Musings, Rants and Ponderings Of A DB Architect

The curse and blessing of an hour long commute

2009-12-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

At this time I live about 6 miles from where I work, this is of course nice because I can be home in 10 minutes. There was a time when I used to commute from Princeton to New York City. I used to take the Amtrak (clocker) or the NJ Transit express train. During my commuting days I would read about 60 books in a year. After I found work in Princeton the number of books I would read in a year would drop dramatically. There was also another factor involved…twins….we welcomed a set of twins in 2006 and that was pretty much the end of me reading anything for pleasure. Besides the twins we already had another child who was 2 years when the twins were born. Here is a picture of them from last Christmas: http://www.flickr.com/photos/denisgobo/3101785602/in/set-72157600873902525/

Now that the oldest kid is almost 6 and the twins are 3.5 years old it is getting a little easier to read. This year I read about 10 – 15 books, most books these days I get in audio format. The advantage of an audio format is that you can listen to the book where you would usually not be able to read the book. I find it is very difficult for me to read a book in a noisy environment, when listening to an audio book I don’t have this problem. Some audio books are also read by professionals and it makes the book so much better than a paper edition.

So I do miss my commuting days for the reason mentioned above but I do not miss it when a train breaks down in front of us, if there is a brush fire or when a major blackout happens like the Northeast Blackout of 2003. Yes I survived that one but didn’t take the train home till 4AM the next morning. On the Amtrak trains there was this funny conductor named Marvin who would say when there was a problem with the train that Amtrak guaranteed same day service.

During the last week of this year I will post a list of all the books I read this year and also a list of the books that I hope to read next year. At this moment I am reading House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street. This is a really interesting book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to relive the crash of 2008. I also has the most F-Bombs in any book I read so far...kinda like the scarface of books :-)

There Is A Reason That AOL Users Are Associated With Eternal September

2009-11-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

There Is A Reason That AOL Users Are Associated With Eternal September!!

There I said it!! I didn't think people still used AOL...apparently some people still do and I was wrong. So what is this Eternal September thing I am talking about? This is from Wikipedia's Eternal September page

Usenet originated among universities, so, every year in September, a large number of new university students from the Northern hemisphere acquired access to Usenet, and took some time to acclimate themselves to the network's standards of conduct and "netiquette". After a month or so, these new users would theoretically learn to comport themselves according to its conventions. September thus heralded the peak influx of disruptive newcomers to the network.

In 1993, the online service America Online began offering Usenet access to its tens of thousands, and later millions, of users. To many "old-timers", these "AOLers" were far less prepared to learn netiquette than university freshmen. This was in part because AOL made little effort to educate its users about Usenet customs, or explain to them that these new-found forums were not simply another piece of AOL's service. But it was also a result of the much larger scale of growth. Whereas the regular September freshman influx would soon settle down, the sheer number of new users now threatened to overwhelm the existing Usenet culture's capacity to inculcate its social norms

Why am I writing about this? It is because my wife had to email someone two pictures of our twins so that this person could use those in a school book. My wife emails the pictures and the person claims she can't open the pictures because they are not in jpeg format.
Interesting because I remember the pics being in jpeg format. So then I tried and emailed my wife the pics, she opened them fine,I then told my wife to just forward them to the person. Same reply from the person, she can't open them. Then I asked my wife what email the person had......it turns out it was aol.

Now I remember about 10 years ago someone went through the same thing.....if you attach more than one item aol zips it up into one attachment or something like that. So I told my wife to email her the pics in two separate emails and the problem was solved. I didn't even try asking the person to unzip or unrar the attachment because then I would have to explain how to install winzip or unrar.

Really how can you still use aol in 2009? I don't care that you use aol as your ISP but use gmail or yahoo as your email. I also remember a while back when we were looking to interview people at a previous job and they just eliminated all the resumes from people who had an aol email address. The reasoning was that if you had an aol email account you could never be a serious programmer, little harsh I know but that was what they did

So, do you know anyone that still uses aol?

