DS Demon of Speed!

MarioKart for Nintendo DS was just released in Europe. That means I can now race and battle with people all over the world whenever I am at any WiFi hotspot.

And it's fun as hell, proving again that polygons and motion capture don't matter (mostly).

If you want to race me, my "Friend code" is 244873-352476.

P.S: That logo on my car is custom-drawn. You can have your face or swastika there, if you wish...

Ocaml Sudoku solver

I stumbled upon this Sudoku solver by an accident. It's written in Ocaml, solves Sudoku puzzles and is 769 bytes (19 lines) long! (Also see the links to other solvers at the bottom of the linked page.)

I am not sure if "code density" is the right term but it's astonishing how much can be done in Ocaml in so few program instructions. When I analyze the program above, I understand how it works but I seriously doubt I will be able to write anything like it soon. Almost everything I ever knew about programming must be thrown out of the window and I must approach the problems from the new angle and actually THINK while coding. It's very nice feeling, the feeling I didn't have since VIC-20 Basic in the early 1980s. :)

Of course, it's not easy to approach programming from fresh angles when you have to make living for yourself and programming is currently not part of making that living... :)

Face of terror

Maybe I am ignorant but I never before heard of Gary Glitter until his recent "complications" with Vietnamese girls.

However, I can positively say I never saw a face that says "I molest children" more clearly than the photo on the right! (Except maybe Tim Curry in the "Legend" movie and Mr. Paroubek.)

Yes, this is the same man as on the pages linked above!

Kryspin's sense of snow

Today, Kryspin experienced snow for the first time.

Of course, he had no idea what it is so naturally he decided to hunt it and kill it!

UPDATE: Several people told me the link above does not work. It definitely works for me! Maybe there is some weird problem with Flickr. Try clicking here and then using "next".

Baldachyn has a problem

As I wrote before, I've got a problem: What to do in Amsterdam for 5 days (I don't drink, I don't take drugs, I am heterosexual).

However, Baldachyn has bigger problem: Does anyone have any suggestions what he should do for 4 days in Sofia, Bulgaria? He is also heterosexual, I think.

Any suggestions for Baldachyn would be appreciated here or in talkbacks.

"Lady in the Water" trailer

"Bedtime story"? Click here for another dose of weirdness from M. Night Shyamalan, master of WTF.

St. Albert

Today is Albert's name day. That means November 21 is the day of St. Albert and all Alberts get presents. Because of higher bed in our new flat, Albert would like something like this but they don't ship internationally...

Because there are only 365 saints in the calendar (actually even less), our other dogs have/had no standard name days (there is no St. Chucky or St. Stimpy). Our cunning solution is to celebrate their name days exactly 6 months before their birthdays!

And something for all the people who wanted to see more daring photos of Karolina: Here she is doing it doggie-style!

"The best of..."

Some people are using Flickr to post the very best photographs they take.

Not me.

Considering I am paying Flickr for 2GB of usable space per month, I see no reason not to upload almost everything I take photo of, after discarding the absolutely shittiest unrecognizable images. It might be educational to look through all that stuff some time in the future.

Of course, having well over 3000 of my photos on Flickr presents a problem for someone who wants to see something nice / interesting / not shitty.

This is why I created this set (which should grow in the future) containing the photos I prefer the world to see. Either because of the psychedelic colors or because of the cute dog with big eyes...

And, please, don't tell me my photos don't conform to basic photographic conventions. I looked at some photography books and I really don't enjoy taking that road.

I don't know shit about art but I know what I like!

All your Google base are belong etc... (not funny anymore)

OK, so Google Base is public at last. Fine. Now, what should I do with it?

By the way - if I define my kind of item (let's say "My favorite disease") and add a few of them, how can I add another several days later? Do I really have to define all fields again? That seems stupid. And yes, I know it can be done using batch upload. I am now talking purely about the web interface.

"Haunted Memories"

I hoped to write this before Halloween but the wonderful Czech Post took OVER THREE WEEKS to deliver a package from USA to me. So this post is instead in remembrance of all the students who gave their life on November 17.

I ordered two pictures from HauntedMemories.com and I hope to have them framed and placed at strategical points in our flat where they'll do maximum psychological damage to unsuspecting visitors.

You see, the images, when viewed from front, seem like normal ancient portraits. However, If you move to either side, they change to something rather unpleasant. Of course this trick is old (I remember Czech postacrds like this from the early 1970s) but these paintings are done very profesionally and the change is gradual (several stages and even something that looks like animation (see the actual footage here).

I purchased "Da Vince Corpse" and "Uncle Charles" (smaller versions) for $140 total, including $20 postage to the Czech Republic (which includes package insurance).

Surprisingly, even Karolina "sort of" likes them and came up with the idea of buying the aunt for the uncle. We shall see...

If you have enough space (and money), I definitely recommend going for the large versions, the detail is really amazing.

UPDATE: I almost forgot: If you are really rich, for "at least $800" the author offers to create a custom changing portrait based on your photo! See the FAQ on his pages.

10641???

The site www.10641.com is disturbing. I don't know what it is. It might be real. It might be clever propaganda. It might be viral campaign for Apple iPod or whatever...

