I’ve just been reading about today’s general strike in Greece. With all due respect, our fellow Greeks, but getting an extra 13th and 14th wage during the year is not considered normal. You are paid for what you do, anything beyond that is a BONUS, something extra not a rule!
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Jakub Pawlowicz
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Jakub Pawlowicz
Making a bold move
As you may remember I was changing job exactly one year ago. I left big corporation in favor to a small company (Lunar Logic Polska) who do mainly startups. The whole “startup world” was new to me at the time but it quickly became a way more pleasurable environment than my previous job was.
So enjoyable that couple months ago I decided I want to taste it even more.So that’s the bold move I want to talk about. I’m leaving my current job in the coming weeks to focus entirely on startups and contracting business. I will be leaving some great folks @ LLP, but it’s all about moving forward, and I feel it’s the right moment to do so.
No more details at the moment, but waaay more is coming!!
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Jakub Pawlowicz
On the edge of 2009
You may have been wondering why there were not as much post as usual in the past 2 months. The case is that I’m busy these days. So it’s time to catch up.
So the 2009 is going to end really soon and the only thing I can say is it has been a truly wonderful year! Most notably I got married and I’m really happy about it! I also changed job to a more satisfying one which is good as well. Thankfully everybody around me are in good health which is the main ingredient of happiness. We all know this, right?
In technical matters I had to learn a lot and there is still much ahead. I’m not surprised anymore as I got used to the fact that a big part of my life will be about learning. And that’s great. I wish you all such a job! :-)
I also surprised myself couple of times – for example in November when I started using Twitter. Really. I’m not kidding… I found it really great in busy times. Feel free to read my tweets or follow my profile at @jakubpawlowicz.
The 2010 is coming and I already see some interesting challenges on the way. More about them in the new year!
I wish 2010 would be as good to you as 2009 has been to me!!!
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Jakub Pawlowicz
Flu hysteria in Poland
As you know I don’t like media, be it newspapers, television or any other medium which existence relies on attracting masses with catchy slogans, or dumb programs just to make even-more-money.
According to Polish media a couple of days ago there was a large outbreak of so-called swine flu epidemic on Ukraine. The reports from there were hysteric: showing the flu great progress, one service reporting higher death toll than another, showing people queueing to pharmacists seeking flu vaccine, anti-flu drugs, garlic, lemons, honey, and God-only-knows-what-else.
As we share border with Ukraine government instructed our border service to take a closer look at who enters the country and started considering giving a flu vaccine to all health/public service workers. Some of the opposition politicians started arguing that we need to act quickly to stop the pandemic, Polish media suggested some countries already vaccinated 40%, 60% or even all country population. Panic is emerging thanks to people’s foolishness and to mass media.The thing I want to point out is how much place are reserved for this hypothetical flu outbreak in Ukraine in western mass media. There is literally none. I checked BBC, CNN, and Reuters and the first two doesn’t even mention this fact on their health pages, Reuters being the only one referring to this outbreak in an article on flu season in northern hemisphere.
I can think of a few possible explanations of this fact but you are creative people and can figure it out on your own, don’t you?
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Mike Spark
A personal friend of mine just came back from Lviv, Ukraine. She says that she couldn’t spot a single man without a gauze bandage. Moreover, people there already avoid gathering into large groups, public transport such as buses is deserted etc.
http://www.president.gov.ua/news/15609.html – here the Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko imposes a criminal responsibility for, quoting, ‘criminal caresslessness’ in fighting the epidemic.
And about the media reaction: contrary to the western ones, the ex-USSR media cover the events very closely. You can check it on the site of ‘Kommersant’: http://kommersant.ru/theme.aspx?ThemesID=422 – a well-known russian newspaper, which tracks back its history up to 1909.
Cheers.
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Jakub Pawlowicz
My edge site featured on HTML5 gallery website
My experimental website edge.jakubpawlowicz.com has been featured on html5gallery.com – a place living on the edge of HTML and CSS technologies. Think that’s cool.
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Polprav
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
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Jakub Pawlowicz
Jar of jam
Tuesday, 1PM: buying a jar of apricot jam in Paris – delicious with bread or crepes;
Tuesday, 4PM: putting it into my personal bag (mistake!);
Tuesday, 7PM: guy from the security gate on the airport accused me of taking a forbidden jar of jam to the plane’s deck as I may throw it at the plane’s cockpit, open a window while flying and throw it into the engine or simply detonate onboard. Sure, I’m mostly known as MacGyver and could have used that jam as an ingredient of TNT which I could have made by mixing the jam with soap from plane’s toilet, ketchup from sandwiches, and cola sold by plane staff. But those smart bastards figured out my master plan…
Wednesday: Figuring out if they have already detonated my jar of jam or disarmed the jam by consuming it.Conclusion: This is madness?! Madness? This is airport!!
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Jakub Pawlowicz
The way I search
In the past months I noticed a shift in the way I search things over the internet. I started using vertical search engines (like YouTube or IMDB for music/videos related topics, Wikipedia for articles, BBC for news, or Wolfram for scientific data) more often in cases when I definitely know what I’m looking for. For these tasks I don’t use Yahoo or Google search engines anymore because these give me too wide set of results often from categories that don’t interest me at all. The traditional search engines still do work fine when there is no evident place to look for a piece of information or data is scattered between multiple pages, but these are no more an entry point in searching for something.
Some wise people foreseen such a shift a couple of years ago and I see it becomes the case for me, an experienced internet user. It probably won’t be a case for beginners and casual internet users but since Google and Yahoo start to enhance search data with more contextual results it feels the change is about to happen.
Is this a case for you too?
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Psi
Honestly, I generally still use Google even if I really indent to find something on Wikipedia… I think it’s just easier to type something in Firefox’s/Safari’s search field than to go to some website first and then do the search. So even if I specifically want information from Wikipedia, I type ” wikipedia” in the search field and click on the first result :) It’s just laziness, I guess… But this is how it works for me.
It doesn’t work in all cases though, e.g. if I’m looking for a video, I go to Youtube, because Google will only give me 1-2 video results. Although sometimes Youtube doesn’t show me that video because of some ridiculous copyright issues, in that case I go to Google and do the search there, and it shows me results from other video sites, which aren’t as restrictive.
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Jakub Pawlowicz
Learn by play
I found Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine a really great way to learn science-related things. If you have a moment (or two as once you start playing with it is hard to stop) check it out.
PS) I was trying to find what are the average temperatures in Marseille in September and Google couldn’t help me with it. For WA it was a piece of cake. Cool! :-)
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Jakub Pawlowicz
Waiting and getting
The best thing in waiting for something is the very first moment once you get it.
I have been waiting for the spring for the last 6 months. Today it has come :-)
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Psi
I know exactly what you feel :) I’ve been waiting for it too… Strange, but it seems I now appreciate spring, sun and good weather much more than I used to, when I didn’t have to go to work every day…
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solnic 12:20 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
Good luck mate! It was a pleasure working with you :)
Jakub Pawlowicz 12:27 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
Thanks Piotr! It’s still a pleasure! :)
psi 12:50 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
Good luck, we’re going to miss you… I wonder what bold move you will be making a year from now ;)
Jakub Pawlowicz 12:53 am on March 5, 2010 Permalink |
I don’t even want to think about it – let’s not make it a “March rule” ;-)