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A good marketing beer add: "The ideal wife"   25 Sep 04
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A friend sent me this funny beer ad this morning. It is not politically correct, but enjoy it. www.approximity.com/~armin/Idealwife.mpg

more ads

Watching the Net's background radiation   25 Sep 04
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(Source: The Register) When the city sleeps, it’s never completely silent. But when the Internet sleeps, what kind of static does it make? What does it sound like? Like the weird warbles astronomers claim to hear from outer space?

We’d like to share what the Internet sounds like when it sleeps, and in its current highly agitated state, we think it’s worth sharing. www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34227.html

More and more female athletes pose nude   25 Sep 04
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This entry is politically incorrect, but I decided to post it anyhow, as
  • it seems to become more and more of a trend in the last 5 years: for the EM the wives and girl-friends of the Russian team took a nude photo session, for olympic games 2000, Australia’s women soccer team, the Dutch tean, Katie Vermeulen in the August Playboy, etc.
  • I really liked the words on Bridgette Starrs photo. Yes, I like the photo, too :-), as two friends have commented at once.
  • Yes, sex sells. It is really sad if the female athletes feel the necessity to pose nude for raising money.

It’s sad if the athletes feel it necessary to pose nude to raise money.

Make sure you read the motto on the picture.

A Quick Guide to SQLite and Ruby   25 Sep 04
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why the lucky stiff has written a nice introduction to SQLite.

So, lets talk about SQLites handsome features:

  • SQLite is swift. In my own testing, I have found it to be speedy. Some speed comparisons with MySQL and PostgreSQL are here.
  • SQLite is not a large database server, such as MySQL. You dont connect to the database. Using SQLite, you access a database file. Everything happens in-process.
  • SQLite is an ACID database. Supports transactions, triggers.
  • SQLite is public domain. Absolutely no licensing issues.
  • SQLite is typeless. Any type or length of data may be stored in a column, regardless of the declared type. This allows extreme flexibility and avoidance of type errors.
  • SQLite allows custom functions and aggregates. This is my favorite feature of SQLite, which we will explore shortly.

link

Google - Quo vadis?   25 Sep 04
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Interesting blurb what Google will do next.

Summary:

  • Advertisement market has limits
  • the cash from the IPO is the emergecy fund to reinvent themselves
  • only buy small companies with interesting technology
  • take on Yahoo and Microsoft, but not directly
  • Amazon, ebay, etc. are there to lose .. The key to making money in search is to get between people and what they are searching for, and that’s where Google is on a collision course not only with Microsoft and Yahoo, but also with Amazon and eBay
  • expect GoogleMedia taking on iTunes and entire new market places of intellectual property
  • whatever Google will do will be incredibly technical

Nice posting on Human Resources   25 Sep 04
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(Source: pragprog-ML, Michael L. Royle)
 >I work for ThoughtWorks (TW) and would be happy to tell you about it.  TW
 >was founded on the idea that if you put together the best and brightest
 >people and give them a challenging environment then only great things can
 >happen.  This has been and continues to be the main criteria by which we
 >hire people and is the one of the reasons we are so successful.  As such,
 >the recruitment process is a series of flaming hurdles, but well worth it.
 >I just can't bring myself to leave the company even after 5 years :-)

Beat Takeshi   25 Sep 04
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If you want to relax after too much work .. and are sick of the normal Hollywood movies, check out Beat Takeshi.

Excellent page about Beat Takeshi.

Takeshi Kitano on the question: What’s you’re coolest moment?

 "In Japan, there is a broadcasting station called NHK,
  like BBC, but much, much stricter. When I was a rising
  star in comedy I appeared on a live program, and the director specifically
  said you can't say such-and-such, if you use these words you'll
  be finished. So of course I couldn't resist. I said 'shit'
  12 times in a row. I said, 'I saw a shit-like substance on the street.
  So I went over and I picked it up and smelled it, and it smelled like
  shit. Then I felt it and it felt like shit, and I liked it, and
  it tasted like shit, so I put it away. Thank god I didn't step in it!'
  That was my coolest moment, because it was a tremendous risk. They could have
  cut me off but they didn't. The director was fired and the producer was moved
  to another program, far away from Tokyo."

[ANN] Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby: Expansion Pak I: The Tiger's Vest (with a Basic Introduction to Irb)   25 Sep 04
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Yes, I’ve been taking forever. Well, what can I say? Answering threats is quite consuming. (But apologies to those of you whose threats have been too jarring for me to reply or breathe.)

Today I’m passing on to you the first fruits of a big batch of material forthcoming. The Tiger’s Vest (with a Basic Introduction to Irb.)

poignantguide.net/ruby/expansion-pak-1.html

Stick around. Picture a man with a balloon, pinching the air out slowly, cats tied to his leg. If you can do that, then you’re all prepped for chapter 5.

Thank you, -talkers.

_why

ri bug in latest ruby 1.8.2 source   25 Sep 04
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James Britt came to rescue:
 I grabbed the latest 1.8.2 source.
 I ran the usual: autoconf, configure, make, make install.
 ri failed.
 I looked inside Makefile and see the target install-doc.
 I ran make install-doc.
 ri worked.

