I came across an interesting artist – Andrey Budaev. Among other things, he is famous for his rather satirical political posters. Check his gallery for more. Here is one of my many favorites.
Month: April 2012
QR Art
A while ago, I was looking for a QR code generator that would embed a custom image into the result. Back then I didn’t find one and had to do things the other way. Now, there is one – QR Art. Here is an example, using my picture from the about page.
Dear Al, you are fired!
Being fired is usually not much fun. But as far as firings go, this one is pretty funny – as reported on Slashdot:
On Friday, more than 1,300 employees of London-based Aviva Investors walked into their offices, strolled over to their desks, booted up their computers and checked their emails, only to learn the shocking news: They would be leaving the company. The email ordered them to hand over company property and security passes before leaving the building, and left the staff with one final line: ‘I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and wish you all the best for the future. ‘This email was sent to Aviva’s worldwide staff of 1,300 people, with bases in the U.S., UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Finland and the Netherlands. And it was all one giant mistake: The email was intended for only one individual.
Obviously, in the corporate address book, “All Stuff” and “Al Not-the-Pacino” were right next to each other…
Weekly digest – 2012-04-22
- I just ousted Aleksandar G. as the mayor of Kirzis Center on @foursquare! http://t.co/BKTd3vYK #
- I favorited a @YouTube video http://t.co/vs3oSgz3 Girls going wild in red light district #
- Первый раз слышу про Детские Железные Дороги (ДЖД). Интересно. http://t.co/bJzlWoNF #
- New note : Apptopia – exit strategy for app developers http://t.co/mLXulOdO #
- New note : Google Maps query string parameters http://t.co/tb9hxDxo #
- Friday … the day of Kings! (C) Sam-the-coworker. :) #
- And I'm back to KDE. Gnome shell crahes too often for me lately. Runs out of memory and dies. That's a bit too much. #
- I favorited a @YouTube video http://t.co/x4aVhhyn Dumt & Farligt – Phantom Flex Highlights – 1080p #
- I just ousted Sergey K. as the mayor of Pahnidotopos on @foursquare! http://t.co/W2lqoY30 #
Karma-based pricing models for games
Slashdot links to an interview with Gabe Newell, of the Valve fame. I think this idea is pretty interesting:
The issue that we’re struggling with quite a bit is something I’ve kind of talked about before, which is: how do you properly value people’s contributions to a community? … An example is – and this is something as an industry we should be doing better – is charging customers based on how much fun they are to play with. … “So, in practice, a really likable person in our community should get DOTA 2 for free, because of past behavior in Team Fortress 2. Now, a real jerk that annoys everyone, they can still play, but a game is full price and they have to pay an extra hundred dollars if they want voice.’
Karma-based systems aren’t the easiest ones to figure out. But they have plenty of potential. Given enough will, effort, and tweaking, I think this can be done. How well it will actually work – remains to be seen.