When I started this blog, it was with the intention to write a post only when I had something interesting to say. Well, given my deplorably low posting frequency over the past year, I guess we have found out how interesting a person I really am.
So I am going to, every now and then, write a blog post just to share some links I found on the web recently which happened to catch my eye.
I don’t normally like to do “link blogging” — I’d rather post nothing at all for several months (which frequently happens) than just copy someone else’s work. But I’ll make an exception for this XKCD strip. I think it actually brought a tear to my eye.
I got back this week-end from a nice week of rock climbing in Arco, Italy with Jeroen and Raimond. We stayed at Camping Arco, a really nice and fairly luxurious camping if you can manage to get a place there (they refuse reservations lasting less than 7 nights, or made less than two weeks in advance). The weather was perfect; in fact it was almost too warm for the time of year, and we skipped some of our planned activities because of that. Lessons learned for next year: go in April, and don’t climb south-facing walls in the middle of the day.
A couple of pictures, made by Jeroen or at least with his camera: (more…)
Why is it that, as you progress towards supposedly higher levels in your career, the trainings tend to get more infantile?
When I was just starting out as a programmer, most of the trainings I took were of course purely technical: how to operate a particular database system, how to write software for a particular operating system. The last time I received such a training was long ago, but I remember being generally treated as an adult. The trainer’s communication style would presuppose a certain amount of intelligence and common sense from the students, and we were assumed to be already familiar with the basics of software development until we demonstrated otherwise. Some trainers were better than others of course, but in general they were efficient and useful.
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So I read on Slashdot today that Edward Davidson, the “Spam King” escaped from federal prison with the help of his wife.
(Update: it now turns out that after the escape, Mr. Davidson killed his wife and one of his children, and then committed suicide. This blog post, intended as a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek piece, was written before I learned of this. Kind of throws the whole thing in a different light.. Kids, please don’t become spammers — it really isn’t worth it.)
One obvious observation that can be made here is that, unless he is very certain that he will be able to evade justice for the remainder of his life, this was a pretty stupid thing to do: the punishment for escaping from prison is likely to be a lot harsher than the 21 months in minimum-security he received for his original crime.
Another question that came up in the /. comments is whether 21 months in minimum-security prison is an appropriate punishment for a spammer. Many people made the point that, although obnoxious, spamming is a non-violent crime and should therefore be treated less seriously than, say, murder.
I disagree.
So, this Saturday, I jumped out of an airplane.
The jump was a birthday present for my father, who has always been very interested in everything related to planes. But of course, when we gave him the gift certificate, it went without saying that me and my brother would jump as well.
And it was COOL! All three of us loved it.
Well, just in case you had a burning desire to know what OS was running on the terminals for the experimental chip-card system for public transport in Amsterdam and Rotterdam:
