Shut up ob
Originally uploaded by ob-v.

I've always been a muse for my co-workers. Here is NYC-based art by Petru.

I just voted in Ireland for the first time. I 50% failed since I was registered for local elections only and not for the European ones. I am very frustrated.

Simon matured but still likes success. Simon's new key to success is twofold:
1/ Flames solve everything. Even the most simple problems need to be pointed out in an inflammatory way to make sure that they get taken care of (by someone else than Simon).
2/ Keep competition unfair. Any ideas that Simon didn't think of first are bad ideas. Data-drivenness is Simon's favourite way of backing up whatever nonsense that can help him demonstrate the badness of a good idea.

Simon's friends love him. But Simon's problem is that he doesn't have many friends left.

Poor Simon.

Originally uploaded by ob-v.

Looks like last year's summer finally reached Dublin comma Ireland.

And +1 again.

All characters in Fable 2 have the exact same accent as Peter Molyneux. I suspect budget treachery.

The Sony eBook reader is so cute and the price just went down. I suppose it's either because a new model is about to come out or because Sony realised the Kindle killed it. I think I won't be able to resist the Kindle when it's available in Ireland (probably whenever Amazon will realise that we exist, which will provide me with waaaaay enough time to save money for it).

Over the past 3 years, I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader, from FreeBSD to Linux (on my home Unix thingie), from FreeBSD to OS X (on my home computer), from Linux to OS X (on my work computer), from a self-administered MX to Google Apps for your Domain, from a "files-based" web-hosting solution to Google Sites, from Mutt to Gmail, from a Palm to stupid cell phones, from stupid cell phones to an iPhone...

All these changes had one thing in common: I didn't mind the old solution but the new one appeared as an obvious and huge improvement soon after I started trying it out. I think that's a good way to define a good technology: you just make the switch to something because you almost instantly realise how much better it is.

I'm in Mountain View. I was essentially grumpy at the beginning of the last week-end but started to feel a lot better thanks to a visit to the Computer History Museum. This time, I managed to see the PDP-1 demonstration (one of the most lovely things on Earth apart from me and Saint-Nectaire). As a free bonus, I also got to see a working Babbage engine, a most remarkable machine some consider like the first computer (they're wrong: the second one is French, was invented in my hometown -- hah! -- and predates it).

Ugly videos I shot:
Babbage: [Front] [Back (the carries)] [Close-up]
PDP-1: [Music] [Graphics] [Spacewar 1/2] [Spacewar 2/2] [LEDs blinking]

On Sunday, I went to SFMOMA. Modern Art is fun. The sad thing about art in general is that it comes with experts. For example, every time Picasso paints a Coffee Pot, God sends someone to explain that "painted in the midst of the Second World War and the Nazi occupation in Paris, this painting suggests a distraction from and reassertion of the political realities of the day" (I swear I didn't make it up). SFMOMA is also a great place to learn that urinals can be pretty successful trolls. I can't say I remembered a lot of cultural things, despite all the nice efforts SFMOMA put into this but I sure did enjoy it all.

Barring a couple of social disagreements these guys apparently generated, I have a lot of respect for Sir Alan Michael Sugar and Steve Jobs. But I just came across Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island, its "Legal stuff" link, its progress bar saying "Loading... Please bear with us" and it just reminded me of Virgin Atlantic and how this guy just generally seems to get everything right. It's annoyingly impressive.