Ranting in the dark

Yes, yes, yes! The OLPCs have arrived. 209 kilograms of them, 100 lean-mean-green-machines.

It's superb. It awfully, criminally cute. White-and-green, extremely tiny - it was a lot smaller than I expected. The battery clicked in, I pressed the power button and it started working. Oddly enough, I've no problems with the Sugar interface. It's right as it should be, for the purposes of this laptop. It also blends perfectly with the look and feel of this little gem.

The screen is, as expected - superb. It's got an amazing detail for its tiny size. Not that tiny, considering that other "simmilar" solutions provide even smaller screens. Honestly, I don't think anything below this will be usable. Then it's the magical monochrome mode. Turn the light all the way down - hello, my perfect e-book reader. It works brilliantly under direct sunlight. And if you think that this is not important - you should go out more. The screen rotates, with the touch of a button. It's the most awesome of awesome.

I finally have a machine with a decent camera too. It works and it takes pictures. I will share some here, ASAP. It also has a mic and speakers built-in, so it's a fully functional communications agent, out of the box. Small box, with a power supply in it and a 1-page instruction manual. That's all you get.

The keyboard is strangely cute. Soft rubber keys, spill-resistant, what more to ask from it. Yes, you could whine about the size of the keys, or that sometimes you don't feel if you really pressed one of them or not. But they work with no big issues for me - I'm typing this from my OLPC. I wanted this blog to come from the small green machine.

It's just so cool. In the true spirit of geekness - I'm using Opera's special OLPC edition on it. I also have emacs and mplayer on it already. I watched a movie on it last night, with no issues whatsoever. Coding in the sun will be fun too. This is definitelly going to be my favourite plane toy. It's small and easy and it does anything I want. Its schoolbag, or lunchbox, looks will draw attention for sure. I want to see how people react to it, I'm sure that I'll be getting a lot of questions.

All of us will - the 60+ recepients from Opera Software and the rest of the lucky 100 that get to share the fun of this priceless little gem. Detailed updadtes for our progress in hacking into it are sure to follow.

It's a funny term that a colleague of mine told me. He was reffering to an advertisement, although I've no idea if it's just a joke in the ad or something else. It doesn't really matter.

What fascinates me is the irony behind the ad. In the last one month I've been to 2 (two) great concerts, all in the same place - one of the biggest concert halls around. First one was Korn, second one was tonight - Queens Of The Stone Age. Really really good ones, with the second one being slightly better. At least in the way people behaved.

And they behaved very, very, excruciatingly depressing. I mean - they were great concerts, great bands, we had lots of fun, I could squeeze a pound of water out of my clothes after the one tonight.

But man - I've never felt more like in a dead forest. There were just logs around me - motionless, without expression, passion, enthusiasm. Fuck, without a sign they're alive. For the love of the god, people - move, make a sound, do something. It's a fucking rock concert, not classical music. Lord, are you stiff indeed. I forgive only the ones that were nicely stoned and having lots of fun in a different way.

That doesn't really bother me though. Do whatever the hell you want. I don't care. Maybe you like it that way. Not my problem anyway. But Jesus are some of you uptight bastards. A few of us that were having fun sometimes got looks like they got the plague or some shit. Fuck you uptight motherfucker - if you don't like it - move to the back of the line, little whiny bitch. I'm here to have fun, not provide for you - depressing emo.

Man, am I pissed. That's just getting me started, I'm not even close to getting to describe the full extent of my annoyance.

But screw that - I'd rather say that both gigs were awesome. I didn't write anything about Korn, but that was the third time I see them - they'll forgive me. Enough to say that I've seen them in a small hall in Thessaloniki, with their greatest fans ever - a total of 400, maybe 500 people. And on the most exhausting experience in my life - on Norwegian wood. I've no clue how I lasted through the whole thing there. How it could be so different than the one in Spectrum... I refuse to understand - don't even try to explain. And Queens Of The Stone Age, simply owned the place. They were amazing, all the good stuff, really dynamic and at the end simply wiped my mind. Brilliant. They were SO bloody good in the end, they got all the crowd moving, screaming, jumping - at long last.

I love Oslo. I love the people I meet, the places I go to. The bands I see - Norwegian and foreign alike, the DJs that play in the clubs. Everyone I've met and I've hang out with - we've had amazing fun. Everyone I know.

As for everyone I just offended - well .. I don't care. I'm happy I managed to get some emotion out.

Now .. Time for a proper, smuggled drink

It's a weird post, this one. I am listening to the most amazing set by Miika Kuisma. The weather out is dark and very very snowy, this time proper snow, unlike the last few days. I am tired, but happy, from the last evening. Some really amazing and happy things happened around me this night, that made me feel really really good.

And the music. Amazingly nice music. All night - at home, at friends' places, at the club. Everywere, everythihng.

And now this set, that keeps the style of last night, but is perfect for the morning. Nice, smooth, dynamic. Energetic, without being agressive. So, I wanted to share something, with anyone that cares. Just becase. I feel nice. I feel like doing something fun for people.

So I hope you will have fun. http://www.eilo.org - what I have been actively listening to lately. Almost exclusively the Progressive Channel. Give it a some shots, now and then. You might find somehting nice for you, to keep you smiley and happy.