since I started reading them, so, whenever I thought about all that, I always thought "well, there's still Arthur Clarke to create a lot". And he did create a lot, over 100 books. But, again, it is sad that there will be no more. And now I don't have a backbone to guarantee me good Science Fiction books to come anymore.

Of course, William Gibson is still alive and many others, and I count on them to be this good and keep writing, but Sir Arthur Charles Clarke will certainly be missed by me.

Farewell, and I hope that when you got to wherever you are now, you could have said "Oh my God, it's full of stars!"

How to make a wedding in 15 days.

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:06:00 GMT

That's right. :) I got married. She's a different type of geek (compared to me), but she's a geek too. We're very very happy. :)

Anyway, the 15 days thing... For several reasons, we decided to do our wedding as quickly as humanly possible, and that was in 15 days (because the law in the UK requires you to "give notice" of your wedding for 15 days). So, here we go:

Day 1, go to the Register Office to give notice and schedule a date - in our case, 15 days later;
Day 2, list the possible guests, create an eletronic invitation and send it through email;
Day 3, get loads of replies and congratz, start thinking about gift list (after people asking where it is);
Day 4, list everything you'll need for your home together so you can create the first sketch of our gift list. Check for a hairdresser and the bouquet (for the bride);
Day 5, check the stores for the items in our gift list to see pricing and possibility to register the list;
Day 6, register our list with an online store and send it through email to the same people we sent the invitation to;
Day 7, start worrying about what we'll do on our honeymoon. Take a look at a couple of hotels;
Day 8, book a hotel in the same town we live, just to have some fun and pampering;
Day 9, visit the hotel (because it was booked over the net, of course), to see if it's as good as they say;
Day 10, start thinking about the wedding cake, check if it's possible to create a wedding cake out of a normal one;
Day 11, cancel the hotel booking, book a train and a hotel somewhere else because it's going to be more fun;
Day 12, book the restaurant for after the wedding (not over the net, can you believe it?!). Go pay the wedding fees at the Register Office;
Day 13, go buy cool stuff to take to the honeymoon;
Day 14, prepare yourself for a big day. Get the cake ready and take it to the restaurant. Pack for the honeymoon. Get the clothes ready for the wedding. Get films for your bloody non-digital ass-kicking camera. Get some sleep if you can;
Day 15, wake up, take a shower, the bride has to put make up on, dress up and go to the hairdresser. The groom will dress up, get everything ready for the honeymoon trip, forget the camera behind (which the bestman would remember, thank you Johnny-boy!), take the bride's bouquet at the flourist, find a cab, go to the Register Office (with the bride, of course). Phew. Get married (this is the greatest part). Take a couple of deep breaths, organize the guests to go to the restaurant (which by the way is near the train station), get another cab, stop at home to get the luggage, go to the restaurant, have your lovely meal with the guests, have some cake, go to the train station and take the train away to the honeymoon. And that's it! :)

So, how about it? :) Good guide, right? :) That's what we did, and we are very very happy about everything. Everything went right and despite the short time we were able to make a very "complete" wedding, with everything we wanted. The honeymoon was great too, and now we are back to "normal" again, only married now. It's a great feeling.

Oh, and another thing: out of coincidence, our wedding took place at 11/11/2006 11:00 (so many elevens), and World War I (they called it "The Great War" back then :D) officially ended at 11/11/1918 11:00. How great is that?! :)

The Da Vinci Code - The Movie

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Sun, 21 May 2006 14:06:00 GMT

I went to watch The Da Vinci Code, along with millions of others, waiting for something extraordinary. I've read the book, of course, and I've read it 3 times, the last time just now, before I went to watch the movie. The movie is not bad, but it's far from extraordinary. It lacks detail, and detail is one of the things that make the book fantastic. The problem is that without detail, the story just doesn't seem as real as it seems to be in the book.

Another aspect of the movie that made it worse is that Sophie Neveu's character in the movie is fragile and non-smart. In the book, she's a rich character that has a strong part in solving the mystery with Robert Langdon. In the movie, he solves all the mysteries and she is just there, doing nothing, being just an excuse for him to explain everything that's happening. Also, Robert Langdon in the book is much more a believer of The Holy Grail than in the movie. In the movie he has a "politically correct" opinion about it, and that also sucks.

