I like this fragment, Joel on Software, reviewing “Dreaming in Code”:

Eyes work using a page fault mechanism. They?re so good at it that you don?t even notice.

You can only see at a high-resolution in a fairly small area, and even that has a big fat blind spot right exactly in the middle, but you still walk around thinking you have a ultra-high resolution panoramic view of everything. Why? Because your eyes move really fast, and, under ordinary circumstances, they are happy to jump instantly to wherever you need them to jump to. And your mind provides this really complete abstraction, providing you with the illusion of complete vision when all you really have is a very small area of high res vision, a large area of extremely low-res vision, and the ability to page-fault-in anything you want to see?so quickly that you walk around all day thinking you have the whole picture projected internally in a little theatre in your brain.

The article then somehow gets into considering team work issues. Now, this one I feel quite often (even though not related to programming):

I can?t tell you how many times I?ve been in a meeting with even one or two other programmers, trying to figure out how something should work, and we?re just not getting anywhere. So I go off in my office and take out a piece of paper and figure it out. The very act of interacting with a second person was keeping me from concentrating enough to design the dang feature.

…but I always thought that it is some kind of proof of my bad team working skills and do-it-yourself approach.

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In here for good. And the real winter just started. Our fearless leader, as some called him, got stucked till tomorrow; even though it’s actually because of weather in Warsaw I believe.

Rammstein Moskau:

Moskau

???, ???, ???!

Moskau

????????!
??????? ??? ????,
????? ?????? ????.

Now there will more time to visit the most beautiful city of the world.

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Tomorrow I receive HIV test results. Yesterday my blood sample was taken. Safe to say blood sampling is in the top 10 of the things I hate most.

Added. In case you wonder, the reason for the examination was Russian visa, as opposed to anything connected with Simon Mol’s case. Let me tell you this, even if you are sure, you are never sure (think hospitals, hair dressers..). So there was one good news today.

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Today I was reading a blog post by Cedric Otaku, who lives in the US.

He had his new checks stolen from his mailbox (because he was too lazy to pick them up in the morning, but it’s a side issue) and described his experience with Wells Fargo when he tried to revoke them. Turned out that, according to the bank, he was supposed to close his account altogether in order to prevent fraud. That’s because checks come with data on them which allows to generate fraudulent operation, even if the check itself had been revoked.

What’s interesting is not the Wells Fargo level of service, but how different the payment infrastructure is in the US compared to, say, Poland. The whole business of paper checks with all its aspects mentioned in the comments (I’m not an expert in checks, caveat lector) – lack of signature validation, manual processing, triviality of fraud – seems incredible mess from the perspective of country where electronic money transfers are so prevalent.

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It’s the third year for which I have resolutions in writing, and thanks to this I can see how increasingly gradual the progress becomes. Also, the targets feel ever easier, even if in the past they would seem ambitious, and the challenge is less tangible. On one hand there is nothing wrong with benefiting from the virtuous cycle, on the other, all I care for is unpredictability and rapid development, not any kind of laborious ladder climbing, so I long for more free style in my life.

In practical terms, pursuing some big thing is the only way of getting satisfied on that. It’s the most challenging too, but I will keep on looking.

There should be no problems in travelling and money departments. Unless there is some real disaster. I want to go sailing for the first time, but it’s purely logistical challenge.

The only thing I feel pessimistic about, as usual, is the driving licence.

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I’m terribly late with summing up the previous year, not to mention planning anything for the 2007. That is because I was lazy during Christmas and then got distracted by Mol’s case, which got me depressed quite badly and made all the matters of mine seem trivial (which I know they are, but usually I enjoy them anyway).

Anyway, a year ago in January I was planning to do the following:

Think out something new and big

Three attempts being made, but no deliverable so far. But be patient.