A Friend Is Like A Good Bra...

2009-11-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Got this in an email from my friend Bob. It is pretty funny...enjoy

When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place.
Once it's your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied.
Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall.
You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn't matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants!
The dispenser for the modern "seat covers" (invented by someone's Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty.
You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn't - so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume "The Stance."

In this position your aging, toneless (God I should have gone to the gym!!!) thigh muscles begin to shake.
You'd love to sit down, but you certainly hadn't taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold "The Stance".
To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser.In your mind, you can hear your mother's voice saying,"Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!" Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That will have to do. You crumple it in thepuffiest way possible. It's stillsmaller than your thumbnail.
Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn't work.
The door hits your purse, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest, and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet.
"Occupied!" you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT.
It is wet of course.
You bolt up, knowing all too well that it's too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seatbecause YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try.
You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, "You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get".
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes.
The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too
At this point, you give up. You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat.
You're e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d.
You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
You can't figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, .....so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting.
You are no longer able to smile politely to them.
A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, "Here, you just might need this".
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men's restroom.
Annoyed, he asks, "What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?" ..........
This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms (rest??? you've GOT to be kidding!!). It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It's so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse, and hand you Kleenex under the door!

A Friend Is Like A Good Bra...
Hard to Find...
Supportive....
Comfortable
...
Always Lifts You Up...
Never Lets You Down, or Leaves You Hanging,
And Is Always Close To Your Heart!!!

Have you seen Pandorum?

2009-09-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Pandorum? If so is it worth watching?

Here is the trailer

In PANDORUM, Dennis Quaid (Vantage Point, The Express) and Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma, Alpha Dog) join Cam Gigandet (Never Back Down, Twilight), Cung Le (Tekken, Fighting), newcomer Antje Traue, and director Christian Alvart (Antibodies) to tell the terrifying story of two crew members stranded on a spacecraft who quickly – and horrifically – realize they are not alone.

Two astronauts awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It’s pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the ship. They can’t remember anything: Who are they? What is their mission?

With Lt. Payton (Quaid) staying behind to guide him via radio transmitter, Cpl. Bower (Foster) ventures deep into the ship and begins to uncover a terrifying reality. Slowly the spacecraft’s shocking, deadly secrets are revealed…and the astronauts find their own survival is more important than they could ever have imagined.

It has that Alien kind of feel. Leave me a comment if you enjoyed this movie...I am relying on the wisdom of the crowds here :-)

The British government has officially apologized for the treatment of Alan Turing in the post war era

2009-09-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people have signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to World War II code breaker Alan Turing.
Writer Ian McEwan has also backed the campaign, which already has the support of scientist Richard Dawkins. In 1952 Turing was prosecuted under the gross indecency act after admitting to a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

It finally happened, the British government has officially apologized for the treatment of Alan Turing in the post war era

Below is the statement

2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

Placebo button, now you know why that button doesn't do anything

2009-09-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

If this is true then this is hilarious!
From wikipedia's placebo button entry

A placebo button is a push-button that appears to do something, but actually has no effect, like a placebo. They exist to give the user an illusion of control.
Many walk buttons at pedestrian crossings in New York City were once functional, but now serve as placebo buttons. Many door close buttons in elevators are placebo buttons. Office thermostats may also function similarly.

Hey at least you don't have to ever fix these buttons since they don't 'work anyway :-)

AMD aims to stay in the race with Magny-Cours 12-core CPU

2009-09-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

Saw this story in my Google Reader. Very interesting, I have a quad core CPU at home right now and never get above 30% CPU usage,I wonder what would happen with one of these 12 core CPUs on it. Here is a blurb from the article

At Hot Chips this past week, AMD unveiled more details of the upcoming 12-core "Magny-Cours" processor that it hopes will help it stay competitive in the server game. Due in 2010 on AMD's 45nm SOI process, Magny-Cours uses the same basic core microarchitecture as the current Shanghai quad-core server processor, so if there's any improvement in per-thread performance it will have to come from better system design.

