Posted on November 17th, 2010 by Janda Martin
Posted on November 9th, 2010 by Janda Martin
We all know it. Most of us are struggling with it. It is a force that compels us to postpone the scheduled tasks. It’s Jin of creativity and we all have it in itself. Procrastination is the behavior of putting off actions or tasks at a later time.
Disease of Information Era
It isn´t shown in the manual work so much. Here we have the immediate feedback, we see immediate progress. The problem is the knowledge work at computer (programming, writing essays, writing reports, etc.). Other activities and interruptions are one click away and the feedback is a problem.
Procrastination is not laziness
Slacker does not work purposefully. He just does not want to. Procrastinator wants to do the work, he has planned it. He might even enjoy it, but postponed it.
The fight between good and evil
In book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (author of the great historical war books), author called it resistance to creativity. I think it makes sense.
But what we can do? Here are my tips. (I am not the author, they are from site zenhabits.net etc.)
- We are not lazy, just we have fear of failure.
- We must change our mind. We have to outsmart ourselves.
- We sometimes think too much. It is better to simply start and push forward.
- Solid will is very misleading term. We must take advantage of motivation. Motivation is either positive (enthusiasm, the vision of rewards) or negative (non-threatening task). Positive motivation is better!
- We can trick our minds with small steps. “I do not want to programming, I just start the editor. I just run this test. I only write one line of code …”
- We can trick our minds with the vision of rewards. And we are enjoying a well deserved reward for completing a task.
- We have big nasty task split into manageable tasks that do not take more than 20 minutes.
- We can trick our minds with the vision of failure to overcome the fear of failure. “What if the program contains errors, which I had not noticed? Each program contains errors. And perhaps in this case is not about life, so what? Error will be reported later, and we will correct it.” That’s manageable, right? So let’s work
We know the enemy, we have guns and some kind of plan. Maybe it’s an endless war, but the chances of success are great. Look around you – there is so much great stuff. That does not arise by themselves, but by the work of people who put “resistance” on the ass. We can also do.
Good luck!
Posted on November 3rd, 2010 by Janda Martin
In honor of the 600th anniversary of the Prague Astronomical Clock to the people who visited the Old Town Square to watch an impressive video projection.
The technology used is called the video mapping. It is projection with a strong projectors on uneven surfaces.
The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.
Posted on November 1st, 2010 by Janda Martin
Today I am going to talk about the game, by which I spent a lot of time – Dune 2. The game was a great hit in 1992. It is also one of the games that defined the games genre “real-time strategy”.
Why is the game in the Hall of Fame?
- Dune 2 was inspired by a famous science fiction book, The Dune by Frank Herbert (who of you have not read it, I highly recommend!).
- At that time the game had excellent graphics and great animation.
- The main reason, however, was game mechanics and gameplay of Dune
- Spice mining, construction of buildings, creating of units and combat.
At the beginning of the game, the player choose one of the families – Atreides, the Harkonnen or Ordos. The game itself is made up of missions and the course is always the same: establish a base, mine of spice, construct buildings and defenses, build military units and defeat the enemy.
In retrospect, the game already has many shortcomings. Weaker AI and bugs in the game that is easy to ensure your victory. Nowadays players are probably quickly poisoned from need to click on each unit separately.
But the game was a hit and will forever remain a legend of computer games.
If you do not know the game, you can get an idea from the following video.
If you want play this great game and again kick ass evil Harkonens, I have great news for you – can play an open source remake of the game: Dune Legacy!
Dune Legacy uses graphics from the original game. It offers the possibility to select multiple units, use a larger screen resolution and multiplayer gaming via tcp / ip.
Your battle for Dune Begins … NOW!
Dune Legacy with larger screen resolution
Posted on October 27th, 2010 by Janda Martin
My friend, Jan Javorek, created a nice presentation for Finnish students, while he studied one semester there. I think it’s nice and entertaining summary of basic data about the Czech Republic.
Posted on October 20th, 2010 by Janda Martin
A friend of mine sent me a link to the gallery, where the author makes a parody of the famous photo by Lego. Interesting and fun idea, right?
Link is here: Classics in Lego
The unknown rebel
Lunch Atop a Skyscraper
Posted on October 19th, 2010 by Janda Martin
Today’s text is opening a series of articles about games from my childhood. Nowadays I do not have time for playing games, because of work and other hobbies. These articles are full of personal nostalgia. Let
me share the nostalgia with you. Today I’ll start with the game Pushover.
This game was released by Ocean in 1992 for PC with MS-DOS. I got the game in 1993. The game offered a very cute graphics and the sound through the PC speaker was good. The main character that is controled by you is the Ant that passes through the levels with increasing difficulty.
The goal of each level is to put all the cubes together. It sounds simple, but the higher levels are really tricky. There are several types of blocks with special properties.
And finally the best: we can now play Pushover again on Linux and Windows, thanks to Andreas Röver and Volker Grabsch.
Warning: The following video is also a guide for the first few levels.
Watch till the end and you will lose all the fun!
Links:
Posted on August 19th, 2010 by Janda Martin
Short, but very true words.
TIP: You can see Czech subtitles using the buttons view subtitles.
8 Words of success
1. Passion – Do it for love, not for money
2. Work – Nothing comes easily, work hard and have fun
3. Good – Be damn good at what you doing, practice, practice, practice
4. Focus – Focus on one thing
5. Push – Push yourself, push your shyness and your self doubt, even your mother can help
6. Serve – Serve other something of value
7. Ideas – Have a good Idea
8. Persist – You have to persist through failure or through CRAP:
- Criticism
- Rejection
- Assholes
- Pressure
Anything left? What is your key to success?
Posted on June 5th, 2010 by Janda Martin
In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the “Domestic Transformer.”
Posted on November 28th, 2009 by Janda Martin
Ubuntu is great distribution for normal users. One of the great features is easy install using Add / Remove app, which offers many programs. With this application you can browse the applications divided into categories (games, office, audio and video …). For each package you can see a brief description and popularity. Each program is compiled and configured specifically for your version of Ubuntu. All applications are physically located on the server of the Cannonical company repositories. When you choose to install, software manager download it to your PC and install it. It’s really easy to use.
Ubuntu software store - main screen
The team of programmers are now preparing a new software manager called Ubuntu Software Store, which adds some interesting features:
- Even better usability;
- Improved sorting software to multiple levels of categories;
- More information about programs (link to homepage, screen-shots, users ratings and comments);
- Sale of commercial software;
- And many more.
Yes, Ubuntu Software was inspired by the iTunes Store, Android Market, etc. I think it’s a good idea. Over 8 million users, Ubuntu is already an interesting target group for the commerce software maker and Ubuntu Software Store could be a great distribution and sales channel.
Ubuntu software store - detail of app
In the discussions you will find many people who are against: “Closed software in Linux distributions? No!”. But I think it’s a great way. I like open source OS. I can customize anything without fear of the license etc. With the programs it is different. Why do you not purchase high-quality graphics editor, if you need something better than the Gimp?
The reason why Linux on the desktop still takes only about 3% of desktop users is:
- great demands on the user’s knowledge,
- lack of commercial software for particular tasks,
- small number of games.
Thanks Ubuntu, paragraph 1 is no longer true. Really there is nothing to worry about. Then next time I will write articles about why and how to switch to Ubuntu. Point 2 and 3 could support the project just Ubuntu Software Store. Certainly, this is the way for more years. It’s a chance for the future of Linux on the desktop.