If you have five minutes to spare, go to this collection of 9 interactive color games and test how good your sense of color is. Even though I didn’t think much of my color sense, I managed to get them all right at the first try. So maybe the games are really easy or my color sense isn’t as bad as I thought.
Author Archive for ugo
Slashdot - Mars Rovers Return to Exploration: “Typically, the solar panels on each rover produce about 700 watt-hours of electricity per day — enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours, according to NASA.”
Honestly I didn’t think that the fact that multiplying 100 watts times 7 hours yields 700 watt-hours was so controversial that stating it needed qualifying the statement with “according to NASA”. What about the square root of 2 being approximately 1.4142 “according to Archimedes”? 
I think the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis yesterday might be visible in this picture I took while landing at MSP about one year ago. It could be the structure visible to the left of the Metro Dome.
I might ask my Minnesotan friend Tony Collen, who probably still reads this blog. What do you say, Tony?
Either way, it’s scary to think that while you are merrily driving along, a bridge might collapse under your feet. Still, from a purely statistical point of view, we take way greater risks while driving every day, even without poorly built bridges.
Can you see any similarity between the guy pictured here and the one in the first frame of this strip?
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Well, if there is any physical similarity, it is purely coincidental, because the guy on the left is Cosimo Mele, a member of the Italian Parliament elected with a Catholic party (UDC), whereas the vignette on the right represents a “sanctimonious, moralizing Republican”.
The coincidence, however, is stunning: on the same day the strip was published, it was revealed that Mele—with all probability a sanctimonious, moralizing Catholic but definitely married with children and a member of a political party that defends “traditional family values”— had spent last Friday night in a Rome hotel with “a lady, or maybe two, who was later admitted to a hospital with problems apparently due to cocaine and alcohol abuse”.
Now, a lady or maybe two is not the same as a lady, a clown, a lift boy and a giraffe, but the similarity is striking.
You can read more about this story here. The (as usual) hilarious Google translation is here (don’t be fooled by the reference to “Apples”, it’s just that “mele” in Italian means “apples”, as in the fruit).
I’ve never been much of a gamer (apart from being addicted for some time to Tetris and later to the pinball game that was first included in Windows NT) and especially not one for RPGs, but a few days ago I learned that World of Warcraft is available for the Mac, it can be downloaded from the Web and you can test-drive it for free for 10 days. I would never buy such a game in a box from a store, but downloading stuff to try from the Net is second nature to me, so I figured I might give it a try.
So I registered an account, downloaded the game (a handful of GBs, so you have to be patient, but it sure beats getting a box from a retailer), created a character, and started playing. I have to admit I’ve been hooked from the beginning and especially captivated by the sheer immensity and variety of the virtual world you end up being immersed into. I did some quests, killed a huge amount of monsters, and got killed in the process many times. To finish the hardest quests I teamed up with people whom I have later added to my friends list, so we can get together easily again every time we go online. Probably appearing as a young, attractive, female mage instead of a burly warrior or a dwarf made it somewhat easier to find people eager to help me in my quests in a world that—I presume—is mostly inhabited by young males ;).
Anyway, my 10 day trial period just ended and I’m not bored yet, so I wanted to buy some “real” play time. There are two ways you can do this: you can buy a pre-paid card from a store (even Amazon has them) or you can, I assume, buy an activation key online from Blizzard’s web site. Since getting the card from Amazon or other online vendors means having to pay shipping and wait a few days or weeks, I obviously tried to buy a key online. I wrote “I assume” when I mentioned buying it online because that’s the thing everyone would assume when one sees a big, red button with the words “Buy a Key Online” on the Account Management section of WoW’s website.