The basic idea behind Magny-Cours is simple: take two six-core Istanbul processors, downclock them a bit to reduce power, and squeeze them into a multichip module (MCM) so that they can fit into a single socket. By using an MCM, AMD will be able to fit 12 cores into the same thermal and power envelope as Istanbul.

Read the rest here: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/09/amd-makes-tradeoffs-in-upcoming-12-core-server-cpu.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

I wonder how many years it will take before we see 64 cores on the desktop and maybe 32 cores on a laptop? This reminds me of razorblades....first we had one blade, then two...now we have five....how long before we have ten blades in those?

Walt Mosspuppet review videos

2009-09-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

Walt Mosspuppet, a fake video blog starring a puppet version of the technology reporter, this is just awesome :-)

You can see more videos here: http://rantpuppets.com/ like this gem: Walt Mossberg: "I am Responsible for Apple’s Success"

Is Gmail down for you too?

2009-09-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

I am getting a 502 server error when trying to get to Gmail. IS it also down for you? The cloud is not cooperating right now :-(

The Apps Status Dashboard has a status of Service Outage

We're aware of a problem with Google Mail affecting a majority of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Mail. We will provide an update by September 1, 2009 4:53:00 PM UTC-4 detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

Oh well, I am adding that Beta label back to gmail the moment it comes back up :-)

I will use smoke signals instead...now those are real clouds ;-)

Google released an apology detailing what happened

Here’s what happened: This morning (Pacific Time) we took a small fraction of Gmail’s servers offline to perform routine upgrades. This isn’t in itself a problem — we do this all the time, and Gmail’s web interface runs in many locations and just sends traffic to other locations when one is offline.

However, as we now know, we had slightly underestimated the load which some recent changes (ironically, some designed to improve service availability) placed on the request routers — servers which direct web queries to the appropriate Gmail server for response. At about 12:30 pm Pacific a few of the request routers became overloaded and in effect told the rest of the system “stop sending us traffic, we’re too slow!”. This transferred the load onto the remaining request routers, causing a few more of them to also become overloaded, and within minutes nearly all of the request routers were overloaded. As a result, people couldn’t access Gmail via the web interface because their requests couldn’t be routed to a Gmail server. IMAP/POP access and mail processing continued to work normally because these requests don’t use the same routers.

The Gmail engineering team was alerted to the failures within seconds (we take monitoring very seriously). After establishing that the core problem was insufficient available capacity, the team brought a LOT of additional request routers online (flexible capacity is one of the advantages of Google’s architecture), distributed the traffic across the request routers, and the Gmail web interface came back online.

Crazy idea? Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels?

2009-08-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Saw this story on Google Reader today

Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels?

If all paved surfaces in the U.S. were replaced with 15% efficiency solar panels, the resulting distributed power network could provide three times the electricity the nation consumes, with zero carbon emissions and no additional power grid infrastructure. (Yes, I’m aware manufacturing, installing, and maintaining it would generate emissions, as with any infrastructure project.)

So crazy it just might work? Apparently the Dept. of Transportation thinks so: Solar Roadways has received a $100,000 contract from DOT to build a prototype:

The Solar Roadways will collect solar energy to power businesses and homes via structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon, to be placed in parking lots and roadways in lieu of petroleum-based asphalt surfaces.

Wow, that sounds a little overambitious if you ask me but who knows,maybe it is possible. Next thing would be to have a moon/sun roof on every car that will also convert the energy from the sun into fuel.

IBM X-Force Report Reveals Unprecedented State of Web Insecurity

2009-08-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

Wow, I am reading this report and it is a sad world. Some highlights

Vulnerabilities have reached a plateau. There were 3,240 new vulnerabilities discovered in the first half of 2009, an eight percent decrease over the first half of 2008. The rate of vulnerability disclosures in the past few years appears to have reached a high plateau. In 2007, the vulnerability count dropped for the first time, but then in 2008 there was a new record high. The annual disclosure rate appears to be fluctuating between six and seven thousand new disclosures each year.

