Happy holidays

I try to put together a holiday card each year by myself. This year I decided to try and make my own snow crystals with some help of math and Java. I think I got quite nice result (for time spent), enhances in some image processing software and composed with a nice thought that might make us all think for some time.

...
Be who you want to be,
go where you want to go,
love who you want to love
...
-Santana

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows

Yes. I did it. I've finally managed to finish all the published books from series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. He promised three more books from the series but they were not yet published. I must say I can hardly wait to get my hands on them once they appear in this realm. The timeth book tells a lot more about few characters and their story.

You really get to know why things are as they are and what drives certain individuals to do what they are doing. However the book concentrates on the characters that, at least for me, are less interesting and I miss the dragons a lot. I really do hope they will play some major role in events that are yet to be. Also some of great villains (if they really are that) had no part in this book. And this is one more reason why the next book is so anticipated. It should air soon and I really hope that's true.

Kindle

Yes. It's true what I said in my previous post. I've got one. I have to say so far I like it a lot. I have it for 3 weeks now and I have finished reading my first book on it. Like you can read in previous post, it was not a thin book, but a book of almost a thousand pages. I just had to try it out very thoroughly and that's why I wanted to finish reading a decent book, before evaluating the usability of it.

I had a very hard time choosing the right e-book reader for myself. I usually think things through and do my research before I spend such amount of money on something. It was a hard choice to make, but I think I made the right one. I was weighting between the original Kindle and it's larger brother (the DX version) as well as Sony's readers. The tests and reviews on the internet made my choice easier. I would like a touch interface of Sony's readers but the trade of between less shiny display screen and touch screen goes to better readability and that's why I've choose Kindle. Now decisions between smaller and bigger brother was the matter of price as well as size. If the DX model would have much smaller edges and the touch screen for the price I would have chosen that one.

Kindle proved a great way for reading books and even browsing the web, reading news and more. I will use it mostly for reading books and much less for anything else. And that is the thing that work awesome. The contrasts are great, the font sharpness is great and the build in English dictionary does a great job. It is all I need of such device and love it. It even fits in my pockets (I do have to say my pockets are quite big) and it is light enough to take it almost everywhere.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords

It took me a bit longer to finish the third book (The Storms of Swords) from A song of Ice and Fire series. Like first two parts (1st and 2nd) I must say this one is at least as good if not better, but that might be because I've read this one in original - english language, as well as waiting to get it in my hands. The story is so fascinating that one can hardly stop reading even if he must. It took me longer to finish this one because I have even more things to do now that I had just month ago.

The story drags very hard and it is hard to resist it's depth and richness. G. R. R. Martin proves that he is a great novelist and this series surely puts him very high on my list of favorite writers. I can hardly wait to finish the whole series, once it will be done. There are still many other books and series waiting to be read, hopefully at least half as good as this one. Again, if you haven't started reading the yet, and you are a Fantasy lover, I really do not know what you are wanting for. Go grab it and you won't be sorry.

This was also first book that I've read on my very own and brand new Kindle, but more on that in the next post.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings

Just two weeks ago I completed  a really great book from A Song of Ice and Fire. It was the first book from series and it was so good that I just had to get the second one (A Clash of Kings) in my hands as soon as possible. The story finally starts coming together and characters that were at different parts of the world started to meet and their life-stories began to merge into one really interesting mixture. But even here the events are not really directed and there are many ways that story can go from here. It still runs very slowly but has it's magical touch to it. Still the story of dragons is masked and I hope they will get much bigger part in overall picture. But I'll just have to wait and see where the third part takes me.

If you haven't started to get excited about this fictional book series, now would be the time for me to tell you: "It's good! Hell, it's awesome." I just hope I won't be dissapointed some time in the future. Go grab it.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones

A friend of mine who also likes good fition recommended this series of books to me. And today I just finished the first one. The series of books A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin is a not yet finished fiction series that I'll surely have to read. First book A Game of Thrones is a good start of an epic tale. There is a wast world that a tale takes place in and there are many characters who's life story the tale is all about. 

