Stackoverflow: Reputation over 1000 :)

Just a tiny post to cheer the fact that my reputation on Stackoverflow.com has transcended 1,000. Yay!

Space: Not So Black And Empty After All

If you always wanted to know what NASA does with all the billions of dollars spent, here are some images.

Failure is not an Option

Everyone loves war stories. Here is one of mine. I need a special diet, especially bread. So one Friday evening, I was taking the train home after buying a couple of custom made loafs of bread. In Dübendorf, I left the train and walked home.

About halfway home, I noticed that I had my head, my arms, my bag ... but not my bread! ARGH! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I knew I should have stuffed them in my rucksack but didn't because it was so full and ... yeah ... okay. My baker needs three days to make these breads so that meant about a week without any for me.

Arriving home, an idea struck me and I fired up the VBZ online service to find out where the train was and when the driver would make the next break. A few moments later, the SBB Train Police got a really strange call by me: "I need my bread. It's in this train and can you please, please ask the driver to check if the white plastic bag with the bread is still there?"

The woman on the other end was surprised and promised to call me back.

Ten minutes can be sooo long.

From the timetable, I knew that my train would probably come through my town in about twenty minutes when I got the call. Yes, they found it and the driver would take the plastic bag into his cabin and she told me where to wait on the platform so he could hand it over.

Try train was on time (as usual), the driver handed me my bag (and it really was mine and all the bread was still there) and I was really relieved. After thanking him, I went home to have my dinner. Thanks to the SBB train police, a train driver and an unknown person who put my bread in the overhead compartment when I left it behind, I didn't go hungry that weekend.

Lesson: If all seems lost, take a step back, do something else and you might have the idea which will save the day.

Train related joke: The SBB (Schweizer Bundesbahn - Swiss federation train company) and the German Bundesbahn (the counterpart of the SBB in Germany) wanted to save some money and decided to buy the same information system to inform about arriving trains on the platform. After a longer evaluation, the plan was dropped. The SBB needed signs which said "Train is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes late" and the German Bundesbahn needed "Train is half an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, Train Cancelled."

Name of the Longest Distance Between Two Points

Q: What's the name of the shortest distance between two points?

A: The straight line.

Q: What's the name of the longest distance between two points?

A: The shortcut.

You Can't Stop OOXML!? Watch Me :-)

MicroSoft is the de-facto standard on the desktop. Despite all the efforts to break the monopoly, the average user still doesn't want to switch. Alas, the average user is not an expert and when MicroSoft tries its way with the experts, that usually backfires. Unlike the Average Joe, geeks and nerds are no cattle and they find creative ways to get even when they are served what MicroSoft dishes out.

So in Norway, 21 of 23 experts voted against OOXML as a new ISO standard. That didn't stop the ca...administration of Standard Norge to embrace this great work from Seattle (which has eaten thousands, maybe millions, of dissertations over the years) and so they announced that Norway votes "Yes". Every geek out there knows what it means when your management has stopped listening to you: Get a new job. And they did.

Right on, commander!

Somebody is Playing Pong With Two Elevators and the Floorlights...

Once, it was just a joke in the UserFriendly comic strip. Now, it's real: Welcome to Project Blinkenlights

Have Phun?

Did you have Phun lately? No? Not sure? In that case, check it out! It's great!

Phun is a "2D physics sandbox". You can draw objects with your mouse and then have nature have its way with them. Even if that sounds stupid or a waste of time to you, check the flash video on the home page out. If you played with Lego or Fischertechnik as a child, this one is definitely for you (and since that was probably already a few years in the past: for your children, too).

On the site, you'll find links to insane machines people have already built and of course, there is already a huge amount of videos on YouTube.

And last but not least, there is a Windows and Linux version (32 and 64bit!).

Have Phun!

Laughed Today?

Often, something is seriously funny. The world's best joke, for example, as researched by psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

I also like the European favorite a lot:

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: "Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof." The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: "There are only nine words here. You could send another Woof for the same price." "But," the dog replied, "that would make no sense at all."

From this article, after reading about it in the Tages-Anzeiger.