Roumen's Weblog

Gregg Sporar Tried to Break My Disk Drive!

Earlier today I was talking on the phone with my buddy Gregg Sporar. Unlike usual I was using Windows Vista (due to a podcast - I still can't get audio mixing to work well on Ubuntu - I need to record my Skype session using Audacity - if you know how to set this up please let me know, thanks). Gregg was telling me a really funny story and I was laughing out so hard that I slammed several times with both my hands on the table. Suddenly a Sony VAIO popup dialog came up:

It reminds me of the dialog I get when I get angry that my code won't work and press the Shift key five times or more and Windows thinks I have a hard time using the keyboard and I need some assistance... only this one is so much fancier :) 

Weird Sun Microsystems video

A video describing natural evolution of System Engineers at Sun and their interaction with Sales Reps... hmm someone must had fun recording this piece:

Happy New Year

Happy new year to everyone ... with a Celtic/Bretan song (isn't the ancient language beautiful?):

 

 

Pictures from my travels

I was cleaning pictures from my mobile phone today and thought some of them were quite interesting so I'll share them. The quality is not very good and I am not a good photographer, but maybe you'll find some of them interesting, entertaining or will inspire you to visit one of the places I've been to.

Spring on Cyprus. Very inspiring!

I took this picture from my hotel window in Cologne :)

 

I do like animals :)

The best sculpture of an elephant in India (they claimed). 

Gate of India. The guy on the left is waiting for the picture to be taken to sell me some stuff really cheap!

There is still hope.

Conquering the space.

 

This is not Taj Mahal.

There's no place like 127.0.0.1 :)

Pyramids and the Sun.

The stones look that small from far away, but if you get close they're so large...

 

The Sphinx.

 

Breathtaking Trevi fountain in Rome.

Fool's garden in San Francisco.

Colors of India.

Shore temple in Mammalapuram, India. The stones of the temple are rounded because they've been under water for a couple of times.

Palace in St. Petersburg. Enough room for many soldiers...

Late evening in St. Petersburg with incredible colors.

Sunset in the desert.

Zápisky z Indie

Vyrazil jsem s batohem na 5-týdenní dovolenou do Indie, měl jsem se tam setkat po dvou týdnech s přáteli, kteří si nemohli vzít tak dlouhou dovolenou jako já a chtěli jsme procestovat jižní Indii. Bohužel jsem musel dovolenou předčasně zrušit, protože jsem onemocněl. Tento výlet do Indie byl pro mě dost silným zážitkem, a tak jsem si řekl, že se o něj podělím prostřednictvím blogu. Určitě existují velmi pěkné části Indie a spousta cestovatelů má pozitivní zkušenosti. Jak se říká "your mileage may vary". Omlouvám se za hrubší jazyk, takto jsem svoje zážitky popsal přátelům, rozhodl jsem se text necenzurovat, abych zachoval jeho autenticitu. Pokud vás hrubší výrazy uráží, nečtěte to. Byli jste varováni :)

--- 

Ahoj,

dneska je mi mnohem lip - uz jsem mohl spat v kuse nekolik hodin, prasky zabraly :) Tak vam posilam moje dosavadni zazitky z Indie z tech par dnu co jsem tam stravil.

Videl jsem hodne nemocnych lidi, spoustu odpadku na ulicich (na mnoha mistech nemaj infrastrukturu typu popelari tak proste hazi odpadky na ulici a ty hnijou a desne smrdi). Nevidel jsem za celou dobu ani jednu cistou ricku nebo potok, vse smrdelo tak, ze se k tomu nedalo ani priblizit. Na vesnicich byly kaluze s cerno-zelenou vodou plnou odpadku a v tom se brodily prasata a prebiraly to :) Mistni pak cerpaj vodu z nedaleke studne, koupou se v tom a hned vedle vesele perou pradlo s penivymi prostredky, spinava voda zase stejka nekam blizko zdroje pitne vody. Hodne lidi tam zije bez zachodu, takze konaji svoji potrebu, kde se da. Samozrejme to pak podle toho i na hodne mistech zapacha, sracky clovek cejti v Indii skoro porad. Do toho vseho chodi po mestech kravy, ktere vesele zerou plastove lahve, ktere jsou vsude pohazene (a pak na to udajne chcipaj). Vetsina krav je desne vyzrana, asi jim ty plasty opravdu nedelaj moc dobre na zaludek. Vsude se potulujou psi, vypadaj jako kdyby prozily treti svetovou valku a jsou znacne agresivni (videl jsem jednu super psi rvacku :)

