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