Math Geek Rock Chick

Blogging my thesis - second edtition

2011-08-06T16:29:00.005+02:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second edition of "Blogging my thesis".

This time, I'm doing a cloud version of the Sage Notebook. I'm doing the front-end in ASP.NET MVC 3 with C# and Razor, the back-end in Python and an SQL Server database in-between.

Since a screenshot is worth around 1024 words, here's a little preview:

The good news is that it's cool and I'm learning a lot while writing it (like MVC or jQuery).

The bad news is that it's due on September the 30th. I wished to have it finished by the beginning of next month, but I'm afraid it will take too much work.

Well, however it turns out, it's cool.

Hugging cat

2011-06-23T21:36:00.002+02:00

Dear readers,

For your amusement, below is a picture of a cat hugging a little girl.

[Source]

Geek goes funemployed

2011-05-01T18:08:00.002+02:00

Hi guys, I'm funemployed!

This is good news for two reasons:

I now have more time to do loads of great stuff,
I'm gonna blog more, since I'll be looking for a job and trying look my best out there in the interwebs.

So what exactly are these loads of great stuff?

Meeting lots of friends (I've started already and it's going great.)
Writing my master thesis in CS (I've started already and it's going to be going great.)
Getting another Microsoft certificate, 70-562 this time.
Writing the best Android app ever, the one from the Big Bang Theory that solves differential equations (yeah, I'm 100% serious).
Running and biking in the sunshine.
Surely many more - funemployed doesn't mean idle!

I am told not to show off my material status on the Internet, so I won't get into the details, but let me just say I am now the lucky owner of an Android device - all the app out there are really great and I feel inspired to contribute some of my own. Even cooler, I have a few friends who feel the same way - bring on the SDK!

Creative gift wrapping

2010-11-27T15:43:00.004+01:00

Three years ago (boy, is my blog old!) I blogged about some creative gift wrappings. Well, it's that time of the year soon and people are publishing many more great and innovative ideas.

Country Living has fun with tape:

How About Orange explains how to make a gift bow from a magazine page:

Mondo Cherry has fun with aluminum foil:

Real Simple features, among other ideas, a ribbon with holes:

Design Sponge replaced the classical bow with a pom pom:

Even more ideas are featured at Squidoo.com - check it out!

Lanvin for H&M: a 200$ disaster

2010-11-19T20:45:00.004+01:00

It's no secret that I love clothes, the more colorful, the better. I like looking at clothing pictures on the web and when I first saw that Lanvin was doing a collection for H&M, I had a serious "WANT!!!" moment.

Lanvin is a fashion designer famous for making clothing with amazing ruffles:

What H&M is famous for is clothing that anyone can afford. So, beautiful, designer and affordable - what's not to want? I glued my eyes to the screen.

Not for long. Soon after pictures were published, prices got announced. These weren't the usual H&M prices: while these stores are filled with 40$ dresses, the Lanvin ones cost 200$. Quite a lot.

I didn't give up on the dream so soon: ok, it was expensive, but the dresses were so nice and trendy (though that means they will stat screaming "I'm so last season!" soon) and perhaps the quality was worth it.

It turns out it is not. On the promotional shot below, you can see on the collar how the fabric is raveling.

And my, it's a promotional picture! If that looks so much better than in reality, how bad must these dresses look like!

It seems I'm not the only one to disapprove of the quality of those dresses. A few days ago, a polish gossip site published pictures of a star wearing one. They didn't mention the names of Lanvin and H&M, but the lack of hem was heavily criticised. No wonder, it's so visible!

Honestly, I expect way more for 200$ and way more from a world-famous designer. Doesn't he have a reputation to loose?

[Picture source, source, source]

Geek diggs minimalism

2010-11-19T19:00:00.003+01:00

Minimalism is recently really growing on me.

I guess it started with reading Lifehacker, which lead me to reading Unclutter, which lead me to wanting less clutter and here I am.

That transformation started at a lucky point: about a year before my wedding, which also was about a year before moving out of my parents' place and starting a new home. It's not everyday that you get to start from scratch - it's a 0-3 times in a lifetime opportunity! So I did my best to take advantage of it and tossed away lots of things that I didn't want to have in my new home. I got down to 4 moving boxes and a few bags of stuff and my moving was almost unnoticeable - my fiance visited me as usual and took my stuff to our new home in his car.

Today, my home is nowhere near like the nice minimalist pictures you can find on the web, nor would our stuff fit into 4 boxes. We keep buying and receiving stuff, however, I try to buy as little as possible and set high expectations for the stuff I decide to pay for, especially clothing: I have the habit of buying a lot if it, which might have been a good idea when I was young and just building my wardrobe, but definitely isn't anymore. I also prefer getting nothing than any gift, I enjoy tossing stuff away (but only if I can prove it's worthless) and I try to have as little e-mails in my Inbox as possible (never went under 7, actually) . So I guess I'm becoming a minimalist.

At this point, all minimalist bloggers feel obliged to point out that they are minimalists, but not in a "have at most 100 prosessions" or "screw all material possessions" kind of way. So, minimalism, extreme minimalism - not the same. There, done.

What I feel the need to point out is the difference between realistic and unrealistic minimalism.

Take the picture below:

That room looks fantastic! There's a lot of light and the amount of stuff is just optimal for a room to relax in. Plus, I don't exactly know how, but you can tell form the picture that it's an actual room in someone's home - perhaps an extra room besides a bigger and less minimalist living room, but still, it's real and it's inspiring.

Next picture:

Nice bathroom, but even if it isn't rendered in 3d, I don't see myself ever owning a bathroom even close to that one. I can't imagine having that much room for a bathroom nor the walls being white and yet so clean on an everyday basis. That's just too unrealistic.

There are a lot of great blogs on minimalism, written by people doing it for various reasons (travelers often become minimalists) and in various degrees - In the spirit of minimalism, I subscribed a dozen today. If you're interested in the subject, here's a great article to start: The Rewards Of Adopting A Minimalist Lifestyle: 13 Bloggers Share Their Views.

[Picture credit, credit]

Where the Geek is when she's not blogging (in Egypt or on a Eurotrip)

2010-11-13T21:58:00.005+01:00

Hi there. Yeah, I know it's been a long time, my apologies. Thing is, I've been alternately getting sick and travelling - I am now in a sick phase, hopefully the last one in a while. Since my sicknesses are not half as interesting as my travels, let me tell you about those.

The first one was a total Eurotrip. The deal was that a friend of Marcin is currently working at Cern and he invited us to stay with him for what turned out to be an entire week. We took him with us on one way plus his brother both ways. That trip included:

me crashing a Linux event in a Microsoft t-shirt (guys were staying, but hell knows if it was the t-shirt or the gender)
a night and a morning in Prague
visiting Bayreuth (but unfortunately not Bayreuth Festival Theatre because it had shorter opening hours than the student's office at my school)
me meeting some friends I hadn't seen in at least 12 years (my, have they grown!)
hanging at the Cern, especially at lunch time (which felt like being in a BBT episode, except they were many many more geeks - epic!)
hanging at an English pub and playing some trivia games (there was a Star Trek category!)
living maybe 50 meters from my middle school (ah, memories!)
me visiting the place I grew up in, which is the most beautiful place in the world to me
all of us visiting Geneva and Annecy
the guys going to Milan to grab a pizza after climbing on the Matterhorn
shopping
drinking french wine
losing a debit card and finding it soon after
crossing the french/swiss border at least four times a day
getting a flat tyre on the german highway.

All in all, that's more adventures than in Eurotrip. (Afterwards, I got scolded by my boss for taking all that overtime without asking him.) We're looking forward to organizing a similar trip next year.

Then I spent 3 days at home. These included working full time plus going to school on the evening (these were the first classes of the semester, so I didn't want to miss them). Consequently, cooking became microwaving and "taking everything out of the bags and dropping it on the floor" was the new unpacking.

Soon, we hit the road again, this time to a "real" summer vacation in the middle of October: we spent two weeks in Egypt. That trip included way less that the previous one:

bathing
sunbathing
a bit of sightseeing.

That holiday did us both lots of good and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Okay, now, for the pictures: I'm still trying to get the ones that weren't taken with my camera, so below are a few of my own, featuring absolutely no one.

That's the nice place where I grew up:

That's the previously mentioned middle school:

And here is a little piece of Egypt (Deir el-Bahari):

Now, I'm back to the life I love! I recently came across a quote by Seth Godin:

"Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from."

I definitely don't feel the need to escape from my life, but a vacation now and again is a great way to spend more time with loved ones and friends, get a fresh perspective on everything, load your batteries, etc. etc.

The world is wrong about the Monty Hall problem

2010-10-06T19:26:00.062+02:00

Today, at school, we considered the probability theory paradox called the Monty Hall problem:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which he knows has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

The world says that by seeing that goat, you learn that the probability of the car being behind door number 2 is 2/3 and Wikipedia has various explanations.

I claim it's 1/2. My first argument is that there is full symmetry between doors 1 and 2. How could you lower the probability of door 1 being the winning one by picking it? Nonsense.

For my second argument, let's treat it like the conditional probability that it is. All probabilities will be from your, the contestant 's, point of view.

At the start, we've got 3 equally probable situations: I'll denote them as CGG, GCG and GGC hoping it's clear enough.

Now the host opens a door. You see the goat: you gain information. Probabilities change. The probability of the door number 3 being the winning one falls down to 0.

So far, no difference from the "official" solutions. However, those maintain that while the probability of the car being behind the first door stays the same, the probability of it being behind the second one increases. Why the incoherence?

An important remark here: with the new information, we now have new events. We know that GGC didn't happen, so we have 3 events that assume ~GGC, namely:

if the first door wins, it's CGG | ~GGC and P(CGG | ~GGC) is 1/2
if the second door wins, it's GCG | ~GGC and P(GCG | ~GGC) is 1/2
if the third door wins, it's GGC | ~GGC and P(GGC | ~GGC) is 0,

the final results being basic conditional probability calculations.

According to Wikipedia, "even Nobel physicists systematically give the wrong answer, and that they insist on it, and they are ready to berate in print those who propose the right answer". That's comforting: I may be wrong, but at least I have excellent company.

[UPDATE] After reading all the comments, I can see that I was wrong. Boy, is that problem counterintuitive! Thanks everyone for contributing! [/UPDATE]

5 reasons why I prefer cats over dogs

2010-09-22T13:27:00.005+02:00

Below are 5 reasons why I prefer cats over dogs.

Reason #1:

Reason #2:

Reason #3:

Reason #4:

Reason #5:

[Picture credit, credit, credit, credit, credit.]

Figuring out the right and wrong women's figures

2010-09-18T00:38:00.005+02:00

When it comes to women's figures, the norms keep on changing. It however used to be simple: when sweets were a luxury, fat meant rich and thus was "in". Then it was thin's turn: thin people were the ones who could resist the temptation of tasty food - a kind of saint. That one has been taken too far, up to anorectic chick, and too many deaths later, something seems to be slightly changing. But how exactly?

If you're slightly too thin, there's always someone for you to ask whether you've got anorexia:

Yet, a model's silhouette is still this:

Can you see the difference?
(In reality, if an anorexic person is that skinny, it means that his or her illness has already gone very far and done severe damage. Read more about it on Psychology Today.)

If too thin is sick, what about the other way? There just was a plus-size show at New York Fashion Week:

Does that mean that extra weight is now socially acceptable? I'm not sure: Jessica Simpson has recently been heavily criticized for her weight gain, while she looks good and is far from being obese:

So what's right and what's wrong when it comes to a woman's figure? Go figure!

[Picture source, source, source, source.]

Silverlight 4 with C# and Python (it's three!)

2010-08-07T15:20:00.008+02:00

I recently felt like making a new Silverlight 4 app, but not just any app. I wanted it to have the following features:

use an existing Python library
be written in C#.

There is a way better way of using Python code - it is to write the app in Iron Python from the start. Picking C# to achieve that sounds like a bad decision.

However, I wanted to do something new and challenging, so I went for C#. Doing it on my own was hard, way harder than just following an "embedding Python in C#" tutorial. Finally, I found that working example and got something starting from there.

