personal – Page 5 – Paweł Gościcki

Suddenly my world became much, much clearer

Glasses

Or putting it in another words – I have my first glasses! The thing with my eyes is that they are fairly good, just not quite perfect. Up until now I simply didn’t care. I had been certain I was seeing everything as clear and sharp as it is possible. Lately, however, I started noticing that my sight is much worse after working for 12+ hours in front of the computer. My eyes could no longer focus on small text and I was having slight troubles with reading. I’ve said to myself: the time has finally come to deal with this. Without any further ado I had my eyes examined.

The doctor has said it was an inborn defect. Not huge, quite the contrary, but big enough to cause me some problems when my eyes are tired. It’s interesting to realize now how wrong I was back at the elementary school, thinking I had the best sight of them all. After the second sight test (confirming the results of the first) I was on my way to the nearest optician. And today is the day I got my new shiny glasses. Man, are they nice! And everything is so clear and sharp now!

There are some side effects, though. After a little while the glasses become so heavy I cannot bear wearing them any longer. I’m almost certain, however, that it’s only a matter of time until I will get used to that additional weight on my nose and stop noticing them. At least I hope it will be so.

Nonetheless I’m very happy to have them. Have I told you already that this world is so damn sharp?

Photo by Dave Witmer. Used without permission. Hi, Dave!

Every time GMail is down

Every time GMail is down you are reminded just how much trust you can put in online applications/services. Not much, it seems. If my professional work depended on gmail I would be losing money now. Same goes for every other online application. They’re great when they work, giving you many different possibilities, which desktop apps cannot give you. However, when something breaks and they go down, you are left alone with many problems on your head.

So now, c’mon, don’t be like that and give me my gmail back!

UPDATE: As it was expected, after a little while it’s back up again.

Paul Graham should run for president

Or at least should be a politician.

It’s not a surprise that every single one of Paul Graham’s essays is a great read. Some are, however, simply mindblowing. Such is the case with his newest writing entitled Inequality and Risk (not that it’s that new whatsoever, it’s just that only now I’ve been able to get a hold of some free time to read it). He usually writes about startups and risks associated with running them and this essay is no different. Although this time he also talks about macroeconomics and, well, politics. In particular, he describes the dependency between the number of startups and the level of inequality in wealth of a society. The question arises: how do you deal with inequality without ruining your country?

What is surprising is that not only he finds a way to solve this particular problem, but also proposes a very sane and thoughtful solution. The simplicity and adequacy of it just blew my mind. He is just so right.

Paul Graham for president?

New tag: to_wikiself

to_wikiself [vt]:: Reminder to put your name in a Wiki.

This was the shortest tag I could come up with for this particular activity. Although changing Wiki is usually a straightforward and simple process, which could probably be done without setting up any reminders, I have two distinct cases where I cannot put my name in a Wiki yet. First is the Ruby on Rails professional developers Wiki, listing those who get paid for working in Rails. I am certain, that in a foreseeable future, I will be able to put my name there. Just not yet, though.

The other one is a Hugh MacLeod wiki listing wine bloggers. I would like to put my client’s newsletter there (he runs a wine selling company called Wine Express), but I think this would be inappropriate as a newsletter is definitely not a blog. At this very moment I’m in the long process of converting it into something which is more like news but with allowed comments. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll put it in the aforementioned wiki.

And that’s basically it. And the funny thing is that absolutely no one in the whole wide world is using it (yet?). It’s 100% unique. Should I put a © copyright on it? Nah, didn’t think so. Should you find this tag useful, please feel free to use it. No royalty payments required. Really.

Hapland 2

Hapland 2 finished! Damn, it was hard. It took me countless efforts to figure out all of the quirks. And no, I did not cheat. I have spent countless hours on this game and it was well worth it! I said in my previous Hapland post, that it would probably take me about a month to finish Hapland 2. Actually it took me two and a half weeks, which is quite an accomplishment, I think, as the game is really hard (I know, I’m saying this all over again and again…). If you haven’t played it yet, you should definitely give it a try!

And now for the thing that came here for:

Although I still think that walkthroughs spoil all the fun! And believe me when I say that I had lots of it!

The shocking truth

First, it was Daniel Auteuil in 36 Quai des Orfèvres. I’ve heard him cry and that alone was sufficient to be sure it was him. Then, after three or four words, I knew it was Morgan Freeman narrating the story in Million Dollar Baby. And that’s when I realized the shocking truth… I’m a movie addict! I watch way too many movies. I know way too many directors and actors. I spent way too much time on this. But what can I do? I simply love it.

Are there special clinics for people like me?

PS: I like watching movies not knowing much about them, apart from their IMDb rating, so I don’t watch trailers, nor read movie reviews, nor watch tv shows about movies. Putting it in another words – I don’t cheat. I just guess.

Poland on Google Maps

Google Maps now features satellite photos of the whole wide world, which means that Poland is also there! And on top of that some of the bigger cities (like Kraków, Warszawa, Gdańsk) have pictures available at the maximum zoom level (which means they are extremely detailed). At this rate Google Maps will dominate all geo/mapping applications in two years tops.

Here are some of my most important places:

Damn, this is fun! I have notified all of my friends showing them various places and all of them were like “wow… this is great”. In fact, it’s more than that. It’s AWESOME.

As usual, Marek Futrega spotted it first.

Hapland

Whew! I have just finished Hapland 1. A lot of effort had to be put in to actually complete it! This game is unbelievably hard. I ditched it two times only to return after a couple of days – but as the saying goes – nothing beats the fresh mind. Each time I moved a few steps closer to the goal. And, of course, each time I got blocked at some point. However, I am a very stubborn and ambitious person, so when I had my goal set to finish this game, I intended to do so. And so I did. FINALLY! So now it’s time for Hapland 2, which seems to be much more complicated (which means that I’ll be more than happy to finish it within a month).

This game is way too addictive…

And now for the thing that came here for:

My real name is Paweł Gościcki

“Who is Paweł Gościcki then?” – you might ask. And I will gladly answer you. He is what I like to call my English alter ego. And no, I don’t have a split personality disorder, no matter what you might think. I use Paul instead of Pawel, because it is the English equivalent of my Polish name (yes, I am from Poland) and it is in fact a blog written entirely in English. Using Paul here just seems more natural to me.