I pre-ordered Persepolis Rising from Amazon on the 12th of November and received it on the 28th of December. Just for laughs I checked on the pirate bay to see if it was online, and OMFG it was uploaded 8/12/17, 4 days after the official release on the 5th of December.
With this kind of shitty service perhaps next time I wont bother ordering physical books.

Απαράδεκτη ποιότητα παιχνιδιού τραίνου Jumbo / very bad quality train from Jumbo stores, ΥΥ085,

Απαράδεκτη ποιότητα παιχνιδιού Jumbo κωδ: ΥΥ085, 0479213000037, batch no 20170820

μέσα σε μια μέρα χρήσης, αποσυναρμολογήθηκε το βαγόνι με τη σκεπή.

έσπασαν 2 ράγες,

καπνό δεν βγάζει, αλλά δεν έχει και οδηγίες χρήσης για το τι πρέπει να κάνεις για να βγάλει, πχ να βάλεις νερό στην καμινάδα.

η μηχανή δεν κάθεται στις ράγες, 

τα πλαστικά σπάνε σαν από τσιγαρόχαρτο.

οι ράγες δεν ασφαλίζουν και βγαίνουν με το παραμικρό.

πετάξτε τα χρήματα σας αλλού.

Autonomous vehicles and insurance

All this progress in vehicle autonomy, wouldn't eventually lead to the wipe out of the vehicle insurance companies?
Cause if the vehicle crashes and no human is involved, the driver can't be responsible. But the manufacturer is. Perhaps insurance companies, change focus and insure the manufacturers instead.

I am reading the news, about the extent that the rich evade taxes. Paradise papers, Lagarde list, tax heavens etc.
I wonder, what is the moral legitimacy to demand simple people to stop piracy of music and digital media in general?
The rich have the means to hide their money and not pay taxes through lobbying and laws made specificaly for them but the poor, must suck it up and pay.

In 2006 when "an inconvenient truth" came to be, I remember it draw a fair amount of criticism about the cgi scene with the Polar bear not being real and hence manipulating the audience. Well, I got news for all of you. A bear is documented starving to death in a baren landscape devoid of snow and food. Perhaps the inconvenient truth took the poetic liberty to show a drowning bear but real life shows that death due to climate change don't come swiftly like drowning for those affected. It will be a slow and agonizing death.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oiC_HG3u-nk
 

Trip into memory lane

I was checking out the newer versions of Wolfenstein and somehow this "dog" photo looked familiar...

but it couldn't be, it was totaly alien to me, and yet so familiar. And after a bit of memory strugling, it hit me!
The "dog's" teeth and Doom's font is eerily similar

Το κατεστημένο η διαπλοκή και το σύστημα

Οι λέξεις του τίτλου είναι λέξεις που εκφέρονται εύκολα αλλά δεν έχουν ποτέ πρόσωπο.

Τον κυρ Μπάμπη το μανάβη, θα τον έχετε ακούσει πολλές φορές να εκφέρεται κατά του συστήματος και πως φταίει πχ ο Τσίπρας. Ο Τσίπρας όμως δεν είναι το σύστημα ούτε το κατεστημένο. Αν ο Τσίπρας και ο κάθε Τσίπρας είναι κάτι, είναι το ανδρείκελο, ο αχυράνθρωπος, ο αποδιοπομπαίος τράγος που χρησιμοποιεί το σύστημα. Και που πιθανόν να μην ήξερε και σε τι έμπλεκε όντας μάλλον outsider της πολιτικής.

Διάβαζα στο documentonews.gr για τη διαπλοκή SALLAS και Bgeno καλή του ώρα. Και είχα την επιφοίτηση. Να κάποια από τα πρόσωπα του συστήματος! Σύμφωνα με το documentonews ο mr Marfin έγινε απο δικηγόρος τραπεζίτης με τη βοήθεια του SALLAS και του έδωσε δάνειο από χρήματα που δεν είχε η MARFIN για να αγοράσει ουσιαστικά την Πειραιώς. Και στη συνέχεια το ξεπλήρωσε δεν το ξεπλήρωσε το δάνειο αφού αγόρασε τη Marfin, μόνο ο θεός και οι φίλοι τους ξέρουν.

Ενώ αναφέρεται και το όνομα του πεθερού του Ελ. Βελ.

"Με τη βοήθεια του Αλέξανδρου Μπακατσέλου, πεθερού του Ευάγγελου Βενιζέλου, ο Βγενόπουλος επεκτείνεται και στην Εγνατία Τράπεζα."

Στην άλλη όψη της δημοσιογραφίας, ο Πρετεντέρης διακοπές με σκάφος με τον Άιδωνη Γεωργιάδη.

Στην ίδια όχθη της δημοσιογραφίας, η Σία Κοσιώνη έχει παντρευτεί τον Κώστα Μπακογιάννη, της γνωστής οικογένειας του παππού Μητσοτάκη,καλή του ώρα.