There is a disadvantage here though. The story advances really slowly, on the other hand there is much detail in everything, which gives a great plus to the whole package. And I really can't wait to start the next book. And there are dragons as well.

The Hobbit

It's been quite a while since I've last read this great book. This weekend I wanted to read something good again and I remembered a book that my sister brought back from her exchange in Netherlands. It was a 1966 edition of the book written by J. R. R. Tolkien titled The Hobbit. Since I do believe you all know it I just won't say anything about the content except that it is darn good. This was the first time that I have read it in it's native language (English) and I have to say it is worth it.

I just can't wait the movie.

Summer School on quantum physics

A different kind of summer school that I also "visited" this summer, was summer school on quantum physics held by bureau42. It was my first on-line summer school where you get all the materials in PDF format once per week. It was a nice review of quantum physics topics explained in a very simple way so that broad number of people can understand what it is all about.

If you are new to the quantum physics I can recommend this series of 10 documents to get a better understanding of it and to get the feeling if you would like some more.

Google Scribe

I have just read a news about this great tool that Google has in their Labs. Google Scribe is a great tool that helps you with writing, by suggesting the next word or two. And it does it with great success. I must say it's is an amazing tool that just boosts your typing productivity by a great factor. The only bad thing about it so far is that it only "speaks" English. But I think that will change very soon.

I love it.

You can read more about it here.

The Foundation novels (continued)

Just few day ago I posted a note on the Foundation novels series form Isaac Asimov. It showed a good thing as a friend of mine read the post and told me that he owns the first part of the series and that he can lend it to me (thanks Luka). I was so glad. I've finished the book in just few days after I borrowed it and I must say it is a great beginning. It gave me the nice intro into flow of events that led to second and third book of series. Now I just need to read the rest of them and I hope it will be soon.

Greatest Show on Earth

During my summer school in the Netherlands I had quite a lot of time while driving on trains and waiting at the airport. Yes again my plane had been delayed. This time it was because one of the flight companies planes broke down and they didn't have any spare planes. It happens. And that was why I had several more hours to spent at the Amsterdam airport. Since I have finished other books that I had on me, I went to a bookstore to find some other book. I spent quite some time there, but I just couldn't find any interesting fiction or science fin books. The next obvious choice was some science reading. And I have to say I was glad to find this book. It's a book from Richard Dawkins (wiki) a very well known evolutionary biologist.

I didn't really learn that much new things from it but the books gives you a great overview of the evolution theory and the different perspectives that people have about this topic. I was just jumping from one page to another and finished it few days after my return home. If you are new to evolution theory and want to learn about it from the best man in the field, this is surely a book for you. I would even recommend it to someone who just wants to refresh his/hers knowledge on the topic and see it from another angle. It's a really great book.

The Foundation novels

A great Sci-Fi author Isaac Asimov wrote a great novel series that I've started to read this august in Netherlands, during train and plane rides. I had so much time that I had finished two of them Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. Unfortunately I couldn't find the first parts in the bookstore, but I will surely read them soon. This two parts are just amazing pice of work that keep you reading for so long that you almost miss the station where you should step off train.

I can recommend them to anyone because it is not a high technology science fiction but it concentrates on what might happen to the society in far future and what might happen with the science.

USMIR & ISMIR 2010

This August wasn't really vacation time like it usually is. It was quite a lot of work (but a great work). I was attending the Utrecht Summer School on Music Information Retrieval (USMIR) and International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR).

USMIR was summer school that I actually attended and didn't help with organisation. It was my second international summer school on my research topics and I have to say it was great. I have learned several new things that will surely help me with my research and completion of ma MSc. thesis, but the most important thing is meeting new people and people that work in same field as you. It's great feeling.

