Insomnia

Last week, Stack Overflow opened to the public. I gave it a look. It is a simple system; people ask questions, people answer the questions. There is a system for upmodding and downmodding the questions and answers. Like many nascent crowdsourced web sites, the content is pretty good so far. Time will tell if the self-ruling system will continue to work or if the content will start to slowly drift towards mediocrity.

I am a lurker in most of the similar sites that I read. For this one however, I started to contribute right away. Why was that? After thinking about this for a little while now I think I have a theory: StackOverflow treats its participants like players in a role playing game.

Like many of the other community-based systems, there is a score that rewards user that create good content. Other sites call it karma, this one calls it reputation. The main difference is that this site gives you a compelling incentive to hoard the reputation points. You have goals, quests of sorts. You need to have gathered 15 points to be able to upmod someone else's content. You need 50 to be able to leave comments. There's a whole menu of things that you can do on the site but you need to gather some reputation to be able to do them.

In addition, the system will reward you with a badge for accomplishing specific tasks. You get the teacher badge for your first answer that gets modded up. You get another badge for completing all fields in your profile.

For me, this makes it very compelling to go there and participate. So, I'll stop writing right now and go see if I can't answer some questions. I really would like to get my good answer badge.

Labels: fun, tech

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I was really surprised to hear about it on Shneier's blog and then on boingboing a few hours later.

Then it was too funny I had to post about it. Police in the UK seized a boardgame called "war on terror". It is dangerous... It has a balaclava that "could be used to conceal someone's identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act".

This is a picture of me with my Evil balaclava. I have owned this boardgame for over a year now. I don't play it very often because it is a 6 player game and you need to be in a certain mood to play it. But it is a very decent boardgame.

So be afraid... Be very afraid of my evil twin. He's the one wearing the balaclava.

Labels: fun

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Remember my post about Winzip?

They actually called back to check if we did a license audit. I told their representative, in person, that we didn't really do a license audit as they requested. But that, instead of doing an audit, our staff was instructed to uninstall WinZip and use a free alternative like 7-Zip.

She seemed all happy at this conclusion and thanked me for my help. That's it! No sales pitch, no offer to help us with anything. They had me on the phone and didn't even make an attempt to establish any sort of contact. I had assumed that this was the reason for the whole license audit thing in the first place. But no. They truly just wanted people to comply with their licensing terms.

I am a little baffled.

Labels: fun, work

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Image via WikipediaThis week-end was a rainy week-end. So I went to the movies and saw Wall-E. To my opinion, this is the best Pixar movie so far. The visuals are stunning, the story is interesting and is different from their other animated movies. Plus, there is no dialog in the first 40 minutes or so. Only robotic bleeps that carry more meaning and emotion than any Ben Affleck scene ever recorded. Oh and the short animated movie they show before the main feature is really cool.

I knew little about the movie before I went. I had just seen one preview and it had nothing to do with the central theme of the movie. It was just the preview with robots flying around in space.

But right at the opening scenes... I was very pleased. The visual approach to the movie was reminiscent of Idiocracy. A relatively little-known film by Mike Judge. The story is different but there is a definite connection between the two movies. Especially in the way the movie portrays people as ignorant, wasteful consumers. The way that they are lazy and stupid and happy in their ignorance.

There are obviously differences between the movies. The fact that people didn't become idiots, they always were idiots. Another difference in Wall-E is that they had the technology to leave earth. So they did and their behavior didn't change. There's just more room in space to throw out your garbage.

Labels: fun

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Maybe this is old news to most people. But this is the first time I see this video. It is a little scary.



[Edit] Many people say it is a hoax. Here's the page from Snopes.

Labels: fun

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Many people complain that there is no real fine dining in Ottawa. This couldn't be further from the truth. This was my birthday dinner from yesterday:

Appetizer:
Egg Custard with Shaved Bottarga & Truffle Oil; Beef Carpaccio with Caper Berries & Parmesan Shards

Main course:
Cornish Hen served with Chicken Liver Sausage, Swiss Chard, Mashed Celery Root, Braised Celery, Oyster Mushrooms & Tiny Celery Leaves

Served with an interesting Pinot Noir from the Norman Hardie winery.

And for desert, I had a blue-cheese apple crumble.

The entire meal was excellent (the appetizer floored me in particular) and the service was first-class.

Labels: fun

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Go sens go!

Labels: fun, work

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Interesting debate over at Gizmodo regarding the prank they pulled at CES this year. Seth Godin definitely thinks it is a crime.

I don't really like TVs in public places and if I didn't carry way too much stuff in my pockets already, I'd probably carry a TV-B-Gone with me when I go out. When I saw the video, I thought it was pretty funny. Pranks are often mean... this one is no exception.

However, the debate that it generated became more interesting to me than the prank itself. If you read some of the discussion on Gizmodo, you see a pattern emerge quickly: People who think that the pranksters are responsible and people that think that the exhibitors were careless. That they should have just "put some black tape" on the IR port.

This is interesting because it is a debate that I have heard often about computer security: Who's responsible for the protection of an asset? Better locks or stronger laws?

What is even more interesting is that it illustrates the difference between computer programmers (homo logicus) and the rest of the human race. Programmers like to have to plan for all edge cases. They think that anyone that doesn't is careless or lazy. And that it is their own damn fault if someone pulls a prank like this on them. If you go and read the discussion on the Gizmodo site now, you will see that distinction.

