The lost frog - And the story behind it

Hopkin Explained :: mike.whybark.com

Bus Graveyard - version two

Bus Graveyard - version two
Originally uploaded by shadowplay.

and the mighty robot stood up and glared at the tiny humans in front of him, his eyes half shut in his daze between earth and sky, his vowels growling still from the might of his engines ....

Photoshop War

JC'S WORLD: "Photoshop War"

Woman repairing BMW 02 Engine

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/3920842/

http://photos3.flickr.com/3920842_a8bc427bba_m.jpg

Woman repairing BMW 02 Engine

Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/tmix/ t-mix.


Let's see if we can't drive traffic to flickr, he he. :-)

Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

Flickrzen - A wonderful idea

Flickrzen

Who let the readers in?

I am surprised. I have readers. Plural. I you have never left a comment here: Step forward! Leave a comment! Speak out about your doubts and fears! It's easy and I don't bite (unless you bark).

I know Elizabeth reads my blog and she is the most important reader.

But I have more readers. Four colleagues know about this blog, but I don't know if they read it regularly. There have been a handful of comments by people I don't know personally. Not much, I would like more comments, but I guess I have to write about stuff that interests people first ... :-)

I found a http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdherd/3392423/ nice nerd picture on flickr, left a comment there and Matthew Deutsch left a comment here. He asked me if we want to trade links and I have to reply: Yes Matthew, just done it :-) Matthew makes the kind of blog I sometimes think I want to make. Cool gadgets. With his blog arround, I think I should focus more on Software Development.

The other thing I wanted to say is that Ross Rader has included me in the "Feeds I Read" section. I stumbled a couple of times accross his blog in the past. And I got the impression, here is somebody who writes very profound about important things. Important for me at least. Google, Microsoft, Internet, RSS and so on. I subscribed to his feed and kept reading it from time to time. Now I did a little bit of ego surfing, searched for "t-mix BETA" and found that he has included me in his blogroll. I'm shocked. That happens if you read the RSS feed but don't visit the website.

How did he discover me? I guess because I commented on one of his posts.

So now Ross Rader reads this blog. At least he wants to :-) I know how it is: You are subscribed to so many good blogs but only have limited time to read them. And after you are done reading 10 Blogs you realize that you just have spend 3 hours and that you have 40 more good blogs to read. And my blog isn't that good. I'm improving, I sometimes have a good post or maybe even an useful one. But I'm not A-List. At least not yet (Just joking)

And I keep saying that I write this for myself, but do I really? Or do I want people to stop by, read this and think: Here are some interesting thoughts, useful links and good insights?

I will continue to say I write this for myself until I have a dozen regular readers :-) But will it change my style or what I write about, if I know that people come here to read about X and not Y?

Let's see.

The future's bright. The future's blogging.

P.s.: Comments don't seem to work at the moment, at least for me. So, Elizabeth, I will make comments on your blog tomorrow.

MSN Search - Knowledge of Perl a plus

Not a job for me, but funny:

Job Title: Software Development Engineer Job Category: Software Development Product: MSN Search		Job Code: 126008 Location: WA - Redmond Travel Required:
The newly-expanded MSN Search team is looking for a talented, highly motivated individual to help develop new software to improve our Search Engine Results and give us an edge on our competition. A successful candidate will be highly customer focused, and will have several of the following qualifications: experience with C++; experience with object-oriented design; very solid coding/debugging skills; ability to work independently. BS CS or equivalent. Knowledge of Perl a plus. Any knowledge of Pattern Matching algorithms (such as SVM, Neural Nets, or Statistical modeling) a plus.

So, you see, inside of Microsoft they are not afraid of those software commies and their cryptic tools.

http://www.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx
?JobID=0f093531-d415-4a6a-b001-23f9e58496b7

Where did all the joy and wonder of creating software go?

"Tank, I need an exit.....Fast!", The Matrix

I am sick and tired. I can no longer maintain my current job. I have to quit.

I am trying to get a decent job. But I feel burned out. I am not able to write much code lately. I need a time out. I need an exit.

I have an exit. I will cut back on living cost. I will sell my car. I will rent out one room (Hello roomie!). And I will get a job like I did while I was at university: Work through an temporary employment agency like Adecco.

