Social media is virtual. You create something from nothing, a “something” that is by definition untrustworthy.

“10k+ twitter followers can’t be wrong.” – a valid reasoning that is based on the unspoken assumption that the “followers” are real people. Are they? How do you know?

“Twitter is irrelevant” – one can’t be blamed for thinking like this, but the truth is that behind Twitter there are “some” people (I know because I am one and I know others). Twitter still allows you to reach others, as long as you pay attention whom you associate with.

The answer lies in both those items.

Having a mild financial crisis while your neighbors struggle might sound like a miracle in the economic troubled times of today but there’s a downside. Cyprus survived on the money injected via its low tax environment and ended with a lot of confidence and money to spend. It’s like being a poor lottery winner and just like a poor lottery winner Cyprus made the wrong bet in helping its troubled neighbor: Greece. How much did it help? Well, it lent over 150% of its gross domestic product (GDP). Its banks went on a credit spree building up the Cyprus’ own real estate bomb.

When Greece got the bailout, part of its debt was simply erased. Suddenly both the government and the banks of Cyprus found themselves with a lot of worthless paper (former bonds). With Greek banks also lacking liquidity, even those direct loans to banks became liabilities.

Now, the European Union has placed their crosshairs on Cyprus. Legitimately, Cyprus has become a liability for the Eurozone. Germany is asking Cyprus for austerity, the government of Cyprus wants to bailout their banks and everybody wants to know who will pay for it. The EU (mainly Germany) is ready to forward some money. But Cyprus doesn’t have any of its own, an effective bankruptcy. Under EU pressure, Cyprus thought about making the citizens pitch in directly.

Now banks in Cyprus are closed, barring people from accessing their own money for fear that paying everyone will force all banks into bankruptcy. People are effectively blocked from using their own money and another real danger is an exit from Eurozone which will see everyone’s savings vanish.

As mentioned before, Cyprus also serves as a fiscal paradise for a lot of rich and powerful people, mostly East-European, Russian, Asian. There is a lot of reticence in the Western Europe about paying up for these people. It is their money (mainly) that the Cypriot banks and government wasted. Russia could pitch in but it seems they are more likely to cut their losses and choose to pressure Cyprus to release any money belonging to Russian nationals.

The people of Cyprus seem to be at the bottom. No matter the outcome, they will become poorer than before, in the happy outcome that they will have anything left.

Ironic, isn’t it? The European Union that demands Cyprus to triple tax its citizens to save the banks is the same European Union that encouraged Cyprus into investing into Greece. Well, you didn’t think that Cyprus invested into Greece without someone vouching for its financial future, did you? The European Union scrambled for a bailout, giving positive signals for investors (like Cyprus) who though they could double tap on Greece: pitch in for the bail-out via European funds, while making direct investments that would skyrocket in the wake of the European intervention. The Cypriot gamble failed, the Greek bonds remain classified as junk.

The lesson here? Firstly, be careful whom you choose to lead your country. They will hold power over your money, your lives and your future. Secondly, keep them on a very short leash.

As I wrote before, I am appalled by their attitude towards the devices they push on the mobile market. Spam the market with tens if not hundreds of models and then forget about them in terms of support and updates.

The connection between a device and the software that operates it is a very sensitive one, which can make or unmake the experience of the user. However, when systems like Android throw versions upon versions with various degrees of enhancements, the drive is to migrate towards them. 

Samsung manages this by tossing out new models, with only former “flagships” getting updates. If you have anything less than the top of the line device, chances are you’ll be left behind. This is why today the vast majority of Android devices (over 70% by some accounts) still run Android 2.3 (as Android 3 was tablet-only) instead of 4.

What does that do for native developers? If you have an app to sell, the biggest mass of potential clients in found in the Android 2.3 crowd, meaning you will have to support an old, obsolete operating system instead of innovate on the newer features of Android 4.1 for example. This means you will have to employ some developers whose job will be to find creative workarounds for features missing in older versions of the operating system. Job satisfaction? No. Innovation? Maybe, from a certain vantage point (get creative in reinventing the wheel with older tech).

Webapp developers have it easier, but still not perfect, depending on the level of interaction with hardware features.

