NSA is recording all forms of electronic communications and is doing it without any court-approved warrants which are required by any other agencies. The number of the recorded communications is about 1.7 billion in a daily base. This includes emails, phone calls, sms texts and any other form of electronic communication. The numbers are very scary and some people are still unaware of that fact. If you put that text in hard copy it is equivalent to 138 million books, every day. NSA has as many employees as FBI and CIA together and its data center in Utah is 5.7 times larger than the U.S Capitol. This is not the only data center NSA has, there are dozens of them, but it is the largest. Next time you will pick up the phone, be careful of what you say because everything is recorded, everything.
Batman’s House
Some people believe that batman exists and he is not a fictional character. There are many superheroes but batman is the more realistic one, his superpowers are money and gym. At least he uses them to make world a better place. Enough with the introduction, this post is to inform you that after some research we have found where he is hiding. His greatest weakness is that he likes his logo very much and he couldn’t resist to put it on the roof of his building. As you all know, with so many satellites nothing stays hidden forever. Batman is now in Okinawa and if you don’t believe the fact you can see it for yourself.
Windows 8 logo and old Greek flag
Microsoft spent time and effort to design the new logo of Windows 8. I assume that they wanted something simple because someone can create it in minutes. The result is not something new, it is a very old design from Greece and they used it as a flag between 1822 and 1978. To be fair enough, it is not exactly the same but the similarities are very obvious. The cross is thinner and there is a rotation, it is more like a redesign than a new innovative logo. There are variations of the flag of Greece that have similar color with the Windows 8 logo, thumbnails are not very good for the comparison, you can click on them and see the full size.
Floppy Music
We thought that floppy was dead, especially now with the arrival of Blu-Ray. Personal computers now do not have floppy drives by default as they used to. It appears that this is not the case, floppy is back but with a more artistic point of view rather than data storage. Floppy is used to generate music in a retro style which makes many people to feel nostalgic. There are several music videos on YouTube with floppy generated music with millions of views. Here are some cool themes ands songs created with the sound of floppy drives. Enjoy !
M-emo-ry: Pair Memory Game
M-emo-ry is a simple pair memory game where you match emotional emoticons. The purpose of the game is to find all (18) matching pairs. Even though the game is designed for small kids, it is suitable for all ages. We all need to exercise our memory in order to keep our brain highly active. It runs on any system that has .NET Framework 4, Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8, on both 32bit and 64bit versions. M-emo-ry is freeware (you can use it for free) and portable (no installation needed).
Wolfenstein 3D is 20 years old
Happy birthday to Wolfenstein 3D which is now 20 years old. Twenty years ago, 5 May 1992, Wolfenstein 3D was released. It was the first first person shooter (FPS) and this is how the era of FPS games began. It was this game that started it all. To celebrate the 20 years of Wolfenstein 3D they have created a website (source link) where you can play the game (for free) from your browser. It might be a little difficult to play (for those that never played it) but just keep in mind that it is a DOS game that was released in 1992. If you don’t even know DOS (and no, we don’t mean Denial of Service here) then you are too young or too ignorant and please leave this page immediately. For those about to play the game, we salute you.
Amazing basketball shots
First one is a shot in a real game Guilford College vs Randolph Macon on January 31, 2005. The score is 88 – 88 and one of the teams scores one more point 1 or 2 seconds before the end. The surprise is that the opposite team wins and watch how. There are similar shots and this is one of the reasons that basketball is excited and unpredictable. You don’t know who is the winner unless the game is finished, not a second before.
Ultra PDF Merger passed 5000 downloads
The download counter of the latest version of Ultra PDF Merger is now larger than 5000. You can download the latest version of Ultra PDF Merger, which is 1.3.2, if you don’t already have. I want to thank all of you for choosing Ultra PDF Merger for your PDF needs and your comments are more than welcome. If you want additional features or you found a bug please feel free to contact me. The easiest way is to post a comment on any of the related posts or via contact form. I have also developed a very simple memory game while playing with WPF which will also be freeware like Ultra PDF Merger and it is coming soon. Even though everything I share with you here in michalisnicolaides.com is absolutely free (except the services) I would appreciate any donations that show your appreciation. I don’t like advertisement and I will try to never add ads to this website, especially not those flashy animated ones. Once again, thank you for your choice and support.
Not grandma, not again
Did you skip work with your grandma as an excuse? Did you do that even though it wasn’t true or more than once? This funny video, which is an ad, shows a grandma dies six times, every time with a unique way, but at least it looks painless and instant. The purpose of the ad is to promote the job finding website in order for people to find a job that they want to go and do not use grandma as an excuse. Of course, the death of a close person like grandma is very sad but if you don’t want to go to work there is a plethora of other excuses you can use, not grandma, not again. When I was in the army, someone used this excuse three times, even though both of his grandmas were alive.
Iran to become a cyber super power
Iran has invested a lot in cyber capabilities, both offensive and defencive. They moved all government websites to local servers to protect them from attacks few months ago. Now they are hiring an army of hackers in order to become a cyber super power. According to rumors, they are building their arsenal and they will target US facilities like power grid and water systems. They will not attack just yet but they are being prepared for a future confrontation with the United States. One of the main reasons of Iran cyber decisions is the Stuxnet trojan and I can’t blame them. The soldiers of the future are hackers and the next war will most probably be electronic targeting valuable facilities.