Slashdot has an excellent post today linking to the article by Joel Spolsky – “How Microsoft Lost the API War“.
It’s somewhat lengthy but is worth a read. Trust me. :)
Month: June 2004
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I just came back from the cinema, where they ran “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind“. It’s a 10 out of 10 movie and it has a range of reasons to go as high as #46 on the IMDB’s Top 250. It is one of the best movies I have seen ever. Ever.
This movie is perfect in each and every sense. There is a good story behind it. It’s original. There is good acting. Lots of it, actually. There is even more of good acting. It brings up few excellent points and makes one realize a number of things. It made me thinks of stuff that I never thought before. In short, this movie touched me.
There were few strong points cast-wise. First of all, this movie is a good proof that Jim Carrey can play drama, and not only “Ace Venture” and “The Mask”. I was suspecting this since “The Truman Show”. Secondly, it was good remind that Kate Winslet is alive and can act and that she shouldn’t be thrown out off the board of “Titanic“. And thirdly, it was good to show that Elijah Wood is not going to be Frodo all his life.
Overall, a perfect movie and a must see. It would be nice to have it in home collection also.
Rubik’s cube mad skills
I am sure everyone have heard about Rubik’s cube. Most people might have also tried playing with it. But I don’t think a lot of people realize how far you can go with it…
Check out these videos. This chick solves few problems in 14-17 seconds. She goes as fast as 10 moves per second for 3 seconds in a row sometimes. Very impressive!
In case you’ve got suddenly interested in that small cubic toy that you dug up from the darkest corner of your apartment, check out the rest of the website too. There are some algorithm explanations, theories, and links to other resources.
Now I am going under the table to find my jaw… ;)
Taking Great Pictures by Kodak
I wonder how did I miss an excellent guide by Kodak – “Taking Great Pictures“.
There are simple short paragraphs with direct suggestions and examples of ‘before/after’. They cover a number of topics from off the center subject positioning to shooting of difficult subjects. There are also some very nice pictures.
Must read.
Popup Test
Browser popup window has been a hot topic for few years now. There are sites that shamelessy open popup windows without asking your permission and even making those windows virtually impossible to close. Other sites have a more descent policy and they actually warn you about popups that they use or even give you an option to open link in a current window.
Because of so many sites abusing popup window technology, many browsers (like Mozilla) started to add popup blocking functionality. There are also standalone applications that limit the amount of nerves you lose while browsing.
PopupTest is the site that allows you to test how good your popup blocking software works. Many different technologies are implemented there. I have tried all of those with FireFox 0.8 and found that only three types of popups can get through to me – mouseOver, drop down, and sticky. I don’t know if it is possible to configure FireFox to block those, but I don’t mind much, since these are rear for the sites I visit.