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Archive for June, 2008
Superheroes at the Met
3 years ago
by manfred
in Entertainment
I’m no lover of fine art. I might be able to appreciate it, but I can rarely see the difference between an artwork by Alexander or one by … what’s that guy with the cut-off ear again? In any event, a visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art would be part of my itinerary if I had a trip to New York coming up any time between now and September.
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy is an exhibit that explores the symbolic and metaphorical associations between fashion and the superhero. Featuring movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear, it reveals how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body.
Objects are organized thematically around particular superheroes, whose movie costumes and superpowers are catalysts for the discussion of key concepts of superheroism and their expression in fashion.
What better thing to do in Gotham City?
Then, after spending time browsing through the exhibits, head off to the museum store for some cufflinks…
Euro 2008 – Italy vs Spain
A match between two strong teams. The winner of this game has the opportunity to try and beat Russia in the second semi-final.
Spain seemed to be the more adventurous of the two teams, constantly providing their central strikeforce with a reasonable supply of the ball. When Italy had a chance at the opposing goal, they always looked dangerous but didn’t get too close to cause a problem for the Spaniards. At the half-time break, the 0:0 scoreline underlined how evenly matched the two teams were.
The 0:0 scoreline remaind for the rest of the second half. It was hardly an electrifying match, with little excitement. On or two near misses provided a bit of interest. Other than that, the teams moved between the goals without every looking as though they were obligated to score a goal. As is usual by now, the match went into extra time. After an extra 30 minutes, there was still no score. A penalty shoot-out to determine the winner – not the best way, but given the time constraints the only one.
Italy 2(0) : 
Spain 4(0)
Spain meets Russia in the semi-final.
Euro 2008 – Netherlands vs Russia
Somehow, the Russians seemed to have better opportunities in their match against the Netherlands. This was one of the more physical matches so far, with neither team trying to be subtle. Van Nistelrooy equalized in the 84th minute after Russia finally managed to score. It took many tries and should have resulted in more goals for Russia, but they seemed constantly to be missing that final touch in the area in front of the Dutch goal.
The match became more interesting once stoppage time started. Once again, Russia seemed the more dangerous and created more chances. After 111 minutes, another goal for Russia. The final insult was an unwanted touch by a defender to assist the Russians in scoring their third.
Netherlands 1 : 
Russia 3
Russia wait to see which team they get to meet in the semi-final: Spain or Italy.
Death Star, take two
There are imutable laws governing the universe. The worst goes something like this: you’ve just purchased gadget or toy X when, short time later, you discover that toy X+1 is available, where X+1 is effectively X, except better and with all the stuff you originally wanted.. It happened with the Eee PC and now with the Lego Death Star.
My Death Star is still safely ensconced in the original cardboard box, waiting for a day when it is to be unpacked, built and displayed. There is no doubt I want this one, though. It is too cool to let you click the link to the official site – I’ll provide all the images here because I can.
Whereas the original Lego Death Star is a big ball with little internal detail the box of the new kit provides some clues as to its obvious appeal to fans of the Star Wars universe.
It’s a fully detailed model of the Death Star’s interior and depicts some of the more memorable scenes from the original series of movies! These include the Superlaser control room and target monitor, Imperial conference chamber, TIE Advanced hangar bay with moving launch rack, Emperor’s throne room, droid maintenance room, detention block and everyone’s favourite, the trash compactor. A diameter of 42cm means it’s a rather large model and ready for primetime in any display.
Euro 2008 – Turkey vs Croatia
After last nights’ cracker match between Germany and Portugal, the meeting between Croatia and Turkey was a huge disappointment. Both teams had impressed me with their skill in earlier games. Today, the spark for both was missing.
How the Croatians missed their only real chance in front of an open goal is a big question. The ball ricochet against the woodwork leaving the score at 0:0 and leaving the teams to meander from side to side without really showing a lot of verve. That scoreline held until the end of full time. 30 minutes of extra time beckoned…
No talk of a spectacle. Instead the hope for a draw to wake me up to enjoy something of a nail-biting finish in a penalty shootout. Finally, Croatia scored in the 119th minute. And then, Turkey scored, too! 119 minutes without any goals, then two in the final minute. Unbelievable. The long-awaited penalty shootout to decide a winner. The Croatians need some serious practice with their spot kicks, buckling under pressure and missing three to provide Turkey with a win.
Croatia 1(1) : 
Turkey 3(1)
Germany‘s opponent for the semi-final is Turkey. Ordinarily, a strong opponent. Given today’s performance, we’re in with a good chance…
Setting up Harmony
About a week ago I promised to provide some more information on the Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote Control.
The remote does what it’s supposed to. But the setup is quite involved, though not complicated. A Mac or Windows system is required, the Harmony One and the USB cable as well as all remote controls your existing AV setup may include. The system on which the configuration is to be done needs an active Internet connection: all information relating to the devices to be controlled is gathered from the Logitech website and rests in the cloud. Insert the software CD and let’s get going.
The installation is quick. Then, the Internet connection is checked.
Updates for the software are downloaded and the firmware of the Harmony unit is verified and updated if necessary. The whole thing takes a few minutes to complete, depending on the speed of the connection.
8,000,000 downloads
3 years ago
by manfred
in Moblogging
Of Firefox 3 in 24 hours. That’s not bad and goes a long way to explaining why I could get my Linux and Windows copies only 12 hours into the download marathon on the day of its release. As a thank you, I’ve received my personalized certificate from Mozilla headquarters 
And you can too, of course. Get it here.
ZA has contributed a rather lowly 28,000 downloads so far.
Euro 2008 – Germany vs Portugal
Germany played the first half like they played their very first game of the tournament: few mistakes and technically excellent. They were rewarded in the 22nd minute when Schweinsteiger scored their first goal. Some great passing frustrated Portugal a bit, though that team always looked dangerous when approaching the German goal. A short while later, Klose placed a second into the goal after a free kick. Portugal tried their best to break through the German defence: a few minutes before the break they were successful. Ronaldo must not be left to his own devices! In the second half, Ballack made sure of a German victory, even though a late second by Portugal made us sweat quite a bit!
Germany 3 : 
Portugal 2
Our next opponent is either Croatia or Turkey. For now, time to celebrate!
Euro 2008 – second round
Those teams that deserved it, and others like my own that made it just because enter the second round of the Euro 2008. Since it’s a knock-out round, there’s no relying on another team to mess up or another game to try and make good.
Here’s the schedule of the next four games:
Thursday (tonight): Germany vs Portugal
Friday: Croatia vs Turkey
Saturday: Netherlands vs Russia
Sunday: Italy vs Spain
OpenSUSE 11 released
3 years ago
by manfred
in Linux/Unix
This week has seen the release of a new Firefox version and today, openSUSE 11 is available for download. openSUSE is a good distribution, building on the well-known and widely-used SUSE stack.
Release 11 includes all the modcons a new distribution in 2008 should contain, among them KDE 4 and Gnome 2.22. openSUSE 11 promises faster installation times and enhanced support for media playback. PulseAudio is included and should make multimedia easier and less of a hassle.
The software is available as a download for a host of target platforms and, if you’re testing the waters, you may be interested in the LiveCD version. The disk management tools are of interest to me: I intend running Vault on openSUSE. More on that some other time.
Get openSUSE 11 here.
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