Email to Fax Services

Here are some Email to Fax services available in Australia:

• Faxem (link), prepaid

A time of significant events

Some say there is no coincidence. Well, whatever it is, then, this current period is marked by significant events in the lives of my friends in Australia and myself. Some of my friends are coming back from a period of living abroad. Some are getting married just this next week. Some are expecting a baby any day now.

For me, though, it is time to also step into a new phase, new territory, and new experiences. I have just received an invitation to join a team of developers in Europe, working for a large international organization. At many levels, this has a huge impact for me. It looks as if, by being engaged with them, I would be fullfilled at so many different levels. Active contribution to a better world, promotion of human rights and a world of freedom and justice, living at the heart of Europe among many medieval castles and palaces, and working at the cutting edge technologies, developing software, is simply too close to my dreams that I'm still having troubles comprehending that this is actually real. I am still scared that I will soon wake up to the sound of the clock and, instead of completing this post and celebrating within, will have to get up to a cold morning and get ready for work wondering where did that beautiful dream go. :)

Now it is, again, time to contemplate another move between continents, between different halves of the planet. Different climates, cultures, languages. Just starting to think about it makes me so excited that I can't wait to book the ticket and start packing. 

There is still more paperwork to be completed before I get further news. In the meantime, here is a photo of my new destination:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UN_City_Vienna.jpg

Davide Icke Tours Australia

David Icke (link) will be touring Australia this year in his The Lion Sleeps No More tour (link). The talk will span several hours. 

Lots of topics usually covered under "conspiracy theories" title. However, more and more of those are publicized now and those facts get accepted as natural just because nobody seems capable of doing anything about it. So, is there an effect in spreading these information? The falling tree in a forest question...

Human Resources

One more in series of sites that deal with conspiracy theories. Lots of interesting information to check out when the time is plentiful. (Hopefully that is soon)

http://www.truththeory.org/human-resources/

There is no Perfection

"There is no perfection. Just keep constantly pushing your own limits."

This is a thought that occured to me only minutes ago as I was beginning to read "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship". This seems to be an amazing book. Well, just the fact that it talks about quality seems to put it on the right track of being interesting to read. I assume that any book that talks about quality (think "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance") is a good book.

Just reading through to Introduction made me stop and think so many times. I guess the beauty of the whole Agile movement is that there *is* value and there *is* quality. It is not *all* about price and lower cost. Lower cost is a great idea but lower cost *must be within boundaries of quality*. It is not "lower cost", period. It is "lower cost for the same quality/delivery". And that is where many fail. 

One of the things that I am happy about, and that led me to the insight with which I started the post, is that we should always "keep our hands dirty". I often hear that people interview "architects" who don't code. (!!! wtf) I recently changed position from a Solutions Architect to a contract Software Developer because I was missing some "action". I wanted to do some real work because my role was being dragged towards Enterprise Architect role, being more political, away from coding and any real-world issues that software development solves. "Clean Code" book puts my feeling into words when I read 

Learning to write clean code is hard work. It requires more than just the knowledge of

principles and patterns. You must sweat over it.

This not only tells me I made a right decision but also that my senses are still doing OK. Working in environments that are not ideal is putting us to tests. It is an *opportunity*, not an obstacle, to practice what we preach. It is the way to demonstrate the best practices and continually learn how to do the best under different circumstances. Working in an ideal environment is probably not as much rewarding. Don't know, haven't worked in one yet. :)

And this also led me to conclude that there is no *best* or *perfect*. We are all little universes and there are many dimensions in which things can be evaluated/measured. The thing that works in practice is to continuously increase our boundaries and struggle to push our own limits. That is the path to quality. There is no end. It is a journey and journey is the only thing that matters.

United Nations Common System of Salaries, Allowance and Benefits

The text "United Nations Common System of Salaries, Allowance and Benefits", although potentially a bit outdated, explains lots of details regarding the topic at hand. There are numerous benefits to being an UN employee although conditions vary among posts and duty stations.

Read the article here.

Public Holidays Calendar

TimeAndDate.com has nice graphical views of the public holidays in different countries. Here is the one for Austria:

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?country=36

Internet - the magic mirror

Who, at some point, did not want to have a magic mirror from Alice in Wonderland? A mirror where one would ask a question - any question - and receive answers immediately. Come to think about it, today's Internet is just such a thing. Especially since Google replaced their Map & Reduce implementation with whatever new technology that indexes the pages in real time and spits out search results instantaneously. Just typing a question in Chrome browser will often give you results straight away.

Today's Internet, and all the technologies related to it, are in implementation of my childhood's dream of having an endless encyclopedia that has answers to all the questions. And, in practical terms, is something I wast most my time on. :) 

Thanks Google for making this happen. I really appreciate things like Earth (wish I had this when I was a kid. Wait, I still am one. OK, then), public data charts (like population chart or GDP chart), Maps, SkyMap, Android, and Gmail. Providing these technologies for free really has changed the world.

Excitement

Just when I thought it was long gone and lost somewhere, turned to ashes and what-not... A ray of light shines through. I guess it is almost epic and has been told so many times - that the opportunity strikes when you least expect it - but it is *always* interesting to experience the phenomenon. It is always different in practice but always has the same effect.

Anyway... Further development tonight.

Head-Fi

Head-Fi (http://www.head-fi.org/) is a community dedicated to head-gear (headphones, earphones and all kinds of other music-related equipment that involves a head, I guess). There's lots of news and reviews of products.

Another test of wireless headphones is available at the Choice magazine's review from year 2009.