This website shows the positions of Swiss SBB trains on a Google Map. Unfortunately the positions are not updated using the trains actual position but calculated using the timetable. Still a pretty cool app. In the UK this would have been completely pointless, but they say:

as Swiss trains are almost always on time, most of the time the position is accurate

Have you ever read a piece of code, an undocumented piece of code that you didn’t quite get? Not to say that at first glance you had absolutely no idea what it did or was supposed to do, why it was there at all?

Thought so.

Imagine that someone that wrote code as described above has the twisted idea that it actually shows skill to be able to write working code that only he/she understands. If you don’t have to imagine, I’m sorry, I know how it feels mate.

A guy called Steve wrote in a comment to the article The Next Programming Skill You Should Learn:

I think some developers get an ego boost out of it. It gives them a (false) sense of skill/power that other people need their help to quickly see what their code is about.

Um, guys, anybody who knows anything about programming isn’t impressed. People can’t read my sloppy handwriting either, that doesn’t mean what I wrote is brilliant just that my handwriting isn’t as good as 5th graders.

Well put.

Coffee bars like to push why their coffee tastes better than anyone elses. I think this place has a funny selling point. At first I thought - why send baristas to a training course in Australia? But then I realized that it says that the baristas are trained by someone from Australia, not that they’ve actually trained there.

When did Australia become famous for good coffee?

Just upgraded WordPress to 2.5. My first impression is positive, the admin interface is a lot cleaner than before. Haven’t checked out everything yet since writing this post is literally the first thing I do after upgrading.

Upgrading is straight forward. This is what I’ve done.

1. Database backup
2. Files backup
3. Deleted old files
4. Uploaded new files
5. Ran supplied upgrade script
6. Uploaded backed up plugins and themes

As you see, easy. That’s one of the reasons WordPress is so popular. It just works.

I saw an ad on Coding Horror where the text said “Use CodePlex to find open source software projects built by thousands of developers around the world.”. CodePlex? Never heard of it so I clicked.

Apparently it’s “Microsoft’s open source project hosting web site”. Doh! How did I not know this site? Weird. Ok, I’m a Java dude so I don’t actively look for .NET project hosting sites but still. Happy I “found” it.

Given the date of the site’s first blog post* it looks like it has been under my radar for almost two years. An observation is that, that first blog post don’t have any real comments. As I write this there are five pingbacks, one from an Italian developer in 2006, one from an MSDN blog couple of days ago, and the remaining three pingbacks that are copies of the MSDN one. Those last three are interesting in their own way as they are PingBacks from non-MSDN blogs that mirrors MSDN blogs. Clearly MFA sites(Made For Adsense).

*Ok ok, the first blog post doesn’t mean the site was launched then. A check shows that the first non-test project was added somewhere around Apr 28 2006 at 10:53 PM. Saved you some time now didn’t I?

Believe it or not but one of the more popular posts on this blog is the one with the gingerbread Star Destroyer. No wonder that it’s popular. Who doesn’t like Star Wars? Who doesn’t like gingerbread? It’s a killer combo.

Gingerbread is very Christmas, but hey a Star Destroyer never goes out of season.

As an extra treat to all Star Wars fans, here’s a site tip on that topic.

Feels good to know.

…had almost forgot. I also hadn’t read my usual round of daily reads for a while, so today I did. Paul writes some interesting stuff every now and then but I was surprised to see this post today.

If you don’t have the energy to read through it I’ll round it up for you. He basically found a web site that didn’t conform to his high standards. Hello!? First time? If I go so upset whenever I found a useless website that I had to write about it I would have little time left for other things. Oh well, I guess that’s always something to write about and everyone’s got a right to an opinion. And when I think about it, everyone with an opinion should write a blog post about it, really, why not. That’s one of the reasons that makes it fun to read blogs, personal stuff, the kind of stuff you don’t see here very often(because you don’t see anything here often, or even rarely).

I’m having a hard time lowering my standards. It’s all in my head anyway, so you won’t notice if I do. There’s nothing to compare to. But this post wasn’t very good was it? I certainly don’t hope so, I’m just adding a few more bytes to the interweb, something for Google to chew on. There you go, you’re welcome.

I looked through the domains I have bought the last year and I have too many. The thing is that domain names go quickly so if you find one and don’t buy it there and then it’ll be gone soon after. Can’t say that it’s always like that but I’ve experienced it myself.

So what I’ve done is I’ve had an idea of a project and before even started writing any code I’ve scouted for a nice domain I could use for the application. And then when I’ve found a domain even half good I’ve bought it.

So now I have a long list of domains I don’t use and don’t want. So this year most of them will go back on the market, I will probably just let them expire.

The most recent one expired is pepperish.net that expired 2008-02-18. If you want it, take it.

I still think pepperish is a nice domain name though, that’s why I’m keeping pepperish.com

A friend of mine just sent me a comment to the picture on my about page:

“Seeing your picture I can’t help but thinking of another great personality Jack Black whose magnificent snout is quite like that of your own.”

I’ve been told before that I look like Jack Black sometimes and the picture on the about page is a bit dated. Maybe I should put this one there instead.

It’s like watching a mirror. Thanks for your kind words the picture Perrolf!

I had heard that Virgin will give current 4Mbit/s customers speeds of 10Mbit/s and today on my way to work I saw their ad about it. They will start rolling out the upgrade in the next month, it will be automatic and they will not charge extra. That’s good news! It will definitely give the other ISPs something to worry about. I mean, if you can have Virgin broadband then why wouldn’t you? As far as I know, no one else offers that speed in the UK, yet.

I had 10Mbit/s five years ago in Milan supplied by Fastweb. It was fast.