Ve velkych mestech je silny znecisteni ovzdusi (o dost horsi nez BKK - i kdyz sviti slunicko tak smogem skoro nepronikne :), prilis mnoho lidi a neustaly dopravni kolaps. Kdyz jsem dorazil do Delhi ve 2 rano tak jsem si koupil jizdenku na statni taxi. Stal me o dost min nez posledne (310 Rs. - neco pod 150 Kc) kdyz jsem byl v Bangalore, kde jsem si vzal nejakyho soukromyho, platil jsem mnohem vic. Na druhou stranu v Bangalore me aspon dovezli do hotelu, taxikar v Delhi tvrdil ze adresa je neuplna a ze se musime zeptat na informacich (coz byla zaroven cestovni kancelar). Tam mi nabidli vylet na Taj Mahal za 200 Eur (bez vstupenky, jen doprava) a chlapek predstiral, ze volal na muj hotel a tvaril se, ze mam problem s rezervaci (asi mi chtel prodat i ubytovani :). Behem toho se me ptal na detaily my rezervace, ja malem dostal zachvat smichu, protoze bylo jasny ze s nikym nemluvi a jenom to hraje. Vydrzel to predstirat snad 10 minut :) Nakonec jsem mu rek, ze si vylet asi koupim, ale ze se chci rozhodnout az rano, protoze jsem unavenej a ze se chci nejdriv vyspat. To se mu moc nelibilo, ale asi zpozornel, ze mam prece jen zajem o vylet tak neco napsal taxikarovi na papir a muj taxikar se prastil do cela jako ze uz konecne vi, kde ten hotel je. Ja jsem mel pocit vitezstvi, protoze jsem ty hajzly prechcal a dostal jsem se na hotel bez vetsi financni ujmy, samozrejme jsem do cestovani kancelare nezavolal, protoze za 200 Eur by se dalo na Taj Mahal dostat v pohode letecky.

Metro v Delhi byl jeden z mala pozitivni zazitku - chvili jsem si pripadal jak na zapade akorat tam bylo vic lidi :) Takze jsem ho hodne pouzival pro prohlidku mesta (jizdne stalo 8 Rs. - 3.50 Kc :). Kdyz jsem vystoupil na jedne stanici abych se podival na Red Fort v Delhi tak jsem se zase musel vratit, protoze jsem to proste nerozdejchal :) V Delhi jsem potkal celkem pohodovyho riksu, kterej mel dobrou anglictinu a povozil me po ruznych pamatkach a samozrejme me zavezl i do par obchodu aby si privydelal na syna, ktery studuje v USA pocitace (hrozne jsem mu to zral :) V prvnim jsem par minut vydrzel, protoze tam meli zajimavy sosky, ale druhej byly jen latky, tak jsem riksu nasral, protoze nedostal zadny penize, utekl jsem prilis rychle. Ale protoze byl hodnej a vozil me pred tim nekolik hodin a hodne mi toho vypravel tak jsem mu dal 300 Rs (asi 135 korun). Byl z toho uplne vedle, jeste jsem nemel moc prehled kolik riksove stoji, ale viditelne jsem mu dal hodne penez :)

V Delhi jsem potkal dost malych deti, ktery maj po celym tele vyrazku a samozrejme se me bezely dotknout :) Daval jsem nekolikrat penize vyhublejm zenskejm, ktery drzely mimino zabaleny ve spinavejch hadrech a prosily beze slov o penize. Hodnekrat me obtezovaly maly deti, ktery chtely "mony mony" a nedalo se jich zbavit. Taky tam byly stary lidi, kteri uz meli jen kosti a kuzi a lezeli slozeny na zemi a prosili o penize (uz byli v deliriu a neco mleli dokola). Tohle vse jsem nesl docela tezko.

