20051128 - Comércio Electrónico @ ESGS

A convite da Escola Superior de Gestão de Santarém (ESGS), apresentei uma sessão intitulada «Comércio Electrónico na Internet - Conceitos, Lições e Casos de Estudo», na noite de 2005-11-28.

Esta sessão aconteceu no âmbito da disciplina de «Seminário», para os alunos(as) finalistas dos cursos de Licenciatura em Informática de Gestão (LIG) e Licenciatura em Gestão de Empresas (LGE).

Eis o PDF dos slides apresentados.

20051125 - Richard Burns

Richard Burns, the great rally driver, died today.

I read about it at http://www.richardburns.com/ : "It is with very great sadness that we must announce the death of Richard Burns, the 2001 FIA World Rally Champion. Burns, who was diagnosed with an astrocytoma, a form of brain tumour, in November 2003 passed away last night Friday 25th November peacefully. His partner Zoe, family and close friends were at his bedside."

This is how the WRC official website reported this sad event.

If you want, you can write your memorial message.

This is what I wrote:

Dear Richard Burns,
I never knew you and you never knew me.
Yet, I am in great debt to you, because you made me feel *alive*, whenever I watched "Burns", the WRC driver, having fun, the unique way you did!
I still have fun playing the PC computer game with your name.
I guess you've achieved immortality in many ways.
Thank you!

Artur, from Portugal - arturmarques.com

20051124 - American Pie - Band Camp

American Pie - Band Camp (2005) - http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0436058/

Even the "American Pie" movies can evolve and "Band Camp" is the proof.
"Band Camp" puts an end to the downtrend, mostly evident in "American Pie 3 / American Wedding".
The downtrend was inevitable, because the characters got trapped in their masks, except for Steve Stifler, who always had plenty of room to become more ignoble...

Matt Stifler, Steve's brother, is "Band Camp"'s key character. When I watched a preview of the movie, I even thought that Seann Scott (the actor that plays the original Stifler) was looking younger! But it is not Seann: it is a young man, named Tad Hilgenbrinck, doing his big screen debut! What a performance!

Steve's character is hard to mimic. He is so troubled and so absurd, that I did not expect that two different actors could perform it so similarly. All the burden was on Hilgenbrinck, and he managed to do it.

When I wrote that the "American Pie" franchise was on a downtrend, I ment until "Band Camp", including the first 1/3 of "Band Camp" itself! Yes, the first third of the new Pie brings nothing new and it even repeats some of the mistakes of its predecessors, abusing of completely predictable situations.
But, just when you thought "all is lost", the movie flips the table and orients the new Stifler towards rational purposes, such as conquering the heart of a special girl...

The "sense" on the new Stifler should fuel the following "America Pie" movies - and I bet there will be some!
"Band Camp" manages to ignite consistent laughs, build credible characters and, more importantly, it leaves those characters with plenty of room for change and surprise, which really had become the limiting factor of the previous efforts.

Make no mistake: this still is an "American Pie" movie, meaning trivial jokes and loads of sexual charge, but it is very well done!

Give it a try.

My Rating: 6/10

My "Worth reading reviews": @filmrot.com
Buy: DVD (USA) | DVD (Europe)

20051122 - The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives (2004) - http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0327162/

This movie is labeled as "comedy / drama / thriller / sci-fi", but it really is none. I had a couple of laughs and nauseated every other times; there is some bad soap opera action but no solid drama; as for thrilling moments and science fiction, they are definitely absent, unless watching Christopher Walken lose his robot head, makes you tick. I think not.
This is one of the worst "big studio" movies of 2004 and yet another reason to beware of "big budget" american films.

Nicole Kidman has now joined my valuable black list of names, that are faithful indicators of "boring, overacted, totally disconnected from reality and/or good fiction" movies. It is quite a list, with such stars as Brad Pit, Angelina Jolie and Chris Walken.
All the mentioned above are highly professional actors/actresses, but their agents totally lost the ability to embrace good titles and keep associating with low quality works, precisely when the so called "independent producers", from all over the world, including - and most importantly - the USA, are consistently delivering superb motion pictures.
If this trend goes on, at least, maybe Hollywood can solve its "Internet piracy problem" - I wonder who will spend hours downloading trash.

Avoid.

My Rating: 4/10

My "Worth reading reviews": @boston.com | @joecritic.com | @about.com
Buy: DVD (USA) | DVD (Europe) | Poster #1 | Poster #2 (original) | Poster #3

20051120 - Who controls the Internet?

BBC World's "Talking Point" programme asked its viewers to answer the question "who should control the Internet". I answered via e-mail:

I think it is important to make a distinction between the physical Internet (the infrastructure) and the logical Internet (the software that makes use of the infrastructure).

Regarding the physical Internet, there are so many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) running their own networks, that it seems valid to say that they control them - but no entity has complete control over the whole.

As for the logical Internet, the users creativity dictates the limits. If users aren't satisfied with the services provided by the "original" technologies, they have already proven capable of designing their own solutions. The file sharing communities that are pressuring "old economy" business models, are an example of what can happen.

Even the TCP-IP suite is optional: one can design an entirely new alternative. Of course, the main richness of the Internet is its huge, global, scale... so the alternative(s) can lack critical mass.

My main point is that no one really controls the Internet. Over time, the Internet self regulates, as a consequence of the needs of its communities of users.
Sure, there are key entities and key technologies, but their power is limited to the corresponding networks and logical layers. This is not what I would call "to control the Internet".

As for Info-inclusion, it will emerge in the right context: among other requirements, peace, food, health and freedom are crucial.

It might also be interesting to discuss the power of the "global search engines" (think Google, Yahoo, A9...) as interfaces between producers and consumers of information. I am working on a new hyperlink technology that might steal relevance from these search engines...

20051115 - The Descent (2005)

This movie really surprised me. I have become quite immune to on-screen thrills, so I didn't expect to experience such high tension!
However, The Descent starts vulgarly, with a deadly car crash. After this poor opening, it takes time until someone else dies. I even fed the hope that death was a card out of the deck.

This is a simple story about a group of friends who decides to explore a cavern.
Despite some boring deaths, the between deaths sequences are remarkable! Suspense comes from suspicious noises, shadows and questions such as "is the rope strong enough to hold her?". It helps that all the characters are females, and all the action happens underground: much of the mundane is swept this way.

The Descent strongly reminded me of Open Water (2003), because of (1) the adverse environment, (2) the basic emotions it sparks, and (3) my disappointment with the deaths.

Brilliant!

My rating: 9/10
My "Worth reading reviews": @thezreview.co.uk | @zboneman.com | @futuremovie.co.uk
Buy: DVD (USA) | DVD (Europe) | related Poster (Twin Domes, Carlsbad Caverns)