In December 10 there will be 113 years since he died (1896), instituting the Nobel prizes in his will.

What’s interesting is the fact that the two events seem connected. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. It’s probable that the opinions of his contemporary played their role (especially after a french newspaper printed “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” – this was in 1888, 8 years before his death).

The man tried to cleanse his sins somehow. He tried to make something good to be remembered with.

Still, how many people from the 20th century did anything to cleanse themselves in the eyes of the humankind, for sins greater that Nobel’s dynamite ?

Just a simple curiosity …

If so, watch the short movie below to the end …

For full-browser or download, click here.

Found here.

This post is just a personal oppinion, so you all can ignore it. I think I can say that the people that use this line are cowards and selfish.

Let’s cry about our troubles, maybe they’ll fade away … or maybe someone will help us. It’s pointless to think that there a lot of other people facing the same problems or maybe worse.

You are the most important, you are the only one. Keep crying.

The image in the left displays a Doppler radar. It usually is used for weather stations or in air traffic control. In other shapes and dimensions it is used as police speed guns, in radiology, and so on. How and why it works is not important for the story to come.

In Oradea, very close to the airport, is such a Doppler radar. Obviously, being close to the airport, it is very close to the much praised Tiago (which didn’t open anymore … at all). Watching from the city belt, the radar is right behind Tiago. In this other side of the city belt, at about 170 feet, is the office building in which I’m working. In a straight line there are, probably, about 650-820 feet between the radar and my job.

I introduced you to the places, you know what a Doppler radar is … let’s get cracking I went outside for a smoke today, around 16 o’clock, with a coworker. We were talking, smoking … there’s a glider passing right above us. My colleague (Radu) makes a comment regarding the low altitude of the glider, and I went on reading, from underneath it’s wing, the series number (or shoe size, whatever).

Radu snaps back at me, saying he can’t read at that distance, without even realizing where I was reading from. When he did, the glider was quite far, and the angle didn’t support our reading intentions. I, the brightest bulb in the lot, came with a brilliant idea. I point at the Doppler radar and tell Radu that I’ve made eye tests before, based on the radar’s antenna. For two and a half years since I work here, that little antenna was seen by only about 70% of my coworkers.

Radu glances, stares, wipes his glasses clean and strains again … nothing. “Yo, where, what antenna?”. I explain that the antenna is in the middle, right on the top of the radar. He asks me: “Above the flickering light bulb?”. Yes… He had lost me. “What light bulb, dork?”. Instead of answering, he starts laughing loud like an idiot.

Among the laughters I make out an “… the red one, moron…”. Ha ha. Red light bulb. Flickering. God damn that damned light bulb. I tell him that’s the reason for which I can’t see it. Any action has a reaction of equal, but opposite force. The reaction, in this case, can be expressed by amplifying Radu’s laughter. He was rolling on the floor laughing, for the simple and plain reason that I’m partially colorblind. He could barely breath, poor Radu, and I had no oxygen tank in reach. Lucky for Radu, for that oxygen tank might have crushed his skull

He hurried back inside and told everyone who would listen, amusing everyone with the line “Do you see the antenna? … What antenna? The one near the light bulb? … What light bulb?”

Who said you can’t have fun at the office?

It was very played, because of the fact that it could be played almost anywhere and at any time. All it took was a math worksheet, two pens of different colours (it even worked with one, if there was no other choice ) and, if during class, a lot of discretion

I really enjoyed the game and, in no time, I couldn’t find myself worthy opponents. On the other hand, after I graduated, I couldn’t find opponents at all.

I was very excited when, almost an hour ago, I found it on the Internet. Under another name, with an inanimated opponent, but for me is great. Lots of memories with this game…

The game is also very polite and allows you to save your high scores on a site, so … maybe you’ll find me there

Do enjoy playing and don’t let the computer beat you. I didn’t

For playing in full-browser or to download, click here.

To see how a game is played (hardcore difficulty), you have a screenshot here

Update: it is Paper Soccer, after all

It seems like Blizzard got out a Flash version of the game, relatively unchanged from the original, so I thought I’d give you something to do, in case you’re lazying around

Enjoy it

Erik the Swift

Jump
Dash while running and smash walls

Baleog the Fierce

Swing sword
Shoot arrow at enemies or hard to reach buttons

Olaf the Stout

Raise and lower shield

For playing in full-browser or to download, click here.