Na Taj Mahal jsem se bohuzel nedostal, protoze jsem mel let do Chennai v 6 vecer a to bych se nestihl vratit vlakem a i kdyz byly vsude nabidky na vylet minubusem na Taj Mahal, byly nechutne drahy, tak jsem to odlozil na konec cesty kdy jsem mel mit skoro 3 dny v Delhi. Jinak v Delhi byl hotel naprosto udesnej, tak jsem si radsi v Chennai priplatil (asi 1500 Kc na noc) na lepsi hotel a bylo to taky desny, ze snidane jsem se malem pozvracel. Na hotelu pracovaly deti (vcetne recepce, moc jim ta anglictina nesla :), mohlo jim byt tak 14 let. Tepla voda netekla na zadnem miste v Indii kde jsem byl, ne ze bych ji potreboval :) Deti v Chennai vubec pracovaly tak nejak vsude.

Sel jsem se projit po Chennai, ale kvuli znecisteni vzduchu a neustalym nahanecum a agresivnimu marketingu riksu je to temer nemozne. Utekl jsem jim na plaz, ale byli vytrvali a pronasledovali me i po plazi a nekolik jich za mnou i bezelo :) Brzy jsem toho mel v Chennai dost a tak jsem jel na jih (50 km od Chennai je Mammalapuram, doufal jsem v cisti vzduch a trochu klidu, protoze to neustaly troubeni na ulicich mi uz slo dost na nervy). Zkousel jsem taxi, ale to by bylo drahy, tak jsem jel asi hodinu a pul riksou :) Riksa byl dost divnej a hodnekrat zastavoval protoze mel rozbitou karu a musel ji opravovat, ale byl to celkem fajn zazitek, protoze vzal i nejaky deti se kterejma byla legrace (samozrejme mely nechutnou vyrazku tak jsem si radeji odsednul) a ja jsem poprve od priletu do Indie konecne dychal cisty vzduch. Take odpadku u silnice trochu ubylo, tak jsem z toho mel dost pozitivni naladu a rikal si ta Indie asi nebude tak spatna a jen jsem mel rychleji vypadnout z mesta.

Dorazil jsem do Mammalapuram, maj tam uzasny stavby ze 6. stoleti, takovy maly Ankor Vat:  http://images.google.com/images?q=mammalapuram&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

I kdyz Mammalapuram bylo velmi zajimavy misto, dostal jsem ten silenej prujem, krece do bricha a horecku. Pravdepodobne kvuli jedne z restauraci na plazi kde jsem si dal podezrely jidlo (moje oblibene nudle s kurecim, ale to kure chutnalo hoodne divne) a orange shake. Take jsem kazdou noc marne bojoval s komary (meli odpuzovace ale komari jsou viditelne zvykly a desne hladovy :) Pokoj jsem vybral jeden z tech drazsich (650 Rs. - 300 Kc). Meli docela pekny velky svaby, jeden se mi hned chtel nastehovat do batohu :) Po dvou dnech prujmu a horecek jsem myslel, ze tam chcipnu. Asi jsem i udelal chybu, ze jsem malo pil (vyprazdnoval jsem se totiz velmi casto), tak jsem byl na hranici fyzickeho i psychickeho zhrouceni. Samozrejme mistni na mym stavu jeste rejzovali, a tak mi prodavali vodu za 50 Rs. Bohuzel za celou dobu v Indii jsem nepotkal nikoho, kdo by nechtel ze me sedrit posledni rupii. Uz jsem na to byl pripravenej z Thajska, ale tam to meli aspon trochu lepe vymysleny, tady ty jejich lzi a vymysly byly dost trapny a vubec byli hrozne agresivni.