 Not the most obvious path for me, but there you go

Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating?   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Dave Bryant) Japanese roboticist Doctor Masahiro Mori is not exactly a household name but, for the speculative fiction community at least, he could prove to be an important one. The reason why can be summed up in a simple, strangely elegant phrase that translates into English as the uncanny valley. Though originally intended to provide an insight into human psychological reaction to robotic design, the concept expressed by this phrase is equally applicable to interactions with nearly any nonhuman entity. Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human look . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete. This chasm the uncanny valley of Doctor Moris thesis represents the point at which a person observing the creature or object in question sees something that is nearly human, but just enough off-kilter to seem eerie or disquieting. The first peak, moreover, is where that same individual would see something that is human enough to arouse some empathy, yet at the same time is clearly enough not human to avoid the sense of wrongness. The slope leading up to this first peak is a province of relative emotional detachment affection, perhaps, but rarely more than that. [www.arclight.net/~pdb/glimpses/valley.html]

Brown table strategy   25 Sep 04
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(Source: Dilbert) Today's Dilbert fits in wonderfully with the current outsourcing mania. link

World's largest truck   25 Sep 04
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Just in case you do not know what to buy me as my next birthday present .. I saw this monster on Gizmodo.

Update: Famous and not so famous programming quotes   25 Sep 04
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As Stefan has sent me many new quotes, I did finally update my quote collection again.

Rails - the secret killer app for Ruby?   25 Sep 04
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I am pretty sick of killer apps and the discussions about them, but make sure you checkout Rails.

Rails is an open source web-application framework for Ruby. It ships with an answer for every letter in MVC: Action Pack for the Controller and View, Active Record for the Model.

Everything needed to build real-world applications in less lines of code than other frameworks spend setting up their XML configuration files. Like Basecamp, which was launched after 4 KLOCs and two months of developement by a single programmer.

Enjoy the Show, dont tell! 10 minute setup video (22MB).

Have fun with Ruby .. says a tired Armin right now coding simple cgi-stuff without any frameworks :-)

Team is an anagram for meat   25 Sep 04
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Make sure you check out today’s userfriendly.

If uncertain about the dress code, also enjoy today’s Dilbert

What’s a day without Dilbert and UF?

Too many cars, too few digits   25 Sep 04
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U.S. will run out of vehicle ID numbers.

The auto industrys number is almost up.

The 17-digit codes that identify the origin, make, model and attributes of cars, trucks, buses even trailers worldwide will be exhausted by the end of the decade.

And like an odometer that returns to zero and starts over again, a Vehicle Identification Number or VIN could be duplicated.

Experts say duplicated VINs would cause havoc for repair shops, state license offices, insurance agencies, law enforcement and other groups that use VINs to process warranty claims, investigate accident claims and recover stolen vehicles.

Weve been brainwashing law enforcement and the insurance community and virtually everybody that a VIN is like DNA theres one for any one vehicle, said Ed Sparkman, spokesman for the Chicago-based National Insurance Crime Bureau.

At the root of the impending shortage is the explosion of vehicle production in recent decades. Automakers build 60 million cars and trucks every year and each one needs a unique VIN in the same way a newborn is given a Social Security number. And that doesnt count heavy trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles that require VINs.

link

Computers Chase the Checkered Flag   25 Sep 04
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(Source: NYTimes) Very interesting article about computer simulation, analysis and risk management in Formula One. link

Gnome's Guide to WEBrick   25 Sep 04
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Yohanes Santoso posted this guide to the ruby-ML.
 After labouring over the weekend, I am happy to present the first
 version of Gnome's Guide to WEBrick:
 http://shogo.homelinux.org/~ysantoso/WebWiki/WEBrick.html

 The guide is more of a reference-type documentation rather than
 tutorial. I believe that WEBrick is straightforward enough for someone
 to grasp its idea. At that point, a tutorial would be of lesser use
 than a reference.

 Being the first release, I am aware that there are many mistakes:
 spelling, grammar (not native English-speaker), obtuse example, etc. I
 am also aware that there are missing sections. Some of the missing
 sections are listed in the 'NOT YETs' section. If you think there are
 other topics I missed, please inform me.

[ANN] Firefox Ruby sidebar   25 Sep 04
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James Britt did hack sth. most useful :-).

Daniel Beger saw the Python version

 > I came across this nifty looking sidebar for Python documentation at
 > http://projects.edgewall.com/python-sidebar/.  Is there something
 > similar for Ruby?  If not, does someone need a project? :)

And here is the ruby version

It’s really cool!

[ANN] Net::SSH 0.0.2   25 Sep 04
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Net::SSH is an implementation of the SSH2 protocol in Ruby.

rubyforge.org/projects/net-ssh

Version 0.0.2 brings the implementation to full compliance with the SSH2 protocol, since you can now use ssh-dss key types.

The most significant new feature is a limited implementation of the SFTP protocol. Only a subset of the features of SFTP are implemented, namely directory enumeration, and getting and storing files. More features are coming.

The SSH protocol itself is asynchronous, so the "core" implementation of the SFTP protocol (Net::SSH::SFTP::Session) is also asynchronous. However, a synchronous version (useful when you don’t need multiple channels open simultaneously) is also available (Net::SSH::SFTP::Simple).

Until Ruby 1.8.2 is released, you need to also install the patched version of the OpenSSL module for Ruby (also available from the Net::SSH site). Ruby 1.8.2 will include the patched version of OpenSSL, though, so once you have installed you’ll need nothing else to run Net::SSH.

 

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