What I got is a three on a golden background:

Okay, maybe that's not the right angle to start with. What I did was used the numbthy Python library and used it's gcd function to compute the greatest common divisor of 15 and 3, and it's three!

Getting there was hard. Finding the right libraries to embed Python, importing them the right way were tough tasks for an inexperienced user - some error messages would be very cryptic. Then, the app would hang on the splash screen if something was wrong in the Python code, the debugger wouldn't show where the problem was, and the "problems" in the Python code were:

the print statement
a class inheriting from object.

Not obvious, and definitely not the kind of problems PyDev would warn you about. So I am afraid that importing bigger chunks of code could be hard - that is to be explored further.

Yet another personal website

2010-08-05T16:12:00.006+02:00

Thanks to my surgery, I recently had a bit of time to spend at home, so I built myself a new personal website. I spent a bit of time investigating the cool new features of HTML 5, CSS 3 and jQuery and ended up using a cool thing called jQuery Masonry, and here is the result:

This time, it's just a single page, because I can't really imagine what more I could share (besides the blog, of course). It's also only in English because... er... because.

Technically, I used some JavaScript not to do any copy-paste between the eight divs but ended up publishing a static html file with the end result.

Artistically, when I compare it to all the great designs featured on Smashing Magazine, I honestly think it sucks, but well, I'm more of a programmer than an artist. Plus, I put a lot of effort into editing it. Html is cheap and my mind has been to many many places, starting with Moroccan souks:

museums:

and texture factories:

All in all, I like it a lot, and I hope you do as well.

[Picture credit, credit, credit.]

Geek gets surgery

2010-07-26T20:59:00.001+02:00

A few days ago, I underwent my first surgery ever. The surgery itself wasn't as much of a big deal as the experience - I have wondered how it felt like since my childhood, when my little brother underwent one and I didn't. My curiosity finally got satisfied.

Wednesday, July 14th

I arrive at the hospital at noon. Waiting, paperwork, waiting, questions, waiting. Boring. They tell me not to eat to be ready the next day at 7h45 - I set my alarm clock to 7h30. I take a nap, then answer some e-mails, then go to bead early. Sleeping is something I'm actually really good at.

Thursday, July 15th

They wake me up at six and tell me to get ready now. I do. Then boredom comes back and I get back to sleep. (I guess there should be a part when I'm worried, but I'm really better at sleeping.) They wake me up just before eight. "Come on, it's time to go. (...) Okay, now the door on the right. No, on the right! But I can see you're smiling - that's the spirit!" When they lie me on the table, that's when I start to get nervous, but not for long: within a few minutes, I am asleep again.

I wake up to a doctor calling my name. Phew, I made it! Something is hurting me in the head. It must be the hair elastic I'm lying on. The algorithm to solve that problem is simple: lift head, move elastic, lay head back down. Ouch - lifting my head hurts. Oh yeah, they had to cut through my neck so now I can't really move it. I mange to pull the elastic away. Now what? Let's get back to sleep.

I wake up quite a few times that day and it's not pleasant. I miss Marcin, take a look at the clock and count the hours down to his visit on the following day. I want to drink - they give me a 9 ml bottle. I want to go to the bathroom. I want to cough. I want to lie on my side. I want to see Marcin. None of these are possible, but the deprivations are really bearable, as within a few minutes I am asleep again. I pass those minutes by observing all the IO interfaces I am connected to.

Friday, July 16th

I am back in my room at the hospital and am encouraged to start moving. I get to the promised land of the bathroom. I enjoy my position: no work obligations, no school ones, no social ones. I don't have to do anything. I can sleep all I want - and hell, I do! Visitors brighten my day, but I can't stay awake for the whole four hours when visits are allowed. As soon as they leave, I am asleep again.

Saturday, July 17th

Time to go! My stitches and all my IO interfaces get removed. I go to my Mom's for the week-end and spend most of the time - you guessed it - asleep.

Later on

I get two weeks of sick leave from work. So cool. So much time to sit at the computer, and, of course, so much time to sleep.

[Picture credit]

I got my masters degree!

2010-06-26T20:36:00.003+02:00

Two months after having my first defense and getting my bachelor degree in computer science, I am happy to announce I also got a master's degree in mathematics.

I now need to find a thesis subject in computer science, and besides that, I'm free for the summer!

Rijndael S-box Sage implementation

2010-06-05T00:04:00.006+02:00

It's no secret I like Python and Sage a lot. Today, I had the pleasure of working with Sage again: as a school assignment, I was required to show the calculations that prove that the value of the Rijndael S-box in row 2, column d, was indeed d8. While I am able to invert a polynome of this size by hand (let alone apply an affine transformation), I see no reason to do it, as a suitable tool is available.

So, here we go, the Rijndael S-box in Sage:

F.<y> = GF(2, name='y')[]
K.<x> = GF(2**8, name='x', modulus=y^8 + y^4 + y^3 + y + 1)

bin_digits = lambda h: [((int(str(h), 16))//(2^i)) % 2 
   for i in range(3, -1, -1)]
bin_poly = lambda n : sum([b * x^(3-i)
   for i,b in enumerate(bin_digits(n))])

b1 = 2
b2 = 'd'

s = x^4 * bin_poly(b1) + bin_poly(b2)
p = (1/s).polynomial().coeffs()
p.reverse()

b = [0]*(8 - len(p)) + p
b.reverse()
c = [1,1,0,0,0,1,1,0]
d = [int((b[i] + b[(i + 4) % 8] + b[(i + 5) % 8] +
   b[(i + 6) % 8] + b[(i + 7) % 8] + c[i]).n()) % 2 
   for i in range(8)]
d.reverse()

s1 = sum([d[i] * 2^(3-i) for i in range(4)])
s2 = sum([d[i+4] * 2^(3-i) for i in range(4)])

print hex(s1), hex(s2)

I admit: the above is code, not calculations, but I did the calculations in class and worked hard on the code. My main problem was the bit order. Nowhere in the original publication did it say to reverse the bytes. Adding all the reverses was a moment of desperation, and imagine my surprise when it worked. I wonder how much credit that solution will get me.

A great Friday night it was.

Xen virtual machines are the creepiest thing ever

2010-06-03T12:34:00.004+02:00

Among the things that have always creeped people out are all kinds of ghosts and zombies, for one simple reason: since they are already dead, you can't kill them.

Along that line, here's what creeps me out: Xen virtual machines.

See what Wiki says about them:

Administrators can "live migrate" Xen virtual machines between physical hosts across a LAN without loss of availability. During this procedure, the LAN iteratively copies the memory of the virtual machine to the destination without stopping its execution. The process requires a stoppage of around 60–300 ms to perform final synchronization before the virtual machine begins executing at its final destination, providing an illusion of seamless migration.

Imagine that. On a traditional machine, if it was doing something you did not want it to do, you would slam the keyboard. On a VM, you'd kill the monitor. Then you'd pull the host's plug. Something would work. But here, as you try to kill the guest, it floats through the air to another host. There's no stopping it. There's nothing you can do but watch it do its evil.

Next, the robots revolt against us and it's Battlestar Galactica all over again. Brrr.

Music in me: longest album titles ever

2010-05-03T20:13:00.005+02:00

Have you ever wondered what was the longest music album title ever?

Until today, I thought the record belonged to Fiona Apple. It did for a long time and was even mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records for 2001. Ladies and gentlemen, it's When the Pawn!

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring
There's no body to batter when your mind is your might
So when you go solo, you hold your own hand
And remember that depth is the greatest of heights
And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land
And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right.

You can also listen to it here, told by the author herself - I recommend checking it out.

Fiona Apple held the record for quite a few years, until 2007. Then came Soulwax with an album of remixes, Most of the Remixes, with a title of 552 characters:

The following year, Chumbawamba went even further, 865 characters in The Boy Bands Have Won:

I only quoted the first one, as the two others have pretty clear covers (or you can read them on the Wikipedia pages). Plus, Fiona's one is way more creative: it's a real poem with lots of rhymes, structure, and most importantly, a deep message. Soulwax's title is like a long explanation of what to except from the album, written in a very casual tone: I except more artistic value and sweat and tears in the creative process. Chumbawamba is not poetic either, but definitely does carry a message, and an interesting one, although the words "the boy bands have won" almost discouraged me from reading the rest. (Last time I listened to a boyband was when I was eleven and a friend made me a mix tape, then I totally moved on to the Spice Girls, so I don't really feel like the boy bands have won anything with me.)

Giving your album a very long title is an easy way to attract attention to it (honestly, I have never heard of Soulwax before and here I am blogging about them), but it doesn't make it automatically remarkable. To me, Fiona's one is definitely the longest great album title ever.

China gymnastics 2000 medal revoked

2010-05-02T20:07:00.004+02:00

Remember how back in 2008, I was wondering if the China olympic female gymnastics team had cheated by sending underage girls? Remember how while investigating the matter, I found that a gymnast from the 2000 team had admitted to cheating the same way?

Well, I learned recently that China's 2000 team medal got revoked! One of the gymnasts, Dong Fangxiao, was found to have falsified her age. (It's not the one I was writing about two years ago. Yang Yun is considered innocent due to lack of proof.) The team taking the spot is U.S.

Well, I'm happy. I'm not happy for the Chinese girls themselves, as they were just put in the middle of such a situation. You can't really put all the blame on a fourteen-year-old for anything: it's also the parents, the coaches, the teachers who are co-responsible. Plus, the incident doesn't change the fact that both Dong and Yang put thousands of hours into perfecting their skills. But, so did other girls, and competition should be fair: putting younger girls against older ones is not. China nor any other country should be allowed to cheat that way.

[Article, picture credit]

I'm a Bachelor of Science. Computer Science.

2010-04-27T22:11:00.003+02:00

As I was writing a little bit before yesterday, I recently had the opportunity to defend myself, and I'm very happy to announce that I succeeded: I now am a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. (On the other hand, I don't really know what I should capitalize here, but it sure looks great that way.)

Boy was I stressed. Well, I kinda mentioned it already. Plus, it's evident: it was my first defense, but most importantly, I hadn't revised everything I wished.

My stress was quickly relieved, however. I came to school over two hours earlier for some last revisions on-line and was drinking a vanilloccino when one of my professor asked me whether I was free. Without thinking too much, I said yes and got taken to a room where defenses were taking place. I took the exam and was free two hours earlier than expected - lucky me!

Next defense, coming soon! This time, in mathematics.

Tomorrow

2010-04-20T10:04:00.004+02:00

Tomorrow, I'm defending my Bsc in computer science.

Which means I'm revising my eyes out. And napping.

That's totally a good thing, because Lifehacker keeps saying how cool naps are.

Two things I'm not doing are procrastinating (I'll do that later) and panicking. It's weird. I should panic. If I take the list of requirements, the speed I'm revising them, the amount of time left and do the math, I've got reasons to panic. Just not the time, I guess. I need 2-3 more days of 100% focus on studying, but that thing is tomorrow.

Unless it isn't, because I need some signature here, something else here and the professor I need them from doesn't have any classes this semester, so he's kinda hard to catch. Honestly, I wouldn't be too disappointed if tomorrow's defense wasn't to happen.

[Picture credit]

Random linkage: Cat Ladders

2010-03-06T12:29:00.003+01:00

There are blogs about absolutely anything these days. Today, I'll feature Cat Ladders, a blog about - you guessed it - cat ladders! The site features over 800 pictures of cat ladders from 29 countries.

Most posts feature simple solutions, like this one from Poland:

There's also something for the big cats:

... and something for not cats:

My personal favorite is this one:

Pure royalty! I wonder if it has a little red carpet on it.

If you want to learn more about cat ladders and Cat Ladders, there's also an interview with the blog's author. Enjoy!

Life geekified:Tetris stuff for the house

2010-02-13T23:33:00.007+01:00

Tetris time, everybody! I have gathered today some cool Tetris stuff for the House.