V jeden slaby moment, kdy jsem dostal obzvlast silne krece do strev jsem po navsteve toalety vyrazil do internetovy kavarny zabookovat letenku. Letenka s Lufthansou do Prahy stala pres 18 litru, ale v tu chvili bych dal cokoliv jen abych se dostal do civilizace a vzhledem k nekterym priznakum malarie jsem uz byl v pokrocilym stadiu paniky :). (mimochodem pocitac byl totalne zavirovanej, tak doufam, ze ted nemaji moje cislo kreditky :) Letel jsem za 6 hodin po tom co jsem se rozhodl, chtel jsem zmizet co nejrychleji to slo. Vcera jsem prospal vetsinu dne, navstivil Tesco a koupil velke baleni piskot (prodavaj to po pul kile :) V letadle a nekolik dni pred tim jsem nejed, tak se mi dneska ulevilo, ze jsem do sebe neco nasoukal a udrzel v sobe nejakou tu vodu diky praskum proti prujmu :)

Takze takhle jsem se mel v Indii, diky pokud jste docetli az sem, potreboval jsem se z toho trochu vypsat. Dlouho jsem o tom premyslel, ale uz se tam nechci vratit, sorry XXX/YYY/ZZZ, ale tech par dnu na konci byly jedny z nejhorsich dnu myho zivota. Taky mam pouceni pro priste, ze neni dobry se vydavat do exotickych zemi sam, kvuli nemoci jsem to nes dost spatne psychicky. Cetl jsem si dneska na netu a v LP o zapadnim pobrezi a pry je to lepsi nez vychod, takze se tam budete mit asi lip, ale ja uz zpatky proste nechci. Asi jsem navstivil spatnou cast Indie. Jeste pred odletem v Indii jsem zjistoval, co za nemoci muze cloveka v Indii potkat, tak jsem si uvedomil, ze mam zdravi jen jedno a nemel bych takhle experimentovat. Vim, ze vetsina lidi se asi vrati v pohode, ale potom co jsem videl nemam pochyby ze je jednoduchy tam chytit neco zakernyho, nemoci tam jsou soucasti kazdodenniho zivota a je obzvlast nechutny jak tam misty nakladaji s odpadky a fekaliemi (neresi to). Takze omlouvam se, ze to takhle na posledni chvili odrikam, ve vic lidech by to byla vetsi prdel, ale ja na to nemam se tam vratit. Nejsem nejak narocnej na hygienu, ale Indie tohle slovo vubec nezna. 

A picture from Cairo

Here's one picture from NetBeans day in Cairo... this is your unique opportunity to publicly make fun of me - you can put into the bubble anything you want me to say. On this picture I am not looking into the camera, I am looking at my Sun colleague instead. Imagine I am about to tell something to my Sun colleague to comment this situation. I expect lots of creative and funny submittions - leave them as comments. The author of the best submittion will get a NetBeans 6.0 T-shirt (leave your name in the form, multiple submittions are allowed, please no content which could be offensive to those on the picture - remember cultural differences - and I will ask Geertjan to pick the best one in order to be objective)! Have fun!

 

 

What saves me on long flights

I spend way too much time in airplanes and at airports these days. It's one of those things noone tells you when you are getting a job of an evangelist, but I found some ways how to deal with it. One life saver are noise-canceling headphones. They're great not only during the flight itself but also when waiting at the airport. When you put them on suddenly all the rush and noise is just far in the distance.

