Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

People all over the web are saying good bye to Netscape.  Since Mozilla and Firefox started to get better, Netscape sort of faded away.  Now it faded away so far that AOL decided to end the support for the browser. This is the time when thousands of people all around the world, including yours truly, suddenly felt very old and broke out into uncontrollable nostalgia…

If you want to read more about the sentiment, here are some links for you:

• Slashdot:  AOL to Shut Down Netscape Support/Development
• Boing Boing:   RIP: Netscape Navigator (1994-2008)
• Web Worker Daily: End of a Browser Era

I’ve been fascinated by chess for as long as I can remember.  This is one of those games that brings it all together - intelligence, suspense, entertainment, magic…  Unfortunately, I wasn’t ever any good at playing chess, or even understanding most strategies.  But that didn’t stop me from enjoying a game now and then.

I have recently came across two interesting bits about chess.  One is this post on the gaping void blog with the history of chess pieces.  It explains where from the names and looks came, as well as why the pieces move the way they move.  Another one is this Battle Chess web site (in Russian).  Battle Chess is a variation of the chess game, which, as the site says “is a war, not a game”.  What they do is let each chess player arrange his pieces on his part of the board any way he wants.  The second player does the same.  The trick is that they don’t see each others positioning before the game starts.  And then they start.  Sounds exciting. And innovative.  Which I guess isn’t very easy to do with a game a few centuries old.

One thing that Google Maps could benefit from is a time dimension.  Imagine, being able to scroll the time-line while looking at the satellite picture of the same place.  You could see how cities are growing, roads built, and rain forests destroyed.  You could see traffic jams.  You could see how building shadows drop to find the better parking in a hot place like Cyprus…

I guess Google will have to collect much more data than they already have though.

Yesterday I heard the story of toasting origins.  It sounded interesting, but somewhat unrealistic.  It turned out to be true:

The practice of toasting originated in Ancient Greece, at a time when fear of poisoning was a significant concern. To put guests at ease, the host would pour the guests’ wine from a common decanter, take the first drink to demonstrate its safety, then raise his cup to the guests and invite them to drink in good health.

Internet Movie DataBase, wider known simply as IMDB, celebrates it’s 15th birthday! In this age of computers and information technologies, 15 years is a truly remarkable time span. In fact, they started from the pre-Web era, using Usenet groups and mailing lists as the distribution medium.

IMDB presents a special 15th Anniversary feature. There is an IMDB history, as well as an excellent timeline that shows how IMDB was growing and provides the means to relate to what was happening on the movie arena.

I would like to join all those thousands of people who congratulate IMDB on its success and its useful service that they provide free of charge. I would like to wish them another eternity of years to come and more people to contribute to the project. Thank a bunch you guys. Keep it up!