Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I just hope that this movie is a little better than the rest. As a big Harry Potter fan as I am I once got asleep in one of his movies (the fifth one)!!!

Celebrities

Can John McCain explain us what he would do if he wins? Or he is just going to tell us what is bad about Barak Obama? Moreover, what is McCain doing when he compares Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Barak Obama... this is bullshit! (Sorry for the word).

"I am John McCain and I approve this message"

Starchitects in Abu Dhabi, welcome Sir Norman Foster

If the desert doesn't go to Allah... it's because it's going to the new starchitects! Foster+Partners is designing a zero waste and carbon city, Masdar. Everything is really environmentally-friendly and ultra nice... even a building from the MIT for research!

Well, why don't they stop buying terribly big 4WDs in the other cities? Maybe they could spend a little money on the thousands of poor inmigrants who work for them without insurance? And on and ooon and oon! Like Celin Dion would say.

Picture from inhabitat.

When in Silicon Valley... do as Google!

Cuil (Gaelic for knowledge and hazel and pronounced like cool) is a new search engine created by former Google employees and they claim it to be 'The world's biggest search engine, they say Cuil can indexate 120.000million web sites (over three times what Google is able to). So far I couldn't find my blog (which I can with Google). It may search though a lot more websites but does not quite find much in them, by now. Are we going 'to Cuil' in the future? Long way to go.

Picture from BBC.

50 cents per Idea!

I was tempted to post this after seeing it in Wooster Collective and somehow I stupidly managed no to. Just seen it in Andrew Sullivan's blog and decided to do it now, better late than never!

Turkey bans another writer ... Gobble Gobble!

Turkey is distancing itself further away from the EU. Writer Nedim Gürsel, who is accused of offending offending Islam, is being harrassed by Turkish judicial authorities. His last fiction novel 'Daughters of God' is not winning him many friends in Turkey. I ask myself, does the EU need a country that still has a long way to go to reach a lay government? I am not saying there is no religious problems in Europe, but I believe this is like being turning on the tap during a flood.

Picture from flickr.

Onwards and upwards!

With a fast and interrupted pace Rafa Nadal keeps getting closer to Roger Federer in the ATP ranking. Not that this is the most important thing, since Roger Federer Has been suffering from some bad luck lately. However this shall not tarnish Nadal's job so far. Congratulations, looks like Toronto's master series is going to watch you play in the final!

Picture from El País.

US and India have a nuclear moment

Yesterday, Indian MPs voted a confidence motion to their Government in order to seal a civilian nuclear agreement with the United States government so India can meet its energy needs. Despite being a large producer of oil, India's oil meets just 40% of the country's rapidly increasing consumption. India pretended to be in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) but seems it never had a real will to sign it. That is a sine qua non condition to receive this technology ... until now. I wonder what kind of precedent this exemption is going to create? Especially now that Iran's nuclear developments are in vogue.

If this was not enough, the icing on the cake was when the MPs began waving wads of cash in Parliament - a supposed bribe to abstain. I expected more of India, whose prime minister Manmohan Singh, as far as I know is an intellectual with first class honours from Cambridge, Oxford, et cetera. Wether it is true or not, he has shown that he is leading a corrupt party (not that the opposition does much better), not knowing what is going on in his own party or encouraging this behaviour! As The Asian Age said parliament has "sullied the fair image and reputation of the Indian parliamentary system earned over six decades", and most media used adjectives such as pyrrhic and shame.

As a country that possesses nuclear weapons, couldn't India finance programs to develop its own civil nuclear energy? Are they meritous enough to deserve this kind of help? The answer is no, but with China threatening America's supremacy, an India is emerging stronger and stronger and could be a great ally to content a China (which is already biting America's heels). Morever, Mr. Bush - always willing to fight terrorists - has elevated its position to India when compared to Pakistan. I want to see how well it goes for General Pervez Musharraf to implement anti-terrorist policies lead by the US; I bet Pakistanies will be belly, belly happy.

There have been so many detractors around this matter in both countries. I already mentioned Indian media but the prestigious (a little less every year) New York Times also published more than one editorials about George Bush and Manmohan Singh's nuclear moment ... not happy I must say.

Picture from killeenroos.

Is it true? Is it cool?

Is it true? I don't know, I have tried to solve the mistery... I couldn't.
Is it cool? Well, it would be pretty another 'cultural revolution'.

Here goes the transcription:

The longest recorded piece of graffiti was painted by a student in the toilets of his college, Changsha, China in 1915. It consisted of over 4000 characters criticising his teachers and state of Chinese society. After completing this masterpiece the student handed himself in and was paraded in front of the school and threatened with expulsion. The student was a 22 year old Chairman Mao. A graffiti artist who later founded the People’s Republic of China and was responsible for the deaths of over 30 million people."

Chiang Fang, Chinese Army Magazine, Dec 1968

Source http://www.banksy.co.uk; shii

ESOF meeting in Barcelona. Who said that geeks aren’t fun?

I just found this video for the ESOF (European Science Open Forum) meeting these days in Barcelona produced by the European Comunity. Wether you understand it or not it’s excruciatingly funny also a pretty instructive. I found the video in a blog from Pere Estupinyà, a Chemical journalist studying in the MIT and Harvard. He’s blog it’s worth reading… if you can read Spanish. You also have a similar video here.

Source: Apuntes científicos desde el MIT.

Fell In Love With A Girl

Long time without writting anything, I know it-s not related, but sometimes you find that nice songs/clips that you haven't seen or listened to in years and you feel like sharing it.