The other life saver I discovered quite recently is DosBox. Normally I try to work on the plane but some flights get tiring, so you can only work for some limited time. There's one activity I can do for many hours though - playing computer games. So I installed DosBox and downloaded some old games from Abandonia and The Underdogs, got an extra laptop battery and flying became fun again. It's amazing that most of these games work perfectly in fullscreen with audio and you can slow down your machine to reach the same experience as in the old 486 days :)

Wizardry 7 can certainly entertain for many, many weeks.

Friday fun stuff

I got this picture from a friend. Click on the picture to see the large detail. It's absolutely worth studying, you'll find amazing metaphores there. My favorites are: Mordorsoft with pipes spilling evil technologies, the towers of WS-Babel with SOA on top, Ruins of Corba and Semantic web superhighway (under construction). You can print the large image, it's quite well readable on paper and it's a nice picture you can share with your colleagues in your office. Kudos to the creator of the image!

A typical day in life of a NetBeans evangelist

[4:20 am] The alarm rings. Have to wake up, really quickly and get to the airport to catch my flight.

[6:00 am] Checking in. They can't give me the second ticket to Bangalore - I fly through CDG airport in Paris. Grr that means hassling at transfer desk in Paris. I thought these airlines partnered.

[6:50 am] Boarding should start. Sorry, flight is delayed. You should see the faces of all the people who woke up early and will probably miss their connections...

[8:30 am] Finally boarding. We'll be 90 minutes late. Oh well.

[9:55 am] Landing in Paris. Weather condition: heavy fog, 5 degrees C (about 40 F). Almost reaching the runway, but suddenly the engines go to full speed and we fly straight up with big noise.  We didn't make it for the first time. My adrenalin level goes high - this was really close.

[10:15 am] Circling around CDG with other 10 airplanes. Second attempt to land. We don't see anything, fog is everywhere. Suddenly a big bang... and after several seconds another big bang. You guessed it, the airplaned jumped on the runway while landing :)

[10:40 am] Too many people at transfer desk. Many already missed their flights, more will miss them soon because they need to wait in a long queue. I am glad that I have a frequent flyer - and get the boarding pass.

[11:25 am] Cought the airplane right before last call. However, there's no rush. We are waiting for passengers to come. Too many flights were delayed.

[12:20 am] Still waiting for passengers to show up :)

[12:40 am] Leaving CDG with half-empty plane.

... switching to Indian time

[0:40 am] Landing at Bangalore international airport. First attempt successful :)

[0:50 am] Waiting for gate to be ready.

[1:30 am] Still waiting for the f*** gate to be ready. What's going on? We're probably blocking other airplanes because we're waiting in the middle of the route...

[1:45 am] Arriving to Bangalore. Local guys are very nice - they printed a huge list of names of people that won't get their baggage :) I am very lucky, I am not on the list. Getting my baggage.

[2:10 am] Going through customs. They smile at me. Trying to get money from the ATM. It doesn't work and shows a very confusing error message. Wondering if my credit card will work here. I have no money :(

[2:20 am] Getting a taxi to get to an ATM and to the hotel. Finding an ATM. Getting rupies. Can't open the door - I got locked in the ATM!!! Taxi driver helps me force open the door.

[2:40 am] Arriving to the hotel. I can't understand these guys even though they seem to speak English. I got my room.

[3:30 am] Can't fall asleep - still can see the pictures in my head from the airplane almost landing but not really and then fighting with gravity to get back to air. Writing this blog entry...

So, do you want to become an evangelist, too? :)

How to kill a dragon with various programming languages

This funny text comes from Ibon from the dream team who got it from a Spanish blog.

