"None of this affects me"

Great comment on slashdot:

‎"I'd really like to comment on this but I afraid of the consequences. I'd like to work someday and possibly travel to the US. I'd rather just pretend I don't know what's happening. Besides, none of this really affects me. It's about the past and from where I stand today nothing from any of the actions they have taken has changed my life in any way. At least now yet."

My email to a dude I know at Twitter about WikiLeaks

I care a lot about WikiLeaks. It is hard not to. I also care a lot about the fact that despite obvious volume of tweets on Twitter, with #wikileaks hashtag, they do not show up as "trending" Twitter's, making it seem like the subject is not relevant to a significant portion of the audience - which, as it happens, is in line with what the US government and its allied Powers That be would want you to believe.

I also happen to know a dude at Twitter (nobody important I assume, just a developer, but still - an insider).

So I emailed the Twitter guy with the following message:

[...] I would really like to know why #wikileaks (as well as related hashtags) is not trending on Twitter, even though it obviously generates a massive amount of tweets, probably order of magnitude higher that anything else on Twitter.

At this point I still refuse to believe that Twitter is a part of a larger conspiracy to shut up WikiLeaks, although I am coming alarmingly close, having in mind PayPal and Amazon fiasco (I am in process of cancelling my accounts with both of these). I am still more inclined to think that you have a problem with your trending algorithm. But - if you do not get your act together, and soon, your credibility as a social medium is going to suffer a lot. After all, your only advantage is being the place where people post stuff (tech itself is quite trivial, wouldn't you agree?). If you lose credibility, you lose users and they may never come back.

So, if you know anybody on the trend analysis team (or whatever team takes care of this functionality at Twitter), I would be grateful if you passed my concerns to them.

Security advice for riding a motorcycle during a heat wave

It seems like we are having a bit of a hot summer in Poland at last. Which mean riding a motorcycle becomes a bit of a challenge, because regular riding clothes become hot and uncomfortable. You basically have two choices:

1. lose the armour and ride in tshirt and shorts
2. stay in the armour and risk getting unconscious becouse of the heat

My advice is - absolutely do not ride without full armour! Reasons - the risk of injury while riding without it is grave. Your bare skin will be peeled off within a second from the contact with a tarmac. Also, during the heatwave, both you and the rest of the drivers on the street easily lose concentration, increasing the probability of accident

So, what to do? Armour, does get hot very quickly indeed. The solution is simple - get yourself a wet bandana and put it around your neck. It will keep you cool and fresh

Email from a headhunter and my reply

I have received an email from a headhunter today and I have replied.

Read below:

Dear Gorycki

We have a CV on file from you which is more than a year old. Have you secured employment in Ireland or are you still interested in moving here? If so – can you email me an updated CV with details of your current remuneration package and outline what types of roles you are interested in hearing about? We will then update your file and keep you informed if suitable roles arise.

If you are no longer interested in hearing from us about new roles in Ireland – can you email us saying so and we can remove your file from our database.

Many thanks – and looking forward to hearing from you.

Kindest regards

Brian McFadden

Director

If this were the first time my last name is misused in an email from the headhunter, I woudl let it pass. But as these guys cannot be bothered to even try to think which name is the first name and which one is the last, I felt obliged to respond in the following way:

Dear McFadden,

Six years after Poland joined EU and since hordes of Poles invaded Ireland and the rest of British Islands, I really hoped to find you guys to be able to distinguish our first names from our last names. I am absolutely sure that there are numerous Januszes, Marcins, Piotrs, Wojteks and so on (hint - these are the first names of Polish folks, which I assume are still customarily used in your country as header lines in email and other correspondence).

On the other hand, Gorycki (typically mispronounced badly by everybody from England or Ireland), Nowak, Kowalski, etc. are our last names. I really expect professional headhunters from the Islands looking for potential candidates in countries like Poland to be able to tell which name is which and use the correct one while making the first contact. Or, if unsure, to at least try to figure out some sort of neutral form that would not be offensive - hint: using just the last name is very much a no-no. Or, if everything else fails, as the last resort, ask your secretary or a cleaning lady (she is more likely than not Polish, or Lithuanian, or Czech or Slovak - all of which will be able to help you out).

Kind Regards

Janusz Gorycki

Kalamon Software Web Site Facelift

I have spruced up the KalamonSoft web site, to make it a bit less generic. What do you think of the new layout and colors?

DeskBeam Junior Coming Along Nicely. And Other Good Stuff

I have been silent for a while, because I spend almost all of my evenings and nights coding my new baby - a lightweight screencasting application which I call DeskBeam Junior. Why "Junior"? Because this is just the first approximation of what I have in mind in the "Senior" version, which is going to come later, and which will include advanced video editing capabilities.

The picture on the left is the logo for the application, which I created a week ago. It is supposed to represent a flower. I hope you find it cute.

The whole thing at this moment is a bit secret/unstable/in statu nascendi, so I am not giving you samples, screenshots or downloads to try out just yet - but do expect some early access preview (of alpha-to-beta-ish quality) in a couple of weeks.

Unlike my previous creations, the software will not be open source - I am going to charge for it.

But - it will be rather cheap - to the tune of $20-$25, so I guess everybody should be able to afford it.

On a totally different note, I am preparing a long-ish post/presentation/essay on the subject of "Earned Value Measurements in Agile Projects" (yes, the title is deliberately controversial, as typical Agile approach is that EVM is bogus and worthless). I seem to have found an interesting metric for agile projects, which I guess nobody had though of before (at least Google does not know of anybody with an idea like that - I have been looking for it on the internets for a while). I hope the metric will be useful to some project managers out there, so if you are one of them, stay tuned. There will be formulas, graphics, and all sorts of good stuff

My yamaha scored a hit today :)

Ok, I drew first blood on the motorcycle today. Well, not exactly blood, but there were (probably) some minor scratches - I have nicked some van's right mirror while passing it in the traffic jam. So, if you read this Mr. van dude (yeah, right) - I am officially very sorry for that. I will be more careful next time

XJ6 it is

Ok, so I bought me a Yamaha XJ6. Ain't it nice?

Now I have to learn how to ride it without getting killed or maimed. That is going to be interesting

Dan Pink on motivation

A must see video from TED Talks - Dan Pink talks about some surprising findings about motivation and incentives

Highly recommended

Kawasaki ER6n or Yamaha XJ-6

Hard choices to make...

Which one is more cool, which one will rule? :)

Obligatory Introductory Post

This is going to be a blog about everything and anything. I will try to talk about programming and software most of the time I guess, but you are likely to find posts about music, motorcycles, my family, politics, weird web sites and whatever else I feel like writing about.

Be warned.