Labels: fun, tech

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During World War II, the British secret service arranged for real money, maps, file and other tools to be hidden inside monopoly sets that were distributed to POW through red cross aid packages. These special Monopoly sets allowed many of them to escape German prison camps.

The Informed Reader - WSJ.com : World War II Weapon: Monopoly With Real Money

Labels: fun

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This morning, I had a need for a spoon and there was none. According to the "rules of conduct" it became my turn to empty the dishwasher. I saw this. (took a picture with my cellphone, bad picture)

It took years to get the team to actually fill the dishwasher and push the start button.

But most of them cannot be bothered to pull the drawer all the way out to place silverware in the open areas of the basket. They'd rather open it barely and jam their knifes and forks in the first slot of the basket.

And believe me... they were jammed. I had to force them out.

Can someone explain this to me?

Labels: fun, work

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I was still at university when Frank Zappa died. Me and my friends that were fans were sad that day and marked the day by skipping classes and having a beer in his honor.

I always knew that he was sort of a geek but this article reminded me of that fact. Geek stars: The secret (nerdy) life of celebrities

After reading the article, I couldn't shake the thought that if he were still alive... He'd make a really good blogger. Or at least, I think that he would.

Labels: fun, people

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Recently, someone at the office used a permanent marker (accidentally I hope) on the whiteboard in the main conference room. As the term "permanent" implies, the whiteboard is now ruined.

So I thought it was the perfect time for a little experiment. Can a whiteboard be resurfaced with common automotive maintenance products? So I brought from home my sander/polisher, a jar of polishing compound, and my trusty TurtleWax super hard shell automotive wax.

I buffed the whiteboard clean with the polishing compound, cleaned it with household cleaner, dried it well and applied a generous coat of wax. I waited for the wax to harden, polished the surface and now... I am waiting for the results.

The whiteboard looks new. It is all white and shiny. But will it erase without leaving marks?

Labels: fun, work

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For a long while, I have wondered what Homer would do if he got his hands on a poutine. I mean, it was made for Homer. But I figured that unless the Simpsons made an episode where they went for a trip to "la belle province" I would never get to see that.

Well it turns out that the greasy delicacy is making it into the states through some fancy gourmet bistro place in NYC. So, maybe I will one day hear Homer say... "Hmmmmmmm curds"

A Staple From Quebec, Embarrassing but Adored - New York Times

Labels: fun

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For a few months now, I have been finishing my afternoons at work with the groovy tunes of... well I don't know who it was and that was the whole point. Now, because of licensing constraints, Pandora cannot broadcast to me anymore since I am located in Canada.

Pandora was a great service that helped me find a whole bunch of music that I never knew existed. It would create a customized "station" for me based on some band name or song name that I supplied. It would use some fancy algorithm to find more music in that style. Often music from bands I had never heard of.

This is a shame. I hope they find a solution soon because the sound of my computer fan just isn't the same.

Labels: fun

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I have been taking digital photos for a while and I rarely print them. This weekend I gave in and bought myself a digital picture frame (Smartparts SPDPF84M).

It has a nice wooden frame and an crisp 8.4 inch LCD screen. It has 128M of internal memory and can also handle a wide selection of memory cards.

Unfortunately, I was never able to make it connect to my computer using the USB cable (computer running Windows XP) . So I had to transfer all my pictures using a CompactFlash card. Also, the company supplies a software to automatically scale and prepare the pictures for the frame's 800x600 screen. That was also a disaster. It is a horrible little piece of software that just didn't work and tried to reinvent every principle of UI design ever invented. I finally decided to use the GIMP to resample and fix my images before I transfered them to the device.

Overall I am happy now that it works. It is proudly displayed in my living room on the end table and I can finally show my friends my pictures without booting my computer. Two thumbs up for the hardware, two thumbs down for the software.

Labels: fun, tech

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defective yeti: Intelligent Warming

Finally, a logical explanation for global warming.

Labels: fun

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After a weekend of playing Wii with my brother, an overanxious smash at WiiSports tennis left my ceiling with my first WiiScar.

Labels: fun

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Wow, two of my interests collided today. I am a listener of the Hanselminutes podcast which is typically about programming and .Net. Suddenly, a show about board games. Really cool show that does a good job at introducing the hobby.

HanselMinutes - Board Gaming for Programmers

Labels: fun

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Brrr... -25C this morning.

At least, we didn't get anything like the icy roads in Portland

Labels: fun

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You have data to visualize and don't know how : A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Language use in the Simpsons : Beyond embiggens and cromulent

When you need a good insult : Insults - they just don't make them as they used to

Because nothing is faster than a ninja : A really fast dictionary... fast like a ninja.

Interestingly... I have always wondered about that : How much gold inside a Goldshlager bottle?

Labels: fun

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Three Laws of Software Development: "Everytime you break one of these laws, Bill Gates kills a puppy"

Labels: fun, tech

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Your results:
You are Spider-Man
You are intelligent, witty,a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.






Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

You are Dr. Doom


Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.






Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

Labels: fun

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I realized that I would never catch up and have the time to write something clever about these links I accumulated... So... Here are the links without clever writings attached

• Ip Assignment, Per Capita


• The Daily WTF - Don't Worry, We'll Fix It!


• The Old New Thing : It's not surprising at all that people search for Yahoo


• Purpose, Life, Jerry Maguire and Software Development

There!

Labels: fun

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A Bite to Eat! - Minuscule fast food combo. It is really neat. The pictures look really good and the close-up shots look like a real-scale burger.
(through BoingBoing)

Labels: fun

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