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Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:31 PM | rahel luethy | 2 comment(s)
you've probably all run into the hassle of having to enter a valid email address somewhere on the web, just to be able to read an article or access a knowledge base. maybe some of you have set up a dummy address, which you use explicitly for this purpose, and which prevents your actual account from being flooded with spam. 10 minute mail lets you create an email address that will only be valid for 10 minutes. before its auto-disposal, it will display all messages sent to it on the web, and after it, well, it will be gone. (via reddit)
Monday, November 27, 2006 11:03 AM | rahel luethy | 2 comment(s)
max kueng is cool. and yes, i know that stating this is uncool. however, it wasn't max kueng's coolness, which made me buy the mobile phone he has presented a few weeks back (in his weekly "das magazin" column). but his uncoolness hasn't prevented me from buying it either. the phone is a sony ericsson m600i and it looks like an 80ies calculator: 
max and i have bought it because it is one of the few phones that has no built-in camera (i already own two cameras; i needed a phone) and has a nice QWERTY keyboard (i mainly use the phone for text messaging). moreover, it's a sony ericsson, which means that the battery lasts forever (unless filipa drools it to death). up to now, the only annoyance is that some of the functionality can only be reached via touchscreen, and not via keyboard. that really sucks (i'm a linux user, after all).
Wednesday, November 22, 2006 2:30 PM | rahel luethy | 1 comment(s)
the virus has left the building, so i happened to have a free evening yesternight. parts of it i spent integrating the dp.SyntaxHighlighter into this blog. it does exactly what it says on the tin: syntax highlighting (based on javascript/css). so finally, i've escaped the eclipse → ksnapshot → gimp → flickr waterfall, and my recent enum code now looks like this: loads of different, language-specific brushes are available, and it lets you fiddle around with the decorations (line-, column-numbering, tabbing, etc.). to show just one more example, here's an XML snippet from yesterday's The Daily WTF post (it's titled "XML vs CSV : The Choice is Obvious" and it's hilarious, isn't it?):
Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:34 PM | rahel luethy | 0 comment(s)
threshold for temperature to be defined as fever (toddlers; °C; measured rectally): 38
average number of feverish infections (toddlers; per year): 7
mg paracetamol (aka acetaminophen) per kg body-weight (recommended every 4-6h): 15
average reduction of body-temperature after high-dose paracetamol treatment (°C): 0.4
theoretical parent's need for uninterrupted sleep (hours; per night): 8
actual uninterrupted sleep (hours; averaged over last 5 nights): 4
number of readers who probably think that I should either use contraceptives or not complain: Integer.MAX_VALUE
Thursday, November 09, 2006 9:35 AM | rahel luethy | 2 comment(s)
whenever a new, major java version is available, developers seem to feel that they must use all the new language features (unless they don't mind being categorized as retro coders). sooner or later, the code base is thus full of generified APIs, StringBuffers are replaced by StringBuilders, and enumerations seem to be the solution for any kind of problem. in fact, enums do come in handy in a lot of cases (and it was about time to introduce them to the java world). while the killer example enum Suit { CLUBS, DIAMONDS, HEARTS, SPADES } might only be of limited use in our daily life, it is the strategy pattern-nature of enums which seems to invade our source tree quite successfully. the general usage is commonly something along these lines: 
while i don't really have a problem with code like this as long as the item implementations stay as simple as in this example, the "pattern" gets kind of smelly, the more complicated the enum gets (more than one abstract method, concrete base implementations mixed with invocations of multiple abstract methods; too much logic in the concrete method bodies, etc.). as already mentioned: i'm kind of torn between thinking of this as a clever and simple solution, and between categorizing it as a smelly abuse of language functionality about which i'll roll my eyes in a couple of weeks already. in that sense, my current state is about comparable to any pattern-newbie's love for singletons. i'm looking forward to comments from more experienced (and/or opinionated) people.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006 8:37 AM | rahel luethy | 0 comment(s)
i don't quite remember how this idea materialized in my head this morning, but since it was interesting enough to keep us discussing it during breakfast, i thought i'll share it here. the fact that blogger lets you arbitrarily adjust the timestamps of your posts, got me thinking about a business model of an independent timestamp authority. this authority would allow you to combine any text with a digital timestamp, just to proof that a certain idea existed at a given time. it wouldn't be about patents, copyright, or anything alike, just really about bringing the text and the timestamp together in a secure way. as for most internet business models, they are either (a) not of public interest, or (b) they already exist (most often, it's actually (a) and (b)). we may be geeks, but we didn't have internet access during breakfast. however, it came to no big surprise that some people are already making money with this.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006 1:54 PM | rahel luethy | 0 comment(s)
frozen fingers on the bike in the morning (yet refusing to wear gloves); evening trams full of children, all with an expression of tired satisfaction (brim-full of magenbrot, a balloon attached to their tiny wrist); no more questions in terms of soup and dessert (it's always pumpkin & vermicelles); the hassle of switching to a new health insurance provider; lawn mowers replaced by leave blowers; relatives complaining about mittelland fog; evening workouts only possible with headlamps; ads for fresh suser on every restaurant table; no more attempts to save daylight
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