Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris

I admit I love vampire stories. Ever since I saw Christopher Lee as Dracula in a number of those unforgettable Hammer Horror movies, I have loved vampire and horror stories. So, I bought the first book of the Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead Until Dark in order to get my vampire fix. In fact, I have not read a vampire story in quite some time, and this one happened to be on the top of my very very big unread pile of books.

Vampires are out in the open. Their thirst for blood can be quenched by a synthetic blood product, named True Blood. Of course not everyone plays by the rules, but that's a tale for another day. Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in Bon Temps, a small city in the Southern States of the US. Sookie has what she calls a "disability": she can read minds. Enter Bill Compton, whose mind Sookie cannot read. Why? Because Bill has a "disability" of his own: he is a vampire. Add murder into the picture, and you have an urban fantasy mystery novel.

Dead Until Dark is not a horror book; vampire books nowadays can rarely be put among the horror novels. As a book, it did not disappoint me; I was pleasantly surprised by some of the writer's ideas. I liked the idea about the vampire blood being used as a drug or what we learn about Sam. I am certain that Sookie's world has more to offer, and that this was just an introduction to the wonderful world of the night.

I loved the fact that the writer, Charlaine Harris, does not delve into unnecessary detail; Harris always gets to the point, giving the amount of detail that is needed for the story. I did feel that some characters were either underused or not well developed, like Sam for example. I am certain that Sam has a great backstory to his character. I certainly hope he has!. Also, I think that the trio of vampires were also underused, and might have given a bit of more spark to the story, if their relationship to Bill was disclosed or something similar. Another character I thought may need additional characterization, and might also be a more central character is the detective Andy Bellefleur. But it might be that those stories are going to be left for another one of the books.

All in all, I regard this to be an introduction to Sookie's world. And I expect more from the next books in the series. I have not watched the HBO TV series that the books have spawned; I probably will after I have read more of the books, and can compare it to the series.

Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan

This is the second book in the Percy Jackson series. Another well-written book; there is a huge flaw in this one, to which we will come later. First a few words about the book's story.

During the school year, Percy finds a new friend: Tyson. But Tyson is not any mortal child; Tyson is also a son of gods, but of the monstruous persuasion. Tyson is a Cyclops, and half-brother to Percy. But enough, about Tyson; back to our story. Percy arrives to Camp Half-Blood and finds Thalia's tree has been poisoned, and Chiron sacked because all suspicions fell on him. Camp Half-Blood is in danger; with the poisoning of the tree and the land, its magical protections are failing, and monsters attack the camp all the time.

The only thing that can save the tree, and restore the land, is the Golden Fleece. But where is it located? And what does the Golden Fleece have to do with Grover? Percy is going on another adventure, to find the Golden Fleece, rescue Grover, restore Camp Half-Blood and find out who poisoned Thalia's tree. This adventure will take him right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle, or as the half-bloods and gods and assorted monsters call it, the Sea of Monsters. A number of mythological monsters will parade from the pages of the book; we will follow Percy into an ancient Greek adventure, set into modern times.

Now, however, as someone who has been raised in Greece, and always loved the Ancient Greek mythology, I must point out one particular flaw in this children's book: when Annabeth explains about the Golden Fleece, she says that the Golden Ram had carried Cadmus and his sister Europa, who fell while carried. But this is wrong, as the ram carried the brother and sister Phrixus and Helle; it was the girl Helle that fell in the sea from the ram, and the part of the sea where Helle fell and drowned in the strait, named Hellespont in her honour, according to mythology. Cadmus in fact, was the brother of Europa and father of Ino. Ino was the jealous stepmother of Phrixus and Helle, and why the two children had to flee carried by the Golden Ram. Europa is the woman abducted by Zeus in bull form, and the woman from which Europe got its name.

The rest of the book, as far as I could tell, did not have any more mistakes, as far as Greek mythology goes. Of course, I am not an expert, and there might be something that escaped me.

Generally, however, the book is enjoyable, and can be read by children and adults alike. What I like in this particular series of books, is the fact that the books may spark interest in Greek mythology, and gently guide children to read more about, not just mythology, but ancient civilizations as well. From the shores of the Nile to Mount Olympus and beyond, there is a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to be found and cherished.

Toy Story 3

The third installment of the Toy Story series of movies is here and, of course, I could not miss the new adventures of my favorite movie toy stars, Woody, Buzz LightYear, and all their friends.