Let's start with the bathroom. Here are Tetris tiles, avaliable at Tertis-tiles.com:

GadgetHer presents a Tetris mirror:

This beautiful bookshelf is designed by Brave Space Designs:

But if you feel like making your own, Instructables has a tutorial:

Plus, a tutorial for a matching lamp is also included:

Finally, this Tetris furniture looks really cool:

On my wishlist: all of the above!

Hello Kitty stuff for housewives

2010-01-24T20:53:00.005+01:00

It ain't no doubt that Hello Kitty loves everyone and it sure applies to housewives as well. Being a housewife myself, I have recently found a bunch of cool housekeeping stuff in the loveley theme of Hello Kitty.

For instance, Hello Kitty Hell shows us a washing machine and a mop:

Merlin.pl has a toy hover (okay, not exactly housewife item, but future housewives will love it):

The best stuff is to be found at Universal Kitty House. Among other items, there are latex gloves:

a sponge:

and the coolest toilet brush I have ever seen:

So cute! >.<

Geek gets guitar!

2010-01-23T11:02:00.004+01:00

Hello, World!

I am thrilled to announce that I am now the happy owner of a brand new electric guitar: a Viper 200FM:

And to go with it, Hubby bought a Rolland Cube 20-X:

So I'm learning to play the guitar again. I can play a few chords so far.

No complaints from the neighbours have been noted yet.

The new 7 great tricks to improve your life.

2009-12-22T19:49:00.003+01:00

No, this isn't another "7 great tricks to improve your life" article. I have read many of them. I have read many great advice lists and found many great ideas on various sites (like Zen Habits just to name one). I have also found a lot of advice that doesn't suit me and finally, there's even more tricks that I have found and lost.

It's time for something different.

New year is coming, and with it, the resolutions. So, for that occasion, I have 7 awesome tips to make your life better:

find 3 sports activities that you will practice without making any excuses
find the 3 weight loss mistakes you keep on making
find 10 tips that will help you become more productive
same thing for organized
find 5 cool family activities to do more often
find 6 lunches that you will finally pack for work
find 7 more positions for the list you're reading that would best apply to you.

Once you've found all that stuff (and I bet you know where to look), you'll have a great starting point for improving your life in 2010. Good luck!

I made a huge mistake today

2009-11-27T18:21:00.004+01:00

Gosh, I made such a huge mistake today...

I was multitasking, combining Christmas shopping with shopping therapy (which means bying gifts for others and myself) and I bought this Hello Kitty lunch box:

when that Hello Kitty lunch box is avaliable on the market:

Maybe at least mine is cuter...

[Picture credit, credit]

I love Amazon

2009-11-22T16:32:00.003+01:00

Seriously, I really like Amazon. I have had really good experiencec buying from them. And what did I buy? I guess you can tell by the recommendations I have just received:

Introduction to Modern Cryptogr... (Hardcover) by Jonathan Katz

Classic Shell Scripting (Paperback) by Nelson H. F. Beebe

Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithm... (Hardcover) by David A. Cox

Okay, so modern cryptography: cool, me likes. Classing shell scripting: not so much. I belive shell scripts should be received from kind people who wrote them, not written by myself. Ideals and varieties sound pretty interesting too, but something tells me that I wouldn't get through such a book without taking a class in the subject and I'm done with my math classes.

So, who wants to guess what I've been watching on Amazon?

The Sims 3: World Adventures

2009-11-21T20:52:00.003+01:00

After months of waiting, I finally got my hands on the first Sims 3 expansion pack: World Adventures.

Happy and excited as a kid who just got a new game, I immediatly installed it. It didn't load.

Bummer.

Blogging my thesis: Bernstein was super-easy

2009-11-20T22:34:00.005+01:00

Did I say I had trouble understanding Berstein's work? I take that back. I'm reading Boneh now.

I'm reading one paper by Boneh. I have started reading it over half a year ago. I still don't really get it.

The paper is called "Finding Smooth Integers in Short Intervals Using CRT Decoding". In it, the author does the following:

presents a new algorithm for CRT decoding
uses it to find smooth integers in short intervals
discusses how to apply it to the quadratic sieve method
generalizes the CRT decoding problem
reduces the gap between CRT and Reed-Solomin decoding.

My brain is burning.

Why I love Sage in 6 simple lines

2009-11-14T19:42:00.003+01:00

This is why I love Sage:

e = sqrt(log(4*B) / log(P)) + (5 / (4*d))

g = [P^(a - i) * (x*B - R)^i for i in range(a)]
h = [(x*B - R)^a * (x*B)^i for i in range(d - a)]

m = matrix(Integers(), d, [list(k) + [0] * (d - len(list(k))) for k in g+h]).LLL()

w = sum([x^i * m[0][i] for i in range(d)])

return filter(lambda x: x[0].is_integral() and gcd(P, x[0] - R) < P**e , w.roots())

(That's a crucial part of my thesis.)

Blogging my thesis: Friday the 13th

2009-11-14T16:36:00.005+01:00

Friday the 13th was a good day for my thesis - mama had some time for its baby.

I did some hard work that didn't translate into a single additional line, but boy, did I get results. I debugged my sieving for smooth numbers method. I now have two methods that do the same in different ways and give me the same results. Almost. They don't when an unexpected divisor of n is found, but factoring n is the whole point, and that glitch will be corrected very soon.

Now, I have to finish implementing the third method and make some kind of interface that would use all three and make comparaisons.

Friday the 13th was also a good day overall: I did the assignement at the lab and dont' have to go there next week (hooray, more thesis time!) and I went to the gym. I also started my Christmas shopping, where I have pretty mixed feelings. While I can't stand the Christmas ads in November, being in the city at noon was a good occasion to visit a few shops.

So, all in all, dear diary, Friday the 13th was a nice day. Today, I'm coding some more for the thesis.

Geek gets fit (kinda sorta almost)

2009-11-12T21:14:00.007+01:00

One of the downsides of my otherwise amazing career is the lack of physical activity. And while I am aware that I should be fit and I love yoga, I am not fit. Yet. However, somes serious steps have recently been taken towards this noble goal.

First, Hubby and I got Multisport cards from my work (and I would like to thank my boss and everyone...)

The cards are way shinier IRL and they let us access many gyms ans swimming pools for [almost] free. We've been using them intensively and visiting a gym twice a week (and the swimming pool later to relax) for a month now.

Second, Husband got a balance for his nameday. A kinda smart balance, that measures your fat and water percentage. The smart balance taught me that I'm made in 50% of water and 30% of fat- sigh.

Finally, Hubby bought me my nameday present: the Wii Fit!

The Wii Fit always tempted me, but I judged it by its cover, and the cover mainly features yoga poses (they look best on pictures), so I instantly thought of the mountain of money I could save by doing these exact same poses on my bedroom floor. But, since I got the console as a wedding gift (I love you Auntie!), its cost dropped significantly and the temptation won.

I like it. It is important to note, however, that it's a weird cross between a game and a workout. It's not a decent game. It's not a decent workout either. But, on a Thursday night, after 8 hours at the office, and knowing that we'll hit the gym the next day and a real workout is not a great idea, the Wii Fit is a pretty cool pasttime.

I may write a better (longer) review, but in the meantime, Gizmodo has an extensive and geek one - enjoy!

On my wishlist: the Tetris dress

2009-11-08T22:40:00.004+01:00

I want that dress. Period.

Or that fabric.

Then I'd make a jumper out of it and I'd wear it over my loads of brightly-colored T-shirts.

I guess this is the part where I should come up with some eloquent words of praise for both the design of the fabric and the realisation of the dress, but you must forgive me, for I have partied until 3 a.m. last night. (See pics on Facebook.) I just love them.

Geek got to teach!

2009-11-06T20:22:00.005+01:00

If I haven't been an active blogger lately, that's because something came up. Something that kept me stressed and busy: I lectured the security class on Tuesday.

I lectured! Security! At the University of Warsaw! If you can't believe it, don't worry neither do I.

I talked about what I knew best: mathematical methods of breaking the RSA cipher. I also gave an introduction to elliptic curve cryptography and covered primality tests. Here are the slides (Polish only). Out of 150 people enrolled, some 30-40 were present and the lecture went pretty well: there were questions, I was able to answer... And first of all, what an honor!

Blog action day: geek loathes global warming

2009-10-15T15:48:00.003+02:00

Today is the third annual Blog Action Day and the theme is climate change. Let's discuss this "global warming" thing then.

First, I'd like to say that we're in middle October and it snowed yesterday, which doesn't usually happen until December in my country. I am not happy about it. I got cold while going out to pick up the groceries. Don't take it as balckmail, but if someone tell me how the Global Warming is inevitabely coming upon us, I will throw him a middle-October snowball in the face.

Second, let's raise the awareness about the sea levels raising. If you believe London will soon be the new Venice, I challenge you to do the followoing:

half-fill a glass of water
put an ice cube in it
mark the water level
let it melt (microwave it if you're in a hurry)
check the water level.

How much did it raise?

Phew, I got it off my chest. Back to constructive blogging about cool stuff.

Blogging my thesis: 9th of October

2009-10-09T21:46:00.002+02:00

This morning, as I decided to just check the weather, get dressed and leave to school, I had a pleasant surprise in my inbox: my classes were cancelled. Not that I am pleased that the professor is sick, only with the unexpected free time.

Free time... what is that? What is that for? What do you do with it?

When in doubt and sleepy - sleep. I started with that. Then I decided to do some Saturday stuff: I went groceries shopping, cleaned up the house a bit, hovered.

Then, I went running. They say that physical activity helps to fight depression and I could use some help, so I went wandering in my new lovely neighbourhood and came back all sweaty.

The fitness felt good, but it didn't really help me with my procrastination problem. I procrastinated like I unfortunately often do, only this time, I didn't really feel bad about it. I'll take that as an improvement.

So, not much to brag about today. Tomorrow won't probably bring more: I'm going to a friend's wedding (two friends', actually) and then to the theater, where another friend of ours is playing in "The Revenge". Maybe Sunday.

I got to level two at Project Euler

2009-10-04T18:54:00.003+02:00

I just got to level one at Project Euler - four months after reaching level one. Here's the well-deserved cube:

I'm still writing practically only in Python. The problems are getting more difficult and so is getting to the next level - I need to solve 50 more problems to get an octahedron. That's a nice 2010 resolution.

Anyone else doing Project Euler?

Blogging my thesis: 2nd of October

2009-10-03T22:05:00.005+02:00

On Saturdays, I usually get to stay home all day, except for a belly dance class and maybe a walk with my husband. What a great time to check mail, apply for Google Wave invites, chech mail, check Facebook, expand my musical horizons, check mail, check Facebook work on my thesis.

What have I done today? My answer is a typical one for a student asked by his advisor what he's done so far:

Er, I have found, I have read, I have understood...

I think I've finally understood the previously mentionned Bernstein method. Understanding is the toughest part (unless you were a sissie wise person and chose an easy subject) - then comes description and implementation. Actually, doing these while trying to understand works really good, I always do that. I now have half a dozen of lines of LaTeX erroneously deleted and product trees implemented in 8 impressive lines of code (n = len(primes), if n == 1: return primes and stuff like that). But all of these were proudly accomplished yesterday, and today, I just read and understood.

Well, the night is still young.

Blogging my thesis: what's Bernstein thinking?

2009-10-02T13:58:00.009+02:00

In his paper called "How to find smooth parts of integers" Bernstein tries to find the 20-smooth part of the number x. He first finds the product of all the primes up to 20, which is 9699690.

Then he writes 9699690 mod x = r and claims that r can be represented as ab, where a = gcd(9699690, x) and gcd(b, x) = 1.

Why? Why would that be true? It's left without proof as if it was obvious, but it's not. What's Bernstein thinking? Why isn't the answer avaliable as a cute Disney DVD?

That's what I'm workin on in my thesis right now.

[Update] Argh, I messed it up. Bernstein doesn't, Pomerance does in his book where he discusses the method and apparently, he does it wrong.

Let's find the 5-smooth part of 22. We have 2*3*5= 30, 30 mod 22 = 8, gcd (30, 22) = 2, thus a = 2, b = 4 and gcd(22, 4) = 2, not 1. Gotcha!