And I will start my own business. As part time only, but my own. I will have a day job I don't have to care about and develop software for my own personal satisfaction.

Haven't figured all out yet, but I need change and this is the kind of change I am looking for.

Lunix

8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

BSD, Lunix, Debian and Mandrake are all versions of an illegal hacker operation system, invented by a Soviet computer hacker named Linyos Torovoltos, before the Russians lost the Cold War. It is based on a program called "xenix", which was written by Microsoft for the US government. These programs are used by hackers to break into other people's computer systems to steal credit card numbers. They may also be used to break into people's stereos to steal their music, using the "mp3" program. Torovoltos is a notorious hacker, responsible for writing many hacker programs, such as "telnet", which is used by hackers to connect to machines on the internet without using a telephone.

http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html

The Alphabet according to Google

I usually just type the first letter in the address field and select the first entry from the list that pops up in Firefox.


• b blogger.com
• c ccwelt.blogspot.com
• d dict.tu-chemnitz.de and del.icio.us
• e ebay.de
  
• f flickr.com Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.
• g gmx.de, guenstiger.de and google (g is pretty crowded)
• n newsgator.com
• p postbank.de
• r reichelt.de
  
• t t-mix.blogspot.com
• v viamichelin.com
• w wirres.net
  

These are my esentials at the moment. And this works very well. Excpet for some hick-ups, when I am to fast and firefox starts searching for the letter I typed...

I thought, it would be fun to see what google.com thinks to whom a letter belongs (The first result). Lets see:

• a yourDictionary.com
  Good start, you search for a and get something starting with y.
  
• b btselem.org
  Better luck here, something starting with b. Interesting site.
  
• c CNET.com
  Of course. Something for the nerd.
  
• d D-Link
  The first company making real world products (even if it is for computers)
  
• e E! Online
  Ohla Hollywood!
  
• f f-secure.com
  Thank god, we are back to computer products, even if it is only software.
  
• g GMail
  GMail, not Google, a little bit surprising. You never know.
  
• h h-net.com
  Humanities and Social Sciences Online? Never heard of you.
  
• i iTools.com
  What is this? Google for the poor?
  
• j JenniferLopez.com
  Yes, J.Lo!
  
• k KDE.org
  KDE, the computer desktop to conquer them all. We are back in geeks realm
  
• l Council of Europe (coe.int)
  Even if google claims at the moment that it belongs to "Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0126'"
  
• m Texas A&M University
  With Bush Library. A pity George Double U doesn't read.
  
• n Blue Web'N a library of Blue Ribbon learning sites on the web.
  Now this one is odd. This one is the first deep link (www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/) And what an ugly deep link it is. Whats wrong with www.blueweb.org?
  
• o O'Reilly
  Books for gardening. No, of course books for computer nerds.
  
• p PFLAG.org Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (PFLAG)
  Can you make this a little bit longer? Like include Children, Kindergarden, Home, Work, People, The World, Life and all the rest? PFLAGCKHWPTWLAATR.org is still free.
  
• q Q4music.com - The World's Greatest Music Magazine Online
  Never heard of you.
  
• r The R Project for Statistical Computing (r-project.org)
  "Your browser seems not to support frames." No clue about search engines but they have beaten ToysRUs...
  
• s McDonald's
  "Select Country/Market." You already have selected every Country.
  
• t AT&T
  Why t and not a? And whats blogger.com doing on place seven? Sometimes I don't understand google.
  
• u The whatUseek Network
  "Does it seem like your hit counter is broken?" No, I don't use medival web-design. And "Copyright 2002" is a nice one.
  
• v Bobby Online Free Portal (www.cast.org/bobby)
  Another deep link. And no v. And http://www.cast.org/ is a good one in Firefox.
  
• w GO P.com :: Republican National Committee
  Sorry, this had to happen. The second time we run into a hedge bush. By the way "FRIDAY FACTS The Nation Hopeful About President Bush’s Second Term" Who writes believes this bullshit? I hope UU doesn't set the world on fire.
  
• x X.Org
  Back on safe geek ground.
  
• y Yahoo! Messenger
  Again same as Google/GMail, not Yahoo but a product from them.
  