There's a beautiful princess, prisoner in the highest tower of a castle, guarded by a mighty dragon, and a fearless knight must rescue her…

This is how each language would manage to rescue the princess from the hands of the dragon

• Java - Gets there, finds the dragon, develops a framework for dragon anihilation with multiple layers, writes several articles about the framework… But doesn't kill the dragon.
• .NET - Gets there, sees the idea of the Java developer and copies it. Tries to kill the dragon, but the monster eats him.
• C - Arrives, looks down at the dragon, pulls out his sword, beheads the dragon, finds the princess… And ignores her to see the last checkins of linux kernel cvs.
• C++ - Creates a basic needle, and gathers funcionality until he has a complex sword that he can barely understand… He kills the dragon, but gets stuck crossing the bridge because of memory leaks.
• COBOL - Arrives, sees the dragon and thinks that he is too old to kill a monster that big and rescuing the princess, so he leaves.
• Pascal - He prepares for 10 years to create a dragon anihilation system… When the moment comes, he discovers the program can only take lizards as an entry.
• VB - Builds a dragon destruction weapon based on several components, jumps to the back of the dragon and in the most critical time he discovers that the sword works only on rainy nights…
• PL/SQL - Gets data from other dragon slayers, creates tables with n ternary complexity relations, tridimensional data, OLAP, takes 15 years to process the information… And by then, the princess became a lesbian.
• Ruby - Arrives with massive fame, saying he is the best at anything and when he faces the dragon, he shows a lame motion picture of himself killing a dragon… The dragon eats him out of boredom.
• Smalltalk - Arrives, analyzes the dragon and princess, turns around and leaves, they are way too inferior.
• shell - Creates a very powerful dragon slaying weapon… But in the moment of truth, he can't remember how to use it.
• shell(2)- The guy approaches the dragon with a two line script that kills, cuts, disembowels, impales, chops to pieces and packs the beast, but when he runs it the script grows, it fattens, irritates and puts alcohol in the fire of the dragon…
• Assembler - He thinks he's doing the right and most efficient things… But he writes an A instead of a D and kills the princess to end up f***ing the dragon.
• Fortran - Arrives and develops a 45-thousand-code-line-solution, kills the dragon, meets the princess… But she calls him a weakling and runs after the Java programmer who was elegant, and also rich.
• FOX PRO - Develops a dragon killing system. It's gorgeous and works on the outside, but it's really patched inside, so when he runs the dragon anihilator, he realizes he forgot to index the DBFs.
• PROCESS ANALYST - Approaches the dragon with two tons of documentation, develops the unified dragon-killing process, he develops a DFD to free the princess and marry her, convinces the dragon that it's the best for him and it won't hurt. When he executes the process, he estimates the effort and the damage he will cause with a plan signed by the Pope, Buddha and Michael Jackson. Then he buys a couple of nukes, 45 cannons, an aircraft carrier and hires 300 heavily armed men… When all he needed was the sword he was holding in his hand in the beginning…
• CLIPPER: Sets up a routine that loads a codeblock array to insult the dragon, serenade the princess, load the sword in memory, beat the crap out of the dragon, clean the mess, prepare a raspberry milkshake for the princess, make love to her, take a bath, start the car, put it some gas and come back home. When he runs it, he gets a "Bound Error: Array Access" and the dragon eats him with fries.
• Lisp, where the famous knight-errant, after speaking with numerous experts in dragon-killing, and modeling the knowledge they posess, he programs the system, and when he runs it he realizes he forgot a bracket (bender the offender).
• HTML: Mounts a web on famous swords used to kill dragons, but he ignores the W3C standards. When he meets the dragon, he finds out the code isn't compatible with his browser, so he's left swordless. The dragon eats him as an appetizer.
• Prolog: Thinks he needs a weapon to kill the dragon. Searches in a catalog for 182014 weapons. By the time the princess dies of her age, he's achieved to know how to make every weapon starting with A: Atomic Bombs, Anti-Air Weapons, Arches, Ammunition, Axes...
  
