Doctor Who Experience

Great Experience !
Really, one of the best things to do in London those days.
The setting is everything you would have expected. The entrance to the show lies on the way of the TARDIS where you are received by the very enthusiastic crew. The waiting is not a big deal as some real size models of events in the Doctor Who universe are around to keep you busy.
One inside the show, you will see a short film before entering the crak in time and space and try to help the Doctor to escape out of the Pandorica.
The experience is really interactive since the very first moment as the Doctor is really talking to you, as part of the audience in your way through time and space, wherein and wherewhen you encounter several iconic moments of the story.
After the show, there are some exhibitions rooms, one dedicated to the Doctor, one to the Companions and one to the Adversaries (they call them Monsters, but I prefer the term adversary as more neutral :D )
In the room dedicated to the Doctor (depicted) you can see all the incarnations of the Doctor as well as read something about his character and mood under such incarnations.
The Companion's room shows all the past Companions of the Doctor as well as reproductions of the TARDIS and some footage from the old TV Series.
The Adversaries section can spoil you some of the more recent episodes (2011) as the accompanying text details the outcome of some episodes.
Here you will find also a projection room where you can watch some of the "how it was done" of the last season episodes.
At the end there is, of course, the shop where you can buy some nice merchandising, including DVDs and books.
A very thrilling experience for all the family.
Enjoy !

Apple?, Maybe not, thanks

Maybe I am unlucky with their products but so far Apple scores really low in my personal list of useful and reliable things.
First Apple device I got was an iPod Touch 32 GB. Nice thing, still working, no problems at all. 1 point for Apple.
Second product was the iPhone 3G, the same, still working, a bit slow nowadays with the last upgrade of the software but still functional. Another point for Apple.
Third item, a MacBook pro. Nice thing, quite fast at the beginning, quite slow now with the Snow Leopard last upgrade, but already once in the repair service. The Nvidia fatal error. Dead Nvidia graphic card. Luckily it was still on time to enjoy the extended warranty. Quite annoying that a product so expensive and not over used breaks after less than three years. Minus one point for Apple.
Fourth was the Apple TV. One of the worst things I have bought in my life. Continuous problems with the synchronization with the iTunes, specially after ANY update, either of the AppleTV or of the iTunes. Really hate the thing. Minus one point for Apple (actually it should be more minus points, but I try to kept this rating non-emotional).
Time Capsule was the fifth and the last Apple product I got so far. Very nice and useful toy, even if I was having some issues with the connectivity of mac and PC on the same wifi, however two weeks ago it decided to die. One day it was plugged but switched off. According to the apple forums, it seems to be a failure of the power source due to overheating. The problem is well-known and apparently solved in some Time Capsules, but not in others. This time the serial number of mine is not in the "lucky" range for the repair action. The thing was two years old. Again, quite annoying that something so expensive and which supposedly will keep my data safe as backup device, breaks suddenly without any warning nor apparent official repair options (according to the apple forums they usually offer you a discount in a new one and even AppleCare does not cover the Time Capsule). So, another minus point for Apple.
Total score: -1
Sorry Apple,

Breaking the Wall

AT-43 is officially dead but I am afraid a lot of people have their miniatures still around. I have :)
And I am also trying to learn how to build and paint some terrain for the game (or for other miniature games).
In this endeavour, I try to use anything, specially everything which comes into my hands. This time it was a piece of Styrofoam which was intended to protect the head of my printer during transport.
I gave a first layer of Payne's Grey mixed with some thickening medium and beach sand to obtain some texture and a dark background.
Afterwards, I highlighted it with some dry brush work with three different greys, and a bit of white mixed with the lighter of the greys.
Hope you like it.
Suggestions are welcomed.

Biscuits with chocolate cover

Preparation time: 45min

Baking time: 15min

around 20 units (but depends on the used biscuit form)

Ingredients:

200g flour

1 enveloppe baking powder

1 enveloppe vanilla sugar

80g sugar

100g butter

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

some chocolate for the decoration

Preparation:

Mix the flour with the baking powder and the vanilla sugar, add the sugar, the egg and the butter after letting it soft a bit.