Unfortunately, when I click on it, I either get an unspecified error or a 404 (Not Found) page. I figured it might be some transient problem with their system, so I tried the day after, with the same result. Frustrated by this, I looked for ways to contact Blizzard’s support. Turns out there’s a form you can compile for requesting support; at the end of the form there’s one of those obnoxious CAPTCHA checks for keeping bots away. The code is very readable, so I think even the dumbest OCR can read the code, but I wasn’t able to. Well, actually I was perfectly able to read the code and type it back in the control field, but no matter how many times I tried or how many permutations of upper- and lower-case characters I used, the stupid form kept telling me I wasn’t getting the right code.
In desperation I turned to the support forums, where you have to be a registered user to post. The problem there is that the forum login system kept refusing my username and password. Do I have to register another account just for the forums? I’ll mention as an aside that, judging from the URLs it shows, WoW’s website is using JA-SIG CAS, which is a Single Sign-on system. I wouldn’t care much about Single Sign-on in this case, but at the very least I expect to be able to reuse my username and password across different services from the same company.
So I’m here, frustrated by a company that doesn’t seem to want my money while at the same time boasting having recently reached a 9 million user base. Go figure! I should probably take this as a hint to stay away from World of Warcraft and avoid staying up late at night just to play a stupid game.
Update: I finally managed to submit a support request and got this reply:
Thank you for your email. To upgrade your trial account to a standard version you will need an unused non-trial authentication key for World of Warcraft which you can find either under CD 3 in your box or on the front of the manual in all full game boxes of World of Warcraft. You will need to log on to the account management page at http://www.wow-europe.com/account and select “Upgrade account” then enter the standard authentication key from your box.
You will keep all of your original characters and receive a free month of play time.
The online upgrade facility is not currently available. We don’t currently have any further information about when this service will be available again.
If you have any further questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact us again.
Technorati Tags: blizzard, world of warcraft, wow, rpg, mmorpg, games.
Just a few notes before I wrap up my stuff and head home after three days spent at the 2nd Annual Joost Company Meeting. A word of warning: this is totally devoid of any technical or business information, as the company still likes to be somewhat secretive—and justifiably so. Besides, I know almost nothing about the business issues and what I know about the technical ones would bore you to death.
The beach party and barbecue was a blast and we had lots of fun playing football and cricket on the beach. Some pictures are here.
The weather has been sunny and pleasantly warm (with some cold wind at the beachfront), but today returned to the usual Dutch, rainy, windy grey. However it’s still great compared to the mid-30’s we have in Italy these days.
Yesterday we went to see BoomChicago in Amsterdam. I must say that I wasn’t expecting to have many good laughs, after having seen some of their videos, which tend to leave me a bit cold. However I quickly discovered that what they’re really good at is improv, something that doesn’t translate too well to a recorded video format. Watching them perform live is a completely different experience though, so I suggest that you pay them a visit, if you happen to be in Amsterdam.
I made acquaintance with Loic Le Meur, a fact which doubles the number of famous bloggers I had the pleasure of meeting recently. The other one is Dave Winer, of course.
Me and a couple of friends from the ASF tried to talk him into applying Open Source principles to his new venture. I don’t know whether any of it makes sense, or if it was just the effect of the wine that was served at the table. I guess we’ll see soon.
Technorati Tags: joost, amsterdam, boomchicago, lemeur.
Creepy Japanese training video. I guess this might be useful for Japanese girls who are afraid of being robbed by two thugs while traveling to an English-speaking country. I wonder if they have a version for being robbed by one, or three thugs, or more.
(Via James Governor)
… according to TorrentFreak. And indeed it is not responding right now.
While it lasts, you can still find everything that was on AllOfMP3.com on MP3Sparks.com, including your account and any credit that you previously had. Same service, different name.
Technorati Tags: music, allofmp3, mp3sparks, russia, wto, riaa.
I’m a fully satisfied user of NetNewsWire (the full, not-lite version), but there is one thing that this fine piece of software cannot do, apparently. I want to subscribe to some feeds that are served by an HTTP server which requires authentication and only accepts client certificates as a means of authentication. So I can subscribe to the feeds using Firefox LiveBookmarks, since I have imported my client identity certificate in Firefox, but I’d really prefer to be able to read those feeds in NNW. Alas, NetNewsWire doesn’t seem to offer any option to import a client certificate, like Firefox does.
