Oh my goodness, take a look at this. You like to play the old fashioned boardgames like Settlers of Catan? Yet you don’t want to appear as the oldtimer that you actually are? Maybe you should go OLED like some researchers of the Queens University did. Digital game pieces rock the world. Check the article on cnet and watch this great video. They use projection in the video but you’ll get the idea

This will make a lot of games more exciting… well except for solving a puzzle since you can just throw the pieces on the table and let the oleds display the image correctly.

Oooh I know, you don’t have to put it in the comments: i’m a tremendous nerd but I couldn’t help myself. Today my (combined) incoming mailbox hit a magical number… check this:

See? 6502 messages… 6502!! The MOS technology 6502 CPU… The CPU of my first actual computer I got way back in 1982 1983. The amazing Oric-1. Oh whow.. that brings back some sweet memories. And ofcourse my bible, the holy book called “Programming the 6502″ by Rodnay Zaks… Oh those were the days.. anyway.. I better start reading some mail now….

In the meanwhile feast your eyes on some 6502 floating point assembly routines written by Steve Wozniak (of Apple fame).

Just a quick link to a website who has some evidence of a beta for StarCraft 2. The shots of the Blizzard people drinking beer are just a few frames from a movie. In the background you can see a projection screen with StarCraft 2 on it. It says “welcome to StarCraft 2 Beta”. Maybe they are celebrating this milestone, maybe not. Let’s hope we hear some official statement from Blizzard soon.

I got a mail today from Jeroen pointing me to the “Pigeon: Impossible” short animation movie (thank you for that Jeroen). It is very funny. This is the first movie by writer/director Lucas Martell. He figured pixar is putting out a 90 minute movie every year. So a 6 minute short would take him… about… 3 months. Well 5 years later (May 7th 2009) it was finished. Job well done. Enjoy the movie. If you like it also check the podcasts. It gives you a little peek behind the scenes.  Very amusing and interesting.

Pigeon: Impossible





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Ach ach ach… daar hebben we geen grootschalig onderzoek voor nodig toch? Van Wijnbergen beweert tegenover de commissie kredietcrisis dat Nout Wellink (president van de Nederlandse Bank –DNB–) niet wilde ingrijpen op cruciale momenten. Er had ons een boel ellende bespaard kunnen blijven als DNB wel op tijd geïntervenieërd had. Tja, zul je altijd zien. Nout Wellink heeft eerder laten weten dat hem en DNB geen enkele blaam treft en dat hij lekker blijft zitten. Pluche plakt. Omdat niets zeker is in het leven ben ik toch maar vast op zoek gegaan naar een mooie vacature die Nout Wellink op het lijf geschreven is:

LOL. My good collegue Richard had a link to this YouTube-video in his instant messenger status. I loved the video so I put it here. Thanks Richard.

“Why do we do this?”
Maybe you recognize some of it? I did and had a good laugh.

We say ‘yes’ like this…
and say ‘no’ like this…

Please help to stop software patents in Europe by signing the petition against software patents. Background information (and the petition) can be found on the website against European software patents.

The patent system is misused to restrain competition for the economical benefit of a few but fails to promote innovation. A software market environment is better off with no patents on software at all. Healthy competition forces market players to innovate.

The patent system should not be misused -which is happening- to control competition for the economical benefit of a few, but should promote innovation. In the case of software, more innovation and a healthy independent SME economy means no patents on software at all. European court decisions still accept in many cases the validity of the software patents granted by national patent offices and the European Patent Office (EPO) that is beyond democratic control. They not only continue to grant them, but also to lobby in favor of them. Despite the current deep crisis of the patent system, they are unable to reform and put at risk too many European businesses with their soft granting policy.

If you care about freedom & innovation please consider signing the petition:

Example of impact of software patents