That's what happens when you leave something as obvious instead of proving it properly.

Moving day at the office, or how the geek works

2009-10-01T10:44:00.006+02:00

Lifehacker recently posted Nine Workspaces Where Famous Folks Get Stuff Done: Al Gore's, Bill Gate's, Steve Ballmer's, Steve Jobs'... Nine - isn't one missing? Of course one is! Mine.

My office actually moved last week, so I used this opportunity to take pictures without being considered crazy (just sentimental). So here it goes.

Before:

During:

After:

(If you're wondering about the pink ribbon on my chair, it was a way of labelling it to make sure the movers didn't give it to one of the guys.)

A little talk with Steve Ballmer

2009-09-20T19:21:00.002+02:00

Apparently, Blogger doesn't approve of 900px high picture, so click to enlarge, or check his Facebook page for the nice conversation.

That baby is a genious!

2009-09-19T19:22:00.001+02:00

I'm speechless. Even I have trouble reading Perl.

[Picture source]

Geek gets book

2009-09-19T10:41:00.005+02:00

Six years after graduating from high school, I finally decided to read a book. A real book, with a story in it - a novel.

Well, it's not like I haven't read anything since 2003. There was Terry Pratchett's "The Unadulterated Cat":

Or a Dilbert I aquired by marriage:

And of course, I had my nose in many math handbooks or technical books, but none of these were a beginning-to-end read. There were, however, some, including religious stuff or psychological - manipulations are pretty interesting, aren't they?

Once upon a time, I found out a movie called "My Sister's Kepper" was being made. I read a bit about it and found the plot interesting. Right now, the movie is in theaters in Poland and I am planning on going to see it. When it was announced, I reminded myself my best friend's advice: "it's better to read the book first, and then see the movie", and I figured I might as well start now. So, I went on-line and quickly found a cheap used copy of Jodi Picoult's "My sister's keeper".

I love it. The book itself is great, but I am also suprised how fun reading a novel can actually be (thank you school for making me forget that), how rich the narration can be, how many times it is better that surfing the web. I'm past the half already and think I should save it for the days I commute to work - it's not like I have nothing to do at home - but reading has suddently become a bigger temptation than other ways of entertainment.

Well, I guess it's time on getiing some book recomendations... Or first, a recommendation for a book recommendation website. Anyone?

[Update] Well, actually, I just remembered that I had Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejuidice", which pretty much obsoletes half of this post.

Blogging my thesis

2009-09-18T18:32:00.004+02:00

I'm currently in the process of writing my master thesis. Here gos the subject:

Displacement of smooth integers in short intervals and their applications in cryptography

Ain't it the coolest thesis ever?

To be honest, I don't quite see it that way. Anything I want to do inevitably turns into something I have to do. So this post is party a pep talk to myself. I don't think it matters, however: most Fiona Apple's songs are pep talks to herself and boy, do I love them.

Okay, back to the thesis. I will be breaking the RSA cryptosystem. Calm down, your private communication is not in danger. I will not obtain significant results, only a small speed improvement over doing it "the dumb way".

How do you break RSA anyway? The whole idea, is that multiplying two big primes is easy, but having only that result, finding out what the primes were is hard. "The dumb way" is trying all the possible primes. There are some smarter ways, but they only work in specific cases, and the keys used in the real world are wisely chosen, so the tricks don't apply. There's an excellent publication about this called "Twenty years of attacks on the RSA cryptosystem". A great read, and you can skip the formulas if you're not that into maths.

So, I will be factoring big numbers into two big prime factors. To do that, I will be using smooth numbers, which are kinda the opposite of primes: they have plenty of small factors. That part is really easy, and is well explained by Pomerance in his paper "Smooth Numbers and the Quadratic Sieve". The first two pages have it all in elementary language, the later ones are hard even for me.

To find these smooth numbers, I will be comparing three different methods: sieving, the Bernstein method and finding them using error correcting codes based on the Chinese Remainder Theorem.

More on how it goes will (most probably) come.

Finals finally over.

2009-09-17T09:25:00.003+02:00

My finals are finally over. They were tough, as I failed everything I could in June, but well, I wanted a wedding in the middle of the semester, so I got my semester during the holidays. I'm still happy with my choice.

Now to the exciting stuff. First, I had AI and passed after a few hours of revisions. I was totally prepared in June, but made the lecturer pretty angry by not writing the test at the end of the semester (honeymoon) and not taking it some other time as the result of a few misunderstandings, so, no June exam in AI for me. And the lecturer didn't seem really happy to see me in September either. But, I solved all the problems correctly, so I got a C (yeah, that's my school - they love deduction in both senses of that word).

Then came a few "free" days I used to write my networks program. The teacher was really cool for letting me write in C# istead of C, C++ or Java (none of them being my cup of tea), so I had cool tools like Visual Studio (Why can't Eclipse have a "go to definition" feature? Why? Me wants!) , Linq (goodbye, parsing XML, hello, tricky code instead of for loops) and asynchronous sockets, thanks to which I didn't have to create a single thread expilcitely, and yet my application was super-thready.

That was nice, but still, implementing a protocole and a client took me more than these four free days. It took me the entire day I had for learning compilers and one and a half of the two planned for partial differential equations. There went compilers. Fortunately, they were an extra classs I took.

Equations survived. The battle was hard: revising a whole semester in one afternoon and learning the stuff I didn't get in June. At that point, your goal is pretty much not to know less that you did last time, but I think I did know more, and I passed.

The evening after equations was equally busy: the networks exam was the next day. Dear Hubby explained some stuff to me, I was well prepared. Plans for Friday were clear: get to school by 11:30, print network notes, show the program at 12, study with strangers until 14, take exam, leave.

I arrived at 11:30. My printing limit was reached. Then I realized that I needed my advior's signature bad. Really bad. Panic. The advisor is at school only on Thursdays, so what was the probability of him being here on a Friday, out of the blue? Panic. Run. Buy extra printing credit. Run to the lab guy. He not here. Other student waits too, not knowing more than I do. Okay, let's see if by any miracle the advisor hasn't shown up. He has! Two colleagues are waiting by his door and tell me it's for about an hour of waiting. We exchange valuable advice on handling the masters stuff. Lab guy still not here. Go to the admins for the printing credit, thanking heavens for the advisors presence. Get the credit. Print the notes. Oh, here's the other student waiting for the lab guy, e-mailing him. I go upstairs, because the lab guy should be there. He is! Boot pretty pink netbook. Show program. Program is liked! Advisor again. One guy, new to me, is waiting. I sit and wait with him and praise my advisor for the thesis subject he chose me. The guy enters, I start walking in circles in heels. I finaly get there. I learn that my thesis doesn't need to be extended, just finished - great news! Run. Grab coffee. You think you'll learn anything in the last 20 minutes? Not really. Breathe. Relax. Take exam. Unexpected questions. Think hard. Finally!

I'm sleepy. My head aches. I go home and take a nap. Two hours later, my husband comes home and wakes me up. My head still aches. I take meds, planning on going for a walk. I learn that I'm hot, fever sense. Meds don't work. Let's sleep some more. Sixteen hours more. Then Husband makes me wake up, and finally, finally, finally, I get back to something I like to call "normal life".

Dear diary

2009-09-05T19:45:00.004+02:00

This week was really tough, but the best is yet to come (next week).

My AI exam on Tuesday went pretty well. I was well prepared in June and after a bit of revisons, I was able to solve all the problems. Results will be available on Monday.

Coming up: compilers on Monday, partial differentail equations on Thursday, networks on Friday, but no time to study: I'm typing the networks projects as hard as... well, it's not going very well. I can't concentrate - too many websites outhere are calling me from the recently closed tabs. The weather is wierd, my head is aaching and I'm very sleepy in spite of having slept in. It's the weekend and I'm tired. But as I sit here, listing my excuses, the clock keeps on ticking, the deadlines are approaching.

I left work for almost two weeks to focus on school. Work is by far much easier and more rewarding - I get paid and appreciated. At school, it's an honor for you if they let you study there. I can't wait for school to be over.

Yet another bro entered college, majoring of course in computer science. Yet another bro to fight for textbooks with. (We've already started and classes haven't even begun!)

All good things must come to an end - Hubby and I have finished watching (or re-watching, in his case) the first season of House M.D.

Gotta keep on coding.

There IS growth in simplifying your life.

2009-08-22T12:39:00.004+02:00

I recently shared on my feed an article about an article about the myths of simplyfing your life. If I agreed, I wouldn't have much to write, but fortunately, I do not.

First, simplifying and going zen are two different things. Here goes the article:

The objective (if it can be said to have an objective) of zen is not happiness, but to be free from desires. When one is free from desires, he is content with the situation or the here-and-now. When you accept everything as it is, there is no need to have or pursue anything (including possessions, responsibilities, or desires) and one can simplify. There is no change and thus there is no personal growth.

So maybe there is not much growth in zen. But you don't have to be zen in its strict sense to simplyfy your life. Simplifying is to me about getting rid of distractions, of unnecessary things, not all things possible.

The problem with zen is that it's trying to eliminate all the emotions, desires, etc, good and bad. It's not living life to the fullest, but rather the opposite. It's about not accepting the price of unpleasure for getting pleasure. It's sacrificing the good stuff not to have to deal with the bad. I'm not trying to make it sound bad, it's all a mattern of an ethically neutral personal choice, it's just that for me, the more intense way of life is more appealling.

On the other hand, I love simplifying. I love growth, and these two go really well together. Here's why.

1. Simplifying is a goal. Reaching your goal is growth.

It works for any goal. I remember once seeing classmates reading a magazine about fishing and my first thought: what could be more boring than fishing? But to these guys, it was something big. Goals are very subjective: even the smallest goal can be great for someone (remember learing to walk? not so much impressing anymore, is it?) and even the biggest goal can be discredited: what's the point of you speaking 12 languages if I can never talk to you when I need to? My point is proved already.

Okay, but growth for the sake of growth... there must be something more. Well, there is.

2. Letting unimportant stuff go is growth.

Simplifying to me was, among others, shopping less. I had periond of time in my teens when I would enter almist any shop I passed by, always looking for new clothes and make-up - mostly tops and lipstick. Now I'm trying to make a better use of the things I already have and the time as well. Letting it go was more of a natural process than an achievement, but here is growth.

3. Letting small things go leaves more room for the big ones.

The day you realize something is not worth caring that much (my lipsticks don't really define me as a person, do they?), you also realize what is more important. On one hand, the inequality between people and make-up products is obvious, but when you get upset because these great shoes one sale were sold out in your size and you discard the birthday wishes from your friends, you could use a little reminding. We all do at times, and when we get it, that's what I call growth. (I won't even mention where the saved time and energy can go.)

4. Simplyfing makes you happier.

Okay, happiness isn't really growth, but it helps. Here are the most appeling examples to me: having less stuff so there is less to clean and organize, bulk cooking so you spend less time in the kitchen (cooking feels to me like something I have to do and it gets me frustrated easily), unsubsrcibing the old newsletters so you don't have to delete those e-mails anymore and can find the time to write one to an old friend, finally configuring that program right to free yourself from the repetitive task, working out at home or outside so you don't have to budget, pack and plan for the gym and other similar little things.

Just remember: everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Top 5 dumbest Wii games ever imagined (by me)

2009-08-15T08:10:00.003+02:00

Man, do I love the Nintendo Wii for its innovative interface! So I wondered one day not how to use it best, but how to use it worst. Dumbest. Ever. Below are the potential games I came up with, or more precisely, what the main character would be:

The baker

Put the bread in the oven.

Feel the thrill!

Post office employee

Do the stamps.

Too much rock for one hand baby!

The slave

Just paddle to avoid punishement.

Let this game enslave you!

(Actually, Nintendo stole that idea from me.)

Janitor

Get in and clean - let the fun begin! Uses the Ajax technology.

Level 1 - floor. Level 2 - windows. Level 3 - toilet.

Barrel organ player

A creative and inventive game based on a truly original concept.

This game doesn't need any stupid marketing slogan, and yet it does have one!

