Tao of the Machine

oldversion.com

After this, this is a great find: oldversion.com -- "because newer is not always better". Get the good, non-bloated versions of Acrobat Reader, Winamp, ICQ and much more.

Haiku Circus

Haiku Circus, a webcomic using haikus.

Some Dutch links

Some Dutch links...

• Schoolbank - vind je oude klasgenoten terug
• zelfbepaling.nl - psychological research
• Frans Groenendijk - Dutch politician
• nederhop.pagina.nl - alle wacke nederhop die je maar kunt wensen (en ook een paar goede artiesten)
• Dirk-Jan - absurdistische humor

Artificial Planet

This looks like a cool program, if it would only run on my PC... Artificial Planet.

"AI.Planet is a virtual world for artificial intelligence. The environment has water, land, suns, moons, and atmosphere. Plants, animals, fish, and insects can be added to create a dynamic ecosystem. Clouds, rain, wind, lightning, rivers, and icebergs naturally arise from the sun and other influences. You can explore your planet from outer space, by walking around, by tracking creatures, or by controlling a robot that interacts with objects. Artificial Planet is an OpenSource project built with Delphi and GLScene."

(via Gwork-Portal)

Howdy, neighbor

Some links...

• Creating the Lie Studio: Art and stuff
• Kaye Trammell: So this is mass communication?: A meta-blog.
• Wildlife Drawings by Jim Wilson (a commercial site)
• Pug's Place
• Laura Thompson
• Good Blimey!
• Interpret your own dreams
• Hot Pages
• Bytehead
• Randy's Soapbox
• 15 October
• eschew.net
• annessa.net
• ConfigSys.boy!
• XKot

Codeville

Bram Cohen releases a new Codeville build. A version control system written in Python.

More links and stuff

More on the NADD thing: In defense of NADD. Also, here are some links that are cruel traps to those afflicted:

• Everything2
• Wikipedia
• The Jargon File

My programming language weighs a ton

"Indonesian villagers claim to have captured a python that is almost 49.21 feet long and weighs nearly 992.07 pounds, a local official said Monday."

Fine malt links

• New Scientist: Dinosaurs has lots of information about dinosaurs. For example, one page deals with myths, including silly ones like "humans coexisted with dinosaurs", but also surprising ones like "pterosaurs were dinosaurs" (apparently they weren't, at least not according to this site :-). Nitpick: somebody seems to really like the idea that birds can be considered dinosaurs (since the former evolved from the latter).

• Bloglines is, as other people already discovered, a great web-based news aggregator. I'm using it now too. (Then again, maybe it's not so good for me. I'm already refreshing the page like a fiend to see if there are new posts. :-)

• ChessBrain is a virtual chess supercomputer, using the processing power of Internet connected machines. Cool!

• Get the ANSI.SYS driver working on Windows NT, 2000 and XP.

• Top 5 cosmic myths Did you believe in any of these?

Some links

• IRIX tips
• Helpful IRIX commands
• tricks and fun with vi

Observations 2003-09-21

• (via Michal Wallace) Everyone's favorite kooky time traveller site... http://www.johntitor.com/ Scary stuff, especially since it *seems* realistic enough.

• Two online books that might be worth reading: Using, understanding and unraveling the OCaml language, and Writing Bug-Free C Code.

• (via someone's weblog, but I forgot who it was) I finally discovered Knoppix. Downloaded the latest ISO, burned it on a CD, booted, and voila... a working Linux system, without having to mess with dual boot systems and the like. I should have had this in December 2001, when I messed up my computer playing with partitions.

Things and stuff

1. (via Chris Petrilli:) Mind Media Brain Persuasion Test. My results:

Your Brain Usage Profile

Auditory : 40%
Visual : 60%
Left : 55%
Right : 44%

What does this mean?

"""Hans, you are somewhat left-hemisphere dominant and show a preference for visual learning, although not extreme in either characteristic. You probably tend to do most things in moderation, but not always.

Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to "catch up" with yourself.

Your tendency to be organized and logical and attend to details is reasonably well-established which should afford you success regardless of your chosen field of endeavor. You can "size up" situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to "lose touch" with the immediacy of the problem.

Your logical and methodical nature hamper you in this regard though in the long run it may work to your advantage since you "learn from experience" and can go through the process more rapidly on subsequent occasions.

You remain predominantly functional in your orientation and practical. Abstraction and theory are secondary to application. In keeping with this, you focus on details until they manifest themselves in a unique pattern and only then work with the "larger whole."

With regards to your career choices, you have a mentality that would be good as a scientist, coach, athlete, design consultant, or an engineering technician. You can "see where you want to go" and even be able to "tell yourself," but find that you are "fighting yourself" at the darndest times."""

Hmm...

2. I just discovered that Orson Scott Card has a website. I've just finished the first two books of the Alvin Maker series. In English this time; it's better than the Dutch translation I read years ago. But maybe I just don't like Dutch. ;-) Either way, the books are still very impressive and thought-provoking.

3. InBoxer is a tool that fights spam, and it uses spambayes. I haven't used it myself, since it uses Outlook, but it might be worth a look.

Thursday roundup

Picking other people's brains weblogs and mails...

1. Guido on Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface. (via Fredrik Lundh)

Interesting, that LEAP key. I wonder if the Ctrl key could be used for that, on a regular keyboard? Probably not; IIRC, pressing Ctrl+<key> often generates a different key code altogether. But maybe it's worth a try.

2. Moshe Zadka: Networking for non-programmers (and a conclusion). Contains some useful basics, also for programmers who don't know networking... A few years ago, I had my MCSE, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you know how a network works.

3. Via Kyle Cordes: a video of an interesting talk by a computer language researcher. Supposedly he also likes Python. (I haven't been able to watch the video myself yet; I think my Media Player is somehow broken, it only shows a black screen.)