I wanted to watch it in 3D, but the only 3D screening that was available was dubbed in the greek language. And those of us who wanted to watch the original in 3D? Unfortunately, no go. Since I never watch dubbed films, even if the dubbing is excellent, me and my friends (who hold similar views to mine) went and saw it in 2D.

But, let's return to the movie itself. The toys are back in town indeed, with a new adventure, with a happy ever after ending [it is a children's movie after all]. Andy, the toys' owner, is leaving for college. He wants to take Woody with him, and put the rest of the toys in the attic. However, from a mistake, his mother thinks that the bag containing the toys is garbage and puts them with the trash. The toys manage to escape and decide they are going to be donated to the Sunny Side Day Care Centre. And here the adventures of Woody, Buzz, Rax, Jessie and all the other toys start; new adventures await the toys, and on the way, they will make new friends.

This is a movie about growing up, about change; it is a movie for children of all ages. It does not matter if you are 10 or 50 years old; this is a movie for all of us. It is a movie about ourselves mostly, about change and how we handle it, about how we treat not just favorite things like toys, but loved ones and, finally, ourselves.

There are some wild scenes with Barbie and Ken, and with Buzz:s spanish mode! This is a movie, where I really laughed at the funny scenes, in the theatre. And not just me, but the whole theatre was laughing. And at the time I went to see it, there were very few actual children present. The movie theatre was filled with adult children, like me. We wanted to have a couple of hours of fun and Toy Story 3 delivered on its promise. And also made us think.

For those of you that have not seen the previous 2 movies, I have one thing to say: What are you waiting for? Toy Story movies are for each and everyone of us, for the child in all of us, for that child that should not be hiding in the deep recesses of ourselves, but should be out helping us have fun and see the bright side of life!

Atheist Union of Greece

On May 2010, some of the people and members of the greek Atheist blog and forum, have proceeded to form an official union of Atheists, with the purpose of promoting secularism, atheism, religious freedom, skepticism, science, rationality, critical thinking, etc. in Greece.

I am announcing the formation of the Atheist Union of Greece. For anyone interested, you can contact the secretariat of the union at the address: contact at atheia dot gr

The website of the Union is being built, and as soon as any more interesting news on the Union are published, I will make a new announcement.

Spam, and more Spam: from blogs to Nigerian scams

I've had some problems lately with spam comments in this blog. I must have deleted up to 10-15 comments at least in the past 2 weeks. Every now and then I get an e-mail in my inbox, and there it is: the spam message in chinese, with every kind of spamming links, from pr0n (as it is the word in the intertubez) to selling I don't know what.

If there is one thing I dislike, in general, from my mailbox to the forums I frequent to the blogs is spam. I understand that people want to advertise their product, and that they want to sell; but spamming sites and blogs is not the answer. Nowadays, there are ways of getting rid of spam, that is very effective.

For example, mail programs have spam rules, and put various spam messages into the Junk or Spam inbox. They don't always get it right, but they do at least 9 times out of 10. I do check my junk mail to see if there has been an error at times. For example, this morning one of the messages from ESA got into the junk mail, and I just redirected it to the normal inbox.

There is also the kind of spammer who is looking for victims; like the Nigerian scams, or the bank e-mails. If you point (without clicking) on to one of the links in the scam bank e-mails, you will see that those links re-direct to a different web address than the one you see on your screen. This is done in order to make you think that you are linking towards the bank's website, while, in reality, you get re-directed to a site where your username and password as well as other details can be keylogged and used by fraudsters.

As for the Nigerian scams, I had found once a little book with some of the most famous Nigerian scams around. I have regretted not buying it at the time; it must have been more than 6-7 years ago though. Nigerian scams have been here almost since the time of faxes; I have gotten a number of those letters by fax in the company. Maybe they have been around even longer, and the first ones were by snail mail? I don't know, but it might not be so far-fetched.

After all there are a lot of gullible people in the world, ready to believe anyone and anything.

Short story in 6 words...

I've tried writing some of my own stuff, like poetry and short stories, and I admit, I am not the best of writers. Probably, like most people, I have a few good ideas, but don't know how to put them down on paper. However, I did once write some short stories in 6 words, and here are the results:

Sun nova. Earth destroyed. No survivors.

Spaceship lost. New planet. New life.

I travel the stars and galaxies.

Mars terraformed. Colony established. Martian Federation.

In the end, we are immortals.

We create, we destroy, we Gods. 

Future brother returned from the past.

Universe imploding. Big Bang. New universe.