PDF vulnerabilities have increased. Portable Document Format (PDF) vulnerabilities disclosed in the first half of 2009 already surpassed disclosures from all of 2008.

Trojans account for more than half of all new malware. Continuing the recent trend, in the first half of 2009, Trojans comprised 55 percent of all new malware, a nine percent increase over the first half of 2008. Information-stealing Trojans are the most prevalent malware category.

Phishing has decreased dramatically. Analysts believe that banking Trojans are taking the place of phishing attacks geared toward financial targets. In the first half of 2009, 66 percent of phishing was targeted at the financial industry, down from 90 percent in 2008. Online payment targets make up 31 percent of the share.

URL spam is still number one, but image-based spam is making a comeback. After nearing extinction in 2008, image-based spam made a comeback in the first half of 2009, yet it still makes up less than 10 percent of all spam.

Nearly half of all vulnerabilities remain unpatched. Similar to the end of 2008, nearly half (49 percent) of all vulnerabilities disclosed in the first half of 2009 had no vendor-supplied patch at the end of the period.

How is image-based spam making a comeback? I use Gmail and also Outlook both of those disable images by default. Adobe also seems to have a real problem with reader and flash, PDF vulnerabilities are rampant. If you listen to the Security Now podcast (like every IT person should) you will notice that there are almost always problems with Reader/Flash/Shockwave.

Read the full report here http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/28257.wss

My little boy is growing up

2009-08-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

So my oldest son Christian lost his first baby tooth yesterday

Of course he wanted to know all about the Tooth Fairy, he wanted me to do a search on the computer so that he could see what she looked like. I must say there is not a lot about the Tooth Fairy on the internet, maybe she is elusive. Lucky for him she stopped by that night and left some money for him.

In a way I am glad that he is growing up and in a way I am sad because I want him to stay this little and innocent. I guess this is normal for all parents?

Zune HD Previews Available at Best Buy This Weekend

2009-08-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

The Zune is partnering with Best Buy to showcase the new Zune HD portable digital media player that will be releasing this Fall. Zune Reps will be in select Best Buy stores on August 22 and 23 demoing Zune HD and answering customer questions. This event will be the first time the Zune HD will be demonstrated in store for public viewing, so come by and check it out!

Go to www.bestbuy.com/zunehd for a list of the participating Best Buy stores that will have these in-store events.

And remember you can already preorder your Zune on Amazon.com: Zune HD 16 GB

LEGO Mindstorms Sudoku Solver

2009-08-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, take a look at this thing, it is a LEGO Mindstorms Sudoku Solver. And I thought the one that solves Rubik's Cube was impressive

What do you think, are you impressed?

Bambus or Kalimotxo

2009-08-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

In yesterday’s post about situation puzzles I mentioned Bambus and that I would explain today what Bambus is. Bambus is just basically red wine and Coca/Pepsi Cola mixed. Wouldn’t you believe that Wikipedia has an entry on this, here is what they have about the origin of the name.

Calimocho (from the Basque Kalimotxo) is a drink consisting of approximately 50% red wine and 50% cola-based soft drink. Alternative names include Rioja libre (from "Rioja", and "Cuba Libre"), kali, motxo. In Chile the drink is known as jote (Chilean Spanish for the Black Vulture), and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, the Republic of Macedonia, Croatia and other former Yugoslav republics of it is known as bambus (meaning bamboo) and musolini (as in Benito Mussolini). In the Czech Republic it is known as houba, and in Hungary as Vadász (meaning hunter) or vörösboros kóla or shortly VBK. In Mozambique and South Africa it is known as Catemba. In Germany it is called Korea.