Mix all the ingredients in the mixture carefully until a homogeneous dough is builded.

If needed add more flour so that the dough does not stick to the fingers or the table.

Let the dough stay for about 30min in the fridge.

Afterwards, roll the dough into a plank of about 0.5cm wide and cut the biscuits with a biscuit form (we use one of the Neuschwanstein castle).

Bake them in the oven for around 11 min. After they cool down, paint them with the molten chocolate and let it solidify again.

Beschwipster chocolate cake

Preparation time: around 15 min

Baking time: around 40 min at 160C in a modern air oven preheated also at 160C

Ingredients

115g butter

140g dark chocolate (around 70% cacao) in pieces

2 spoons brandy

85g brown sugar

6 eggs (yolks and egg white apart from each other)

50g coconut powder

425g whipped cream to decorate

Preparation:

Warm up the chocolate to melt it and mix it with the brandy. Wait for it to cool down a bit.

In another recipient, mix the butter and the sugar with a spoon or a wooden instrument, cutting the butter previously in small pieces helps. To this mixture and under continuous mixing with a electrical mixer, add the yolks one after each other.

Afterwards, add also the chocolate mixture.

Finally add the coconut.

Whisk the egg whites hard until peaks, then add them slowly to the previous mixture with continuous mixing.

Put the mixture inside of a 23cm round mold (we used a hearth form of the same size). Bake it until the inside is dry (test with a needle or a fork) and let it cold down inside of the form.

As final touch, decorate at will with the whipped cream.

Muffins double chocolate

This recipe is a modification of one from a cooking book concerning only chocolate recipes :)
We changed a few things and tried it yesterday, here the technical data.
Final units: around 14-15 muffins
Preparation time: around 15 min
Baking time: around 20 min at 175°-200°C in a modern air oven, preheated at 200°C

Ingredients:

200g flour

25g powder cacao

1 little envelope of chemical baking powder

1 little spoon of cinnamon

120g brown sugar

50g black chocolate (around 70% of cacao)

2 eggs

100ml sunflower oil

230ml milk

 

Preparation:

Recipient A:

mix well the oil with the eggs, then add slowly the milk to the resulting mixture of the eggs and oil, mixing well those ingredients.

 

Recipient B:

put the flour, the cacao powder, the baking power, the cinnamon and the brown sugar and mix them together with a spoon or wooden instrument. When the powder-like mixture is more or less homogeneous, add the dark chocolate in small pieces and distribute it in the mixture.

Add the liquid mixture of recipient A into the solid powder-like mixture of recipient B, mixing it slightly with the spoon or wooden instrument. Do not mix too much to avoid that the muffins become too hard in the oven.

Distribute the mixture in the muffin forms and put them into the oven.

Back until they are dry inside (puncture one with a long needle or a fork to check it).

Enjoy !

13

I watched this film last Saturday and I am still thrilled.
I would like to watch also the original one (13 Tzameti) but taking into account that both films were written and directed by the same filmmaker (Géla Babluani) and the info on wikipedia for the plots (beware of total spoiler if you read them in advance), it seems to be that more this time the remake is really a remake (total copy) of the original one.
A dark story, full of psychological violence and tension.
Just awesome.

Unknown

I watched this film some weeks ago thanks to a friend who liked it.
I have to agree.
The plot is quite decent, well drafted, the actors are credible and even if the story sounds Known the little surprises make it a bit Unknown.
:)

Hope you also like it.

Acer Aspire Revoview RV100

This is the new guy in the city, or at least at my place.