And, finally, they've changed some small parts of the story for the movie: there is only one cryptex, Bezu Fache is Opus Dei, and the ending is a little different, but I won't explain how, because it would spoil it for those who haven't read the book or watched the movie.

So, in the end, as I said, is not a bad movie, but I do think that those who've read the book will enjoy it much better than those who haven't, because the ones who read it know the details. I am sorry that such a good opportunity as this has been lost, it was an opportunity of making one hell of a movie.

Internet at home!!!

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Thu, 11 May 2006 19:33:00 GMT

Just a quick post. Finally, I have broadband internet at home, here in the UK.
Who could have thought that it would take so long to have, first a land line, now the broadband! And I thought that the "first world" had great telecommunication companies.

At least now the bloody thing is working (but my landline still seems to have a problem :-/).

Don't understand?

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 18:58:00 GMT

Hello again!

A couple of people I know recently came to talk to me about my blog, saying that they couldn't understand what was written here, that it was "too technical" for them! This happened twice last week. :D

Well, this IS a technical blog, and no, I don't have a personal one anymore. I used to, but not anymore. I'm not here to post things about my personal life, just sometimes, maybe. But (yes, there is a but), I'll try to post interesting technological things that "ordinary" people can read. Yes, I'll try to do that. :D

Hehe... I just think I owe that to people that get here trying to read something, don't I?

I guess this is it. I just wanted to say to all of you that are reading my blog and are not understanding: don't lose your hope! You will understand my next post!

Wanna see something???

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 09:52:00 GMT

Hey! If you wanna see something of London... Here is my fotolog: http://www.fotolog.com/ceottaki. There's still few things, but there will be more, I promise. I finally got new bateries for my analog camera, and I can make some good photos now, I hope.

Still late, but with lots of news. :)

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 03:24:00 GMT

Well, the last post is still valid. :) I'm basically at the same point, and I can tell you that I still will be late, at least for the next month. I've just moved to another country, and that's not an easy thing to do, and that's the reason why I'm late with my personal projects.

Anyway, I'll tell you something, folks... London is a great, great city. I am still living in a hotel, which sucks (not the hotel, but living in one), but this has been a great experience. The UK keyboards are lame, though. :D Specially for a Brazilian like me, who likes to type my Portuguese words correctly, with all the accents and special signs. That's why I made a new keyboard layout for Windows, called United Kingdom International. It follows the same principle as the US International keyboard, that is: it's the United Kingdom layout, but with dead keys for the accents and special signs. If you want it, please, send a comment and I'll send it to you by e-mail.

Well, I guess this is it. I really miss my friends, my family, and specially, my fiancée, who will come in a month or so. But I hope they all can visit. :)

Best regards to you all, and MIND THE GAP! :)

Status of game development

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 15:07:00 GMT

Well, my game development has been paused for a while, since I've been dedicating a long time to work. But I'll not stop or give up, that's for sure. Tempo is now a true company, but one of our dear friends, that helped us in every step of the game development and not only is not a partner with us. Gianfranco has moved to another city, but he promissed he would keep doing the art work for our games. He is not a partner of Tempo as we thought we would be, but we'll find out a way for the game development part to still be released under Tempo name, and for Gian to still gets what he deserves.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to finish writting the articles for Another Block, and I've been also trying to port Another Block for MONO, but MONO doesn't have a very good System.Windows.Forms implemented, so I will probably have to write the interface again in GTK or QT. We are also thinking about starting the next game in our series... or, maybe, start something more wild. :) Who knows. I'll let you people know, as soon as I find out.

"Next Post"

Felipe Martino Gagno Ceotto — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 07:37:00 GMT

As promissed... I'm here today to talk about my companies and stuff related to them.
Well, the bottom line is: I had this company called Fluxwire for about one year. Meanwhile, since I wasn't very satisfied with Fluxwire, I was organizing things to open Tempo. Meanwhile again, another company that I've worked for before, called CASE, called me and a friend to offer a part of this company to us, and in exchange, Tempo would be a CASE company. We thought that it was a good idea, and now we are all working together. Tempo will be opened soon, but it will be a CASE company, and I've just sold my part of Fluxwire.

What will that change? Well, I still don't know about the game development part. We will do it all, of course, but I don't know if I'll release it all under Tempo's name, since CASE is not going to be a part of the game development projects (I think). The rest of the things will stay basically the same, and we hope Tempo will prosper. :)

I guess that's it... Any doubts?! ;) ;) :)