Now I have never heard where the name came from or if it even comes from bamboo, I did hear of musolini and if I recall correctly then musolini is made with red wine and Fanta not Coke. The reason that people drink this is because it is relatively cheap; all you need is some crappy wine and some soda. You certainly would not use Opus One to make this drink. In the US I have made this drink several times for my friends and they are all surprised by the sweetness of the drink, I have yet to hear from a person who did not like this drink.

There is also a white wine version of this drink; instead of Coke you would use Ginger Ale or Sprite/7UP. This also taste pretty good….and again you would not use Grgich Hills Chardonay or Gavi de Gavi La Scolca for this but something much cheaper.
There are also these variations:
Diesel (Coca Cola + beer)
Submarine (drop a shot of whiskey in a beer)
Čiket (Brandy/Cognac with Coca Cola)

In Holland they have something similar but instead of wine they use beer. So beer with 7UP is called Sneeuwwitje (Snow White). There is also a drink named Kopstoot; this is beer with Jenever (Dutch gin). Usually you drink the gin first and then the beer; there is a version of this drink where you put the glass of gin inside the glass of beer. This version is called duikboot (U-boat)…you have to be careful with this because there is a possibility that the glass inside the beer glass will hit your teeth

Avatar official trailer available

2009-08-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

AVATAR takes us to a spectacular new world beyond our imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on a journey of redemption and discovery, as he leads a heroic battle to save a civilization. The film was first conceived by Cameron 14 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not yet exist. Now, after four years of actual production work, AVATAR delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film, disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.

Genre: Action and Adventure, Science Fiction
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver

You can watch the trailer here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/hd/

The official Avatar site is here: http://www.avatarmovie.com/

The Youtube channels is here: http://www.youtube.com/officialavatar#

Situation puzzles are a nice way to spend time near that camp fire

2009-08-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

The first time I did a situation puzzle was over 20 years ago. I was on the beach with some friends in Istria (Croatia), we were drinking bambus (more about that tomorrow) and it was night time. You have to remember that this is in a small town, there is not such a thing as a board walk where you can go and buy stuff……no, the closest light source is half a mile away.

Situation puzzles are often referred to as lateral thinking puzzles or "yes/no" puzzles.The way you start with a situation puzzle is like this: you tell a short little story and people then have to guess what happened. The one rule is that you can only answer Yes or No.

Here is one example I took from Wikipedia

One of the most famous situation puzzles is told similar to this:

A man walks into a bar, and asks the bartender for a drink of water. The bartender pulls out a gun, points it at the man, and cocks it. The man says "Thank you" and leaves. What happened?

The question and answer segment might go something like this.

Question: Could the bartender hear him? Answer: Yes

Question: Was the bartender angry for some reason? A: No

Question: Was the gun a water pistol? A: No

Question: Did they know each other from before? A: No (or: "irrelevant" since either way it does not affect the outcome)

Question: Was the man's "Thank you" sarcastic? A: No (or with a small hint: "No, he was genuinely grateful for some reason")

Question: Did the man ask for water in an offensive way? A: No

Question: Did the man ask for water in some strange way? A: Yes

Eventually the questions lead up to the conclusion that the man had the hiccups, and that his reason for requesting a drink of water was not to quench his thirst but to cure his hiccups. The bartender realized this and chose instead to cure the hiccups by frightening the man with the gun. Once the man realized that his hiccups were gone, he no longer needed a drink of water, gratefully thanked the bartender, and left.

Here are 2 more examples; these are the ones that I have been told on that beach

Situation Puzzle 002: Why did this person shoot himself?
A person enters his room, goes to get something out of the closet, grabs the handle from the door of the closet, gets terrified, opens the closet takes out a gun and kills himself

Why did this person kill himself?
You can look for the answer here: Situation Puzzle 002: Why did this person shoot himself?

Situation Puzzle 001: What happened to this man?
There is man laying in the Sahara deserts, he has a toothpick in his hand, he is dead, there is nothing nearby for miles and miles. He is 300 feet away from an oasis; he doesn't have GPS on him or any food or drinks

What happened to this poor person and why is he laying here dead?
You can look for the answer here: Situation Puzzle 001: What happened to this man?