People will never change their devices in the rhythm required for a healthy and stimulating development market. Apple knows this. They don’t sell hundreds of models and they don’t push new versions every few months but most importantly they support their old models for years. In the Android world, Sony does it better while HTC fares ok (they have other annoying habits).

Some companies (like Blizzard or EA) claim that forcing people to be online at all times is necessary to fight piracy. However, in the real work, this practice has proved to be detrimental to buyer.

- Diablo 3: one of the greatest flops of the always-online practice had  many players unable to download and install the game at launch time. Later the vast majority of players found it impossible to login and spent months before the login process normalized and they weren’t seeing dreadful errors anymore every few minutes. Although Blizzard increased server capacity, the main reason for playability was that many people quit playing altogether (either due to the issues or due to the boring gameplay).

- Sim City 5: spending 20 minutes watching a countdown timer isn’t fun. However, thousands of people paid $60 to do exactly that, time after time, as they couldn’t login in the game they paid for. EA has since increased server capacity, however the issues refuses to go away completely.

- Starcraft 2: although you can play offline, it is still required to be online when you start the game, start a level or finish a level. What is particularly baffling is that whenever a level starts, you still need to download anywhere between 50 and 300Mb of data, even though you did a full install of the game (about 14Gb). Even with this model, Starcraft 2 didn’t have an easy launch: ranging from impossible to download the game to level loading taking forever, plagued with strange errors that compelled Blizzard staff to recommend ALT + F4 out of the game, the game caused severe frustration to players.

Treating gamers like cattle and corralling them into locked online environments is probably one of the worst tendencies in modern gaming, followed closely by the dumb map design (seriously, indoors maps in Starcraft 2 are linear and features arrows in case the fact that you can have only one way to go isn’t clear enough).

Therefore, it’s hard for me to admit that this is the best review of the new Blackberry 10. Not because I wouldn’t think it’s possible for RIM to market an incomplete product, not at all.

It’s the first phone of an entirely new system, despite being called Blackberry. Also, being the first, it’s quite normal that things will get tweaked in time. Same thing happened to Apple as well as the first Android phones. Microsoft is still working to tweak its Windows 8 mobile devices.

However, I do find some things awkward:

- the Blackberry chant was usability, which was great. However, reviewer consensus dictates that this was somehow diminished, between the new interface and new set of gestures

- BIS: while Z10 is compatible with existing BIS service, Blackberry itself is tossing BIS therefore the integration as we knew it no longer works. Goodbye using BIS to instantly fetch emails from all linked accounts in a secure manners: now you must configure all accounts on the device, as if you were using Android – but without the intuitive steps. Huge fail here!

Reviewers complain about a lot more, but this is where I stop. These two are *the* reasons to use Blackberry. The security and ease of access to emails that made emails (and BBM) a perfect replacement for SMS from all points of view is gone.

If I have to do the things that matter the most in the same way as I do on Android, why would I bother with an overpriced device that lacks usability?

Therefore, a movie like Argo tends to show one side of the events, brushed up Hollywood style (aka dramatized). Opposite that, you have movies like “Black Hawk Down” that go out of their way to stay neutral (as much as possible, having a GI Joe intro common to US military camps while on the other side no warlords could be contacted to give another vantage point) or like Kingdom of Heaven (which fill in the gaps between well-rendered historical events with fantasy, also taking well defined liberties such as combining two historical personas into one).

Where does Argo sin?

Firstly, diminishing the role of the Canadian and British diplomatic missions. Despite its involvement  the CIA didn’t do much except for making up the story and bringing in a master forger. The Canadian ambassador setup the environment (eg: setting up a routine that would not raise suspicions).

Secondly, the portrayal of Iranians doesn’t differ much from the daily news in US. Murderous, psychotic sociopaths. Affleck is adamant in making up one-dimensional enemies that don’t take into the account the political landscape of the time. 

Thirdly, the events themselves had nothing that spectacular. The tension of the hostage-taking doesn’t reflect the fact that weeks before the embassy had already been stormed, briefly. Or the fact that the 6 escapees were split and didn’t live in one place. Or the fact that they did not go scouting for sets (according to one of them, it made no sense). Or the fact that the airport sequence had no drama, they were not stopped, there was no chase and for that matter there were really very few Revolutionary Guards about.

