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System.Reflection.2006So, seeing as this is the last day of 2006, and this will probably be the last post of 2006 I figured I need to do a quick reflection on the past year.
The year 2006 was probably the most eventful year so far for me, as was partly predicted on the new years reception I had at the start of the year: "2006 will be a year of changes, a year in which you will be able to realize a lot of your dreams" (of course this was a speech and not targeted to me directly, but alas!). A lot of things happened and a lot of things have changed.
Of course it started at the end of 2005, when I had an phone interview with George Joy, from the Messenger Server team. Then, at the beginning of 2006 I was invited over for personal interviews in Redmond. I couldn't believe it! After some paper work I was on the plane to the USA (my first trans-ocean flight) at the end of February.
Before the summer I also had a pretty large project for school. The mission: build a remotely controllable boat (bluetooth powered) with a ton of sensors and still the speed to win a race. It was probably the funnest thing I've done so far on college. We had a team of 8 or so guys, ranging from programmers to electricians to engineers for the actual physical boat. We went with a jet propulsion (it had never been attempted before!). Although we didn't win the race, we did win the price for the most original concept (-:
During that time I also heard I got the job, and during the summer I worked as an intern SDE (Software Development Engineer) with the Windows Live Messenger Server Team, in Redmond, WA, USA (obviously again after the necessary paper work, bah! :-p). As a kid I've always wanted to work for Microsoft, and I'm a complete Messenger nutter, so it was pretty much a dream come true. The whole experience was awesome, and I definitely want to thank everyone (Peter, Steve, Ken, Scott, George etc.) for giving me the chance. I definitely hope to repeat it next summer!
It may be worth mentioning that when I was in the US, it was "announced" by my sister that she and her boyfriend are having a kiddo, so I'm going to be uncle in the new year! Gosh, that sounds old. Uncle, and turning 20!
After I got back (over two weeks late, but ah well!) from the US I started my third year of college. The first half year of my third year involved another internship, this time in Amsterdam, with a company called Oberon Medialab (an ISV for Messenger robots). It's a great company to work at (but of course doesn't beat Microsoft ;-), and I have one month left now. Of course, being from the north of the Netherlands I had to move to Amsterdam.
Begin November I went to my first big conference, TechEd 2006 in Barcelona. Awesome weather, awesome food and drinks, and met a lot of awesome people (among them Danny Thorpe, from the Windows Live Platform team). Again a great experience, and hopefully I'll be able to repeat it sometime in the future (MIX '07, anyone? :-).
After I got back from work on November 6th, I found my place in Amsterdam to be pretty.. Empty. The TV, table, washer, dryer, etc. were all gone, and among the stuff my XBOX 360 (which I bought after I got back from the US). I went to the police, and low and behold, my "roommate" was arrested (for reasons still unknown) and they seized his stuff. Of course, they didn't know the XBOX was mine. After some month I finally got it back because it had to be approved by the prosecuter, and I was actually heard as a witness by the police prior to the release of my XBOX.
Of course having no proper place to live anymore (and not wanting to live there, god knows what my "roommate" did), I had to move. First I lived in my boss' place (who was in New Zealand for a month at the time) for a couple of weeks while looking for a new place. We finally found a new place, above a shop in the PC Hooftstraat, probably the most expensive shopping lane in the whole of the Netherlands (grin).
And how can I forget BOT2K3. "He" celebrated his third birthday last summer (August 1st), and after over a year of loyal service, we finally decided to kill off the 4.1 version. It was getting unstable, and the programming was getting messier by the day. At the moment we are in the progress of rewriting it from scratch in C#, along with it a fully fledged library which can do everything (except perhaps Audio and Video) Messenger can. BOT2K3 will return eventually, although we have not yet picked a release date (which is simply impossible at this moment).
To conclude, it was a great year, and I want to thank my friends and family for their support (I know I was consumed a bit too much with my hobby, appologies for that!), and everyone over in Redmond for the great time I had last summer. I hope each and everyone of you have a great 2007, and may all your dreams and hopes come true. Ideas for posts on Mess.beIn a couple of weeks Dwergs will go on a short holiday trip to some exotic destination (and he deserves it!). That means that all other posters (including me) at Mess.be will have to take over for a while. Of course we do not have all those contacts and resources Dwergs has (lucky bastard). That's why I'm asking you for some ideas I can post about on Mess.be! (note that some ideas might even be posted before he leaves or after he comes back, it depends on the relevancy, etc., of the subject).
Also, in general, if you want something to be highlighted on Mess.be but cannot reach Dwergs, feel free to drop me a message on Messenger, or send me an e-mail at siebe@bot2k3.net.
