A few guys from the San Francisco Bay Area tried to re-invent Polo, only this time replacing horses with Segway scooters. Although this new variation of Polo is funny to watch (much funnier than the old-style horses variant, IMO), I don't expect this sport to become olympic anytime within this century. Here is a video (QuickTime required) of the match. The Register has a cynic article about this.
Yesterday we made a trip to St. Lorenzen in the idyllic Lesachtal, the western-most part of Carinthia, Austria. We visited friends (hello Angelika and Michael!) there and they showed us an old blacksmith's workshop that belongs to Angelika's family for over 500 years or 16 generations.
For a "software guy" like me the technology behind such a water-powered forge is just fascinating. This was, after all, high-tech 100 years ago. And the water-powered hammer is some serious hardware!
Special thanks to Angelika's parents, Mary and Hans Tabernig, who maintain and preserve the historic property.
There is also some information on the Internet (in German only).
Sun's Jonathan Schwartz wrote an interesting essay on how Sun plans to monetize Java. He discusses how in the late 19th century railway gauges had been standardized, and how this basically started the locomotives and rail cars manufacturing business, which again helped the transportation business grow.
The parallels to the IT industry? Well, Schwartz does not share the believe that software or hardware products will become commodities. Internet bandwidth (and, if you ask me, computing power) will. And Sun wants to sell you the locomotives for the network.
To make that work, standardization is the key. Java, web services and the Internet Protocol.
In the last weeks, Maria and I made some short trips to Rome and Paris. I have uploaded some photos I took there.
Here are some pictures from the June 2004 trip to Rome.
And here are some pictures from the July 2004 trip to Paris.
Below are some words for our friends in Italy.
SPQR
I tempi sono cambiati! Per prenotare il volo a Roma ci volevamo solo cinque minuti tramite l'internet - naturalmente presso la Ryanair.
Al aeroporto - que sorpresa - cercando la fila per farsi registrare abbiamo notato que non c'era. Veramente - la Ryanair é ben organizzata e la burocrazia austriaca non existe - per fortuna. Anche la Ryanair noi ha regolato 30 minuti di piú a Roma, perché siamo partiti trenta minuti prima della partenza programmata. Enio Meschini - il padre di Stefania - la nostre amica italiana que vive adesso a Villaco - é venuto a prenderci.
Subito ci siamo trovati al nostro agio perché questa atmosfera mediterrania per noi é il massimo - il sole, la vegetatione il fascino italiano.
... A Roma
sicome Günter é stato per la prima volta a Roma abbiamo visitato ció e che é conosciuto e tipico come il duomo di San Pietro, Piazza di Spagna, il Colosseo ... e cosi via. Il viaggio a Roma era meraviglioso e al questo posto, ringraziamo la famiglia Meschini di Passo Corese per la straordinaria ospitalita. Mille grazie a Enio e a sua moglie, a Adriana e naturalmente a Stefania.
Google apparently has a very creative recruiting department. Since last week, a billboard on Hwy 101 in Belmont, CA (Hi Erika and Wolfgang!) simply reads
{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com
(photo here). Filling in the answer and visiting the web site brings up another, more difficult puzzle. Anyway, I could not resist to solve this one, so here you can download a small C++ hack that solves the puzzle. If you feel like being a Google recruiting manager, you can even use this program to create your own puzzle, ha ha.