Welcome to the Dragonflame

It’s strange how the media manages to turn a rather boring subject into a general mass hysteria. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How many of the things you hear about on the news are actually as they’re presented? How many of the things you get fed everyday are actually so?

A good example is the largely misrepresented threat of the Conficker virus (his variants A, B and C behave differently, some as virus, others as worms, for the technically picky geeks outthere) which is said to bring unspeakable distruction on April 1st.  continue reading…

Darkness falls and as it falls, the stars take dominion over the world. It is a step in the natural spiral of life, but what would you do if darkness would fall for over four days? That’s right … one hundred hours of pitch black darkness where only the stars hold sway.

This is what the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia is promising this April, a world-wide event to promote Astronomy to the general public, with hundreds of events in major countries around the globe, starting April the 2nd and ending April the 5th. Observatories and astroclubs around the world promised to offer free access to anyone fascinated by the dark tapestry to observe everything and anything in the universe. continue reading…

Yesterday, the “Battlestar Galactica” reinvented series has come to an end. The one TV-series which has come as close as possible to being not only the best Sci-Fi series of all times but, in my opinion, also the best TV-series ever created, reached it’s final double-take episode yesterday.

Like many fans of the series, I can only wonder rethorically: is there life after Galactica? Of course, I am kidding, not to mention that a full-length prequel is in the making now. But now, at end of all things, it is good to take a while an wonder about “Galactica”, how it came to be and how a 4-series cinematic experience was able to gather such a huge mass of fans so quickly. continue reading…

The philosophy of freedom is a very old parat of philosophy. It has been discussed, commented on, dissected and split into many ways, going as high as being represented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Freedom is an interesting thing, considered to be above everything else but vague enough to be interpreted in so many ways. Some say that every living thing gifted with self-consciousness and intellect is free as it can choose its own actions. Some say that we are inherently not free while we life in a society, something that by definition limits the choices of our actions. continue reading…

So it happens again, with the circle of violence in school continuing. Today, Germany was affected as in the town of Winnenden, 8 highschool students and two teachers were killed when a former student, aged 17, opened fire against his former colleagues, killing indiscriminately after running and at the time I’m writing this, the german police announced that he was still not apprehended.

EDIT: a few hours later, the student was apprehended surrounded in a supermarket and was killed by the police after shooting two more by-passers and wounding two cops. continue reading…

Here’s a quick FAQ regarding my previous post about finding quality movies on torrents. These questions have been compiled from google queries used to find that post as well as my experience on torrent forums and questions I’ve answered in various places around the internet. They are posted here in no particular order. continue reading…

I was watching a movie the other day, a rather interesting movie based on a story by Philip K Dick. I am not really a Philip K Dick fan, but  I have an enormous respect for this author who has pioneered many philosophical and ethical concepts in today’s literature.

The story to which I’ll be referring is called “Minority Report” and it’s one of my favorites as it explores quite vividly one of the most fundamental existential questions of humanity: are we the masters of our own destiny or are we guided by an already written (and learnable) destiny? The story of the movie differs in many aspects from the written story, but I will try to refer to both (with an accent on the movie, which features some evolved concepts). continue reading…

This year Romania has again been in turmoil over three reasons: the racist violence in Italy, the proceedings in the investigation against former PM Adrian Nastase and the introduction of biometric passports. While the first two have been overly debated upon from all sides and all points of view, the latter has been given a one-sided ‘no’. continue reading…