What do you do with more than 25 gigabyte of compressed AIS data? You play around with it, load it into databases (and wait over a day for an index to get generated), do some funky .kmz files or you generate heatmaps, like this one to the right.
It shows AIS traffic for the UK and northern Europe during 24 hours. You can clearly see the high traffic zones. The original algorithm is not by me (and unfortunately the whole code is in the office, so the attribution will follow tomorrow) but I tweaked it a little bit.
The whole thing is quite memory consuming (the original rendering size was 4000×2000 pixels) and at the moment the .NET Garbage Collector and I are not a good team. I would re-implement it in C (maybe even with proj4 support?) but I first need to read about some drawing algorithms.
A short list of things I accomplished in 2008
- Take more photos
No. In fact I think I took even less photos than in 2007. But I’m looking forward to spring and some holidays!
- Launch at least the two projects I’m working on
No, although I invested some time into some pretty cool thing, it never went live. But I will restart it in 2009.
- Spend a few days at the seaside with my girlfriend
No, space for improvements.
- Get my degree
Yes, with distinction.
- Spend a weekend in at least one European capital
Only one capital and no weekend, but I’ve been to Madrid, Hamburg and Bergen.
- Move to Vienna
Yes.
- Go to the theatre, at least
once twice
No, not a single time. Shame on me.
- Go running, two times a week minimum
Went running quite often during the summer (4 to 5 times a week) but only once a week or two since I’m living in Vienna.
- Get a job (in the web industry)
Not in the web industry, but a cool job.
- Plant herbs
Not until now but will do it tomorrow.
- Do a painting together with my girlfriend
There are still three days left, right?
- Contribute to some Open Source projects
If two lame bugfixes count, then yes.
- Learn another programming language
Got pretty fluent in Python, yes.
- Learn Cocoa
No.
- Find a flat without a pre-installed kitchen
No, the kitchen was pre-installed, but is nevertheless quite cool.
- Learn Swedish again
No.
- Spend more time cooking and baking
Yes, your own flat really helps!
- Watch ARTE more often (or quit my subscription)
No, but I won’t quit my subscription.
Is there any reason why Google names Vienna, the captial of Austria, Vienne? May I suggest an adjustment?
So I ordered that 24 inch Samsung monitor a few weeks ago. Amazon said that they shipped it but never arrived here. I called the Austrian Post, which is the contractor for Amazon here in Austria. A lady told me that the monitor was received at my place last Thursday.
Well, the only problem is that I wasn’t at home last Thursday because I was on a business trip in Hamburg. After some calls to Amazon and the Post it was pretty clear to me that they gave the parcel to some stranger and I will most likely never see it again (they even told me that it’s not the job of the Austrian Post to look for parcels they did not deliver to the correct address because they simple refuse to admit that I did not get the monitor).
The whole thing is now at Amazon again, they’ve sent me a new monitor which is at the post office right now and which I will pick up tomorrow (just to make sure that it’s really there, I wanted to check the Tracking & Tracing status of the parcel and I got this nice looking error message at the right: “The creator of this fault did not specify a regionreason”).
I really don’t understand how Austrian politicians can smile during all those press conferences and media events. They built up the same coalition like in 2006 and they gonna have the same problems like in the last two years. The questionnaire which appeared last week was a bad joke and whole thing looks to me that they just wanna make fun of us.
My advice for a better way? Get some pros for each field, build them up and maybe even introduce a dedicated program for politicians. Get them to know their ressorts, put somebody with a deep knowledge of the subject in the position of secretary. For me the future of a country is too important to put somebody on top of the state who has no clue about what’s going on.
And finally, hope that it gets better.
I was the need of a flip effect for scriptaculous and came up with this solution:
Effect.Flip = Class.create();
Object.extend(Object.extend(Effect.Flip.prototype,
Effect.Base.prototype), {
initialize: function(element, flip_graphic, original_graphic) {
var options = arguments[3] || {};
this.element = $(element);
this.flip_graphic = flip_graphic;
this.original_graphic = original_graphic;
if (this.element.getAttribute('src') == this.flip_graphic) {
this.flip_graphic = this.original_graphic;
this.original_graphic = this.element.getAttribute('src');
}
this.width = options.width || this.element.getWidth();
this.delta = this.width * 2;
this.flip = 1;
this.start(options);
},
update: function(position) {
var change = this.flip * (0.5 - position) * this.delta;
var padding = this.width / 2 - change / 2;
this.element.setStyle({
width: change + 'px',
padding: '0 0 0 ' + padding + 'px'
});
if (change < 0)
{
this.element.writeAttribute({ src: this.flip_graphic });
this.flip = -1;
}
},
});You can use it like that:
new Effect.Flip(element, 'graphics/original.jpg', 'graphics/flip.png', { width: 120 });I will post a demo tomorrow – I promise, it looks cool!
I’m really thinking about getting the new 24″ LED Cinema Display from Apple. Comparable devices from Dell, for example, are a bit cheaper but I really like the idea of connecting my MacBook with the display and getting a MagSafe and USB connection, too. The only question I have is: Is there a Mini DVI to Mini DisplayPort adapter available from Apple? If not, do I need to get a new MacBook to use the new display? Sounds bizarre.
So, I’m finally back from my business trip to Madrid (actually I returned to Vienna Friday in the morning, but I was too tired to blog).
All in all it was a quite, let’s say, interesting journey. We had our first near-death experience on our way to the airport in Vienna when our driver nod off. Arrived in Madrid a few hours later, with a stopover in Munich.
The hotel in Madrid was dreadful, but we quickly made it to the next Tapas bar. Meeting with our customer the next morning, next crazy taxi driver, but I guess we were just not relaxed enough to cross the street just before the truck. On our way to Barajas after the meeting our taxi driver, guess what, was sleepy again. So talking with him about god and the world – quite a challenge because our Spanish is non existing, as is his English.
Our flight was quite late because of some fog in Munich, so we didn’t get our connection flight to Vienna and instead rented a Mini Cooper to get home. Awesome car! Arrived in Vienna at about 3.30 a.m. and took me two days to catch up on lost sleep of the last few days.
…who can’t change their homepage from the internet options dialog, because settings are managed from an administrator: Try the ‘Home’ button in the menu bar, it offers an option called ‘Add or Change Home Page…’ which lets you set your homepage.
Was just browsing the Python Job Board and found this:
Job Description: Lead Software Developer (Python/Django)
PopJam is a new and exciting fast-paced, well-funded web startup based in Soho, London. We’re looking for a top notch lead software engineer eager to build awesome web software used by millions of people. Founded by an Imperial College rocket scientist and the creator of the Million Dollar Homepage, we’re looking to create the next big thing in the rapidly growing content discovery space.
…
About PopJam:
* We’re backed by world-class investors
* An exceptional response to our Alpha launch with a large pool of users waiting to be invited in
* We love being on the bleeding edge of the web and web tech, and are incredibly open to new ideas and ways of thinking
* Our founders have a proven track record of making money online and know how to do it again
I would love to know what their business is about.