Leave Poland (for a while), backpacking in the summer – obligatory

I visited only three new countries in 2006 compared to 8 in 2005, however, these were big countries: US, China, and Russia. And China was pure backpacking experience. Duration-wise it was not such a big success but I expect to more than make up for it this year. (read more…)

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Nice.

Linked by Guy Kawasaki.

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Simon Mol (Simon Moleke Njie), an exile from Cameroon, was accused of knowingly infecting his sexual partners with HIV and arrested. He is a writer, poet, and creator of an Migrator Theater. He lives in Poland since 1999.

His relations included young women fascinated by his poetry and human rights campaigns. Some of them allegedly informed him about the disease after learning that they were infected: African kind of a virus, with a very aggressive profile. Pharmaceuticals had to be used months after the infection, while normally it takes couple of years before it is necessary.

Gazeta Wyborcza:

Monika O., literature student who met with Simon Mol 11 months earlier, contacted the police in November this year.

- I was attracted by journalism, I wanted to write about Migrator Theater – she describes. – I was fascinated by human rights activist fighting with racial stereotypes. Soon we started to meet, went to bed. I didn’t suspect that he could infect me with HIV virus and even less, hide from me that he is infected. I also thought that suspecting him of being infected would equal giving way to stereotypes. Thus we made love unprotected.

Simon Mol on his web page:

Of Life & Death

Life, Death, Life.
Light, Darkness, Light, Darkness;
Light, Life?
Nothing Can Stop Nature.
Not even Nature Itself.

Maybe it’s immoral to feel for those affected (exact number unknown) more than for anonymous millions who die in Africa, but I do. They seem young and idealistic types who fell pray to a ruthless abuser. We emphasize empathize (thx Michal:) with ones that we identify ourselves with, I know. (read more…)

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Linkedin opened a “Q&A” feature. I think it might breathe more life into the service, which I’m probably not alone to consider underused.

Now you can ask a question to the network (all network or just your connections), and people can answer it, either in private or publically. In the latter case anyone can browse the answers, which are often interesting.

Consider, for example, question “As an entrepreneur or small business owner, what is your biggest fear?” – here (I’m not sure how linking works and if you need to be logged in to access the question).

Inevitably, some answers feel more like a sale pitch. Another question: What is the best way to do market research in an industry where a) it is a new field and you know many people are building plans to do something similar b) protect your business idea and model ANy ideas most welcome, Thanks Johann. I decided to answer. High level and two-liner, but at least unbiased:)

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I would to start with a note on elegance, as an introduction to Toyota’s innovation practices. But the best I read on elegance recently comes from Joel on Software. Joel quotes Alain de Botton book on architecture, explaining elegance on example of two bridges:

The bridge is endowed with a subcategory of beauty we can refer to as elegance, a quality present whenever a work of architecture succeeds in carrying out an act of resistance?holding, spanning, sheltering?with grace and economy as well as strength; when it has the modesty not to draw attention to the difficulties it has surmounted.

Back to Toyota’s document: “An elegant solution is one in which the optimal outcome is achieved with the minimal expenditure of effort and expense.”

What links elegance to innovation? ?Simple is better. Elegant is better still (…) Great innovation requires understanding and appreciating the concept of elegance as it relates to solving important problems.?

Toyota practices for creativity:

1. Let Learning Lead
2. Learn to See
3. Design for Today
4. Think in Pictures
5. Capture the Intangible
6. Leverage the Limits
7. Master the Tension
8. Run the Numbers
9. Make Kaizen Mandatory
10. Keep it Lean

Elaborated in ?Elegant Solutions? by Matthew E. May, link by Guy Kawasaki.

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With names, first impression is not always the right one:

Nintendo has also clearly won the PR war. While everyone initially ridiculed Nintendo for its choice of name, the Wii brand has proven to be a bonanza for the media in terms of generating clever headlines. The puns have continued to flow thick and fast. Coining the term Wiimote for the Wii controller demonstrates what a great choice of name Wii turned out to be.

Wii takes first round from PS3, eleven rounds to go

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