More dumb Wii games here!

[Picture source, source, source, source, source, quote source]

Historical tweets

2009-08-14T10:35:00.003+02:00

Have you ever tried to imagine what Twitter would be like, if it was avaliable hundreds of years ago? Here's a wild guess by Eric Alt (source or click to zoom):

This one leads me to mixed feelings, between "LOLZ" and "omg, the youth nowadays". Fortunately, there's something way better: John Quincy Adams' diaries.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, always maintained diaries, but one was particular: the entries were 110-120 characters long, fitting the Twitter bound (140) without using acronyms like "omg" or "bff". This diary was started Aug. 5, 1809, which is precisely 200 years ago.

Now, with an exact 200 years shift, the Massachusetts Historical Society is posting those notes on Twitter! The lecture is just like reading a feed from 200 years ago.

Here's a better article about it from NY Times, with more links and info.

KTHXBA!!!

What [not] to watch: 'Llectuals.

2009-08-10T18:36:00.003+02:00

'Llectuals is, according to its creators, the summer reading you can watch, and the show that proves that growing up is about more than just the secretion of endocrine hormones by the pituitary gland. If that isn't recommendation enough, check out the trailer:

Too bad it's just a mock up, created by the comedy troupe POYKPAC.

The idea is great, though. Here's the full script, if you wish to enlighten your mind by broadening your vocabulary and achieve an improvement of your uderstanding of the phrases pronounced by those young people.

The closest thing to a Full House reunion

2009-08-02T19:34:00.006+02:00

Anyone remembers Full House?

More importantly, anyone cares? I kinda do! Though I'm not really star-struck on the actors, way more on the characters. (DJ is such a sweet girl and she's the eldest, like me!) But to some people, that's no difference. (A friend of mine shares his name with a fictional character from a TV show and a fan found him on Skype recently.)

Well, anyway, the cast is kinda trying to reunite (and one of the guys is supposedly trying to make a movie out of it), and they are almost succeeding on twitter. Te following are tweeting together:

Andrea Barber (Kimmy)
John Stamos (Uncle Jesse)
Dave Coulier (Joey)
Bob Saget (Danny)
Candace Cameron Bure (DJ)

According to Dave Coulier, Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie) is thinking about tweeting and Lori Loughlin (Becky) will join. He's kinda clueless about the Olsen Twins (Michelle), though, as he's pointing to a fake Mary-Kate account, when Mary-Kate uses (or technically, does not) this one and Ashley is on this one.

All of which leads to a long and interesting discussion on Twitter and authentication. But that's a different topic. Way more fitting to this blog than stalking celebs on-line, I know, but still a different subject.

[Picture source]

[Update] Jodie has joined on the 5th of August and already has over 2000 followers.

Eye candy: a few geometrical sculptures

2009-07-28T22:02:00.005+02:00

Today guys, for your viewing pleasure, the works of a few geometrical sculptors:

James Roper, "Into the Fold":

Carlo H. Séquin, "Tetroid with 24 Heptagons, 6 colors":

Bathsheba Grossman, "The Noom":

George W. Hart, "John Deere":

Charles Perry, "Eclipse":

Of course, there are many more on the artists' respective websites. Enjoy!

House - Season 1-4 DVDs on 50% sale!

2009-07-24T14:08:00.002+02:00

I would write a "what [not] to watch" about House M.D., but what for, since you already know the answer (watch!!!) and have watched it all.

But, if by any chance, you haven't (I have only seen a few episodes so far, lucky me!), you might be interested in the fact that's the DVD for seasons 1-4 are on a 50% sale (£38.98 instead of £79.99) on Amazon.co.uk (or in the related fact, that I'm ordering them and will lend them to you, provided I know you IRL).

Google Wave: will curiosity kill the geek?

2009-07-23T20:39:00.004+02:00

I signed up for Google Wave! Now I have to hope I'm one of the 100,000 chosen ones and wait for October and then I might try it out.

What is Google Wave anyway? No one exactly knows, but Gina Trapani said in less that 140 characters:

Simplest terms: Google Wave is Gmail on crack. Imagine Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Docs in one big inbox.

Sounds cool. I'd love to try that! Especially if I get to give improvement suggestions when it comes to usability.

More info on Google Wave here and here.

Random thoughts about the Sims 3

2009-07-11T22:54:00.005+02:00

I go the Sims 3 as soon as they were out (remember how I couldn't wait in January? I also got the computer but not the flowery desk) and have already wasted many hours playing.

The game has really nice views of the world around us, I mean around the Sims (click to zoom):

The gameplay got improved and is a bit more realistic than in the Sims 2. The genetics are waaaaay better - Sims now make beautiful babies that you definitely want to play with.

Some bugs and glitches remain, however. The one I can't forgive is EA extra content not installing:

The "46" is one of my processors being clogged by the installer. The "0%" can stay up to 30 minutes (haven't tried longer, shouldn't 30 minutes be enough?). I've notified customer support.

The other glitches are funny:

Isn't this table standing in your way?

Get your foot from inside mine, bitch!

This one happened when a boyfriend came with his baby (he was adopting babies behind my Sim's back!), stayed for the night and then had to go to work - a delicate situation to handle.

That baby grew into a beautiful lady (blue-sleeved T-shirt), but look at her sister: her butt is in the water and it's the dirty dishes she's complaining about.

The burglar alarm, the burglar fighting with the police officer and the annoyed neighbors - in TS2, they didn't care.

Feed hungy Americans by downloading IE8

2009-07-09T12:32:00.005+02:00

Microsoft is making totally crazy really intensive advertising campaign for his new baby IE8. Everything is to be found in the new ads.

First, my favourite, meritorical discussion:

Mmm, yeah, how very meritorical, I couln't agree more with these points.

Second, a marketing sure-thing, controversy:

This ad, a video of a woman so shocked by her husband's browsing history that she vomits, has been removed - and thus talked about a lot. "Browsing better", according to Microsoft, is visiting filthy websites, just as long as you don't leave them in your history. Needless to say, my definition of "browsing better" is slightly different.

But, but, but, however, after all the brainstorms that lead to this variety of ads, they finally got me. What made me download the thingy? The promise of provinding 8 meals for Americans in need fo every download. I clicked "downlad" and saw 4 versions to choose from:

You might think that since I'm using Windows 7, I've already got IE8 and none of this versions is for me. But this doesn't matter when it comes to fighting hunger - I downloaded all four versions, proving a month of food on Microsoft for someone. Then I deleted them.

You too can visit browserforthebetter.com and help fight hunger in America!

Silverlight vs. CSS

2009-07-03T21:40:00.008+02:00

I'm back to Silverlight blogging! I've been super busy these last months with school, getting married and swithing to Python at work and I haven't had time to look deeper into Silverlight 3 nor get my hands dirty digging in some code. But, summer is here, and here I come! Let's start with some philo: Silverlight vs. CSS.

But why not Silverlight vs. Flash?

First, because it's done greatly at Shine Draw (congratulations on becoming a Silverlight MVP!) . By the way, Smashing Magazine, which is the best webdesign resource ever (and anyone working on a user interface should read that kind of stuff ) has recently had a really in-depth technical article about that subject too (which kinda concludes that Flash is better as it supports more stuff, but I'd just say older, anyway, I'm just saying I'm not writing about Flash).

Second: Flash and Silverlight are two different tools. You usually know one or the other. You usually have to choose one or the other as your area of expertise and once your choice is made, you won't go back, no matter how I praise one and critiscize the other. Silverlight and CSS, however, are tools lying side by side in the same toolbox. Okay, lots of generalizing here, some people are pure C# programmers and don't need to worry about webdesign. I am the girl who uses SL more for websites than for applications and that's what happens: I need to embed SL elements in a webpage done in HTML (thus my interest for HTML Overlay) so a question arises:

Which elements do I do in Silverlight, and which in DHTML?

Here's an excellent example: the Fish Eye menu.

n.design studio did it in CSS/JS:

PageBrooks did it in Silverlight:

Shine Draw did it his style: both Silverlight and Flash, for comparaison:

Now say you need a Fish Eye menu on your site - which do you use?

First thing: ask yourself about your target. Some of my best friends use Linux and well, not everyone has Silverlight. But some people block all of their Flash and some turn JavaScript off - you can't please everyone. I think I'd go with JS here, but the topic is broad.

Second: is it ready? Is it free? For commercial purposes too? Because if it isn't and you have to do it yourself, I'd say one hour for Silverlight, a few days for debugging JavaScript in all possible browsers - absolutely incomparable times.

Still don't know? Don't worry, neither do I, the topic is way too broad. A lot depends on your goal: is it learning a technology? Pleasing a customer? Building an impressive portfolio? If the latter, one important word of advice: don't overdo it. I've seen a site with two moving Silverlight controls that were getting really annoying after a bit of time. Modern at first sight, but cheap at the second: "Mm, yeah, a rotating banner, how hard is that in Silverlight?" It's easy and it's great that it is, but let's use our tools wisely.

A bit of trivia about women and technology.

2009-06-27T14:26:00.003+02:00

According to Genevieve Bell, anthropologist and Director of User Experience within Intel’s Digital Home Group:

In India, 80% of cyber-cafes in rural India are run by women.

In Singapore and Indonesia, maids who can clean and provide IT supportare highly sought after.

In Korea, 70% of gamers are female, in the U.S. that number drops to 40%, and in the U.K., it drops to 25%.

64% of Facebook users are female.

reports ChipCick. Also, a recent Study Proves Women Know More About Megabytes Than Men Do.

Ten little zen things that I do

2009-06-27T14:11:00.003+02:00

This post is totally inspired by 10 Odd Little Minimalist Things I Do from Zen Habits, it's my take on the same subject.

1. No watch.
It started with a watch with a broken bracelet - I learned to check time on my mobile phone.

2. No alarm-clock.
Cell phone again. That's not really creative, as Lifehacker recently asked: "What's Replaced Your Alarm Clock?" and over 7000 people said "cell phone".

3. No "real" phone.
Primarly because of all the marketing calls you can get - haven't had one since I moved in! Also, only one number to give, one bill... But I really need a better cell phone plan.

4. No TV.
It's just a screen for the PC, the Wii and the X-Box. I might start watching it while doing housework, however, I don't promise I'll keep away, but it doesn't suck my time (the web, however, hmm...)

5. No iPod.
I used to prefer my cheap normal Zen Creative mp3 player, but It's getting more and more...

6. No mp3 player.
Cell phone taking over again.

7. No hairdresser.
Though maybe I should visit one once and again. But I wear long blone hair, which is a simple, but great look, cut my bangs myself and wear them slightly to the side so no one can see if they're cut unevenly.

8. No hairstyling products.
I never decided to sacrifice any time to first, learn some advanced hairstyling, and then just do it. I believe you can't go wrong with long hair.

9. No make-up.
Actually, I don't do this that often. You rather won't see me without make-up at work. But sometimes, I don't wear any and feel good about it. My mind is free (if I don't have time for make-up it's absolutely okay) and that's what counts.

10. No gym membership.
That's mainly for financial reasons. This may not work for everyone for various reasons, primarly motivation. Health is priceless and if you can't get motivated without attending a class, do it. You might also take bigger pleasure in that class, meet friends there, use equipement you don't want to store home, etc etc. But I like yoga, pilates and kick boxing and manage pretty well to make good use of my floor, big ball and Wii.

7 weeks with Windows 7

2009-06-22T22:26:00.007+02:00

I've been trying Windows 7 RC for over 7 weeks now. It's high time to open my big mouth about the new shiny features and the stuff that sucks. (Please note that I haven't touched Vista with a pole and hope things stay that way, which means I don't know what waslready introduced in Vista.)

Let's start positively. Windows 7 is really shiny. I does have a professional look and feel. Well, not the wallpapers, but overall.

More importantly, it's fast. Rumors say it will work just fine on netbooks!

The usability is enhanced. That goes both ways, unfortunately. On one side, I love the new taskbar with huge icons that you can pin, hover,... do try this at home. I love the merging of the folders instead of the "replace or resign" that used to be.

But... it's the little things. And the frustration they bring.