A search on Google and on Newsgator’s website did not turn up anything useful, so I’m resorting to the lazy web, in the hope that some kind soul had the same problem and solved it.
Technorati Tags: netnewswire, ranchero, newsgator, syndication, firefox, osx, rss, certificate, https, identity, authentication, client.
Winner of the 2007 World’s Ugliest Dog contest: Elwood.
Winners of the 2007 Dumbest Dog Owners contest: the Tutens.
…being able to register myself as “His Holiness”, that’s what.
Considering the badly composed and horribly compressed stock photo on the left, with the chap using what is obviously a white MacBook with the Apple logo photoshopped out, I think they should add “Web Designer” to the list of titles and start interviewing everyone who registers as such for a job.
(Via Zoli Erdos)
Drawing from his extensive experience with the Subversion project, Fogel provides in this book a comprehensive overview of all aspects of Open Source software development, covering technical, social, political, economical, legal, and managerial aspects.
While the book is more aimed at medium-to-large scale projects, especially those involving some kind of corporate entity, there is much in it that is applicable to most projects, excluding maybe only those little, one-man efforts that rarely become successful. But if you are the originator of one of the latter, should it suddenly attract a wide following, you’d better be prepared to face the unavoidable problems that popularity brings. This book will come in handy in this case.
Here are, in my opinion, the strong points of the book:
- Providing a concise, yet comprehensive, overview of all aspects of Open Source development. This is really the manual of open development.
- Demonstrating that there is much in open development that is similar to more traditional, corporate-style software development (you cannot always rely on good will and volunteers), but also much that is different, in motivation, rewards and objectives.
- Putting the accent on the human aspect of development: mutual respect between participants is often the deciding factor in determining whether a project will thrive or fail. Since even the best of intentions sometimes are not enough to foster a peaceful, productive and collaborative environment, Producing Open Source Software contains a lot of useful, practical advice that you can follow if you want to keep developers happy and motivated.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Getting Started
- Technical Infrastructure
- Social and Political Infrastructure
- Money
- Communications
- Packaging, Releasing, and Daily Development
- Managing Volunteers
- Licenses, Copyrights, and Patents
What’s the problem with religious leaders in Sydney? We already established some time ago, that its Catholic Archbishop, George Pell, is a moron. Now we learn that its Anglican Arcbhbishop, Peter Jensen is not even able to answer a simple question like: “What parts of the Bible should we believe?”
I mean, if you argue against homosexuality because the Bible says so, why don’t you ask that gays be stoned to death, like the very same Bible says? Isn’t it a mortal sin to think you know better than your own God?
I don’t know whether it’s the air, or the water in Sydney Harbour, that causes religious leaders to be either stupid or liars, or hypocrites, or all of it at the same time. Hmmm, wait… what if it weren’t a matter of geography at all? What if being either a stupid or a liar was a prerequisite for being a religious leader, all over the world?
We might ask Cardinal Bagnasco, when the organization he heads publishes a book that advocates genocide, slavery and the suppression of sexual “deviants”, yet he gets all upset when people send him death threats.
By the way, it fills me with pride to know that, at least according to Google, I am more famous than the Italian Catholic Church ;).
(Via God is for Suckers.)
I think this is one of the most beautiful and intriguing photos I ever saw.
Warning: if you’re subject to epileptic seizures, don’t watch the promotional video for the 2012 London Olympics (on YouTube here until they take it down). And if you don’t, and puke on the keyboard nonetheless, don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
As for the logo, from the moment Michele made me notice it, I cannot look at it and not think immediately of Lisa Simpson giving head.
Luckily, surfing around on YouTube starting from that hideous video, I discovered some other really excellent British product. Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: london, 2012, olympics, logo, lisa simpson, the kinks.
