It is a big adventure...life is

New Blog

2007-07-14T03:20:00.000+03:00

I have decided to keep a blog at my personal homepage. I have also decided it to be in Greek:) So, while I may post here from time to time, mainly I will be posting at http://www.karios.gr/blog !

2005-09-27T22:54:00.000+03:00

I really miss the greek sea and sun:) And yes, that's me, summer 2005, island of Skiathos, Greece!

2005-09-27T22:38:00.000+03:00

A triumph for Greek basketball! The Greek national basketball team has won the european championship for the second time, the first being back in 1987. This was also the 3rd metal, following a silver medal back in 1989. The final was against Germany, a final that proved to be the easiest game through the whole tournament! Another interesting thing is that the team's coach, Panagiotis Giannakis was a player in the 1987 team, thus becoming the first and only person that has won a European championship as a player and as a coach!

It all starts...

2005-08-30T19:44:00.000+03:00

Taking a look at 2 posts before this one, you will see the condition I was at the time. The whole thing seems to be clearer right now, and I've decided to dedicate a new blog to this development. You may visit it here or use the link on the links section on the right side of this blog.

Airline crashed

2005-08-14T17:14:00.000+03:00

Unfortunately, the biggest crash in Greek aviation history is a fact. A Cyprian airliner crashed near Athens this morning after flying for 1 1/2 hour on its own. Most likely this is due to a problem in the aircraft's oxygen/heating system which may have caused the death of everyone onboard (115 passengers and 6 crew members) long before the plane crashed.
5 hours after the crash, there is no official report about the names of the people that were on board. There are mixed reports from various sources that are not confirmed yet, such as an sms that was sent from a passenger to his cousin bidding him farewell.
We are all waiting here to see what really happened, since the recovery of the plane's black boxes is hard at the moment, due to a fire that was caused by the crash.

The Future

2005-08-09T12:49:00.000+03:00

It is a fact that I haven't updated my blog for about 20 days now, not very good for any blog:) It is a rather weird time for me right now, since for the next year (at least) I will be abroad getting my Informatics MSc degree. This will take place most likely in Edinburgh, Scotland but there is also a chance that I will end up in Freiburg, Germany. There are many factors that are unclear at this time and things seem to move really slow, being August and all.
The 2 MSc programs can be found here:

Freiburg
Edinburgh

What would you choose?

...rock you like a Hurricane!

2005-07-19T02:10:00.000+03:00

Just got back from a great Scorpions Concert at Karaiskaki Stadium in Athens. These guys still rock after so many years and can surely fill up stadiums! It's the second time I went to a Scorpions concert with the previous being 10 years before.

Nice

2005-07-13T16:10:00.000+03:00

There was another mention to some of my work on NeHe OpenGL site. It's about a soccer sim I once made (and, of course, never finished) using Delphi and OpenGL.
NeHe wrote

'SOC by Marios Karagianns (aka Karios) is a great start to an OpenGL soccer game. It's still an early release, but it's definitely fun! The author says that like "Walker Wars" there might be a later version with full source code included. Read the readme file for more information. You can grab SOC from the downloads page under 'S' or by clicking here: SOC. '

It's nice to see my work published again:) Of course, the previous one was Walker Wars which can be found here: Walker Wars

2005-07-07T19:50:00.000+03:00

I got my Zertifikat Deutsch diplom today:) Not very good grades, but I am happy:)

2005-07-07T19:49:00.000+03:00

Great news for anti-epatents supporters! The final (as it seems) vote on the EU about legalizing e-patents ended with a vast NO to e-patents a few days ago. This is a victory for opensource, a victory for all those small-sized developers in the EU and a victory for free thinking and speech. The vote was 648 against, 14 pro and 18 absents. Only 367 of the total 732 were needed to reject it, so this victory is wide! The US and Japan multinational companies were not very happy about this results, but I am:)

London Blasts

2005-07-07T19:24:00.000+03:00

At least 7 bombings in London today, which resulted in at least 30 people dead and hunderds injured. Curious, 7 bombings on 7/7/2005 (2+0+0+5=7). I guess the terrorists (or whoever this was) have a sense of humour, or are professional mathematicians (hint!). These attacks don't really surprise me, since England (along with Spain and the USA) were the first to attack and kill thousands in other countries the previous years. The UK was the last to be attacked back (since the US and Spain had their share of attacks). Also, I think that the English people are totally responsible for voting Blair again, after what he chose his actions to be in Iraq and elsewhere. It will also not surprise me if the US is attacked again, since Bush is still president there. Noone can really say that the UK and US people are not responsible by majority at all of today's attacks, in my opinion.

Let it Rain

2005-07-03T21:05:00.000+03:00

Heavy rain here in Athens today. Following a week of over-35 degrees temperatures, there was a quick but heavy shower on our heads. Well, at least the air feels cooler now:)

Summer

2005-07-01T16:40:00.000+03:00

Have a great month everyone. The summer is already showing its teeth here in Greece since today we have 39-40 degrees Celcius down here. Phew, this is a lot, I tell you. I had to go on a one-day trip yesterday covering about 400km and I couldn't turn off the aircondition in my car for one second. Well, at least we have all those great beaches around here (even if I haven't visited a single one so far).

GMail

2005-06-12T17:51:00.000+03:00

Has everyone got a GMail account already? It seems that in various forums people are offering their GMail invitations and noone seems to care:) Anyway, I've got 50 to give, so if anyone reading this wants one, email me at 'mkaragia aatt gmail.com' and he will receive one shortly!