Windows Media Player is now twelve - that's like two per Windows. It manages my music library well, but doesn't understand that in the universal language of humanity, that loooong key you could find even in the dark in a fraction of a second means "pause". "Pause" is Ctrl + P. "Pause" is Ctrl + P. "Pause" is "I don't care the water is boiling, the phone ringing and the best scene coming, find Ctrl+P if you want to pause". That alone makes me want to go back to the best ever VPlayer (or AllPlayer).

Paint got redesigned. I'm still using PSP7. 7 - oh the irony.

Microsoft is one for those software companies that don't really see the huge difference between "user friendly" and "looser friendly", which leads to odd situtations. See what that is?

That's Windows 7 vs. me. I'm on an admin account. Any software installation makes that question pop out:

Do you wany to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?

Yeah, admin acount. And it warns me that installing a program will make changes on my hard drive! So I clicked "change when these notifications appear" to see less of that and got the window above, politely asking wether Mr UserAccountControlSettings could make changes to my computer.

One last thing hard to forgive. It won't get to sleep when Windows Media Center is running, but it will while Firefox is downloading a big file. Boo.

Okay, enough complaining. It's just a release candidate, and Microsoft deeply values my opinion about the improvement opportunities and usability challenges.

If you want something more constructive to read, I recommend Lifehackers's "Get Windows 7's Best Features Right Now".

Summer is here!

2009-06-21T19:43:00.008+02:00

Yeah, Summer is here!

I had my last exam yesterday. Yep, on a Saturday, at 9 a.m. Finally, it's over!!!

Now, I know I just came back from a two-week vacation in Tunisia, but believe me, I'm tired like crazy again. Honeymoons are absolutely well-deserved vacations for the whole emotional weight of getting married, no matter how wonderful marrying one's loved one is. By going to school at the same time, you totally earn the right to another trip. And we're totally planning one. Kinda. Someday.

For now, my plans are:

getting my butt back to the office Monday morning
pushing my master thesis (I wonder if my advisor remembers me and that's not good)
learning some python and cooking
erm, blogging more, doing some Silverlight stuff again would be really cool...
taking advantage of the fact that I now live next to the forest!

I hope you're excited for Summer as well. If you need, here are some activities suggestions, and here's some advice about how to put things off and stop caring to realize your dreams. Have a great Summer everyone!

[Picture credit]

The secret of the Coca-Cola formula

2009-06-06T16:20:00.007+02:00

The Coca-Cola formula is super secret, so it's not copyrighted or protected otherwise. (Honestly, I don't know what the big deal is, other "Colas" taste as sweet and as unhealthy to me, but anyway.)

An interesting altervative (but I think just as unhealthy) is OpenCola - a drink with a formula on a GPL liscence.

Just as with software, "anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, license their recipe under the GNU General Public License." [Wikipedia]

But now, the secret is partially out - Failblog published a picture of Coca-Cola employees getting one crucial ingredient:

Did I say unhealthy?

I got to level one at Project Euler (and would like to thank my boss and everyone...)

2009-06-06T11:37:00.003+02:00

I go to level one at Project Euler! I got this pretty picture as a reward:

Now what does this have to do with my boss...

First, let's precise that the term "my boss" means "those guys who make the decisions and I don't know which one decides what" - no sucking up! So, "the boss" transferred me to a Python project and with a bunch of guys, we're learning Python.

Remember how I wrote I started learnig Python by solving Project Euler problems? Well, that's what we're told to do at work! There's a contest going on, in which many problems are from there, so when I solved one, I submitted it both to work and Project Euler and it was the last one I needed to get to level one, so here I am.

Can something be more motiviating than a contest at work? I have to code...

Tunisia trip: my shopping

2009-05-30T18:14:00.008+02:00

My honeymoon in Tunisia didn't lack shopping, here's what I bought:

A French-arabic dictionary:

Muuuch cheaper than the only Arabic dictionnaries buyable in Poland. This dictionnary is intented for pupils (Tunisian children learning French), which is absolutely okay for me.

Two issues of AlJamila:

One issue of Saydaty:

A home deco magazine but it's called "Home" or something like that and it's a hell to google.

A Northern-African cookbook by Haydée Tamzali:

A shiny golden camel and a few shiny colofrul boxes:

Some belly dance stuff:

A few satin nightgowns - so pretty I can't find accurate pictures on the web.

A long part dress, and that should be it. Good thing I didn't take too much luggage with me, so we didn't exceed the weight limit.

[Picture credit, credit, credit]

Things are really wrong when BBspot is right.

2009-05-25T17:02:00.011+02:00

BBspot is my favourite fake geek news site and you most probably have read their legendary article "Microsoft purchases evil from Satan":

Good one. Some time later, BBspot wrote about Microsoft forcing users to upgrade from XP to Vista. On a serious note, a friend is making good cash in the UK helping people downgrade. But back to the point. BBspot quoted Vance Fredericks (whoever that is) saying:

"This project is targeted at XP users who don't see the benefits of upgrading to Vista. The first change will be to install a desktop wallpaper of a naked Steve Ballmer during the next update. Customers will be unable to change the background, unless they upgrade to Vista."

Now that's some serious blackmailing.

But that was supposed to be a joke, right? As it turns out, not entirely. Microsoft is working on a special edition of Windows 7 for netbooks (the sweet tiny computers that might save Windows XP), "special" not having a positive meaning here, and in that version, you won't be able to change the wallpaper!

Now, that wallpaper probably won't be a picture of Steve Ballmer. But it might be that:

Or that:

Which makes that wallpaper look really cool:

BBspot was right, so things are really, really wrong. Still, the worst question is: how many sick ideas will Microsoft take from BBspot?

Tunisia trip: overview

2009-05-25T13:43:00.006+02:00

I just got back from my honeymoon in Tunisia. The trip was really great, here a little more about it.

We stayed in Sousse:

...in a hotel as fancy as this:

...with a pool with slides as cool as this:

The shopping in Sousse and chilling at the hotel sums up what we did in a vast majority of our time.

We also did a bit of sightseeing, which included the Bardo National Museum in Tunis:

Carthage:

(do follow the Wikipedia link, as I'd have to post at least two dozens of images to give you the whole picture of this site) and the lovely town of Sidi Bou Said:

Another cool thing we did was driving quads in Port El Kantaoui - they have really great tracks between hills and olive trees (the desert is about 600 km to the south from there), totally separated from the streets. For 30 Tunisian Dinars (about 20 USD), we got an almost 2-hour ride with a really cool guide - absolutely worth checking out.

Okay, finally, the food. Basically, if you go to a country this far, you're not accustomed to the local bacteria, so you're really at risk of food poisoning - and that's what happend to us the one and only time we stuck our noses out of the hotel. So, our travel agencies only book all-inclusive trips and in our hotel, we were absolutely at no loss not eating out. The food was really great and there were many dishes to choose from: some "international", some local, but all really great. The best thing was the meat, grilled just before serving, by this very friendly staff:

Okay, that's all for now, I will post a few more specific posts on some specific subjects (for example, how I survibed haggling....not!)

[Picture credit, credit]

I'm going to Tunisia

2009-05-06T12:40:00.006+02:00

I promised myself never to write a post where I apologize for not blogging (because if I don't write, I don't write and that's all) and promise to do better (because better would be getting to the good stuff right away).

Well, I apologize and hope you understand how busy I have been recently. (I also got hit on the forehead with a wii-mote, but it's not related.) About that doing better part, however... better will be later. Right now, I'm going to Tunisia on my honeymoon, so I can't really commit to producing blog content. But here's the good news: I'm intensively using Google Reader and try my best to pick the best stuff and share it, so if you want something fresh and geek to read, check it out here.

Besides the usual feeds, my reading list now contains lots of Tunisia-related content. Namely:

Travelistic, by the way, is "the YouTube of worldwide destinations". I was planning a daydreaming session on this site, by the way. It could be great to see all the places I'd love to see for free. I'll do that someday.

I'm married!

2009-04-23T19:34:00.004+02:00

Okay, not much more to say than the fact that I'm married, but it's really big news, so it deserves a post of its own.

I'm thinking of posting a bit of wisdom I acquired along the way in a separate post. In short, we managed to make a small wedding reception (for 50 people) at a really reasonable cost, without looking cheap. I say if you're smart, creative and can negotiate, money doesn't really get in the way. This example is impressive, but every couple has to find its own balance between wedding size and resources, as well as between contributing time and money. Here are more ideas.

I'm still waiting for the pictures and hoping to find one when you can see how great I look but not Husband's face because he doesn't want to be tagged on a picture on the interwebs. I'll let you know when I find one!

What [not] to watch: Confessions of a Shopaholic

2009-04-15T12:24:00.007+02:00

Looking for a bit of relax between school and wedding preparations, I decided to watch a movie and came across "Confessions of a Shopaholic". (On my to-watch list: Lisence to Wed and Bride Wars).

The movie is about a girl who is a shopaholic at the beginning, isn't anymore at the end, and becomes a financial journalist in between. It's light-hearted, but not really funny, and stupid, but not to a bang-my-head-against-the-wall degree.

A few cliches appear:

Lying leads to funny situations.
Lying always catches up on you, but things get fixed in 10 minutes. Mostly by themselves - just sit and cry.
Prince Charming always appears next to you on the street when you need it the most but expect it the least.
Lack of education isn't lack of competence, but a fresh point of view.
The rich handsome guy is the one. He'll date someone else for a while, but that's just because he doesn't know he's the one yet. He'll find out soon, just wait.
You'll have major achievements in your first month at your new job.
Revenge is cool. (Hello? Hasn't our civilization gone a bit further?)

Well, I guess that if I'm so tired of those cliches, it's my fault, as I pick such movies. Still, it would be great to see something light-hearted (life is too much stress to watch stressful movies, as for me) but with... er... a fresh point of view! (Hey, why not hire a shopaholic to make your next movie?)

I still "learned" a few things from this movie.

For instance, getting out of debt is really easy. Just show yourself on national TV, speak about frugality and everyone will come running to shop for your stuff.

Also, you can get a job as a journalist without showing a piece of your work. Honestly, I wouldn't hire someone who hasn't got his own blog! Okay, maybe except if that person had good reasons... but anyone can start a blog, and you really get to show your best on yours. You have no boss to please and take full credit and responsibility for your words. Is there a better way of finding out if a journalist is worth hiring than reading his blog?

The biggest finding of all, actually, was that googling before writing an article is unethical. To me, not doing so would be. If you're speaking, listen as well! Besides, the blogosphere and other medias create kind of a world wide dialogue. If you're talking about some subject, please find out what others said about it recently. Don't rediscover the wheel.

Well... I'm a bit hypocritical right now. I haven't read a single review of that movie before writing one. But that's because I learned another valuable lesson: being hypocritical is okay (or will turn out okay, anyway). Kinda from the protagonist, who's giving financial advice between crazy shopping sprees, and kinda from the movie itself: the girl writes so well about personal finance, and yet the only lesson you get to learn watching is:

Don't shop. Ever.

Okay, maybe getting specific about credit cards would make the movie quite heavy, but hey! You have to dress and you have to shop. It's about doing it wisely and finding balance, not shooting yourself in the leg!

Whatever. I want that dress.

Google is totally censored (and I don't mean Google China)

2009-04-12T22:38:00.004+02:00

Google is totally censored - and I don't mean Google China. This screenshot from the original google.com proves it all:

Notice anything missing? Let me just say it gives 17,600,000 results, so it definitely belongs on the list.

How long should e-mails be?

2009-04-07T19:39:00.007+02:00

We've been taught in school to write beautiful long letters full of politeness. So, we assumed the same applied to electronic mail, as we're also communicating in writing, only the medium is a bit different. Well, I've recently come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is the exact opposite - keep e-mails short as can be.