So if you have an idea, simply leave a comment with the subject, and additionally a link or two. Muchos gracias. Viva Piñata totally pwnsGo get an XBOX 360 and buy Viva Piñata. I'm hooked. Windows Live Messenger Content-Types are like PHPThere is no standard to name them, or something similar. If you make a list of all the (known) content types for Windows Live Messenger, for plain text messages, P2P messages, etc. you see that there is really no good naming convention. It seems that whichever team implemented the feature just came up with something new.
text/plain
Ok, this is a default MIME type application/x-ms-ink, image/gif
Why are there two types for Ink messages? Couldn't a second header "IsGif" solve this much more elegantly? text/x-mms-emoticon, text/x-mms-animemoticon
One of the first "new" content types. What does the "mms" stand for? text/x-msmsgscontrol
Old content type. Why no dash between the "msmsgs" and "control"? text/x-msnmsgr-datacast
New content type. Why the switch to "msnmsgr"? Why not use "mms"? application/x-msnmsgrp2p
One of the first new content types. Why is there no dash between "msnmsgr" and "p2p"? text/x-msmsgsinvite
See text/x-msmsgscontrol text/search-query Is this actually an existing MIME type? Or did they decide to kill the /x\-(mms|msnmsgr)\-?/ prefix all together? Should we rename BOT2K3?Here's a thought.
So we're going to rewrite BOT2K3. The Messenger library it is going to use is well under way, even though it will take some more time to finish it (you shouldn't expect it any time soon). Part of the rewrite are a lot of new ideas and experiments to see what a BOT can, and can't do. One of those ideas is adding a personality, much like other chat bots out there have (think Spleak, or Alice).
However, to add a personality we must define it first. With a name like "BOT2K3" that is hard -- BOT2K3 suggests something techy, not something one would want to talk to in their spare time for fun. Also, there will be no definitve answer about whether "BOT2K3" is a guy, or a girl (OK, we could decide what it is, but first time users won't know by looking at it's name).
So the question arises, should we rename it?
Personally I like the names Seth and Seti. Seth, in biblical terms, means "appointed one", and is often called the "forefather of mankind" (he was also the third son of Adam and Eve). Putting that into a bot context, we get a "forefather of messenger bots". Seti is perhaps more appropriate, as he was a son of Seth (Seti literally means "of Seth"). Both names, and especially Seth, are masculine, male names.
Other suggested names were Virgo and Virgil (no reason given why, other than they are "cool"). Suzy also came up, which is quite the opposite of Seth and Seti, a more "cute" name. Suzy is derived from "Susan" which means "Lily" (in Hebrew). Other names were Steven or Stephen (the first Christian martyr, perhaps not something we want to name a bot after).
Suggestions are welcome! :-) Spaceing for 2 yearsOh my! I totally forgot my "spaciversary" (yeah that's space and anniversary stuck to together)! I just visited my old Spaces blog, and I noticed that the first post ever made on it was on December 2nd, 2004. So that means I've been using Windows Live (/ MSN) Spaces for over 2 years to spread my random ramblings now.
Sweet.
Also, I don't remember it now, but that must make me one of the first spacers. In this press release by Microsoft it states that "MSN Spaces launched as a Beta service in December 2004". Also interesting how my first post on my old blog talks about MSN Messenger 7 and MSNP11. Has it been that long?
Time flies. New train schedule a pain in the behindEvery weekend or so I travel from Amsterdam to where my parents live, and vice versa on monday morning. It's usually a 2,5 hour trip. Two weeks ago it was mayhem on the Dutch railway tracks, and I spent at least 4,5 hours traveling around the country because whole stretches of railways became "locked down" because of a burning train somewhere. Bummer. All that was supposed to change, however, with the new schedule they made up and introduced last weekend. The PR people said there were going to be more trains, more people to help travelers, and better connections. Bullshit. PR is PR, and as usual they try to make things look as good as possible. Also, "more people" usually just means more people on the stations telling you "I don't know what's going on either, perhaps you should ask someone else?". In the news everything was reported "as usual" as well. Well there's the catch, isn't it. Things shouldn't be as usual. With the new material and people things should be better than usual. Furthemore, only the Randstad (the four major cities of the Netherlands, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht), got an improved schedule. Pretty much all connections to the rest of the country (and to the north, where I have to go, in particular) it didn't get any better, perhaps even worse. I now have to leave 10 minutes earlier, and it takes 30 minutes longer to get back to Amsterdam (or vice versa, for that matter)! There is also no more train which goes directly to Leeuwarden from Amsterdam anymore, so now I always have to switch at least once per trip, which sucks when traveling with a bag full of clothing. Also, this morning was a typical NS (Dutch railways) morning. The train arrived late in Amersfoort, with roughly a 10 minute delay. By then I had missed my connection and any chance to be at work in time. The next official train would be arriving 20 minutes later! I've been late before, but then I only had to wait 5 minutes! Of course the lady who was appointed to take care of it told us she "didn't know what was going on either" (as predicted). Luck was on my side however, as the another train heading for Amsterdam had a 10 minute delay as well and arrived in half the time. The staff in that train were majorly pissed however, which resulted in some rather comical debates between one or two passengers and the staff about the new schedules. I arrived in Amsterdam at 10 am, more than half an hour late. Joys. The only thing good that happened this morning were the new trains from Harlingen Havens to Leeuwarden. They rock.. and extra bonus points for the PR of Arriva who were handing out free breakfast boxes. Perhaps it was a pre-emptive strike against the annoyances yet to come ... Go see Casino RoyaleIt must be one of the best James Bond movies, ever. Weird problem with alarm clockHmm. I have a very weird problem with my alarm clock.
