Archive for August, 2007
August 23, 2007 at 4:20 pm ·
Filed under Games, Video, Technology
Check out this super-amazing setup: a BMW M3 series, fully modded to be a full option game theater. The projector mounted in the back displays the game screen on the front window, some controls and interfaces on the dashboard. There’s a PC behind the car, and a large LCD screen next to the car so you can see what the driver is doing and how he’s cruising the circuit. You can even take a few friends for a ride :-) It’s a bit expensive to have this at your own house, but I can definitely see an amazing WOW factor if you put this on an event.
Video: Future Of Racing [source]
August 21, 2007 at 1:29 pm ·
Filed under PR
I’ve been unable to use Skype for a couple of days. I assumed it was software or server related. Soon after Skype’s announcement that it was due to a Windows Update which apparently caused a lot of PC’s to reboot at the same time, the discussion started to escalate in the ‘”let’s blame Microsoft” direction. Not by Skype itself though, because as they clearly state in their blog release:
“Normally Skype’s peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, however, this event revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly. Regrettably, as a result of this disruption, Skype was unavailable to the majority of its users for approximately two days.”
According to a pretty large amount of people, Microsoft is to blame, however the update that was sent out did not differ that much from previous ones. As stated on the MSRC blog:
“…there were no issues introduced by the security updates themselves. […] Next, we checked with our Microsoft/Windows Update teams to see if there was anything unusual in this month’s update in terms of reboots, size of the updates or speed of distributing the updates through Automatic Update. We confirmed that there is nothing unusual in this month’s release that could have contributed to this situation. From a release point of view, this month’s release followed our usual format and processes.”
So despite the evil theories that go around, and in answer to the dozen phone calls I got from friends that asked me if it was on purpose to show the power of Microsoft: No. We don’t control the world, nor the universe. We didn’t crash Skype and what happened wasn’t our fault and it was not on purpose. It was just a get-together of inconvenient circomstances that lead to the discovery of a bug in the Skype software. There were no Russian hackers, and from the looks of our security response team, it’s highly unlikely that the Windows Update is to blame.
Update: [17.49] Check out Skype’s latest post on this issue for a very thorough explanation
August 8, 2007 at 1:36 pm ·
Filed under Uncategorized
Last night I woke up and it was still dark outside. I usually don’t wake up early. I was staring at my ceiling and saw the last fractions of a dream replay. I was a little boy, standing out in the fields and looking up to the sky. At the horizon I saw a light, an ignition of a rocket that was launched into the black, starfilled sky. I saw a beautiful stripe of light go up and make a bow as it went further and further away from me.
I went to sleep again and woke up later this morning, started doing some e-mails and such. Then I got a phone call from a colleague to inform me that David Boschmans had passed away last night. David was the guy that wheeled me in at Microsoft. He was my mentor, my trusted colleague and friend. We shared dreams and hopes. His insights and advice will always guide me.
I could never have dreamt of getting a better mentor.
I’m lucky to have met him. I feel lucky, even when I’m typing this and tears drip on my typing hands. David, My Dearest David. I will never ever forget you. I’ll miss you. I’ll miss you so damn much. There is no explanation possible for all the why’s I’m feeling, no person that can fill the empty gap you leave behind.
May God watch over your family and take care of them. Sweet dreams, David.