P.S. there are more useful keys, like Q to change the viking, Ctrl to make Erik run in place … happy hunting

If you want to believe in something, consider it done. The self-control over one’s mind is to be envied … too bad it only works when it shouldn’t. Maybe the fear of unknown, the fear of being lonely, and so on, are powerful catalysts.

In other news, watch this video

Another good link is here.

Re-reading the order data I had some fun because of the data in which I placed my order, October 13th, 2009. Tuesday..

Leaving the foolishness aside, I can hardly wait for it to arrive. As far as I know, the delivery will take place around 12 o’clock. Do not disturb me before this hour. I’m stressed out

I’ll be back with pictures

UPDATE: It arrived at 12:25.

UPDATE: Finally, the pictures !

They are repairing some pipes. What, was there some sort of accident with the plumbing ? Oh, no, but they must change and repair a few pipes … In the autumn ?!?

Who am I to blame now ? Obviously, being just a small and stupid Romanian, I am the one that’s guilty. Why the hell didn’t I take my shower when I have had hot water ?

Word of advice : pay attention to the chair (don’t fall out of it )

If you don’t like this game, then I don’t know how I could label you. You could give an idea in a comment, if you have one (but I doubt it )

This being said, have fun

Obviously, this post is addressed to people that use Windows (I thought you understood that from the title … what are you doing here ? ). On Linux or *BSD or Mac they have different desktops, but … quite alike. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to say that Microsoft invented the wheel, I’m just saying that, slowly, the looks start to be alike. Of course, each operating system comes with news and tries to look different or to be able to do new stuff … but, for the main parts, things are leveling.

Does anyone remember where Windows was in the beginning, as an operating system ? Do you remember if you have had Quick Launch on Windows 95 ? Do you know which Windows first featured the “Refresh” option in the desktop’s context-menu ?

Maybe there are people that couldn’t care less, but I always found amusing to notice the little details that concern the Windows’ look. For example, did you notice that many error messages in Windows 95 were displayed in the Windows 3.1 style ? Or that Windows Seven was the first Windows to change the Install New Font window … after it remained in it’s original Windows 95 design for about 13 years ? Do you remember that in Windows 98 there was not “Lock the Taskbar” option, this causing the Quick Launch to have different widths from one Windows restart to another ?

The next few images will remind you, roughly, how Windows and it’s desktop changed over the years.

Have fun

Of course I bought one for myself. It had the extraordinary capacity of 256 MB, was small, blue and transparent. It was the perfect toy. No more stress caused by diskettes, no more writing on CD-RW’s. Just like on a floppy disk, I could write and erase data as I saw fit … like on a CD, I could transfer a lot of data.

It did, also, make a big hole in my wallet. The huge 256 MB Flash Drive cost me, back then, almost a quarter of my salary. At the same price I could now buy a 16 GB, or even 32 GB, flash drive. I don’t see why I would do that, though, knowing the reduced transfer speeds of flash drives.

Recently, I found my Flash. It was one piece, functional, light blue and still transparent. As a bonus, I had data on it. Files from another era. Memories. A real treasure.

I inserted it in an USB slot in the front of the computer’s case and started checking everything on it. After a half an hour, amused, nostalgic, even happy, I went on the balcony for a smoke. When I came back, being caught in a discussion with a co-worker, I stepped right on the flash drive. I wasn’t content at all.

I looked at the remaining pieces under my show and I was quite surprised to see it almost intact. It was a bit bent, it stripped it’s blue plastic clothes and I could see the little control board which, too, was a little bent and seemed broken. I tried to insert the rests of the flash in the USB slot, but Windows said it couldn’t find a driver. Damn it! The only thought that went through my mind was that it needed another flash drive, not a driver.

I tried to unbend the control board, as delicate as possible, and I tried again. To my astonishment, this time it worked flawlessly. I copied all my data from it, and now … it’s a blog piece, as you can admire below.

[View with PicLens]

The first thought that crossed my mind was to install a new Wordpress for each language that I want to use, but when I thought of all those plugins, settings and all that crap that will bother me, I quit.

