Code Swarm

Interesting idea. They use Processing to get the nice results.

Introducing the Google Maps API for Flash

Official Google Maps API Blog: Introducing the Google Maps API for Flash

Interactive Graph of American Spending (GRAPH)

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories to form the Consumer Price Index, one measure of inflation. It’s among the statistics that the Federal Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average American spends, as shown.

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"Fucking around is in fact detrimental to the work process"

Study Finds Working At Work Improves Productivity

WASHINGTON, DC—The groundbreaking research found that by simply sitting down and doing work, employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and services.

Why are we paid so well?

Through ongoing I have found that Software is hard. I really like the following quote:
"Talking about a software development schedule more than a year out is like talking about where we go after we die."

del.icio.us or simpy.com

Seems like del.icio.us has won over simpy.com (looked unstable from here) as you can see here del.icio.us/dstrupl or by looking at the right side of this blog page ;-)

JavaFX Script

Finally some open source alternative to Flash? Let's wait how good the implementation will be, the language and API looks good from a first glance. The font rendering still lags a bit behind my expectations in the published demos.

Image Inpainting

Check the Image Inpainting section of the linked article. Looks pretty cool - hope to get it in Gimp soon.

Programmer Personality Test

I have tried. Interesting. Might deserve more questions to get more valuable output.



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Walking robots?

It took Trevor Blackwell 6 years to build the robot. I wonder how realistic the 2050 goal is.

last.fm

My friends recommended this site. I am giving it a try. IMHO a good idea to offer you similar artists to those that you like. Will report back how good it is.

They have taken my toothpaste!

The idiots on the airport have taken my toothpaste from my hand luggage because it was 125ml - it was not full so it contained less than the allowed 100ml. Whoever made the rules was complete idiot. I apologize for the language but I could not help myself.

I am back

Hello everybody - I will try to post more often, I promise. This is rather a testing entry. Let's see what comes next.

Optical Illusions

Really nice "Optical Illusions". Would you believe this? Probably the coolest one (another link to the previously mentioned effect) is also mentioned on Wikipedia.

Winter vacation

We spent last week skiing in a small resort of Finkenberg , in the Zillertal region. Stayed in little hotel Persal right next to the slopes. We were taking
family pictures , especially
this one shows how parenting and skiing goes together.

While reading this Slashdot article
I have found this cool link .

RSS?

I am new to RSS feeds. Tried www.feedburner.com.
Here is the result: Or if your reader supports ATOM you can directly subscribe here.

Office politics

I have a strange feeling that I have already read almost identical article somewhere. Nonetheless it is pretty good: "Politics-Oriented Software Development (Technology) By TheophileEscargot ".

Little game

After searching for a Same Game clone for my new Palm I did not find one. So I wrote one:
Same Game for MIDP . If you have similar device you can also try it.

Patent pending

The situation with software patents is getting really absurd. Take for example the recent Sun versus Kodak.
Sun has paid vast sum of money to resolve the dispute. Why would someone pay 92M USD when there is no merit in the matter? The answer is simple: because it is cheaper to settle than to prove the truth in courts. That is saying something about the whole legal system and the patent system in particular.

I have really crazy idea: what about granting only patents that are relevant? How could you possibly do that? Simply by requiring some sort of review process before the patent application is accepted to become a patent. It would be enough if the patent office asks some expert group to vote for or against the patent being granted. The vote would be public so the asked experts would not dare to ruin their profesional reputation by stating nonsense during the vote. They can be even paid by the applicant for doing the job - isn't patent application expensive already?

The question remains who would appoint the expert group: I don't have answer but beleive there would be a way - e.g. the patent office could appoint them.

But I am not that naive - I know this will never happen. There are too many people making good money by using the current system. Why would they want to change it?