Funny enough, the former hostage interviewed by BBC understands all the liberties taken by Affleck for Argo since he was briefly in the movie industry himself.

However, there is one shadow that looms over the movie which is greater than all the slight inconsistencies. The movie opens mentioning the fact that the democratically elected leader Mossadegh was removed from power by the USA and its allies. It also mentions briefly the reign of terror of the Shah, who had the full support of the CIA. It doesn’t mention however that Mossadegh was assassinated by a squad trained by the CIA.

In this atmosphere, it is hard to sympathize with the American mission. They killed the democratically elected Prime Minister, installed a dictator who turned mass murderer (for a while overshadowing even the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel) and the decided to protect said dictator when his regime was toppled. In essence, the actions of the CIA ensured that the Islamist fanatics had plenty of fuel to gather support to restore Sharia. The victim? The people of Iran and Mossadegh’s democracy.

Mossadegh had started Iran on the same path that Gamal Abdel Nasser chose for Egypt: nationalization of natural resources, wealth distribution to the people and a fair election system. It might have taken Iran a while, but Egypt came through on the path to civilization (despite the recent turmoil) and Iran could have followed but perhaps with a working democracy (Nasser’s biggest failure).

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In this respect Contagion managed to receive praise for showing exactly how the American CDC as well as the WHO (World Health Organization) act.

The action in Contagion pays obvious homage to the SARS outbreak in 2008, while the described virus itself is based on the Nipah virus.

Contagion presents us with an outstanding array of characters, fates intertwined in a complex manner that remains accessible throughout.

We have Gwyneth Paltrow as the initial carrier, a business woman whose cheating habits help further the disease.

Matt Damon makes an amazing appearance as the husband who loses both son and wife in a matter of hours while he himself seems immune. Damon’s reaction on finding the devastating news remains a landmark of his career. His character’s immunity remains ignored throughout the outbreak.

Laurence Fishburne is a CDC official who manages the initial response to the outbreak. He is a calculated professional who makes tough decisions but still keeps a profound human side visible. Emotional reactions (warning his lover to get out of a city before military quarantine) blend perfectly with his handling of the situation.

Kate Winslet is a dedicated doctor who is sent to asses the events in the field. She embodies the role perfectly, a role where fear is not an option for a woman who is not afraid to die while saving lives.

Marion Cotillard is another doctor who backtracks the spreading of the disease, tracking the movements of the initial carrier. She gets stuck often in politics (since no country is willing to admit to be the source). In the end she falls victim to the actions of desperate people.

Elliot Gould is a doctor and manager of a private lab. Despite being ordered to destroy the virus they were researching, he works relentlessly and proves that independent work can help create a vaccine

Jude Law is a blogger, in a rare appearance in a particularly negative role. His part seems to be that of the voice of irrationality, as he is paid to throw wild conspiracy theories at the public in order to promote the interests of a unscrupulous investment fund. He promotes a homeopathic product as a cure, ending with urging people not to take the vaccine.

Contagion accurately describes all the stages of the investigation of an outbreak, starting from the assessment of R0 number and ending with entertaining the thought of a biological attack.

As the movie progresses, the actual cause of the virus is kept until the very end, a moment saved by Sonderbergh to teach a lesson in ecology. While we are told early that “the wrong bat met with the right pig”, the final lesson sends a chilling warning: human devastation of the environment pushes animals out of their natural habitats, forcing unusual interactions between species that are unlikely to meet in ordinary circumstances. As DNA meets DNA it shouldn’t have met, the results are unpredictable.

C:WindowsSystem32LogFilesWMIRtBackup

REF: Event log error 4201 – ERROR_WMI_INSTANCE_NOT_FOUND

1) Used msconfig to switch to safe mode boot
2) Booted to safe mode
3) ran cmd.exe as an administrator
4) typed “cd C:WindowsSystem32LogFilesWMI”
5) typed “rename RtBackup RtBackup2″
6) Used msconfig to switch to normal boot mode
7) Reboot and found event viewer working

Prague planner

Roger Waters tickets 2013