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many informations regarding the possibility of a Wordpress that supports more language at a given time. At a fairly deep search I found a single site that had some promises, so I kept it for when I would start testing.

Fortunately, there is also Smash in the world, who found me another two sites that seemed perfect.

I couldn’t wait anymore. I took xampp, installed it, I took Wordpress, installed it too, I took the database from the blog, imported it in my new localhost blog, adjusted the settings as to be as close to the original ones as possible and I went nuclear.

I started with qTranslate and I instantly dropped dead when, after I clicked on Activate Plugin, it displayed me a mile-long page cu errors. Good thing there was Google available.

The file “qtranslate_core.php” must be modified. More clearly, the next piece of code must be commented:

	if(is_object($text)||get_class($text) == '__PHP_Incomplete_Class') {
		foreach(get_object_vars($text) as $key => $t) {
			$text->$key = qtrans_use($lang,$text->$key,$show_available);
		}
		return $text;
	}

After modifying this file, the installation, activation and setting up the plugin are just a breeze.

All I still need to do is to modify the rest of the blog’s posts. I’m so screwed

Good luck with improving Wordpress !

Before the entrance exams in the summer of 1998 I was taken by my mother to her job where, at some offices, there were some computers, and the boss daughter used to play there often. Obviously, I went to see how a real computer looks like. Of course that, bright as I knew I was, I imagined that in two weeks I would learn everything that was possible about computers (I don’t really watch a lot of movies since that disillusionment ).. Ştefania, the aforementioned girl, was a year older than me (already in highschool, computer department too) wasn’t born to be a teacher, so she pushed the power button, some white on black lines started to move on the screen, and I was staring at it. When the lines got tired of moving around, Ştefania wrote three letters, w, i, n and then pushed Enter (Enter … meaning a big key near the center of the keyboard).

Windows. Versiune: 3.11. Everything became bright, mostly white. Some windows. Then little colorful drawings, in each ocean of white. I immediately noticed that she dived into an ocean full of games and kept on swimming until she found Solitaire. It has been interesting, but … I mean, I don’t let the playing cards home down to play cards on a computer.

It’s been a long time since (from my point of view), but I sticked with Windows. This is another way of saying that it’s still raining windows. To be honest, it’s been good years since Linux got windows, too…

Until recently, I had forgotten how much did the Windows’ windows fascinated me in high school (especially after the Olympiad in Informatics from the 9th grade … I was told to copy my source files onto a diskette, using Windows … very penitently, I had to explain to Mrs. Teacher that I had no clue how to do that). So much that, in my 11th grade, I made a program, in Delphi, that would list all the windows from the system, including the hidden ones … and, even more, to allow me to play with’em Put them always on top, hide them, move them … good days

Assuming you had patience up until now, in the next paragraphs I will present this little program, explaining some pieces of the code and, as before, to offer it as open-source.

The first function I needed was EnumWindows, an API function that retrieves the full list of the system’s windows, requiring two parameters: a callback function and programmer-defined value to be passed to this function. To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t quite get what that freaking callback is and why, in this case, it would need a parameter for a handle of a single window and my parameter. I mean, in a system there are hundreds of windows … how would it get them all in a single handle?

I solved this problem quickly by displaying that “unique” handle (as I was expecting) in a ShowMessage. Do I still need to say that after the 20th ShowMessage I went back in Delphi and hit Ctrl + F2 (program reset) ? The callback function was called for every main window found by EnumWindows, giving me it’s handle.

Oh goody … the list of windows is done. I have a list of handles to windows which, honestly, looks smashing. Hammer smashing. I wanted something flashy, eye-candy, something that would show, to whoever would watch, that the program is super-mega-ultra-blah-blah. Hmm … the title of the window (usually, it’s caption-bar) would go well …

I went to finding the window’s name, something that was generously offered by GetWindowText, if you bribe it with the window’s handle and a little room to spill the characters.