• z HealthAtoZ - Innovating Consumer Health
  "HealthAtoZ provides lifestyle modification programs in a consumer-empowered environment" What the fuck?

So, this is enough for today.

[Update] Obviously other people have done similar things before. Damn, I thought I am so original.

I'm a flickr addict

Strike that, I hate flickr. The f$%^$%^g a#$%#$% from flickr deleted my account.
I became a total flickr addict. Why?

• It's easy to participate
• It's fun
• It's easy to participate
• You can find people who share your taste in photography
• It's easy to participate
• You can share pictures with your friends
• It's easy to participate
• Did I mention, that it is fun?
• It's easy to track down all you comments and even fix spelling errors in them
• You are not constantly force to log in and log out (Does this make flickr insecure? Don't know, but it makes it easy to participate)
• The people who work for flickr are fun
• They have a wonderful simplistic and intuitive web UI
• They use tags, which don't use as much as I should. But tags are far better than any other classification you can make. File a car under Things->Cars->Volkswagen? But what if it is a old volkswagen on a scrap yard and you see a flower growing out of it? Nature->Plants->Flowers? Or both? Simply tag it "Volkswagen Flower". Voila, done.
• You have your own address at flickr you can give other people. My screen name is t-mix and I choose the address http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/
  
• You even have a easy address for tags. You want all pictures tagged cat? Easy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/cat/
• No need to have a account to browse the free pictures.
  
• You are never ever hustled by the UI. The flickr staff has done its homework.
  

Now seriously, flickr is cool. And what the other sites don't get, that there is so much more than storing pictures. It's easy. You don't have to share the pictures with the world. If you don't want to, set them to private. It's easy. Keeping track of pictures and people you like. It's easy.

I only regred that I don't have digital camera at the moment, but that will change.

One more thing. I like flickr so much, that I have developed an idea for a web plattform myself. It is basically flickr, but with different content that pictures. You will have:

• A Profile
• Tags for the content
• An easy way to add content (Most important)
• An own address
• Easy way to bookmark things like all content tagged with cat
• No need to have a account to browse free content (Important)
• Business modell? Not sure yet, but I go for google ads and some premium services, but everything essential should be free. This plattform will only work if people participate

What will be the content? Shhh, it is a secret, so I'm not telling.

Let's see if I pull this through. First step: Get into ZOPE.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/favorites/

Mini Mac Media Center?

When OS X 10.4 ships, the Mini will suddenly become Apple's version of a media PC.

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

mantis fu

mantis fu
Originally uploaded by fubuki.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It is hard to get credibitity - But it is easy to loose it

Creating Passionate Users: Users shouldn't think about YOU:

I was determined to prove that the 'establishing credibility' thing was not just unnecessary, it was a harmful misconception. I had evidence that students come IN believing you're credible, and as long as you don't do something to screw that up, you don't need to convince them. In other words, you start the class with a pre-established credibility balance. Points will be deducted if you do or say something stupid, and most especially--if you get caught LYING by pretending to know something that you don't, or failing to admit when you're guessing.

Learn German

Learn German - Speak German

The most common gender in German is the masculine. (Keep that in mind the next time you're guessing.).

Found this via beissholz.de

DRM - The License to Sit

You agree not to attempt to understand how chairs work.

via http://www.treehugginpussy.de/index.php?p=1051

flickr daily zeitgeist

http://www.flickr.com/fun/zeitgeist/badge.js.gne

Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

Asynchronous TV

TV will change.

The technologies existing today will have an impact on TV. P2P and RSS will make it possible to watch any TV show at any time anywhere in the world.

The TV stations will fight it. The copyright holders will fight. It will be bloody. But you can't stop change. They will slow it down, but they won't stop it.

What's already possible today (record and distribute a TV show to friends) will be much easier and more widespread. And one day TV stations will start to offer TV shows via RSS. Asynchronous TV. You come home and watch your favorite show. Or watch it the next day. You are no longer a slave to synchronous TV.

But the business model will have to change. How can you make money with advertisments, if people can simply skip it? How can you charge for a TV show, if anybody can distribute it? You can try your luck with Digital Rights Managment, but DRM does not work. You can fight it with the law, but why fight your consumers?