Aliens invade. Wars stop. Humankind saved. 

 

Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs

This is the first book of the Temperance Brennan series, written by Kathy Reichs. Kathy Reichs, the writer, is a forensic anthropologist, just like the protagonist of her books; this also gives us, the readers, the opportunity to learn about forensic science, and how it is actually applied to solving crimes. I like it a lot when science is accurately portrayed in books, especially in novels like this one, that are very popular.

This is the book series, that the show Bones has been based on. But, careful, because the series and the books have very little in common. Even Temperance Brennan is a very different character in the two media; the only common denominators are the name and the occupation.
I really didn't mind it at all, and enjoyed the book.

In this first book of the series, Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for the province of Quebec, is called to examine a badly decomposed body found in the grounds of an abandoned monastery. Is this just another murder, or is there more to it than meets the eye? Tempe thinks that there is a serial killer on the loose, and must convince Detective Claudel, who heads the investigations. When she finally manages to convince him, the body count has risen, and Temperance may be in grave danger.

I liked this first contact with Brennan's world. I liked the character of Brennan herself, who is both human and professional at the same time, and is not afraid to show either of these to the reader. All the characters are well portrayed, they have their own distinct personalities, and each one has something to give to the book, even the minor characters.

Reichs depicts a very believable situation in this book. From the crime scene descriptions to the action scences,. Reichs keeps the reader not just interested, but eager to turn the page and read further. I stayed up late to finish the last couple of chapters of the book, I wanted to know how it finished before sleeping.

One of the better parts of the book, is when Tempe, trying to find her friend Gabby, looks for her among the people of the night. We see another face of Quebec, and not just Quebec, but a face that is present in every city, whether small or big, that most people either willfully ignore, or hide it. The prostitutes are for once, portrayed as the human beings they are, each one with her own particular story, with their own customs, and their own hard and cruel world.

I liked Kathy Reichs writing style. I liked the book in general, and will read more of the adventures of Temperance Brennan. As for the TV show, I like that too, and will continue to watch it.

Last but not least...

Following the death of the RD forums, there has been a lot of hype over the internet. The news travelled fast, and if you search you will find a lot of posts in blogs, in articles and more. Peter Harrison was contacted by journalists and more, but whatever we, the old mod team, had to say has been said. In our blogs, in various forums, in various comments in blog posts.

But we don't want to blow this out of proportion. Because what a lot of people have not understood, is that it was never about the proposed changes. It was about the way both the mod team and the members of the forum were treated. As Sciwoman, an admin on the RDF said, this was a classic example of how not to do it.

I do not want to post any more on this, nor do I want to go to any more sites that are reporting the events. All I wanted, was to get the truth out about what happened. This has been done, by many people. I wish to thank anyone out there who helped to put the record straight. It is now time to move on. 

Goodbye RDF, and Welcome to Rational Skepticism. Most of the old mod team is now on Rational Skepticism, and for anyone still out there from RDF, but also anyone else interested in science and reason, we welcome you to the new forum. 

Death of a forum: An ex-admin blogs about the defunct RD.net forum

Peter Harrison was for a very long time a moderator and admin of the forum. He put on a lot of his personal time and work to make the forum the incredible place it was. Peter was also the moderator that tutored every newbie moderator about the moderator control panels, what to do and what not to do, and many other things. He was the first person to congratulate me and tell me how happy he was that I would be moderating the Debunking Creationism subforum. I have a lot of respect for Peter, and last night he wrote a wonderful piece about the forum and how Josh Timonen and Andrew Chalkers killed the forum and the community.

The article can be found here: Death of the Dawkins forum - The world's busiest atheist forum closes

He has told the story much better than I could. The previous articles I wrote were more of a rant and an obituary. A rant because of the way both members and staff were treated by Josh Timonen and Andrew Chalkers; an obituary because those two site techs killed the forum totally with their actions.

I would like to say a big thank you to the moderating staff of the Richard Dawkins forum, all of them, from the ones that left before I joined, to the ones that were "sacked" on Monday. Thank you to all of you for making the forum what it was, and I am proud to have been given the chance to contribute as a moderator and member.

I would like to say a big thank you to all the members of the forum. You, people, were the heart of the forum, and what made it what it was. It was the busiest atheist forum on the net, maybe even one of the busiest and most active forums on the net.

Goodbye Richard Dawkins forum.

Death of a forum: death of the RD.net forum II

The Rd.net forum user hackenslash put this video up on youtube: