Gmail will automatically invite some contacts

Gmail will automatically invite some contacts

If there are other Gmail users whom you frequently email, you'll be able to chat and see each other online without having to send an invitation.

This wasn't the default setting some time ago, now it is, and I think it shouldn't be. To make it worse, disabling this behaviour is not reliable. My privacy is not happy.

Falta chico con experiencia

Uno ya se va acostumbrando a que el papel del programador no se valore mucho, incluso por gente que se supone mejor informada, pero esta perla me ha hecho reir:

Falta chico con experiencia en programación PHP, AJAX, MySql, sistemas, etc. También precisamos un diseñador gráfico manejando bien Photoshop y Flash. Interesados enviar CV con datos completos, teléfono de contacto y horario para llamar. Si cumples el perfil puedes tener una entrevista de inmediato.

Keep hopes up (textual street art)

More brilliant street art enjoyed today while sitting at home...

• An artist called TRUE replaced some NYC subway security signs with some of his own with less mundane advice: Riding with despair prohibitrd, Have fun, Do not hurt people, Do not accept defeat, Strive to be happy, Do not hold grudges
  
  • The stickers scanned: http://www.candychang.com/2008/04/04/riding-with-despair-prohibited/
    
  • A recreation of one of the stickers: http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2007/06/making_happy.html
  • A nice TED Talk by Stefan Sagmeister that mentions this an other interesting projects: Yes, design can make you happy
    
• Ji Lee's Bubble Project: 50,000 bubble stickers have been printed. They have been continually placed on top of ads on the streets of New York. They are left blank, inviting passersby to fill them in. I photograph and archive the results. This project instantly transforms the intrusive and dull corporate monologues into a public dialogue. Our public spaces are returned back to the public.
  The project is also mentioned in Sagmeister's talk, and watching/reading some of the pictures in the project's site is well worth.
  
  
• Sidewalk Psychiatry, by Candy Chang
  
  
  

The Loch Ness Monster in NYC

Some brilliant street art by Joshua Allen Harris made emerge some months ago an inflatable Nessy in the streets of New York City.

• MSNBC video of the sighting. (37 seconds)
  
• New York Magazine video with more inflatable sculptures and an interview with the author. (2 and half minutes)

Another reason to want a DS...

...and another reason why Sacha Chua rocks: How to sketch with the Nintendo DS

| View | Upload your own

And while you are at slideshare, check Sacha's Web2.0@work: In Pursuit Of Passion:

| View | Upload your own

I liked the "Cynicism (...) directly affects the bottom line" quote from Dov Seidman's How. And, for that matter, falling into cynicism also makes work suck.

How many shinning eyes around me?

I had read raving reviews about Benjamin Zander's talks. Now I get why...

Jornades de Programari Lliure

Dimecres comencen les VII Jornades de Programari Lliure. Programa al Google Calendar.

Si m'ho puc apanyar, vull anar a

• Dijous 12:30 - 13:00.
  Aprenentatge de la Programació al Citilab: Squeak i Scratch
• Divendres 13:00-14:00.
  eyeOS : Portant el Sistema Operatiu a la Xarxa
• Divendres 15:30-16:30.
  Eines de virtualització lliures per a sistemes GNU/Linux
• Divendres 16:30-19:00.
  Taller d’Arduinos (open-hardware)
  

M'ho pugui apanyar o no, dissabte aniré a la Jornada de Python (de 10:00 a 14:00), doncs he dit que faria una xerrada sobre Sugar, l'interface d'usuari del XO o OLPC o $100 Laptop

SuperHappyDevHouseBarcelona polls

Baby steps towards having a hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere: SuperHappyDevHouseBarcelona... two polls:

• Would you be interested in an event of this kind?
• How about a beer/coffee next week to get things started?
  

The BallmerBot

Segway+Ballmer=The BallmerBot

Ok, not a segway but a uBot-5 from The Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics at UMass, Amherst.

Picture by Simon Bisson

Video: BallmerBot

SuperHappyDevHouseBarcelona? Why not?

SuperHappyDevHouse is a non-exclusive event intended for creative and curious people interested in technology. We're about knowledge sharing, technology exploration, and ad-hoc collaboration. Come to have fun, build things, learn things, and meet new people. It's called hacker culture, and we're here to encourage it.

I've been wanting to attend to something similar to SuperHappyDevHouse since I first heard about it years ago, thanks to an intranet post by Tessa Lau telling how much she enjoyed one.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a handfull of people in Barcelona interested in a hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere. Summer nights are nice, and probably there are higher chances to find available venues. Mmm...

Next actions:

• get first reactions from fellow hackers (and hopefully draft co-organizers)
  
• explore some venue candidates. I don't have high hopes of finding one that allows a dusk-dawn event (the format of the first editions), but a shorter/earlier hackaton would also be cool.