TV will change. It will change, because the technology will force it to change. But how, only the future will tell.

I'm not considering this

To be considered, all candidates must have a very good degree, Masters or a PhD.

I stumbled across some of these jobs. And I'm not considering them. Is this wrong? Maybe. But I once worked in a company so keen on the kind of degree you had. There was a very clear order in this company. The chef was a professor at a university, the person in charge was a PhD, the person I worked with came from a better university than the others developers and at the bottom was I, without a degree. It didn't matter that the person I worked with had no clue whatsoever about software development. I don't want to go through this again.

A Day In The Life

[Sugar plum fairy, sugar plum fairy.]

I read the news today oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights had changed
A crowd of people stood and stared
They'd seen his face before
Nobody was really sure
If he was from the House of Lords
I saw a film today oh boy
The English Army had just won the war
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book
I'd love to turn you on

[4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24]

Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
Everybody spoke and I went into a dream
[Oh shit!]

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I'd love to turn you...

(crossfade into orchestral crescendos)

this is what i do in my spare time

I want to live in flickr

Now if there is one place I could pick where I should live, I would pick flickr. It's like a magical place where everybody is your friend, you are invited into every livingroom, you can go to any country, visit any city, see a thousand sunsets a day and never get tired.

You can choose to live in a black and white world, you can choose the most beautiful colors ever seen.

Flickr is the window to a world I never get enough of even if I am sick and tired of the world arround me.

Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

Grant Robinson online

Grant Robinson online: "Montage-a-google"

Duke Nukem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Duke Nukem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Come get some!"

:: ak13 :: A Sicilian message from the White House?

Slowly, it dawns on you that Junior is much more frightening than his father ever was. Where the father understood the value of leading through respect and co-operation, the son knows only how to use violence and fear – leadership at the barrel of a gun. Suddenly, the old man starts to look pretty cuddly by comparison.

:: ak13 :: A Sicilian message

flickr pictures on 43things

Flickr: Forums: FlickrHelp: flickr pictures on 43things?

Oops, I think I might have started something here.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/43things/

Sempre em frente

Sempre em frente
Originally uploaded by Vi.

The direction should be clear.

A farewell to my Access Virus KC

http://photos3.flickr.com/3510927_9cb803aa5a_m.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tmix/3510927/


Virus

Originally uploaded by http://www.flickr.com/people/tmix/ t-mix.

As I didn't make much music with my Virus Synthesizer I decided to sell it. It just wasn't meant to be.

So, before it collects anymore dust, I will sell it. While I prepared the auction on ebay, I played around a bit with Gimp. Simply by changing the color curves, I created this little picture. Black is still black, white is still white, but I pulled the dark gray to white and the light gray to dark. I like the way the knobs stand out and how they reflect in the "black" area.

I hope the new owner will make more music with it. My Virus deserves to be played :-)

And the auction is going well so far. I put it on eBay for 1 Euro and was afraid it might sell for only 350 Euro, but within 24 it has already reached 805 Euro. And it still runs for five days. Anything above 1000 Euro will be fine, if it reaches 1400 I will be really happy.

Goodbye old friend, may your future path lead you to good music.

I for my part will reinvest the money in a digital camera and do something I understand more: Taking pictures. I look forward to having a nice EOS-20D and a http://www.flickr.com/upgrade/ flickr pro account. Fuck flickr, they deleted my account.

No more English TV

Well, it had to happen. I had a device, which enabled me to watch TV in English language. Don't ask me what or how, I will not give any details.

Anyway, it enabled me to watch movies and series like "Office Space", "Friends", "CSI" and so on in Inglese.

Not anymore. It stopped working today. Pitty. Now I have only German TV and DVDs. As I'm boycotting DVDs and German TV brings almost nothing in English language, I feel a bit like on the dry.

On the bright side: I was looking forward to the day with the hope that I would watch less TV then. But since I started blogging, the internet more and more replaced TV, so my TV consum is pretty low already. Let's see how this develops.

So the last movie I have seen was Where Eagles Dare with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. The last thing I have seen was CSI.

Microsoft first contact

After receiving an email from an MS recruiter, I got a phone call today. They already have the resume from me, but she wanted to gather some more data from me, before she would send these information to the program manager. It was basically some questions like do you look actively for work, are you still employed, why do you want to leave your current employer, why do you want to work for Microsoft, you seem to have an expertise in audio, how did you come to this. I guess I should have been a bit more active and leave out some "aehs" but I guess it was ok for first contact. Still I don't know if I hear any positive feedback. She promised that she would contact me Thursday the latest, even if there was no news, so I will see.

The only question that threw me a bit off track: "Do you want to add anything that is not in your resume?". I had to say no, but I guess that wasn't a problem.

What might be a problem, that she asked if I did any work in a specific area of algorithms, where I had to say no. So I guess she is looking for somebody with more specific experience in this area. I wouldn't mind doing it, but I guess if they find somebody more profound, the will go for him.

ps.: Boy, she could write VERY FAST in her computer what I was saying. Kind of strange that somebody types what you say. I felt overly important and it disturbed my concentration a bit.

Project Snakeoil - We bemoan the tragic loss

I though I had it.

After reading Joel's Painless Functional Specifications I tried to do something similar for project Snakeoil. It was nice. It uncovered a lot of things noboby has thought of. Making a spec forces you to think about a lot of details. Where and how are errors displayed? What happens if? How should we interact with the user?

It was written mainly with the UI in mind, but it touched some points concerning the algorithm and hardware.

As mentioned, a lot of companies are involved. First there is the mother of our company, lets call them A. Then we have company B where I work. Company B is in a different country than company A. And we have company C, which is located in yet another country surrounded by water.

Now, company C should be in charge of the product and the hardware, as they will brand and distribute it. Company A will do the algorithm and company B will do the UI stuff (my work).

Last week, I visited the algorithm guy at company A (remember, different country). I needed to talk with him about integrating the algorithm in the UI. As I thought it would be nice to have his input on the UI spec, I send him the document. The result was something I didn't expect. It seems, he has been working in some sort of vacuum, as there was nobody else involved at company A. He has been once to company C, but that was it. Now my spec suddenly fuelled his energy. See that his algorithm would soon turn into a product, made him very cheerful. Amazing.

So, here I was with a draft for a spec. And I had made somebody happy with whom I had to work. Suddenly I feel I have energy for this project. I can drive this project to a product. Me, a measly developer, not somebody with a management title. Effectively, I was in charge.

Then came a meeting.

With the head of software development at company B.

Now we lost the person driving the project. Me. We bemoan the tragic loss. I'm just no longer interested. If somebody else wants to drive it: Go ahead, feel free. But don't count on my support.

JUCE - How to make a button

As I am currently starting to create an application with JUCE, I thought I post every now and then some things I find. Might turn out to be a little tutorial.

Today on the the first part :-) I give you THE TEXT BUTTON

// ToolTip does not work currently on Windows...

TextButton * button = new TextButton( T("Button"), Colours::lavender, Colours::teal, Colours::springgreen, T("tooltip") );



if( button )

{

 // We only care about the height, as we call "fit text" for the width

 button->setSize (100, 28);

 button->changeWidthToFitText();

 button->setTopLeftPosition(10,360);



 // We need to add an Actionistener

 // We can simply inherit this class from ActionListener

 // and overwrite the actionListenerCallback()

 button->addActionListener (this);



 addAndMakeVisible( button ); // Voila, done!

}

Access Virus KC, PowerCore and Tannoy Reveal now on eBay

Powercore
Tannoy Reveal
Virus KC

There is NO Revolution in Technology

That's how things go forward.

1. Somebody develops some brand new technology. Real tough work. After he's done, he marvels at it. He thinks it is a revolution, but he doesn't know what for and how to use it. (We call it "the mouse". Should we add more buttons? Lets put as many buttons on it as we have space there! Whats it good for? You can use it move a block around the screen. Other stuff. Well, honestly, I don't know.) As nobody else knows what to do with it either, nobody else thinks this is a revolution.

2. Somebody, years later, figures out how to use this new technology. Everybody sees this and thinks it it is a revolution. But is it? The thing has been lying around for years.

There is no revolution. Only a point where everybody suddenly realizes: "This is the new shit!"

Why didn't anybody tell me this?

