Here, enjoy.

Comments(0)

It’s nearly new year and I decided that maybe it’s high time to post the photos from Russia, which date back to last January. Here they are:

http://www.owczarek.com.pl/blog/index.php?pagename=gallery&spgmGal=2007-01%20Russia

It’s a pain to write captions after such a long period of time.

I regret that I didn’t take photos of the things I actually remember the most, like hostel in St Pet, the area where I lived in Moscow or people I met. It never occurs to take photos in such common situation and later it is regrettable.

I plan to move this page from interia hosting, where nothing works, including wordpress, to progreso, where everything works fine. Then I will be able to move also to zenphoto and have some decent gallery.

The photos from Mexico and Paris are still pending..

Comments(0)

I was examining Flash games, because I was curious if one can build a truly interesting game on this platform.

That, for me, would exclude asteroids, pacman-like games and so on. I like immersive games, which are able to tell the story and create a relation with the character. That points in the direction of role playing games.

After examination, it seems that making this kind of games is pretty much possible (even though most of the stuff online, and there is really a lot, rarely raises to the level above trivial).

Below some examples. (read more…)

Comments(0)

Ok I need to mention Przemek’s idea of the best Flash game:)

Biblefight (combat game). Technically rather impressive.

Comments(0)

?To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.?? John H. Patterson, 19th century industrialist and founder of National Cash Register Company (NCR). Patterson established one of the nation?s first sales training academies. (through FoundRead)

Comments(0)

Oh it seems Japanese can make beautiful games:

Weird but beautiful.

Comments(1)

Yesterday I got to fight zombies, but today I bumped into works of Mateusz Skutnik, which are a bit more refined than that. I was pleasantly surprised, that while looking for quality stuff, works of someone from Poland pops up.

Instead of shooting, the games are more into exploring rooms, finding stuff and solving riddles. As for me – on a minus side, there is less mood than in zombies and no soothing action (shooting), on the other hand, exploration is a plus. I believe mixing action and thinking and mood is the way to go, riddles alone may get tiring after some time.

See here for one called Covert Front. First episode. I finished it myself so I am proud.

I clicked a bit around and it turned out that Mr Skutnik is a rather known Polish illustrator. He co-created a cartoon illustrating one of the Polish philosophers. Read some of his blog. Impressive.

Comments(1)

I’m thinking if it is possible to make a cool game online, let’s say in flash.

So far the coolest game I found is Last Stand:

Not exactly the deepest story, but still I played till I finished it.

Maybe not deep but it has: a dark mood, exploration element (new weapons), and shooting which is cool.

Comments(2)

Just reading an interesting structure to evaluate ideas by Evan Williams (summary by FoundRead):

• Tractability: How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?
• Obviousness: Is it clear why people should use it?
• Deepness: How much value can you ultimately deliver?
• Wideness: How many people may ultimately use it?
• Discoverability: How will people learn about your product?
• Monetizability: How hard will it be to extract the money?
• Personally Compelling: Do you really want it to exist in the world?

Might come handy (I plan to check my latest ideas against these points).

Comments(0)

Comment in FT by Wolfgang Münchau:

It is a fully fledged solvency crisis that has arisen because two giant and interlinked bubbles burst simultaneously – one in property, one in credit – leaving banks and investors on the brink of bankruptcy, some hanging on by their fingertips. Yet there is nothing the central banks are offering at this stage to alleviate a solvency crisis.

Sounds rather dramatic – “some hanging on by their fingertips” – doesn’t it. Maybe we are currently going towards the edge macro-wise and we only start to realize.

Comments(1)

13 days have passed and now it’s over.

The first day was most difficult, then first week was very weak, then second week was not a problem anymore.

The results: pretty impressive.

Now I need to keep certain standards to retain them.

Comments(0)

Now it’s getting difficult, because though I set up as second blog for “visioneering” stuff, some topics just feel like being posted on both of them.

One is Fellowforce, a site in which you can solve a challenge posted by a company and get rewarded if your idea wins.

Comments(1)

An article in Rzeczpospolita by Anna Cieślak. For some time I thought the income distribution would be getting more equal – it was an intuition based on the fact that many lower-paid jobs became understaffed, because people went to work abroad.

Construction workers, waiters, and others were in short supply and their salaries were raising fast. On the other hand, specialists are earning quite a lot already compared to the West, so there seems to be a smaller salary gap.

But the article suggests that the polar brackets of income are getting larger, meaning more people are earning both much less and much more than the average.

Share of people who earn 50% or less of an average salary increase to 19.9% in 2006, from 17.4% in 2002 and 13.4% in 1999.

On the other hand, share of people who earn 250% or more of an average salary increased to 3.8% in 2006 from 3.4% in 2002 and 3% in 1999.

However, the data is from 2006 and doesn’t reflect the latest revolution on the labor market due to emigration. The experts who are quoted say that the trend is actually against the low earners – these are specialists and middle-earners that are able to demand higher wages.

Also there is a note, though not elaborated, that taking into account non-labor income, the increase of discrepancies is now slower than before.

Comments(0)

Most of my friends seem to think that the Copenhagen diet I chose is moronic. On top of that I really feel useless because there is no energy in the menu.

But here are some positives of the diet:

• I actually enjoy most of the stuff in the diet so I will keep on eating these things
• One day I had to eat a single toast… so I bought a toster! It’s fantastic and huge extension to all future breakfeasts
• I used my oven for the first time
• I learn to cook new things. For example, tomorrow I will attempt to bake a fish

Add to this regained respect for myself when I finish this thing and do not die.

Comments(0)

Today I decided to give diet a try, even though maybe it’s not the best moment because I’m still a bit sick. But exercises alone do not seem to cut it.

The program for today is the following:
Breakfeast – cup of black coffee
Lunch – boiled spinach, 2 boiled eggs, 1 fresh tomato
Dinner – 1 large steak, salad with lemon

My lunch looked like this:

Tasty no? I need to go through this anyway, because almost two years of sitting lifestyle reflected rather badly on me. I never expected it will come to this.

The most serious problem with the diet was that I have no idea how to prepare the stuff it contains. Boiled spinach? My mom tried to explain it to me but, as Matteo put it, it’s more complicated that building a power plant. Fortunately the restaurant agreed to prepare it, after some hesitation.

Comments(4)