Dank je wel

2005-06-02T00:57:00.000+03:00

Another victory for the people that are sceptical about the whole "progress" that they want us to believe that is happening in Europe (myself included). Many of us see our everyday life getting worse every single day that passes with unemployment and prices climbing skyhigh. Out Euros do not mean much these days, and above all that they want us to cancel our highest law, which is our constitution, to some other Euroconstitution which is, by all means, much worse and much less liberal. And to top it all, IN GREECE THEY NEVER ASKED US!
63% of the Dutch say NO, and I am starting to see WHY they didn't ask, they were afraid of us. But this is not democracy, if we people don't want it, it shouldn't happen.

Merci

2005-05-30T01:46:00.000+03:00

The people of France, following a long tradition of defending their social right and liberties, shouted 'Non' today, with a percentage of about 55%. Since we were not given a saying in this whole matter (because as I heard from a politician from out government saying today on the radio "we wouldn't know what we are voting for" - calling us sheep actually) I would like to say a big "Merci" to all of those that voted No.
As I read, most of the people that voted No were from lower classes and younger than 65 years old. That should say something about the vote.
I want to be able to vote too about things that concern me so much, as this! And to think that I was born in the country that once gave birth to Democracy.

EU constitution

2005-05-28T18:06:00.000+03:00

Tommorow is an important day for EU. The French found out in time that the constitution that is being proposed will take away most of their hard-earned social rights, and mess up their lives even more than the other EU decisions (euro etc) have already done. So, most of them as we speak do not currently want a constitution that will cancel their national (and all EU countries' ones too) one. I really hope 'non' will prevail. In Greece they didn't even ask us (talk about democracy).

Star Wars Episode 3

2005-05-24T02:43:00.000+03:00

The last (?) episode of George Lucas' Star Wars saga was just awesome. I went yesterday and saw it and the feeling that followed me out of the room was sadness. I already knew the story of episode 3 of course, having seen episodes 1,2,4,5,6 many many times, but still it is a human story full of sadness. The special fx were also stunning, I pity the renderers of this thing:)
The next few lines may contain a couple of spoilers.
A couple of things were a little out of place, like the easiness that Anakin turns to the dark side, even though Palpatine doesn't grand him his only wish or the easiness that R2D2 can access a whole network and have rights to do whatever he likes from any socket (this also applies to episode 4, where R2 can find all the info he wants about the imperial star destroyer during the rescue attempt). A couple of lines are for laughing ("You look so beautiful","It's because I'm in love", "No, it's because I'm in love" - what is this really? :) )
An excellent film which concludes the first 6 film pack very very nicely. Many questions are getting their answers and the key-points are very well done (the obiwan-anakin duel, the birth of luke and leia, the extermination of the jedi's and others).
Well done Lucas, we hope to see more of this magic in the future, even if that means more Indiana Jones or Episodes 7-8-9:):)

Another BDay

2005-05-20T03:19:00.000+03:00

Ok, so another birthday is over. So what? Most people tend to be a little over dramatic this day of the year, as if it is during this day that they grew one whole year. Yes, today my 26th year was concluded (successfully if I may add) and I am now in my 27th. I feel great, like I did yesterday:) So, happy birthday to me!

I hate

2005-05-18T21:27:00.000+03:00

I hate losing my glasses! I can't see to find them and I can't find them to see:)

2005-05-06T22:47:00.000+03:00

Blair? Again? Really?

Cross your fingers

2005-05-06T22:35:00.000+03:00

I hope that today is the day! I (re)sent my application to the computer science of Freiburg, Germany. And I say resent because this is the second application becase of a terrible mixup that happened with my previous one and resulted in me not being there right now:) It's a great MSc as far as I've seen, and I visited the town itself which looks gorgeously sunny (for Germany that is). I am already waiting for an answer from another MSc in Aachen, Germany which is a very good MSc program too. May or June will mean answers for me(hopefully)! So... cross your fingers everyone and wish me luck!

Forums BAD moderating

2005-05-03T15:20:00.000+03:00

Ok, today I have to say that wrong moderating in forums is the most anti-democratic thing online. I always thought (hoped) that forums were places where people could freely exchange ideas and thoughts, and that the good things about them was that the things written in them stay there for everyone to access, review etc. It seems that when brainless people are in charge, this is not the case. Simply because the might disagree with what is written, and with no violation of any rules they feel free to edit/delete posts and lock whole threads. This is what I call restriction of free speech. It's a good thing that this is not the rule in most forums, but for one more time, a couple of Greek forums show the worst example. You know who you are.

Driving around

2005-05-01T10:03:00.000+03:00

I just got back from a one day during which I drove over 400km. In the past 2 months I have drivven over 1700km in Greece and Germany and I think I have finally got the hang of the car in national highways:) And to think that I was really stressed when I was first driving mostly due to the old car I was using and to certain people who were not very supportive:) I guess that everyone feels anxious when first driving, so to all of you out there who do feel this way relax, 'cause times and practice will take all the stress about driving away:) It happened to me!

This is the car I rented while in Germany. And to think that I asked for a 1600cc VW Golf:) The one pictured is 2000cc. Most of the money went on benzine as you can easily imagine.

Welcome

2005-04-30T02:00:00.000+03:00

This is me - Marios. Please join me while we travel alongside through the greatest journey of all - the journey of life. I hope that this blog becomes a good place for me to express any thoughts, and for you, well, to find a chance to take a look at them:)