mega.genn.org

I found a link to stoplight concept of Damjan Stanković on dirty.ru. Designer offers to add sectors round the stop light so the drivers could see how soon they can move again and stop their engines thus saving gas and nature. Read more

“Warsaw zombies attacking Berlin pedestrian” on flickr

How were things invented couple of ages ago? You tied key to kite, set under the apple tree and waited while physics did its work. Not the most laborious process. You just had not to mix up what to tie and where to sit. Inventions are much easier nowadays: google it, find it, twitter it and here’s you fresh baked invention!

Nevertheless there are some freaks who glue keys to the hedgehogs, launch pines to the orbit, sit under different objects, clap the desolate falling tree in lonely rainforests with one hand and act even more meaningful trying to find something unique and interesting. So new and useful that everyone would say “ORLY!!!” and understand how the Universe is working.

Such a perfect intro and it’s in vain.

It was 1994 and I got a thing that is wannabe for 10 years old master of the universe as my birthday present — 5¼” floppy discs drive. It was equipped with adapter that allowed to plug it to computer. Oh, that was a computer that I used to rule assembler and basic worlds. The computer that couldn’t start Turbo Pascal just because it didn’t have 16 colors to represent GUI. There were just white, cyan, magenta and black in one mode and you could switch to more warm palette where you had yellow, green, red and black again. You couldn’t combine palettes, but that didn’t seem to be the problem and the games were interesting and breathtaking. And after I got a 5″ drive I could start them from the floppies not from the cassettes that made me quite happy. One of the games that made me listen to the cawing of the drive was Thexder (テグザー). The robot — main hero of the game — that was running through mazes and could transform to a jet made me miss quite a lot homework. Read more

Not just Chuck Lorre works on lotsa cool series but he also like to say something like-wise in the end of each episode. Hyperlinks were just a matter of time.

Flu masks. Full collection available at armour.genn.org

You have to change your flu mask every 2 or 3 hours or it will hold the bacteria party. Stylish flu masks (you can buy them) are the best for protection. The official soundtrack is ♫ California Dreamin’.

Update: You can buy flu masks here

It’s almost a year since I’ve visited Portugal. I can’t forget this country and want to come back to comfy streets of Lisbon, feel +20 °C in December, walk by bank and finally buy that t-shirt with tram #28 on it. I didn’t think that I want it so much until Tonya Shoo asked me in facebook: “Hello! I’ve noticed you’ve been to Lisbon. We are going there too, would you please recommend anything?… I’ve already read about Vino Verde.” I wanted to write something brief and clear, but tough luck ;) Read more

Our parliament decided to pass a law about censorship in internet. Though it’s just a bill now it was voted for by 404 deputies (irony of fate, yeah ;) Briefly, they want internet service providers to log all the information about every user net activity. These logs can be used later to determine if user made something illegal. What is illegal isn’t yet defined is supposed to be later. Read more

Augustan testament

It’s hard to ignore inscriptions in latin strolling Rome. You’ll notice pretty serif fonts in capitals there and where. But these are just sentences that differ not so much from texts we got used too. You may notice that there are no U letters in them but that’s all. When me and my girlfriend came to Ara Pacis, we saw the whole wall of text — testament of the Roman emperor Augustus. We came there at night, so we could see Ara Pacis just through windows, but I wasn’t. I was staring at testament feeling that something strange is about it. Sure it was strange — no punctuation marks and all capitals. Every word separated with dot like this • and sentences are separated with just a bit wider space after the dot. You can see that on pic.

There is a thought that nothing is new and everything repeats in ages. Looking at how people communicate in internet nowadays, I see the replica of that Augustan time style of communications. First of all, all letter are in one case, not capitals as in testament, but lowercase. Second, not punctuation marks — you won’t deny it’s common all over the internet now. Ok, we just have to start replacing the periods wider spaces and we’ll live like in Roman Empire. I expect orgies! ;)

I don’t get excited drinking coffee. One cup is enough for me to fall asleep. That’s why I wasn’t drinking coffee that night. But I answered the questions of Arsart who was writing the big article about web design in Russia for Smashing Magazine. I act as a bystander who’s somehow involved in the Russian web design scene. The article that includes my interview is fun and interesting: Showcase of Web Design in Russia.

I’d like to tell you more but I am veeerrryy sleepy and see no way to wake as long as coffee is not the answer. So I’ll stop right here. ;)

Sorry, this entry is only available in Russian.