Of course these days with all the gadgets that we have and the ADD we have developed because of it makes these kind of things seem lame and also too long to play. But I think you should try and you will see that you will have a good time

Lego Town Plan...yes or no?

2009-08-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am looking at this Lego set and I am thinking about getting this for ~~me and~~ my oldest son for Christmas. What do you think, is the LEGO Town Plan too much stuff for a 5 year old and should I get something smaller? Remember, he doesn't have to build the whole thing, he can just build pieces of it and then use the rest of the bricks to create stuff with his own imagination.

I was also thinking of the LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader's TIE Fighter. Lego + Darth Vader? Can you get any cooler than that?

I don't know...which one would you get?.....Just imagine that these are both priced the same so that that is not a factor in your decision.

As I kid I loved legos, as a matter of fact it is probably the only kind of toy I had after I was older than 5

Facebook buys FriendFeed and now we have FaceFeed

2009-08-10T13:02:00.001-07:00

So Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, here is the press release.

Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams.

“Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” said Bret Taylor, a FriendFeed co-founder and, previously, the group product manager who launched Google Maps. “We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.”

“As we spent time with Mark and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it,” said Paul Buchheit, another FriendFeed co-founders. Buchheit, the Google engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, added, “It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.”

Taylor and Buchheit founded FriendFeed along with Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh in October 2007 after all four played key roles at Google for products like Gmail and Google Maps. At FriendFeed, they’ve brought together a world-class team of engineers and designers.

“Since I first tried FriendFeed, I’ve admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use."

FriendFeed is based in Mountain View, Calif. and has 12 employees. FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being as the teams determine the longer term plans for the product.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.

I really don't know what to say about this, I really like FriendFeed and just hope that Facebook will not disable twitter inside FriendFeed because that would really suck. On the FriendFeed blog Bret Taylor writes the following

FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We're still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team

Mmmm, that doesn't sound reassuring does it?

What do you think?

BingTweets launched

2009-07-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Microsoft, in cooperation with Federated Media and Twitter, launched its own Twitter search engine today. BingTweets mashes up real-time Twitter search with results from Bing

BingTweets enables you to see deeper, real-time information about the hottest topics on Twitter by fusing Bing search results with the latest tweets. To get started, click on a trending topic, or search for anything that's on your mind in the search box below.

Check it out: http://bingtweets.com/

Example Of The Gimp Predator Filter

2009-07-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

I was playing around with the Predator filter in the Gimp

So I took a pic of this little kitty

I applied the Predator filter and here is the result

What do you think?

Sandokan and Westworld, Two Movies/Series I Want To See Again

2009-07-07T12:44:00.001-07:00

Sandokan and Westworld, Two Movies/Series I Want To See Again

For some strange reason I was thinking about Sandokan and Westworld today.

Sandokan

Sandokan is a fictional pirate of the late nineteenth century, Sandokan first appeared in a publication created in 1883 by Italian author Emilio Salgari.
He is appeared in 11 novels and is known as "The Tiger of Malaysia".

There are two scenes that I will never forget, the first one is when he jumps up ans slices the tiger to death, The second scene is when he takes the poison before they throw him into the ocean

I watched Sandokan when I was 7 or 8, this was a HUGE hit in Europe, you could catch it on any channel. It was played on Ned 1, ZDF, RAI, BBC etc etc. I remeber lots of people having a shirt with Sandokan on it, I did not have one but my cousins did. As a matter of fact i don't think I ever had a shirt with movie/music stars except for Superman
Here is a clip from the movie

The actor that played Sandokan is Kabir Bedi and if you watched Dynasty in the 80s then you might recognize him since he was in a couple of episodes. I just hope that somehow we can get Sandokan on DVD soon, I would love to watch it again.