I woke up last night and checked the time. It read "15:.." (3PM, I don't remember the exact nr. of minutes). I was like "what the.. I couldn't have slept that long!". So I checked the time on my phone which was lying next to my clock, and indeed, it was only 3 AM. So I set the time on my clock and went back to sleep.
I woke up again a couple of hours later, and again checked the time on my alarm clock. Now it read 19:.. (7PM). I seriously thought I was going crazy. I checked my phone again, and found it to be roughly 6:30 AM. It had just skipped some 12 hours plus the additional hours I was asleep. I set the new time again and went back to sleep.
The weird thing is, I was pretty much awake between 7AM and 8AM, and the clock didn't run any faster or slower than usual, and it was still running fine when I woke up later that morning around 9AM.. and it can't be a power outage because then the display would flicker until a new time is set.
So, to conclude, there can be several things wrong:
I wonder which of those it is ... Are you a geek?From LittleGamers:
You know how people always call you a geek, and you think to yourself "Am I really a geek? Do I spend too much time online?". Well, we at LittleGamers have a fail-safe method of figuring that out ... If you know the following quote, then sorry, you're a geek. If you laugh at it, you'll probably never unzip your pants for anything besides taking a dump.
"Oh I like that baby, I put on my robe and wizard hat".
In all honesty, did you recognize it?
And I laughed. Frisian is not a dialect!I was born and raised, and except for the temporary housing in Amsterdam and Redmond, I still live in Friesland. Friesland is one of the northern provinces of the Netherlands with distinct customs and language. That's right, we got our own language, called Frisian.
Sometimes an article or something similar pops up saying that Frisian is not a language, but it is in fact a dialect of Dutch. I have even read an article saying that Frisian is "a dialect of Dutch which spells out things more phonetically". This is not true. Frisian is a language, you uninformed clods!
It is not on the same branch of languages
Frisian is a direct descendend of Ingvaeonic, and can be divided into three sub-languages, West, East and North (Frisian is spoken throughout northern Europe). Dutch however, is a descendend of Low Franconian, and Middle Dutch. You can see the whole tree right here. Also, Frisian is the one language that is most similar to old English. For example, we spell "cheese" as "tsiis", but pronounciation is exactly the same. There's also "knift" for "knife", "bûter" and "butter", "brea" and "bread", etc.
"There are more people in Amsterdam speaking Turkish, than there are Frisians speaking Frisian in Leeuwarden"
(Leeuwarden is the province capital of Friesland)
So? Numbers don't matter. There are languages out there who have 10% the number of native speakers Frisian has, and they are still a language. Plus, comparing to Leeuwarden is possibly the worst example one could give. It is well known that Leeuwarden has one of the highest concentration of anti-Frisian citizens of Friesland.
"They are incomprehensible"
Also, people from other provinces often "complain" about us Frisians. They depict a people who are "too stubborn, refuse to speak Dutch, and when we do we blurt out something that is incomprehensible". Another big fat lie. The majority (heck, if not all) Frisians can speak and write Dutch just fine. Furthermore, when we do speak Dutch our pronounciation is just fine. Sure, there might be a bit of an accent, but that's to be expected.
In fact, I could argue that people from other regions, such as Drente, Limburg, etc. have a far worse pronounciation (I can't make heads or tails from most of what they say!). It's them who need a course on how to speak Dutch, not the Frisians.
Signed,
A proud Frisian guy. Why is there no easy way to see drafts in Windows Live Spaces?The concept of drafts is cool.
I can write something, save it and continue on it later and then sometime in the future make it public on my blog. However, I've noticed after making several short drafts that there is no easy way to find drafts! They are simply shown in the same list as publically visible blog posts, and for as far as I'm aware there is no option to "show only my drafts" or "filter my drafts".
This is annoying. Now I have to click through several pages of posts to find that one draft I wrote a couple of months ago. Ugh. The Police (part 4): XBOX back, movedLast thursday (as promised) I received a phone call from the police. They had arranged for me to pick up my XBOX 360, finally! I headed over to the police station that evening. Of course, after receiving it from the grumpy old fellow helping me I checked if everything was in the box.. And what do you know, the main video cable was missing. Luckily they had all of that near by, so it didn't take very long for them to fetch it for me.
Either way, I took it to my parents place this weekend, and installed it there. There is basically no reason for me to keep it here in Amsterdam, seeing as I don't have a good TV (I hardly watch TV, besides, I'm not buying a new one for a mere 2 months). Me and my mum have been playing some racing games and some Live Arcade games on it. Wicked. Now to get my hands on Viva Piñata.
Ah yes, and I moved again. I was using my boss' place for some 2 weeks, but I've finally moved to a new place in the P.C. Hooftstraat in Amsterdam.. Which is one of the (if not the) most expensive shopping streets in the Netherlands. Wee! |
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