ISMIR was great as well. There were many interesting research works presented during very interesting poster sessions and we had many great chats with people from all over the globe, the people whose work you read about in all the articles and people that are doing same work on the other side of the planet. It's amazing feeling to get in touch with those people and exchange experiences and ideas that will help you on what you are doing. Hope to get to the next ISMIR as well.

Summer Schools @ FRI

Like many years before, this year we had several Summer schools at our Faculty. Most of them are intended for high schoolers and younger student, who would like to learn something new even during summer vacations. Every year I enjoy helping with organisation of some of them and I always loo forward doing it, since I enjoy passing on new knowledge to people that are eager to consume it.

This year I helped with organising the CoLoS Summer School for High school teachers where I also had a lecture about HTML5 (on-line examples in Slovene are here, and a script on HTML5 also in Slovene can be found here).

Other school that I was in charge of was Summer School on Developing Applications for Android Platform. All the materials including videos of lectures (again in Slovene) are available on-line in our Faculty Moodle.

I can't wait to help organising summer school next year as well.

Warhammer 40.000

Once again I have came across one of Warhammer role-playing game shops (you know those that have plenty of Warhammer books, figures, playing terrain and of-course bunch of geeks that play the game). First time I've encountered one it was last fall in Tokyo and I've came across one just few weeks back in Amsterdam. It was great experience both times. We still don't have any shop like that in Slovenia (there is one trying, but it's just not there yet) and that is why I always try to stop in a shop like that when I pass one.

Last year in Japan I've also bought a Warhammer comic book (Flames of Damnation) in there and it is a great book. It's been a while since I've read it but combination of comic and Warhammer realm works very good.

Gapminder

Gapminder one is quite old. It's been several times since I've first come across this web application. First time I've seen it was in one of TED talks (for instance this one). It is a great application for discovering new information in different kind of data. It's a great application to play with and to get a perspective of what is actually going on in large amount of data behind a neat visualisation.

If you do have any time to spent and want to see a great data visualisation tool, I do recommend to try Gapminder, If you do put some effort in it you will have great time with it.

It's about time

Now that I look back ... hell its more than 2 months since my last post. That just is not good. I'll blame it all again on free time lack and off-course my laziness. Still I was quite busy there past months. Lets do a brief overview.

• End of semester - well I don't attend any courses myself anymore, but U do have classes. And since it was the end of semester there were exam preparations, final presentations, seminar grading, point counting, and more and more.
• Summer schools - I play a role in two of them (at least for now).
• Developing the applications for Android platform - like the name states we'll be doing just that. It'll be great and it will be in Slovene. You can find out more about it here.
• CoLoS summer school - where my part will be to do the introduction lecture and a short workshop on HTML5. Again also this school will be mostly held in Slovene. To find out more about it follow this link.
• New workforce in our Lab - two enthusiastic students join our lab (LGM) that also require a lot of my attention and help with blending as well as wanting to know a lot of new things. And that's a good thing. We like and want such students.

Well. There's surely more, not to mention introduction of fundays (a specific day in week to have some fun with friends, watching movies, playing games), which resulted in playing few great PS3 titles like God of War 3, Super Street Fighter 4, Uncharted 2, as well as "testing" the beta of StarCraft II, ...

Let it be for now. Hope more comes soon.

Utherworlds

It is so much more than just a book. Artist and writer Phillip Straub is known by his beautiful digital drawings. One can find many of his artwork topping the lists of sites such as deviantArt (Phillip's pfofile), CG Society. And not so long ago Phillip decided to make a book about a fantasy world he put together in past years. But as said before it is not just a book, it's a world. One can enter this world here, but to get the real feeling hot it is to be part of this world, you just have to read the book.

The book itself is a masterpiece, and I am proud to say I own one from the limited edition of 100 hardcover ones (it's number 75). The story that the book tells us is deep and addicting. It pulls you in and you just have to finish it.

It was a long time since I took time and read a book again. I sure missed reading such great works.

Objectified

A movie I wanted to see for a long time. Now I finally have. It's a great movie that tells people what design really is, why it exists and why it is mostly not what majority things it is.