• PHP: Creates a web page that when he executes it would eliminate the $dragon selecting from a weapons databese in MySQL over an Apache server. Nevertheless he forgot the WHERE in the DELETE query and kills the princess, the dragon, the peasants, the witch, the sorceror and the programmer himself.
• JavaScript: The programmer tries to kill  the great green dragon that spits fire throug his mouth. He creates a script that will delete the dragon when he loads a webpage, to create seconds after, some damsels to throw him flowers and make clapping sounds. Unfortunately he didn't take into account the DOM structure of the lizard, also known as Mozilla, and the only thing he gets is to fill his console of errors and that the Book of Mozilla tells how he was devoured.
• ActiveX: The programmers create a tunnel to enter the dragon's lair from the castle and run a program that will kil the dragon from a safe and prudential distance. The dragon discovers the tunnel, eats the workers who dug, the dragon slayers, and enslaves every servant in the castle. The castle becomes a dragon-breeding place, full of little dragons that the dragon sends in pop-ups to other castles. The untasty remains of the knights are put in cans of Spam and sent to other castles as well as a warning. (aquelquesiente)
• Basic. He creates a weapon able to kill paper dragons, but no matter how they improve it, they discover it's not good enough to kill any dragon bigger than a baby poodle.
• Matlab: They create a loop that calculates the trajectories to shoot a giant arrow at the dragon. The program works flawlessly. What they need now are the voluntaries caoable to launch tha arrow with the necessary strength and accuracy.
• Videogame Programmer : Spends two years programming a state-of-the-art sword with shaders and all. When the time comes to kill the dragon, he finds that half the knights aren't strong enough to raise the sword. Then someone programs a patch that reveals the sex scenes with the princess and Hillary Clinton makes it a scandal.

If you ever got frustrated by software...

If you ever got frustrated by software, you'll probably enjoy this talk (click on the image to play the video):

 

Code Monkey

What a song...

Friday Fun Stuff - Chicken Chicken Chicken

It is well known that during presentations body language and voice can be more important than delivered information. Some presenters focus just on the information and deliver their presentations with a monotone voice and while standing completely still. These presentations are *not* enjoyable. They su*k!

I think this video illustrates the importance of the non-verbal part of the presentation. So without further ado, here's Doug Zongker's presentation called "Chicken chicken chicken". I hope you will have as much fun as I did :)

Friday Fun Stuff


Good thing NetBeans supports both Java EE (for the enterprise apps) and Ruby on Rails (for quick and easy webapps). And thanks to JRuby we can get the best of both worlds!

Friday Fun Stuff - Gates vs. Jobs

Why Is Google Doing This?

Friday puzzle: why is Google doing this? Visit the following link and zoom out:

Spot on Google map with zoom level 23 in the middle of nowhere

Is that an easter egg? Is there a map in such detail for the whole world? Is Google going to take over the world? Too many questions and too few answers...

Comeback of Commodore?

C64 used to be my favorite computer, not only for games but I also learned to write first programs in Basic and ASM on C64. I still think some of the games on C64 had usability (is that the right word for games? I guess playability is better in this context) that beats many of the newest & advanced 3D games. I had a lot of fun with chasing just a couple of pixels on the screen. Commodore seems to be coming back in a week and it makes me wonder what they're up to!

Friday Fun Stuff

Happy Friday everyone! To set your mood properly for the weekend, watch my favorite music video created in the World of Warcraft...

Crazy Weather in Prague

This January was in Prague exceptionally warm with temperatures over 12 degrees Celsius (over 54 F) which believe me is a lot for January in this area. Then there came hurricane Kyrill which distroyed lots of trees (I was in Egypt while it happened). Europe is not a place with many hurricanes, actually I don't remember the last one we had here. And now we have snow falling all over the place - here's a view from my window at home:


I have to remember which of the cars is mine because soon they will all look the same :)

In the other news: Sun returns to profitability after many years. Good job, Jonathan (and the rest of Sun, of course).

Sun on Youtube!

How would your life change if there was no Sun?

The Best of Butchered English in International Signs

In a Tokyo hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read this notis.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for teh next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattering of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists and writers are burryed daily except Thursday.

On the menu of a Swills restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

In Bangkok dry cleaner's: Drop your trousers here for best results.