My friend Davide just told me that he’s seeing an unusual outburst of traffic coming from Google Images to one of his pages. Apparently there are many people looking for Martin Schoeller on Google Images and a picture he used is hit #3 on the results page.
I have to admit that I hadn’t ever heard of Martin Schoeller before today, so I figured out he must have just passed away, but a brief search for news about him only turned out this page on the New York Post.
My impression is that you have to be very sensitive to think that the reflections in the eyes of the models are meant to evoke the Twin Towers, but I guess if you are a New Yorker, you are quite sensitive when it comes to 9/11.
Anyway, you can find more portraits by Schoeller here and you can judge by yourself whether the effect was intended or not.
Technorati Tags: martin schoeller, twin towers, 9/11, new york post, Marsh.
Exactly 35 years have passed between this photograph:
And this one:
What links them, besides being both taken on a June 8, is that the photographer is the same: Huynh Cong Ut, better known as Nick Ut.
Does this say anything about the world we live in? I’m not sure
(Via The Online Photographer.)
Technorati Tags: nick ut, paris hilton, vietnam, Kim Phuc.
Charles Nutter: “We have finally released JRuby 1.0, based on the last release candidate, RC3. And what more is there to say? Not really a whole lot…It’s almost entirely RC3, with one or two minor fixes added in. But it’s really turned out to be an outstanding release, and already reports are coming in of folks trying it out en masse. We’re very happy.”
Congrats!
OK, since Dave, Paolo and Gaspar insisted that I should really try Twitter, I just subscribed. Good, but now I don’t know what to do, since I haven’t made any friends on Twitter yet. If you want to get onto my friends’ list, my username is zaphgod.
I will briefly mention that I’m using Twitterrific, which—as the name implies— is a terrific Twitter client for OS X. And it’s free to boot.
I will also mention that today I’ve also joined Dopplr, after being invited by Andrew (by the way, congrats!). I guess I should start listing some of my next travels there, but to be honest I don’t have many travel plans for the near future.
Must be my Web 2.0, social networking, yadda yadda day.
… and all I got was this lousy picture. 
OK, to be honest, I got quite a bit more than that ;). First of all some nice food, thanks to the chef of the Ditirambo restaurant.
Second, we got some good conversation, which unfortunately ended a bit too soon, as Dave has a flight early this morning, so he did not want to go to bed too late. In a couple hours, however, we managed to talk about growing up in the Bronx, living in America, what coming from a family of eastern European refugees means (on this point Dave and Gaspar had some stories to share), American politics (Dave seems to expect something radically new before the next presidential election; as for us, we weren’t so optimistic), artificial organs (Roberto, who is a physician and an engineer, told us about working for the team that made the first, partially successful, artificial heart and meeting Barney Clark), Twitter (every other person at the table seemed to be a Twitter user and told me that I have to try it to really get it) and of course blogging.
With respect to blogging, I noticed how Italian bloggers appear to be split in two, mostly disjoint, groups. On one side, we have bloggers who write in English, mostly geeks who do IT for a living and constantly write about technology, using English to reach out to and connect with a global network. On the other side, we have bloggers writing in Italian, usually on a much broader range of topics. My impression is that interconnections between the two communities are very sparse, but I don’t have much hard data to back up my claim. What’s certain is that, at that table yesterday, me and Gianugo were the odd ones out.
Italian-language bloggers also seem much more prone to meet up frequently and do camps and unconferences. We IT guys, of course, have our conferences and trade shows already where we can meet.
As for Dave, he can be a very nice guest, always trying to fire up the conversation, involve everyone (not that easy with people sitting at a long table, which tends to create at least two separate groups) and ligthen up the evening with songs. He also seems to be quite outspoken, though always using a soft voice tone. It’s not surprising that he manages to make quite a few enemies. Even though he says he never picks fights with people, he has no qualms about kicking around their ideas.