It shows why and how design makes life easier, better and fuller. It also shows that designers are not some eccentric artists that just happen to have an idea, but there there is much more. That basically every design bases on some research and many prototyping. It is a real trial and error process.

I thing it might show world in a different lite for some people.

Homepage of movie: http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/

What went on this past month ...

Again there was more than a month since I've written anything here. It's not just that I'm lazy or that I don't have anything to write about (I keep a list of thing to blog about), it was mainly because of lack of time and different focuses.

Now that the Magic (oups. not magic but snow) has gone, at least in the lowlands and surrounding hills, I don't go to Ski Touring every weekend anymore. But because of warmer weather, I have started to jog again and I've even made my first bicycle trip yesterday. It was great.

I've also started to use my phone a bit more and you can find two resulting maps at the links below:

• Ski touring trip to Smrekovec (here)
• Bicycle trip to Gora Oljka (here)

There are also many new photos of our winter adventures on my picassa:

• Smrekovec (1, 2, 3, 4), and there are few others on FaceBook as well
  
• Logarska Valley (1, 2)
• Matkov kot
  

In the summer semester I have also started with teaching some practical courses at our faculty and I must say that preparations took quite a long time as well. I might even publish some of the content that I've made for these courses some day.

Well, I'm back. Again.

Growing Up in the Universe

Yesterday I have seen a new video posted on TED.com, where they have recently started to post external videos that they think are worth watching. One of them was first part from this series.

This series of lectures was filmed in 1991 and given by Richard Dawkins (Wiki) a great evolutionary biologist and a author of a famous book The selfish gene.

The series is targeting youngsters and so the audience is comprised mostly of children. The lectures are very well prepared with a great practical insertions. It shows us why creationism is surely mistaken by saying what can and can't be achieved during an evolution. A great example is explaining the eyes.

One can watch the full series for free on YouTube here, and I greatly recommend it.

How The Mind Works

Just recently I have read this book, written by Steven Pinker, a great cognitive scientist, and psychologist, that nicely describes how not just us but also our mind came to be during the evolution process, why and how we got the sense of sight, how and why did evolution decide that bigger brains are what is better for the spices, how we think, interact and do many other things in life that we as humans do.

It opens your mind to the completely different perspective of perceiving the life, it tells us why do the modern cognitive scientist think that cultural evolution has taken over of changing our spices away from the biological one.

Author tries to explain the mind by putting together small pieces, that do simple calculations, to create an enourmus biologically powered computation machine that mind actually is. He shows us how the mind is easily convinced to see world different than it actually is, why do we see it the way we do, why a pair of eyes is much better than just a single one.

The journey that one makes by reading this book is amazing since it starts with explaining simple thing and the puts them together just like bricks to explain some complex phenomenon like why do we behave the way we do, and in the end, what the meaning of life is.

If you dare to touch these questions and would like to know some of the answers (or at least what they might be), I recommend you to read this great book.

The Game

It was on my way back from Japan, when I didn't have any literature or anything better to do during my 12 hour flight back to Slovenia, when I visited the bookstore, picked up some books for presents and browsed through book of my own interests (mostly fantasy and Science Fiction), when I came across the book from Neil Strauss - The Game

It was a while ago that I heard of this book. Supposedly it describes a part of life of a pickup artist (a man that goes out, picks a girl, gets her attention and makes her fall for him). We get to know what that actually is, how this community formed, how it operates etc.

The story describes how author actually joined the community, became quite a respected icon there and in the end realizes that there is much more to life than live a life of pickup artist.

I must say that I liked the end the most, when author realizes that he must stop pretending who he is if he wants to get a girl who he wants to spend the rest of his life with. I believe this is very true and the most important point that is made throughout the whole book. Even thou the book has 600+ pages, I managed to read it almost till the end just during the duration of flight. And that means it is written very good.

I can't say I recommend it, but one sure won't be disappointed reading it.