Δηλαδή περιμένουμε από δημοσιογράφους να αποκαλύψουν τα φαινόμενα διαπλοκής και κρατικής κακοδιαχείρισης των φίλων και συγγενών τους...

Να λοιπόν μερικά από τα πρόσωπα του συστήματος στην Ελλάδα.

I read all that crap about going to mars and colonising and teraforming it. Well, unless we are able to do just that here on earth on Australia and sahara were we have all the resources available  I don't see how we will be able to do that on mars. All that is just wishful thinking

How to clean old yellow plastics

So I found myself in the position to need to return to former white glory some old plastic bits that had become yellow over time, even though didn't sit in the sun.

So thanks to the following write up I managed to do just that.
I bought some Hydrogen peroxide 12%. "Cream Peroxide 40Vol" from a hair saloon supplier for about 12 euros delivered, put the gel on the plastic bit wearing a glove, put it in a sealed transparent plastic bag and let it steam under the heat of an IR lamp.

Since it is winter and the sun is at a premium this time of year, and not wanting to wait till summer to do it, I used a Blacklight lamp, which for some reason blew up within 30 minutes from the start of the experiment and didn't do much during that time. Afterwards I let the item all night under a fluorescent lamp, which also didn't seem to do much about it. Eventually I tried the heat IR lamp and within 3 hours, the item was becoming visibly white. Since the gel in the bag was visibly evaporating on the surfaces of the bag as droplets, I don't know if the heat is more of a catalyst than UV radiation.

All I know is that it worked!!!

1st application.

Although the difference is striking, in close inspection, there was some residual colouring almost as camouflage patterns. Not very obvious, but it was there. In any case the end product was much better.

About fake power tools

I have been looking for some cheap power tools, and was surprised by some Makita prices on ebay. So I was sceptical about the quality of such tools. I was also looking at some Bosch hammers and after seeing some genuine ones

I spotted this obviously fake tool

To the seller's credit, he didn't try to pass it as a BOSCH Hammer tool, however its almost identical !

Unfortunately on Ebay, most sellers selling cheap makita drillhammers do not have an actual photo of the item, but generic ones not allowing to make a judgement about authenticity before actually buying and receiving said tools.

Android TV HDMI Stick Firmware Upgrade RK3066

I had a relatively old, no name, HDMI Android TV stick, with rockchip 3066. At some point stopped booting. It would remain stuck at R-Box boot logo. Not remembering where I got it from and not being able to find a firmware online I replaced it with another one and it remained on a shelf collecting dust.

I do not like my stuff to be fautly, and since I had some time to kill, I start searching for a proper firmware.

first of all, I visited http://www.rockchipfirmware.com/firmware-downloads to download the proper flash tool for dual core chips. (RK3066 (Dual-Core) Firmware Image Flashing: English RKbatch Tool v1.5)

Of course one needs the proper drivers too, which I had downloaded in the past and dont remember where from.

Then because my particular Android stick didn't have a reset button i was thinking about using the directions shown bellow:
http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-support/rk3066-devices/mk-models-mk808-802-etc/2176-unbrick-or-fix-nand-on-the-mk808?1943-Unbrick-or-fix-NAND-on-the-MK808=

but then it occurred to me to look if the PCB board had contacts for an absent reset switch.

 and I did! On the pcb there was 2 unpopulated contacts with a rectangle and a circle inside, as shown above which when shorted with a metal pin, immediately the stick went into flash mode and was recognised by the flash tools.

After a few fruitless attempts to locate a firmware that would work on this one (most returned an error about the Chip) I found one that upgraded flawlessly! I plugged the Stick on the TV and worked!!!! After more than a year collecting dust, it was working again!
The firmware that worked for me was the following: TV-HDMI-200BT(V1.0)_20130312.

Unfortunately after some testing I realised, that the WIFI wasnt working, but that is a minor problem since it can playback video from USB, which was its primary usage anyway. I found more problems, like the SD card wasn't accessible, the bluetooth didnt seem to turn on. But at the moment I dont care.

considering an electric

So I seriously consider buying an EV vehicle for city usage. After all 95% of my needs would be covered vu the 80miles radiu offered by Nissan leaf. I live on a small island after all. However I don't have the buying capacity to spend 25-30k for a new car not to mention that arednt sold officially here in Greece. By a stretch most I could afford would be a second hand car nor over 10000€. And that with financial help from the family.

It has a variety of advantages. No yearly tax for the forceable future as long as EV cars remain scarse here and no new legislation decides to milk them for money. Electricity is much cheaper for running the at the moment.

Don't require any specialised mechanic, doesn't have Much mechanical parts to break down. Although it will require an electrician, if something goes wrong.




The problem I for see in the future more and more will be on the roads, electricity will go up, it is bound to lose its privileged tax free status, oil prices will go up as demand slows and less billions are spend in new oil production capacity. Battery technology is bount to get better, which means that people will get stuck with vehicles losing their value and range faster if current second hand EVs are any indication.
 If no after market batteries exist for cars like the leaf and Renault fluence in reasonable cost, then... EVs are kinda here to bring us "doom"