In a Prague dry cleaner's: Ladies, please lift your skirts by noon.

In a Rhodes tailor shop: Order your summer suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

Similarly, from Soviet Weekly: There will be a Moscow Exhobition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbiden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand: Would you like to ride on your own ass?

In a Swiss mountain inn: Special today ? no ice cream.

In a Tokyo bar: Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions.

In a Budapest Zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the quard on duty.

In the office of a Roman doctor: Specialist in women and other diseases.

From Japanese information booklet about using hotel air conditioner: Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room please control yourself.

5 Things You Don't Know... and Probably Don't Care!

I have been tagged by Bruno and of course I don't want to spoil the fun, so here are my 5 things:

• I used to work as a project manager in my previous job (before I came to Sun). I hated project management so much at that time I thought that working at McDonalds could be fun.
• I have built my own AJAX-like framework for Java before the AJAX acronym existed. I might find the code somewhere. It was not a good framework but it kind of worked.
• I wrote a 3D minigolf game using PHP and OpenGL. My teacher at school was shocked. Somehow he thought that PHP is usable only for web applications :)
• Most of my communication skills in English language come from adventure games such as Monkey Island. Really, I learned English mainly from computer games.
• My record in drinking beer is 18 Czech beers during one day and one night. Note that these are big beers - 0.5 liter per each. I also drank once a 0.5 liter glass of beer in 4.06 sec (measured from the time when I grabbed the glass and when I placed it back on the table). You don't have to believe this but it is true :)

Time to tag five more people - Geertjan, Lukas, Brian, Gregg and James. I leave them as an excercies to figure out why they were tagged and what they should do...

Celebrity Sighting in Prague

Look who's in Prague... it's Juggy! Check out his website, Juggy is the mascot of JUGs, the brother of Duke from the Java island. Bruno Souza is keeping Juggy in his bag, but sometimes Juggy can get out of the bag and meet JUG members from around the world. He met the CZJUG folks in pub Pod Loubim in Prague yesterday:


Look what Juggy did at this year's Java One - he told J-Naldo (the uknown Brazilian football player) to "meet people and practice kicks" for the T-shirt hurling contest and so he did. Wanna see James Gosling, Rich Green, Craig McClanahan and other celebrities being kicked into their faces? See J-Naldo practicing his kicks (more details about the video are here).

Project Blackbox Beaten?

If you thought that project Blackbox is cool and solves datacenter issues with incredible price-performance, eco-responsibility, space requirements, extreme mobility, quick setup, and so on, forget about it. You need to check out project Orangebox, which is the top innovation from Sun.

Project Orangebox is even more eco-responsible, needs less space (unless you give it too much water) and the other factors are also stunning.


I would like to thank to Achut Reddy for prolonging my life with a good laughter this morning.

Hola from Buenos Aires

Hola from Buenos Aires! NetBeans day Buenos Aires is coming, we will probably have troubles with seating all the people (more than 1/2 of Sun Tech Days attendees registered for NetBeans day). As we say, this is a good problem to have, hopefully this won't mean any inconvenience for the attendees.

Me and Petr Suchomel went to see the city, so here's a couple of pictures... spring is just coming to Buenos Aires:

No pictures from the swimming pool this time :)

One of the Reasons That I Like Java...

... is that you don't have write comments like this one. More cool code searches are available here. It is quite amazing what you can find, including dragons.

Check Out Sun's Second Life Pavilion

Sun's Second Life pavilion is quite empty except for a couple of lurkers but you can play Java One videos on the conference screen :) Check it out here (the Second Life account is free).


So what do you guys think, how about a completely Virtual NetBeans day? :))

Do you like both World of Warcraft and Southpark?

If you like both World of Warcraft and Southpark (like me), this episode of Southpark will be pretty hillarious for you.

Cool Simulation System Using Sketching

This is so cool...

This Happens When You Work Too Much...