Yeah, it’s already looking better. Still, there are a lot of weird names around here. CiceroUIWndFrame, curtain, AXWIN Frame Window, DDE Server Window, SysFader … WTF ? Microsoft sucks! What the hell is with this windows ? We need to see them

ShowWindow to the rescue. A very attractive and funny function. Give a handle, say SW_SHOW and voila … the window got out from the mist. Say SW_HIDE and … you’ll never knew it’s been there. It also knows some other stuff, but if you’re interested, all you need to do is to RTFM on the above specified link.

This was a real big moment. I realized that, considering the Get / Set function pairs, there had to be a SetWindowText. Lucky bet. I rapidly implemented the functionality and I was very proud of myself when the Windows Explorer window was calling itself as “Bond. James Bond”. I’m kidding, obviously. It was calling itself “Pop. Victor Pop”.

No matter the name, the function SetWindowPos takes care the Z-window placement, setting the top-level windows, not to mention the obvious fact that it can move / resize the window. It has been a pleasure to use this function to set a randomly picked window to be Always On Top or Always … not.

The rest of the code should be clear enough, but if you have any problems with it, let me know. I’ll try to play the good Samaritan, once in my life

Download:

Sursa : [download id="2"]
Executabil : [download id="1"]
Screenshot

What’s interesting is that, although one can find multiple references regarding the fact that Galileo would be the inventor of the telescope, these are wrong. The patent’s owner for this invention is a Dutch (with german origin) by name Hans Lippershey, who, in turn, isn’t the real inventor himself.

The word “telescope” comes from Greek (tele = far, skopein = to see) and it was “invented” by Giovanni Demisiani, a mathematician, when Galileo showed his marvel at a banquet held by the italian Science Academy, in 1611. Galileo named his telescope with the Latin “perspicillum” (glasses) and used it to study the theories of Copernic regarding the movement of the planets.

The real invention of the telescope, is in fact the work of three people: Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen, glasses manufacturers in Middelburg, and Jacob Metius from Alkmaar.
Galileo improved their invention in the next year, being one of the people that made possible the nowadays (earthbound and orbital) telescopes.

SRWare Iron is a real alternative [to Chrome]. The browser is based on the Chromium-source and offers the same features as Chrome – but without the critical points that the privacy concern.

I recently found an alternative to Chrome which boasts to be on par with it, but doesn’t collect private data from users.

I use for more than two weeks and I can say I like it. It really does have the same capabilities as Chrome (being based on it’s source, it’s quite natural), but (and I may be wrong) it seems to move faster.

Go take a look, maybe you’ll like it, too.

SRWare Iron – The Browser of the Future

What happened? It rained. Maybe it rained a little more and worse than in the past, but some of my coworkers told me that in some areas of the town they saw sewers that were backing up, almost as an artesian well. Big and important streets of the city found themselves covered in minimum 20 cm of water.

From what I heard, a bus got water in it’s engine, a gym was flooded completely, some water got int our company building, drivers that drove their cars until they bumped their cars with another cars, with drivers blinded by the rain.

What I saw: some wheel covers floating, gracefully, on the city waters, a cab-driver with it’s license plate held in place by only one screw and folded under the car, a coworker that lost his license plate.

In this conditions, something is definitely wrong, and I’m not referring at the end of the world. All I’m thinking about is the quality of our public roads and sewers in Oradea. Are they down or is it only in my head?

The silver lining is that the sun finally came out … or I would have been rowing all the way to the job.

As a friend said:

Code Yellow… God damn, it rained …

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, this test is for you. You can use it to see if you were right

Using this only for fun is not recommended

L.E. this is how the end of the test looks like, to motivate those of you that are too lazy to finish it

I hope you like it, too.

You can find it, for the moment, in a small window, in the sidebar, displaying the categories and anothe few links that I considered to deserve this favour

See ya later

Happy playing !

Caution : your brain cells will be seriously stressed by this game. It is not recommended for people with the ages between 1 and 104.

An animation movie that I expect for more than two months, after watching a few trailers…

The story line is somehow expired, but the making is good, and the humor almost everywhere.

For those that enjoy a quality animation, I recommend this one.

My name is Victor Pop, I’ll celebrate my 25th birthday in exactly two months and my birthtown is Arad. I work as a programmer at a software company in Oradea, and in this blog I’ll try to tell you my ideas about life, if you’re interested. You’re welcome to share your opinions regarding my posts.

The end of the beginning.