DerekMartin.ca

I know a lot of you read slashdot, and I know that I post a lot of slashdot stuff on here. The thing is, I try to post what’s *interesting to me* from all the slashdot posts, as well as stuff that may have an uninteresting title, yet contain interesting content. So, I’m acting as your slashdot “cool stuff” filter. You don’t have to read it every day. I will post the good stuff for you. Likewise, I include the good stuff from boingboing, and about 30 other sites that I read on a regular basis. On Friday night Irena and I went to see “TANGO PASI?É‚ÄúN”, which has just recently sold out over 200 shows in a row in Italy. Much to our surprise it was only “pretty good”. Afterwards, we went for drinks at the Bulldog and had a great conversation until about 4am, when they closed and made us leave. We chatted for a while more, and I finally got to bed at 6am. The joke was on me, though, cause I’d promised to meet my friends at 8:30am to climb a mountain. Fuck. So, up I got at 8:30, and ran to meet them. I was 10 minutes late, but oh well. I can’t believe I climbed that fucker on 2.5 hours of sleep. It was 2 hours of constant walking to get to the top. Exhausting doesn’t really begin to describe it. I now know how/why everyone in Zagreb has a sweet tight butt. It’s from climbing this mountain. You see, it wasn’t me and 2 or 3 friends that climbed it. It was me, and Cvijeta, and Emina, and about 100 other students. Every saturday they have to climb it for their physical education class, which is mandatory. WHen they get to the top, Cvijeta stamps everyone’s “climb card” to prove that they did it. No climb - no pass. The embarassing part was when we were about 2/3 of the way up, and three 65-year-old-plus men zipped by us. WTF??? You see, that’s what old people do for fun over here — climb mountains. Unbelievable. They were *so* fit. We saw lots of old people on the mountain, going up and coming back down. There’s a restaurant at the top, so we had baked beans, sausage, and beer, and sat on the picnic tables outside. It was a beautiful day. Still, the 1.5 hour walk back down nearly killed me. We took a different, more picturesque path down, and I got some nice photos. I was pretty dead for the rest of the day, so I watched “The Kid” starring Bruce Willis, and “The Transporter” with Jason Statam (aka the driver from Lock Stock, and Snatch). The Kid was cute and cuddly, as are most Disney movies. The Transporter was fast, intense, and fun, as are most car-chase movies. Neither was particularly innovative (except for the oil-fight in Transporter), but both were a nice way to spend an exhausted afternoon. Then I got an SMS — “meet us at the main square at 9pm”. I thought they had to be kidding, but they weren’t, so I went. We went for a drink, and then I was tooo tired (2.5 hours of sleep, remember?). We all just went home. The Rum & Coke ensured that I fell asleep promptly. Sunday morning I went to the biggest flea market in the world with Emina, RachelM, Cassie, and their supervisor from the US, Olivia (yes, both our supervisors are named Olivia). We didn’t have anywhere near enough time at the flea market, though, as a lot of people had to leave in time for Palm Sunday mass. Oh well. Still good to get out in the morning, even if it was at 8:30am again. I’m soooooooooooo not a morning person. Then I vacuumed my apartment, opened the windows, shook out the sheets & blankets in the spring air, and laid on the bench in the garden for a while. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Also took some photos of “The Blooming”. Join the protest against using the terms “Tall, Grande, and Venti”, and force them to accept “Small, Medium, and Large”. Please write your MP and tell him/her not to make downloading music illegal. We really don’t want to become a copy of the US permission-based culture. We are freedom-based. It should stay that way. Get a pre-written form letter about this issue over at AndreMolnar.com. You can find the MP (and email) for your postal code here. Takes 1 second. Be sure to include your full mailing address in your letter/email, so that they may send a reply. MPs traditionally reply via Canada Post, and not via email, regardless of the media upon which the original message was sent. As a side note, i wonder if it’s piracy to copy another country’s policies? Hmmmm. Seinfeld & Superman together at last, subtly advertising? Wow. Great stuff. Click on Uniform and Hindsight :) Note that the clock on the wall of the room states the correct time. Nice touch :) Mogi: a location based game you play via cell phone looks very cool. Example: If you want to get a power-up by killing a nocturnal animal who dwells in trees, you must go to a real park in your city at night. Cool! New types of internet advertising are on the way. They didn’t spin the article this way, but this is what it amounts to: companies are going to start *paying consumers* to show them ads. The payments won’t be cash (yet), just free downloads, but this is still a great start! Dark side of Gmail. Privacy advocates are crapping themselves at the implications of Gmail. About 8 years ago (while playing Duke3D on a VR Forte Helmet) I had an idea for a 3D First-Person-Shooter style file manager. Well, [someone has finally gotten around to it](around to it. http://www.forchheimer.se/bfm/ “3d fps file manager”). What I originally envisioned was more of a 3D FPS security app, so that you could see all ports in 3D, and with different types of traffic, security risks, and users being represented by different avatars. System Administration can be boring, but this could at least make it boring in a beautiful environment. One of the April Fool’s jokes that I took seriously: 1st Annual March for Web StandardsUSB Keychain/MP3/Camcorder/2MP Digital Camera. It even recharges when plugged into your USB port. Genius! Prediction: 2 species of Cell Phone 1) Something in the form factor of a USB Keychain will soon replace non-PDA cell-phones, utilising voice dialing and input instead of lots of buttons. The focus is on media-capture, super-simplicity, spontenaeity, and portability. Has no screen for data-manipulation or playback (screen decreases portability), but does have connectors for external playback. 2) Something in the form factor of today’s Treo/Smartphone/PocketPCs whose focus will be data-input and manipulation. The focus is on media-manipulation, local playback, and data access. Has a screen for manipulation and playback. Note: I did not mention battery life or storate capacity, because I’m taking for granted that within 5 years both will be great (>24 hours for battery, and >1TB for capacity). Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe the future is more like NEC’s PenPC that I mentioned a few months ago. I could picture the USB-PC mentioned above having a projector built into it, which would keep it very portable, as well as offering a large display (given a vertical surface). Or maybe Phillips e-Paper will be an option. As always, the future is exciting :) Sensational Phone: tries to tie into all your 5 senses. Sound Example: It recreates the sense of directional sound with the help of GPS (Global Positioning System). The other caller’s voice would appear to come from the left or right, in front or behind to correspond with the actual location in relation to the listener. Very cool! Zero Install — the Linux packaging/install system of the (near) future. Reminds me of alias “Zero Cool” played by Jonny Lee Miller (aka Crash Override) in the 1995 movie “Hackers”, co-starring Angelina Jolie (aka Acid Burn) and Matthew Lillard (aka Cereal Killer).

Comments from my old blog:

(andre)[http://www.andremolnar.com] said: Thanks for the link - lets hope that this whole copyright thing gets put waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back on the back burner - seeing as the Liberals have a lot more stuff on their mind as of late. at 2004-04-06 11:42:28