Blog

I’m running Debian on my Laptop (thanks to Knoppix), so I guess I’m entitled to go to the Etoy Debian Party in Zurich… [Via BitFlux]

eyes closed illumines love shield to words Hmm - I guess it could be a lot worse than that - and the Darwinian Poetry project has generated worse poetry. I’m specifically interested in this kind of research, because my company Ivorix - evolving software builds software that relies on some of the same mechanisms to generate trading strategies for trading stocks. Out of the work, we’ve done, I know that genetic algorithms have to power to come up with solutions to really hard problems. Poetry seems to be one of these…. ...

Ben Poole mentions Testing 1,2,3 in the Notes/Domino context (of course taken from the Xtreme Programming school of thought. He links to Duffbert’s XP experiences. Let me chime in with my experience on TestingFirst with Notes. I worked on a large Domino project last year with a team of 5 other people. I tried to get some XP into the group (but failed - there just wasn’t enough interest from the other team members… another story). ...

I’m a big fan of Willam Gibson. I was heavily influenced by the Neuromancer series and I (think) I have read all of his Sci-Fi novels over time. So when I started reading again (instead of sitting at the computer all the time) it was time to pick up his (not-so) new book: Pattern Recognition (Amazon.de) Pattern Recognition (Amazon.com) As a non-native english speaker, the language used by Gibson is difficult at times, unfamiliar terms, (no - not the use of google as a verb) - but the language conveys images, feelings. London a familiar city, when viewed through the eyes of CayceP - the protagonist of the book - turns into something different. Gibson is a master of this - his way of using language is masterful and sets the mood. The story? Hmm - a great start - the idea of having a person sensitive to corporate branding and logos is great. The footage - the central element of the book - the snippets of a movie that turns up on the internet and is dissected and discussed by a steadily growing fan base, is intriguing - interesting by how it’s described. There are up’s and down’s as we move with Cayce through London, Tokio and Moscow. I’m not quite finished with the book, so I don’t know if the resolution of the story works or is interesting or not. I’m enjoying this book so much because of the way Gibson models feelings with language - and that can be quite enough reason to read… ...

Tim Bray makes a case for not being a “sharecropper” and developing for the browser only or rather - to code to open standards, XML, RPC etc. and so on. I agree 100% - that’s a good thing to do. But he makes the case, that the browser is the best thing that happened to interface design and application design since sliced bread: But it's especially good for the customers to be on the Web platform. The notion of routing everything through the browser (with one significant exception, which I'll discuss below) is incredibly user-centric, user-friendly, and user-empowering. Because once they know how to use the "Back" button, to click on highlighted text, and to fill out a form, then they don't need much training in how to use your application. and ...

I’m in the finishing phase of “the” project, I’ve been working on for the last 6 months or so… On friday we deployed my web solution to the productive environement and it ran (almost out of the box). Today is the day where a couple of small corrections are being made. Tomorrow I’ll start to look for something new to work on…