For our video media needs we were relying in the appleTV 1st generation but without too much general satisfaction. In our home there are Mac and PCs trying to live in mutual peace, something that according to everyone should be very easy but which we never totally managed to organize.
Any way, our appleTV was only able to communicate with the Mac computer as the PCs were not able to see/detect it.
Therefore all our video media was first synchronized to the appleTV by the Mac, then just streamed. The problem was the limited video formats that the appleTV is able to reproduce.
After considering some other possibilities, such as jailbreaking the appleTV or even to install linux on it (a friend, linux freak, managed to boot the dammed thing and we were able to load something called MythTV) we started searching for an alternative.
Two options were into consideration: a new computer, a mini-PC, not a Mac-mini, with HDMI connectivity or a multimedia player.
At the end we decided to look for multimedia player and we found this little friend here on sale for less than 150€ and a very detailed review thereof (RV100 Review), however the webpage of Acer is strangely silent about the device.
Two days ago we got it.
The cited review is 100% true, to every detail. The thing comes with 2Tb and a Wifi adapter.
The disk can be extracted and connected to another Acer computer. I don't know if it will be possible to connect it to any computer, maybe with some adapter or similar.
The Wifi USB stick which comes with the machine seems to be according to the user manual the only one which will work on the device, so if it gets broken, damaged or lost, you will need to buy a new one from Acer (if that is possible).
The interface of the disk is a bit slow and clumsy.
First, when another disk, for example, a portable hard disk, is connected to the Acer, the multimedia player scans totally the connected disk to make the library of its contain. This is nice as the Acer detects all the video, pictures and audio in the connected disk, but painfully slow. Nice thing is that you can watch the videos while the scan is performed, so not such a big deal, but anyway a bit anoying.
The interface has a main menu wherein a Video, a Pictures, a Music and a Devices options are presented. The video option gives you access to all the video in the system but as individual files, so no distribution by movies, TVseries, seasons and so on. The same applies to Pictures and Audio. Everything is mixed there as individual files, but sorted by date or name and with search function. So, it is functional, but not fantastic. Clumsy.
The Devices button takes you to a menu wherein you see a Network, a UPnP, a HDD and the free USB options (the machine has two USB but one is blocked by the Wifi adapter).
The Acer can connected to the network and will integrate with any windows PCs under the Network sub-menu. Only problem we found here was that the PC under Windows 7 was having only one user, which was, of course, the administrator and the Acer did not wanted to recognize it. Just creating a second user, normal one, solved the issue.
The Acer is at the moment not able to see the Mac under the Network sub-menu.
However, the UPnP sub-menu detects automatically the PCs. No problem here, only the headache of trying to understand the Windows media something which runs in the PCs and which is responsible for the UPnP connectivity. The file structure of the library is not evident. However, streaming is as simple as selecting the file on the PC, right click and selecting play on Acer.
The Mac is again invisible under UPnP, but if XBMC (XBoxMediaCenter) is running in the Mac, then the Acer will see and be able to access the Mac library.
So, either under Network or under UPnP, the Acer seems to be able to access (wireless) to the Mac and the PC and read or copy the data on them. This can be done from the Acer interface.
Streaming form the PC to the Acer is easy and simple.
However, neither the PCs nor the Mac seems to be able to access (wireless) to the hard disk of the Acer.
According to the User Manual, this should be possible either by extracting the Acer hard disk and connecting it to the computer or by connecting the computer to the Acer with a USB cable (there is a mini USB port in the back part of the Acer).
In the sub-menu HDD on Devices we can copy the data either from a computer or from a external hard disk by a very crude interface which does not allow to create folders or rename file. Only to move or to copy something. Therefore it can be a good idea either to organize the external hard disk in a way that makes sense for you and copy the file structure into the Acer or access the Acer from a computer with an USB an make the file structure directly in the Acer (we have not tried it yet).
At this moment, it seems to me a good machine, with plenty of storage space, several ways to integrate with a windows environment, a very limited integration with a Mac (wireless), but with the standard wired options to communicate.
Quality of video and Audio is good, however our old HDMI cable was not good enought, the image was shacking. However, a brand new cable is provided with the device which works perfectly.
In general, a very nice, rounded hardware, with a slow and a bit clumsy software, but full of interesting possibilities.
By the way, anyone interested in a 1st generation appleTV ?
(just kidding)
:)

Work in progress