Did you know that by default full keyboard access is not enabled on the mac.

Goto Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Short cuts & tick the check box at the bottom to "Turn on Full keyboard access". This enables the tab key, arrow key, and other keys to select buttons, lists, and other items.

I got the tip from http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/archives/000079.html

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/003868.html#comment-13999

Datagrid Girl

A good looking geek-girl? This must be a fake.

http://www.datagridgirl.com/

Panopticon Central on Software Patents

I have nothing but contempt for any company that tries to use patents to achieve what they could not through purely competitive means.

Well put. The thing a company should do is compete. Have the better product. Be cheaper. Be faster. But then it should need any patents, right?

Well the problem is this:

So while the good fight goes on to get rid of them, I also believe that it would be dangerously naive to not play the game as best we can in the meantime in as principled a way as possible. There are a lot of people who would love nothing more than to just take a piece out of Microsoft either because they can or because they want to get rich and not for any better reason than that. I've been around long enough to see the kind of trouble that patents can cause us, and so I believe the best defense is a good offense. While I don't believe in using patents in an unprovoked way, I do believe in having a robust patent arsenal with which to defend ourselves should someone get it in their head that they want to hold our products hostage for money or just to cause trouble.

So the only reason to have patents, is that you can defend yourself against somebody who decides to use their patents against you? If this is true, we should really get rid of them. The only ones who will profit from this are lawyers and the patent office.

Meaningless Words - Today Misunderestimating

Alan Krueger, Princeton University: "Misunderestimating TERRORISM, Economics and the Roots of Terrorism"

What is Misunderestimating? Can somebody explain this word to me?

Ok google finds about 15,000 results, so it is not a word that Alan Krueger at Princeton invented yesterday.

But what does it mean?

http://www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures/

HTML Hell

unnecessary border spacing

In this particularly moronic variant of large fixed-size tables, the designer puts the entire web page in a table and pads the edges with empty columns of a fixed width. Duh. This is a sure sign that he or she is one of those pathetic desktop-publishing weenies who thinks HTML is a page description language. Hanging's too good for them...

Ok, I plead (partially) guilty.

http://catb.org/~esr/html-hell.html

Not an average looking blog

http://www.malevole.com/

Killer or Coder?

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Why MSN is not the blogging service for me

Please, look at the colors.

Loic Le Meur Blog: Maps on top of aerial pictures

Loic Le Meur Blog: Maps on top of aerial pictures

Apple are idiots (or possibly geniuses)

So there’s the paradox. On the one hand, the open and increasingly-cuddly giant that everyone loves to hate, and on the other the secretive and knee-jerkingly litigious underdog that inspires devoted loyalty from its customers fans. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Cutting Through - A live case study

Floating Point Arithmetic

Floating Point Arithmetic, Part One on "Fabulous Adventures In Coding"

Amazon.com: Who Moved My Cheese?

Amazon.com: Books: Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

That's the way I like it - Mac mini

And yes, Mac mini will take advantage of your two-button USB mouse with scroll-wheel

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

What is a blog ...

... without cat content?

http://carnivalofthecats.com/

Steve Jobs hates Bloggers

Not enough that we don't get a live feed from this years MacWorld keynote, now any "live blogger" will get into trouble.

Today I’ve been informed that there are actually people roaming the crowd during the Keynote Address watching for bloggers who are connected to the net. They’ll throw you out if they find you doing it.

Steve, I know, a good product is all you need and everything else is secondary, but don't you think you go to far to prove this?

http://www.keynoteuser.com/news/MWSFLive.php

via MacOrama (German)

Cory on DRM

1. That DRM systems don't work

2. That DRM systems are bad for society

3. That DRM systems are bad for business

4. That DRM systems are bad for artists

http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt:

Where I have been in Europe

Ok, I looks like a sick fantasy of Greater Germany, but I'm a liberal. Really. I promise.

Where I haven't been, but want to go

That's where I haven't been yet, but want to go one day.

That's where I have been

That's where I have been in my life. Ok, I have seen about one pixel of Brazil. And I have been to South Africa as a little kid and remember only a very little bit.

World66.com - Create your own visited country map

:: stor troopers ::

:: stor troopers ::

Create your own avatar.