Baldachyn says it might in fact be from the movie "Fargo". :)

Analyze this!

Free Google Analytics is now live. And with a loud "thud", hundreds of traffic-tracking companies are suddenly out of business.

Bobsled in Prague

There is a long (snow-less) bobsled track in Prague, right above "Podvinni" park (over the tracks) or right below "Prosecka" street. You pay 50 Crowns for a ride ($2), with various discounts available. The nice thing is it operates throughout the whole year, even after dark (strong lights illuminate the track). There is also a restaurant, playground for children etc...



You can see the video of the entire ride (and my feet) here. Remember that this was rather safe ride and I was braking almost constantly (yes, the sled has brakes controlled by a lever) because I didn't want to lose my camera and/or limb.

So long, Emma...

I always loved Emma Thompson. However, after seeing her in her latest movie, I think it's time to say: "No relationship can last forever!"

Watch the skies!

Even when there are clouds. Or daylight. Using Stellarium!

8-bit memories

The wonderful people at softhouse.speccy.cz have converted my second book about computer games to PDF. (The first one is available here).

This is a two part book about ZX Spectrum games (in Czech!) I wrote in 1987, when I was 19. The most amazing thing are the screenshots from the games. The original book had really crappy black & white printouts of the screenshots. The good people from Softhouse.speccy.cz used the ZX Spectrum emulator and the actual games to painstakingly re-create the exact same situations from in the original screenshots and grabbed them in full color and full quality. And I mean EXACT SAME situations, to the last pixel (of course they needed occassional help of the graphics editor). Frankly, this is just mind-boggling.

The original title was supposed to be "What Mr. Sinclair didn't anticipate" but it was deemed too Capitalist and the book was renamed to vague "Computer Games" - certainly misleading because it was only about ZX Spectrum games. Also, the cover says it was written by "Frantisek Fuka and the team" but I wrote every last letter.

If I remember correctly, I got 10,000 Czechoslovak Crowns for both books from Svazarm (The Union for Army-Youth Cooperation) back then. That's exactly how much my Spectrum 128 cost me. That's also exactly for how much I sold my Spectrum 128 several years later because some fool agreed to pay so much money for "Spectrum owned by Frantisek Fuka himself" and put it on display somewhere.

Accidental vector discoveries

While looking for something completely unrelated, I discovered Inkscape, an open-source vector graphics editor (something like Adobe Illustrator). Inkscape is Open Source (and thus free in all senses of the word) and available for many platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac. In contrast with Sodipodi, the only other competing Linux package, Inkscape seems more mature and - most importantly - has great tutorials (really not common in the Open Source world).

My second - quite accidental - discovery was the fact that Firefox 1.0.7 seems to natively support SVG format quite well. For example if you click here, you can see vector penguin right in your browser window!

And while we are talking about vector graphics and Linux, this initiative also looks really promising. I tried Xara several years ago and it certainly looked very... interesting and fresh.

Office Space special edition

I noticed that Special Edition DVD of "Office Space" was released. "Office Space" is one of the truly great comedies. It's written and directed by Mike Judge, the creator of "Beavis & Butthead" (who BTW also stars as Donnagon Giggles in the "Spy Kids" movies) but the humor is very different and very clever. The movie is about guy who is stressed out from his IT job, gets hypnotized to relieve the stress and - by an accident - stays "permanenty cool", not giving a shit about his job (arriving late, playing Tetris, not pretending that he's actually working, etc...). The are several scenes that are timeless classics (mutilation of the Xerox machine, talk about prison rape, very specific way of saying "Yeah"). See it NOW if you didn't already.

"Office Space" was never theatrically released in the Czech Republic. It was briefly available on video several years ago, under the supergay Czech title "Malery pana Sikuly" ("The Misadventures of Mr. Clever") - what the hell is that title supposed to mean?!?! And the tagline "Work sucks" was translated as "Work inhales" or something clever like that...

Disturbing Radek Hulan news from Spain (or Mexico or whatever)

According to this talkback, "La polla de Radek es una de mas grandes y lindas y ha destruido mas conejos que tu puedas imaginar. Lo conozco de cuendo era un virgen. No creo que la tuya sea mas grande. Gilipollas!"

Or, as "Google Translate" puts it: "The pullet of Radek is one of but great and pretty and has destroyed but rabbits that your you can imagine. I know it cuendo was a virgin. I do not believe that yours he is but great. Gilipollas!" I'd never have thought Radek could do that to innocent rabbits!!!

Sort-of-Halloween

Until fairly recently (long after 1989 revolution), "All Hallow's Eve" celebrations (called "Dusicky" = "The Souls" in Czech) meant that you went to a cemetery and lit a candle there. I am happy to report that - at last - Czech kids are warming up to the idea of scary Halloween masks and monsters. Unfortunately, no trick-or-treating yet. (Click below.)



P.S: Baby Jesus (who brought Christmas presents to Czech kids for many centuries) already got his ass whupped by Santa Claus several years ago.

Tulips, beer and Paul Verhoeven

We decided we are going to Amsterdam in the next month. I bought some travel guides, looked online and now I am stumped: What should two non-pot-smoking, non-beer-drinking heterosexuals do in Amsterdam???