Westworld

Westworld is a movie I last saw when I was probably about 10 year old. The main actors in the movie are Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin and James Brolin. Here is in short what the movie is about (from Wikipedia)

It is sometime in the near future, in a fictional high-tech adult amusement park called Delos. The park is divided into three zones: WesternWorld, MedievalWorld and RomanWorld. The entertainment in all three areas consists primarily of interaction by the guests with androids programmed to act in character (the Old West, medieval Europe, and pre-Christian Rome, respectively). The androids are indistinguishable from human beings, apart from minor flaws in their hands, and guests are encouraged to indulge in any fantasy, including killing the androids. The androids are programmed to respond positively to guest requests, specifically including requests for sex. Delos's guests pay $1,000 a day for the experience.

Here is a trailer for the movie

So as you can probably guess one of these androids goes a little crazy and starts to shoot back. This android is the Gunslinger and he is played by Yul Brunner.

I will never remember the scene when The Gunslinger gets splashed in the face with acid, and the skin starts to melt and you can see the inside of his robotic head, very much like terminator.

Spooky stuff for a 10 year old at that time.

Did you know that Westworld was the first major feature film to use 2D computer generated images (CGI)? Di you also know that Westworld was written and directed by Michael Crichton?

When it rains, it pours. When it pours you get tons of mushrooms

2009-06-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

This has to be the most bizarre June in New Jersey ever. Usually I will have my air conditioning blasting by now. Not this year, this year I has rained I think for 20 days straight and it is not warm at all. Weather like that is not untypical in Holland where I grew up. But I left Holland; one of the reasons was that the weather sucks in Holland. April and May are actually quite nice but the rest of the year it is more miss than hit. You will get that nasty drizzle that will last for days or it will just rain cats and dogs for a day straight.

When it rains a lot you will see that suddenly mushrooms pop out of the ground everywhere. The last couple of days I have taken a couple of pics. Click on the picture to get to the flickr page and you can leave a comment or look at the bigger size (if you are into that kind of thing)

The first mushroom is the bizarre looking Stinkhorn. Some people might think they look like some alien penises. I think this variety is the Mutinus caninus.

According to Wikipedia some parts are edible

The Dog Stinkhorn is probably edible at the ‘egg’ stage, but it is not recommended. At least one report from West Virginia in the eastern United States strongly recommends the 'eggs' peeled and fried as a tasty dish

No thank you.

Next up is the Amanita muscaria. This is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus.

From wikipedia

Amanita muscaria is now primarily famed for its hallucinogenic properties with its main psychoactive constituent being the compound muscimol. It was used as an intoxicant and entheogen by the peoples of Siberia and has a religious significance in these cultures.

Some late day sun gives the mushroom some 'warmth'

Into the wild a great movie

2009-06-18T10:17:00.000-07:00

I was flipping channels on the tv (this is something every man should do to annoy his wife) and saw that into the wild just started on showtime. I read the brief description and decided to watch 10 minutes or so to see if it is any good. My wife and I loved this movie; we were not going to watch the whole thing because it was getting late but of course we couldn’t just go to bed without watching the end. Of course we paid the price the next morning when the kids got up before 6.

The movie has a 8.2 rating on IMDB so that is pretty good.This movie is based on the book Into the Wild written by the author of Into Thin Air John Krakauer

Here is what the movie is about, I made only the first sentence visible because I don’t want to spoil it for you, you can highlight the text to make it visible.

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men's Journal, retraces McCandless's ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father. In a moving narrative, Krakauer probes the mystery of McCandless's death, which he attributes to logistical blunders and to accidental poisoning from eating toxic seed pods

Now that I saw the movie I want to read the book……don’t tell my wife I know, but something tells me that I will get the book as part of my father’s day gift this Sunday.

If you have showtime you can see when it will be on again here http://www.sho.com/site/schedules/product.do?episodeid=133208&seriesid=0&seasonid=0

Remember! True Blood starts in 2 days

2009-06-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite shows in the last couple of years

Here is the coundown clock