MicroSpeak

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing a project failed and who was responsible.

CGI Joe: A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Chair Trap: When you trap yourself in your office chair by accidentally hitting the pneumatic seat adjustment, causing it to drop suddenly, thereby locking your legs under your chair.

OGF: Overall Good Feelings or Overall Goodness Factor. Used to describe the minimum consensus required in order to move forward on a project or to a new feature

And many more
http://www.hands-on-labs.com/only4gurus/techlib/miscellaneous/MicroSpeak.pdf

My Nerd Score...

"I am nerdier than 49% of all people." (Picture)

Could be more impressive...

http://www.wxplotter.com/ft_nq.php

Avoid programming cleverness

5. Avoid programming cleverness. Instead, assume a good compiler and write readable code.

Cycle-counting and compiler-specific optimizations are favorite pastimes of hackers, and sometimes they're important. But we could never have completed the Graphing Calculator in under six months had we worried about optimizing each routine. Rather, we dealt with speed problems only when they were perceptible to users.

We made no attempt to look at performance bottlenecks or at the compiled code of the Calculator until after running execution profiles. We were surprised where the time was being spent. Most of the time that the Calculator is compute-bound it's either in the math libraries or in QuickDraw. So little time is spent in our code that even compiling it unoptimized didn't slow it down perceptibly. Improving our code's performance meant calling the math libraries less often.

Programmers are often tempted to spend time saving a few bytes or cycles or to fine-tune an algorithm. If the change isn't visible to users, however, the benefits may not extend beyond the programmer's satisfaction. When most of the code in an application is straightforward and readable, maintenance and improvements are easier to make. Those are changes that users will notice.

http://www.pacifict.com/Develop.html

The Story of the Graphic Calculator

Avitzur sneaked into Apple's California HQ for six months to write a software program that, through luck and hard work, is still included on every Mac sold today.

Unemployed and living on savings, Avitzur worked 12-hour days, seven days a week, to create Graphing Calculator in the unlikely hope that Apple would bundle it with new computers.

and

We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security.

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66138,00.html
http://www.pacifict.com/Story/

Snakeoil Down My Throat

So I working on a fun product. It is trying to look like an improvement, but it is more or less Snakeoil. Snakeoil is something to make you feel good about your audio equipment, but it doesn't improve much. I would like to create something useful. Tools, not toys, you know?

But what's more, we are running on a tight schedule, the hardware isn't finished, the algorithm isn't finished. Three companies in three countries are involved, two project/product managers. People I have never met. There is no clear spec. Everybody thinks the other party is the expert. I'm supposed to make the UI and maybe even port the MATLAB code to C. I should use a new UI and audio I/O framework for this. I have no experience in porting MATLAB to C. Neither seems to have the guy, who has written the MATLAB code. Everybody wants to be involved. Nobody wants to make decisions. "No, don't ask about this, make a decision", but then "How could you make a decision without asking me". And we want to ship end of April. But it isn't even clear if we want to give this project the green light. We have started it, but we might stop.

Since September I'm motivated as piece of rock. I hate my boss. I haven't written much source code since June 2004. At least not much DSP or C/C++ code. And the circumstances give me no warm and fuzzy feeling. And I fear this will be my first project to fail. Be totally late. Only cost money. Never make it to market. And maybe my last project for this company...

#include <beer.h>

include beer
Originally uploaded by cheesepuppet.

Follow the Malware

Part1: http://isc.sans.org//diary.php?date=2004-07-23
Part2: http://isc.incidents.org/diary.php?date=2004-08-23
Part3: http://isc.sans.org//diary.php?date=2004-11-04
Part4: http://isc.sans.org//diary.php?date=2004-11-24

Use MSN Mappoint and you get arround

A colleague send me this:

1. Go to: http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. Start: adress in: norway / city: haugesund
3. End: adress in: norway / city: trondheim
4. Press „Get Directions“
5. Wonder...
6. Press back in your browser
7. Change Route Type: Quickest -> Shortest
8. Press „Get Directions“ again
9. Wonder again ;-) (But its shorter...)