Because I saw this comic:

And I wondered - what kind of e-mails do I prefer receiving? The shorties! Because I instantly know what's going on. And writing? Shorties too, of course. And I'm not the only one, apparently, as someone got quoted a lot recently for twittering:

my secret time saving email tip: change your desktop email signature to "Sent from iPhone" - then write 1 sentence replies! sshhh

Okay, so I prefer getting shorter e-mails, but does everyone? Professors, customers, strangers usually expect some more politeness than a "yes" or "no". But think of that person... he/she's most probably struggling with an overloaded inbox and will appreciate if you respect her/his time. Plus, if you use the little cheat above, you will suggest that you answered the e-mail as soon as you could, even if you weren't at your computer. Still, I'd consider a single word as rude, but bottom-line, there is a huge difference between e-mail and snail mail, and less is more.

Random stuff

2009-04-04T14:39:00.006+02:00

I haven't been blogging for a while (only going to school, moving, marrying - you know, the usual) and something deep in my heart tell me I should be getting back on the blogging train. So here I am, with lots of random stuff.

First, private life. I'm getting married in two weeks. Dress? Not ready. Dozens of pounds to me lost on that occasion? Not happening. (I blame the lifestyle. Losing weight is hard work, doing cardio is hard to start, as you need to get in shape a bit, and while I'm getting two degrees at a time, I'm really working hard and putting a lot of pressure on myself. Can't have it all.) But, I'm marrying a great guy, for the one and only right reason to marry, so I couldn't be happier.

I'm going to an Arabic-speaking country for my honeymoon. I'm so excited! I will finally learn to count and order food! And buy Al Jamila and many more magazines!

Silverlight 3 Beta is out and I know nothing about it, expect you need to have two development environments to work in both 2 and Beta 3 at once, which is really uncool as I work in 2 but would like to explore 3 because blogging about 2 is so yesterday. You can perfectly well develop for .net 2 having 3.5 installed and everything should work that way.

I bought a box of 5 albums by Kasia Kowalska.

And I wonder who buys that. I mean, either you're a fan, so you've got the albums already, or you're not, so you buy a "best of" or nothing, you don't spend that kind of money at once. Who does that?

I am super-motivated to procrastinate write my master paper just like the other grad students all over the world and the ones portrayed on Piled Higher and Deeper. It's scary how accurate these comics are, while the behaviors shown seem so irrational:

Please tell me I'm not like that! And don't ask how the paper is going, that would be rude.

Ok, enough for today, test coming up on Monday about lexical analysis.

Silverlight: the simpliest master pages ever (plus links to subpages)

2009-03-18T21:20:00.024+01:00

I gave a presentation about Silverlight today at school. It went great and benefited me as well, as it took me away from all the wedding preparations and made me look at some old code and notes (well, some new too, I'm staying in the Cream's 'Light).

So, two things tonight. First, master pages. You probably have read Jesse Liberty's and Gerard Leblanc's articles - they're great and full of useful information, but I'll try simplifying things as much as possible.

Now, let's say you have your subpages as controls and you want to have a header/footer/sidebar.

Start with a Grid layout, (Grid is the best one in general, more on that maybe someday), fill the right cells with that common header/footer/whatever.
In the biggest cell, the one for subpages, place a ScrollViewer.
Now, tell me, what is a ScrollViewer? A ContentControl. It means it has a Content property. It means it hosts a single control. What control could it be, hum?
theScrollViewer.Content = theSubpage; - that's the whole navigation code!

Ok, now the subpages. I used to think until today that this was impossible, and that it was one of the main reasons using Silverlight for building typical websites wasn't a great idea. But the guys from SilverlightShow proved me wrong with their recent article about Interaction between Silverlight and the Browser:

I won't post any code here, just refer you to that article, my excuses being the lack of time and that the idea is not mine. As for translationg the idea into a working solution, I'm sure you'll do it easily.

Now we just need a way to handle the "back" button and the whole navigation history (thanks to one of today's listeners for bringing that up). However, my Silverlight sites don't go over 10 content pages, so tracking navigation history doesn't really have a point. And hey, it's Silverlight, it's super easy to do!

Geek plays home, starting with the WC

2009-03-12T23:46:00.003+01:00

I'm getting married, moving out, then moving in, all that stuff, and today, shopping on-line for cool home items.

Turns out every room in your home can be cool, and the coolest of all can be the toilet.

The Sudoku toilet paper deserves an honorable mention for making it possible:

The toilet seat can bring a lot of fun to the bathroom as well. Well.. sometimes, "WTF was the designer thinking" is more appropriate than "fun". Let this picture speak for itself (or forever hold its peace):

I guess "Pharaoh's treaures" sounds better than "WC content", doesn't it?

This one just feels wrong, and not in a forbidden fruit kind of way:

However, the best toilet ever was posted today by Gizomodo:

This one definitely takes the art of toilet designing to new heights. Or lows, depending on the point of view.

On my wishlist: that

2009-03-12T14:17:00.002+01:00

That is definitely on my wishlist:

Can you guess what it is? The answer (and picture credit) is here.

A projection pro: Fred Eerdekens

2009-03-10T14:10:00.003+01:00

In linear algebra and functional analysis, a projection is a linear transformation P from a vector space to itself such that P² = P, says Wikipedia. Sweet. Can you understand that? (I can, but I study math, so I have to.)

I will show you today someone who definitely can, though he's not a mathematician: Fred Eerdekens. Proof? The pictures below:

Aren't they impressive?

CD's 30th birthday - let's celebrate!

2009-03-09T10:50:00.003+01:00

I just learned from Gizmodo that the Compact Disc celebrated its 30th birthday yesterday.

Happy birthday, then CD! Let's celebrate (I know, it was yesterday, but I had a life yesterday).

Since I'm getting married in April, I'm moving out, and for that occasion, I'm getting rid of as much stuff as possible. Uncluttering by me usually means:

opening a random drawer
looking at the whole bunch of stuff I haven't used for years
finding the reasons why it's okay to throw it away (and beating all the "but it's a gift", "but I might use it",...)

And since I'm not good at doing this one huge organizing day, I declutter piece by piece. Piece of the day: tapes. My old and not really working sound system is not going with me (fiance has a much better one). New sound systems don't read tapes. Besides, tapes have low quality and use storage space and it's way better to re-buy everything as mp3. Or even CDs.

Bottom line, I'm celebrating the CD's birthday by throwing my tapes away. How geek.

Lego food

2009-03-05T13:18:00.008+01:00

What geek doesn't love Legos? Legos are the one and only toy I'm never-ever gonna give away - all my bricks are for my kids. But that's not the point of today's post. I just came across some cool Lego food stuff, and there's enough of it to throw a Lego-themed party. Check it out!

First, Apartment Therapy show us how to make an Anatomically Correct Lego Cake:

Betty Crocker also has great Lego block cakes:

... and Hello Naomi has these fabulous cupcakes:

Joe Reid found some Lego fruit snacks, lucky guy:

However, it's much more fun to make them yourself:

Anything else can be packed in Lego lunch boxes:

Lastly, the dinks! The Lego store used to have a Lego block ice cube tray:

Now, who feels like throwing a Lego-themed party?

Ocaml: using Big_int, operator overloading and functors for dummies

2009-02-28T22:35:00.010+01:00

I'm working on a functional programming project. I have encountered a few difficulties, so I will post here a few things that took me quite a while (and a lot of luck) to find. Especially operator overloading, where Google lead me only to endless discussions about wether it should exist or not and why it doesn't, when it actually does.

I will write a code snippet that will allow us to use integers and Big_ints the exact same way, for instance doubling them using one function named "twice". (In other words, putting two and two together with 4 modules and a functor - can something be more fun?)

First, let's get to the Big_ints:

    1 #load "nums.cma";;

    2 open Big_int;;

So far so good. Now, we'll declare two modules that can add numbers, one for integers, one for the Big_ints, but first, they'll need a signature:

    4 module type Add_sig =

    5   sig

    6     type t;;

    7     val (+): t -> t -> t

    8   end;;

Now, the modules. Notice how cool functional programming is, you can assign functions like other values:

   10 module Int_modl=

   11   struct

   12    type t = int

   13    let (+) = (+);;

   14  end;;

   15 

   16 module BigInt_modl =

   17   struct

   18     type t = big_int

   19     let (+) = add_big_int;;

   20  end;;

The "let (+) = (+)" looks stupid, but is required.

Now we'll write a functor to transform these two modules in two new modules that have a richer functionality (okay, "twice" is not "rich", but that's just an example and I hope you can see the big picture), that we will implement only once, though int and Big_int are two completely different data types and have completely different additions ("+" and "add_big_int") - again, notice how cool functional programming is.

   22 module Add =

   23  functor (Modl : Add_sig) ->

   24   struct

   25     type t = Modl.t

   26     let (+) = Modl.(+)

   27     let twice t = t + t;;

   28   end;;

Nice functor. Let's use it to create the previously mentioned modules and we're almost there:

   30 module Ints = Add(Int_modl);;

   31 module Bigs = Add(BigInt_modl);;

Okay, time to see if that works:

33 Ints.twice 2;;

34 int_of_big_int (Bigs.twice (big_int_of_int 2));;

We have a bit of hassle with creating and printing the Big_ints (thus the longer code), but in the end, we defined one function "twice" that uses the same operator "+" to perform technically completely different operations (with an emphasis on technically - you could use this technique to make "+" mean subtraction or multiplication for the integers and that would be nasty).

Finally, the entire code, ready to copy, paste and... run!

#load "nums.cma";;

open Big_int;;

module type Add_sig =

  sig

    type t;;

    val (+): t -> t -> t

  end;;

module Int_modl=

  struct

   type t = int

   let (+) = (+);;

 end;;

module BigInt_modl =

  struct

    type t = big_int

    let (+) = add_big_int;;

 end;;

 module Add =

 functor (Modl : Add_sig) ->

  struct

    type t = Modl.t

    let (+) = Modl.(+)

    let twice t = t + t;;

  end;;

module Ints = Add(Int_modl);;

module Bigs = Add(BigInt_modl);;

Ints.twice 2;;

int_of_big_int (Bigs.twice (big_int_of_int 2));;

On my wishlist: "Fashion Geek" by Diana Eng

2009-02-18T17:00:00.003+01:00

Diana Eng was a Project Runway contestant (that's means she's a fashion designer) famous (and adored by me) for involving geek/tech/etc. stuff in her creations. She won top honors at Yahoo! Hack day for a thingy that takes pictures as you walk and blogs them, and now she wrote a book with DIY projects! (More info here.)

I just *have* to have it.

I knew I forgot to blog about something

2009-02-16T11:24:00.008+01:00

I knew I forgot to blog about something: I passed the70-536 exam!

I got 841 points and 700 was the passing score, so I was pretty well prepared. And they had good coffee at the center.

What's next? The asp.net one, as I have a bit of experience in that. And then maybe WPF, as it's the closest thing to Silverlight - or is there a Silverlight certificate coming up? I don't know about any so far.

Geek does chick stuff

2009-02-15T18:11:00.004+01:00

I'm getting married soon, my exams are over and I should be writing my funk project. There couldn't be a better day for chick stuff.

I started with a bit of cardio. I had Carmen Electra's Striptease Aerobic vol. 2 lying around for months, so I decided to try it.

Well, it wasn't what I expected. It had no vulgarity (no, no disappointment here), but not much fitness either. The girls were walking around and caressing their tights, but I wished for some more dance, more jumping, more challenge. (Though the clothes were great - if only the crew put as much effort to the choreography as to the styling...) Well, judge for yourself:

So I ended up doing what I usually do for cardio: put Bomfunk MC's CD loud and improvised. And that was great.

Another thing lying around (but only for weeks) was Philips' Satinelle Premium:

In one word: ouch. This was my first try to epilation with that kind of hardware and the pain was a bit hard to bear at first, but I got used to it pretty quickly. (I guess I should have RTFMed and kept the cooling thingy for 4 hours in the freezer and not 20 minutes in the fidge. I'll try that next time.) Plus, the powerfulness of that thing made the whole process a bit fun. Still, my skin doesn't look as smooth and shiny as Carmen's. And I'm not as fit. Go figure.

[Picture credit, credit]

My biggest dream is to marry well (and that's not pathetic)

2009-02-14T22:49:00.007+01:00

My biggest dream is to marry well. Is it. And some people find it pathetic. And I'm gonna prove it's not.