[Update] Try the same in ViaMichelin and you know what comfort is: E.g. the zooming works FAR better.

del.icio.us - I underestimated you

I had my "first contact" with del.icio.us a couple of month ago. I looked at it, thought "This looks too simple to be any good" and went away. Boy was I wrong. This bookmark collection is almost that what I was looking for.

I had the same experience with google a couple of years ago ("This looks too simple to be any good"). And I thought, I'd be a little more open this time...

I should really try out things more carefully, before discarding them as "no good" or "not for me".

I Finally Managed To Check Out del.icio.us...

... and I kind of like it. Let's see how I go from there ...

http://del.icio.us/tmix

Boy oh boy...

... do I look forward to the day I quit my job.

Developer quits at Nokia - Because of Patents

Don't know, if I should believe this:

I no longer work for Nokia.

Before I joined Nokia I had formed an understanding that Nokia was using and would be using its patent portfolio defensively. [...] Yesterday at a Nokia internal patent workshop I came to the conclusion that my understanding was not only wrong, but that the reality was quite horrible. After thinking about this for an evening I came to the conclusion that my conscience would not allow me to work for Nokia anymore.

Now I'm unemployed and rather urgently looking for work. Any hints about nice jobs (open source development preferred, of course) would be welcome.

http://liw.iki.fi/liw/log/2004-12.html#20041208b

(Via Alp Uçkan)

Outlook - Unread Mail

Outlook - Unread Mail
Originally uploaded by t-mix.

I'm so happy.

The Balloon Project

Balloon is an Open hardware development board intended for anyone to use in their projects. Balloon should be viewed as a versatile 'computer component'.

...

Balloon 2.05 Spec

• Intel Strongarm SA1110, to 206MHz
• Rom, to 32Mbyte (really just trying to be boot rom)
• Ram, to 256MByte (64MByte without stacking)
• Nand-flash, to 2GByte, including 16-bit interface variants.
• SmartMedia card, to whatever the limit is today
• Codec (16bit, 44KHz, stereo mic in & stereo line out)
• 2W per channel power amp (class D, so efficient)
• 3 serial ports (2 at 12V, one at 5V)
• Reset (including pushbutton) and power control.
• LCD interface for STN & TFT panels (including bias voltage generation, to +-28V, 100mA, resistor settable, software adjustable)
• LEDs & inputs for debug.
• Unique ID chip / Silicon serial number
• USB two slave ports (to attach to a PC) and 2 host ports (to attach peripherals) - including power control.
• CompactFlash socket (not hot-plug)
• Power supply takes 6-42V - ideal for automotive / battery / lab use OR...
• Single 5V supply (local supply voltages derived on-board)
• Software control of subsytem power supplies
• JTAG programmable for both Boot ROM and PLD
• Real Time Clock with connector for battery
• Whole address / data / control bus buffered and sent to docking connector on back of board.
• 103 x 56mm (credit card, extended by 1cm on long side)
• Weights 20-30 grams in typical configurations

http://balloonboard.org/

MusicDSP Wiki on Sinus Sweeps

http://www.musicdsp.org/phpWiki/index.php/About%20swept%20sine%20measurements,
%20swept%20bandpass%20filters%20and%20time%20delay%20spectrometry%20(TDS)

Bad?

Even worse!
http://knockoffproject.com/

Selling Music Gear: Virus, Reveals, PowerCore

As I don't make much music lately, I'll be selling some stuff. I will put them up for auction on ebay in the next days.

Here is a list of stuff I'll sell:

• Access Music Virus KC: Virtual Analog Synth, 32 voice polyphon, 61 semi weighted keys, Emulated Mini Moog™ Filter
• Tannoy Reveal: Passive monitor speakers
  
• TC Electronic PowerCore PCI (Basicly a PowerCore Element with MasterX3)

I'll post links to the ebay auction, as soon as they are online.

[Update] Here are the links:
Powercore
Tannoy Reveal
Virus KC

As I am trying things out here...

... I changed the name of this blog to t-mix BETA.

Prepare to pay big time for this service, once we are out of beta

LOL, SCNR

Welcome Comment Spammers

Just enabled comments for anyone. In case of spam, I will disable it again. Let's see how long this takes...

43 Things

The Covers Project

http://www.coversproject.com/artist/Tori%2BAmos