Just marry? And that's it?

People ask when I speak my mind. The thing is, it's not just marry and it's never it.

It's never it because marriage is forever, for better or for worse. I don't want to just get into it, but to stay in it. For life.

It's not just marry because it's about love everyday, it's about making a great commitment, it's about a lot more than just going through a certain ceremony. Love is easy on Valentine's day. It's easy when things are good. It's harder when you have to sacrifice a dream for it or the person you loved hurt you. Still, I wanna do it without exceptions: love that man every single day, even if he lies to me, cheats on me, put something above me... Of course, I want my husband to love me that way as well.

In the TV shows I watch, the protagonists keep on changing partners - otherwise, not much would happen. But they have someone predestined for them in a way that the viewers know it from the start. They might end up together after seven seasons of stupidity (or soon but drift apart and back), but they will, and when they do, everyone knows this relationship is not like the others - it's forever. That's what I want - to marry my Mr Right (I'll pass on the seven seasons of stupidity).

Attentive readers will ask:

But you're already engaged!

That's right, I am. Therefore, my biggest dream is to marry my fiance. There - I found a way to say it that sounds dumb even to me! What's a fiance for if not to marry him? But, if you read that post attentively, you should understand how much this means to me.

Flacs are coming!

2009-02-01T22:45:00.003+01:00

I was just browsing 7digital and saw this:

That's an album in flac! Flas as in:

...Free Lossless Audio Codec.

Personally, I'm pretty much deaf and 256k mp3 are perfect for me. But many of my beloved ones have been blessed with a good hearing, some to the point of not tolerating any quality loss. So I'm happy for them. And I'm happy to see the market going towards better quality. And mostly, I'm happy that DRMs got their lower frequencies kicked.

An extensive search showed that this is the only flac album on 7digital so far. So that's just a start, let's see how things go, but I really like the way they're going so far.

A short story of CD cases

2009-02-01T22:21:00.007+01:00

This is a short story of CD cases.

First, they looked like that:

Then, came double ones:
Then the singles ones became twice thinner:

And then twice bigger again, but with rounded corners:

As promised, that was short. Here's more if you're really interested.

[Picture credit, credit, credit, credit]

On my wishlist: the Sims 3!!!

2009-01-30T23:59:00.003+01:00

The Sims 3 is (are???) coming!

That game is definitely on my wishlist!

And so is a new graphic card. My Radeon Xpress 200M doesn't seem to be on the list. And so is a new computer, as I only have two laptops (well, only,... ) and you can't add a graphic card to a laptop (can you?). And so is a new desk for that computer, with a flowery desktop like this one:

(But definitely with different legs.) And so is... nah, I'd better stop now.

Making Silverlight do the work for me: fake software boxes

2009-01-20T20:29:00.007+01:00

What I love about Silverlight is that it does a lot of work for me. An example: fake software boxes. Let's say you have some software to advertise: isn't this box appealing?

So, you can go to the graphics department and nicely ask for such a box. Or follow the tutorial. But what if you have dozens of products to advertise? The graphic people don't want to do that and neither do you. I believe there are some smart graphic editors that do macros or something like that, but there's yet one more way, illustrated by the diagram below:
Here's what I did yesterday working on a website to advertise my company's software:

I took two plain pictures, one for the front and one for the side (this one can be a textblock).
I placed them on the canvas and surrounded them with borders.
I added a rectangle for the top.
I applied transformations to obtain the pseudo-3d effect you can see above.

Now, to make more boxes of the kind, I just need to re-use the xaml and change the images! Piece of cake!

Okay, this is the place where I should put the code, but I did this at work, which means it's copyrighted to my company and I'd have to ask my boss for his permission, which I couldn't really do these days because he's too busy and now I'm leaving work for a week to focus on school. Sorry about that.

Furthermore, this can be done better (look again at the picture on the top):

one can apply a matrix transform to give perspective (that thing where parallel lines all meet somewhere... mine don't)
one can add a shadow (which I definitely should)
one can make rounded corners like Microsoft's software boxes have
one can add a reflection, since it's web 2.0 and every single software box is standing on a shiny surface, and Silverlight is great for that too!

and that's just a few ideas.

Well, if anyone feels inspired and wants to make a re-usable software box control, I'm sure a lot of people would re-use it, so let me know if you do!

Silverlight and localization

2009-01-13T12:44:00.003+01:00

Lucky me! I got a new project: the new company's website. Such sites need to have two features:

an impressive presentation layer
a few languages versions

For the first one, Silverlight is the dream technology. For the second one, however, it's a nightmare. I wanted to be able to change the language easily to say "see, Boss, the French version looks good too". I spent one entire day trying to make it work and it kinda works... kinda.

There are a few catches. First, there is no easy way to do that as in asp.net (there should be!). Microsoft published an article on localizing Silverlight applications and it's no fun to read. But, we're big boys, let's add our resources files by ourselves, rename them and stuff.

Second catch is coming: the constructor in the resourse.designer.cs file is protected instead of public. Two workarounds here:

change it yourself everytime you modify the resource
get a tool for that: Dmytro Kryvko’s Extended Strongly Typed Resource Generator 2.3

So far, everything is to be worked around. But... I wanted too much. I wanted localization and user controls. I could declare two namespaces, one for the resources and one for the controls, I could decalre the resource as a static resource, but binding... no. I got an AG_E_PARSER_BAD_TYPE error on a perfectly correct xaml file. After the entire day of investigating, I gave up on binding my controls to the resources in xaml - I bind them at runtime and rebind each time the language is changed. Ugly, but works.

I don't know... you might have more luck than me. If you wanna localize, start with reading "Silverlight and International Thoughts". There's a fully detailed instruction on creating a localized application in 43 steps.

As much as I like Silverlight, localization is a nightmare and that disappoints me a lot, as it's something that's been done in asp.net already - I feel like reinventing the mouse wheel here!

What's in my bag

2009-01-11T19:18:00.004+01:00

It's a cool feminine tradition to post a picture of all that we carry around in our bags. Here's mine:

What do we have here?

The MSI Wind pink laptop
a mouse for the laptop
a power cable for the laptop
a 4 GB pendrive
a bunch of cards
train season ticket
cell phone
Tic-tacs
hand cream
a Microsoft book
a comb
a few random lipsticks
Astor foundation
a few random hair elastics
a wallet
an mp3 player

I swear it all fits in there!

Good news from Lifehacker

2009-01-07T22:33:00.003+01:00

So the global economy is in trouble and the cold here is unbearable, but Lifehacker posted a bunch of good news recently:

So, what is there to do? Play board Tetris on the Internet drinking wine and eating chocolate!

Bruce Schneier is coming to Poland!

2009-01-07T09:51:00.002+01:00

Bruce Schneier is coming to Poland! He'll be the keynote speaker at CONFidence 2009.

More info about the conference at 2009.confidence.org.pl.

Update

2009-01-03T17:18:00.003+01:00

So I haven't updated for a while... here's what I've been doing lately:

celebrating Chritsmas with lots of family singing
deciding to get married in April or May
buying stuff for our new house
handling wedding stuff
writing my masters paper
hosting a New Year's party
getting rid of clutter

Most of that stuff is going/gone good, except that the cat vomited on my bridal magazines.

Coming next: back to work, learning Python, preparing for the 70-something exam... Enough to keep a girl busy, right?

Big day that started bad

2008-12-23T00:37:00.021+01:00

Today was a really big day for me: I decided to start writing my master thesis!

Here's how the title goes:

Displacement of smooth integers in short intervals and their applications in cryptography.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

So. I found the papers with the stuff I needed to start and downloaded the LaTeX template. Didn't compile. Tried compiling a kinda "Hello, World!" document. Didn't compile. Switched computers. Didn't compile.

Started loading The Sims on one of the computers while fighting with MikTex 2.7 on the other one. The Sims would freeze while loading any lot. Started wondering really hard what was going on with the world.

The Sims were easier to fix. I downloaded Sims2Pack Clean Installer, that showed my add-ons by install date, with a red background if they were suspicious. I got them working after a few tries and build something like a dorm that was in fact an apartment lot. Some old guy moved to my so-called dorm, no girl did and the residents would stay in their bedrooms instead of enjoying the kitchen, study, tv room, swimming pool and other cool stuff I prepared for them. Still, doesn't beat the stupidity of the 51 NPCs that moved into that:

Fixing MikTex was harder. Actually, there was no fixing, but getting the 2.5 version from Daddy from two years ago and getting the required packages from some russian ftp server.

But, I wrote my name on the master thesis template, so I have officially started writing it today!

Yet another programming language

2008-12-19T19:08:00.008+01:00

I blogged about learning Java and C#, and here I am again, learning a new language again: Python.

They made me. At work. First, I was a bit mad: I'm learning Objective Caml at school, C# for the 70-536 exam, can my brain take much more?

But as soon as I tried it, I loved it for the easy syntax and operations on lists. It also supports supports multiple programming paradigms (primarily object oriented, imperative, and functional) - how cool is that?

Okay, so I started learning. First thing I did was, of course, "Hello, World!". Then, my new favourite way of learning programming languages - Project Euler! That was cool - doing something I love, learning and getting paid! Ain't I a lucky geek?

Silverlight: my app is up!

2008-12-15T14:58:00.003+01:00

Yeah, finally! The website I was working on this summer is up (and featured on silverlight.net)! In Polish only, but my boss said we'll get it translated. For now, you can check out the cool animated tree menu and the HTML ovelay iframe that adjusts its height to you browser window (provided that your browser window is tall and you reaload the app) at bcp.softax.pl.

Oh, and did I mention I got engaged? Mmm, yeah, I did.

I'm engaged!

2008-12-14T21:05:00.003+01:00

Great news people - I am engaged! Boyfriend proposed to me yesterday in our new apartment!

As a very professional blogger, I said that I needed a picture to post here, so Boyfriend took a few with the camera in his phone. If you use your imagination look really close, you can see the ring on my finger!

What is that? The poor man's Wii?

2008-12-12T20:01:00.003+01:00

Someone tell me what's going on...

On December the 10th, a new gaming console was released in Poland: the VMAX16. Take a look:

It has 7 sports games and controllers with movement sensors - doesn't it remind you of some other console?

It gets weirder, however: it costs 50(fifty) $! That's like an extra controller for the Wii!

And it gets even weirder: googling for articles in English about it doesn't get you anywhere. Searching for the manufacturer, Speed Link, does get you to the official site, but searching for "vmax 16" on that site returns void.

I'm really curious what that thing will turn out to be. My hope: competition for the Wii that will make it twice cheaper. Let's wait a bit for the reviews.

[Source, picture credit]

Life geekified: gift paper

2008-12-10T19:18:00.005+01:00

Christmas is coming, people need presents ideas, so it's the right moment for a few "Life geekified" posts. I'll start with the end: gift paper.

Geek gift paper... not the most common product around. Think Geek has some beautiful stuff:

Unfortunately, the most beautiful one, Equations, is sold out.

The only other option I came across is this Space Invaders paper from Whimsy:

So, there isn't much competition in his area. So, there are two things to do: produce some geek gift paper and get creative!

Good news

2008-12-09T23:06:00.003+01:00

Two good news tonight, people!

Season 3 of The IT Crowd is good. Watch if you haven't started yet.
You can win a 1000$ shopping spree at Think Geek, and the competition's not restricted to the U.S.!

Of course, I sold my soul for the tiny chance of getting all the geek stuff I want. Even my phone number! Don't ask what else I could throw in...

Flu Kitteh is in your haus

2008-12-09T18:53:00.007+01:00

This is what I looked like these past few days (except for the hair and the soda). For that reason, I was doing what cats do best - laying in bed all day. Instead of blogging. Or studying for my exam, which I may postpone. Or buying Christmas gifts - which I might start regretting soon, as it's a bit late to order anything by mail, and it will be kinda late too to find something in the shops by the time I get good enough to go there. But, I did a bit of research and found a few things for my brothers and tons of stuff for myself. Well, that's an excellent start.

[Picture Source]