tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68116072012-02-01T08:18:29.252+02:00I studied computer science, so now I apply it everywhere, even to this blog.Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.comBlogger2451100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-58176106316161143982012-01-21T21:39:00.001+02:002012-01-23T16:00:03.655+02:00

Since Santa already granted my wish and I already got my tickets for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert in Bucharest, I have one more wish for the organizers of this concert: to open it with a performance of Zdob si Zdub, which is probably the best alternative rock band in Romania (they are actually from Basarabia aka Republic of Moldovia) in the last 20 years. I know they opened the RHCP concert

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-42902758414539479592012-01-02T23:15:00.002+02:002012-01-04T09:27:35.850+02:00

Every year I try to watch the New Year Concert of Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, which is a unique type of celebration of the new year, classical music and even more. The concert has many waltzes and polkas mainly from Strauss family of composers, but what stays the same is the ending with the An der schönen blauen Donau waltz and Radetzky March. Well, Danube is a very special river, at least for

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-26793980107294586002011-12-27T15:00:00.000+02:002011-12-28T13:19:03.288+02:00

The book of the year award has a different meaning this time and goes to my Kindle device which I started using a few month ago and which promises to greatly reduce the physical size of my library. They made a good job at making the e-book readable in almost any kind of light, at it's very nice to be able to have a library in your pocket at any time. The first books I read on my Kindle were some

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-13435904157117094502011-12-22T22:51:00.000+02:002011-12-28T13:19:50.407+02:00

Today we celebrate 22 years since the fall of communism in Romania. Here is a satirical song from that period about how you could see cheese only at TV, but not in the stores. I know it seems incredible and every time I told this kind of stories to people from western Europe or U.S. they shake their head in disbelief, but those were the times we lived. Let's remember once again, cause you know

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-25697314808791174522011-12-16T19:01:00.000+02:002011-12-28T13:19:26.487+02:00

The post about hug a developer today was by far the most visited entry on this blog ever, so I think it's about time to push it to the next level. In these dire financial times, but at a moment when holidays are approaching, what better option do you have than to invest in a software developer? Because according to the well respected business magazine Forbes: "The one absolutely solid place to

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-17909207463041773022011-12-12T10:48:00.001+02:002011-12-13T23:15:19.721+02:00

It looks like we are in the cover season, bands are producing more of them and in the last year every concert I attended contained at least a cover performance. Omul cu Sobolani even released an LP containing only covers called Retro. So here are two more covers (the first one from this band is here) from this LP. One of Alexandru Adries, Cea mai frumoasa zi (The most beautiful day):  The

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-18010957607001826182011-11-29T09:07:00.001+02:002011-11-29T09:40:57.314+02:00

"The Bad Girl", or "Travesuras de la niña mala" is an unusual novel from Mario Vargas Llosa. The action takes place mostly in Europe, there is only one narrative thread, but above all, it is a love story that follows the entire life of the heroes (including the good boy half). The storytelling style remains the same though, so I submerged like always into the sea of words of Llosa even if I

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-1927375040807747112011-11-21T22:30:00.001+02:002011-11-21T22:34:52.348+02:00

An outstanding music video featuring one of the greatest Romanian actors, Victor Rebengiuc: and the story of this video: Romania care este cu Tudor Chirila si Victor Rebengiuc pe apropotv.protv.ro

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-65983964002023647132011-11-18T09:15:00.001+02:002011-11-18T09:26:29.890+02:00

Last week somebody asked at the online office hours for the AI class I'm taking this fall (a great class by the way) about other AI books that we should read apart from the textbook of the current class (Artificial Intelligence - A Modern Approach). The answer from Peter Norvig was to point to his public list of books from Google Books. So if you ever need some good references of all kind of AI

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-91309034446150473412011-11-14T17:08:00.000+02:002011-11-15T18:52:28.088+02:00

I can here it, the winter is coming, I even have to play tennis in a big balloon nowadays. This song was recommended by Roger Federer on his Facebook page, apparently he is friend with one of the members of the band. He actually flew back to Switzerland immediately after winning the Paris masters trophy to catch a part of their concert.

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-47494896568274131752011-11-09T09:38:00.000+02:002011-11-09T09:38:04.230+02:00

Since the quality of Romanian television programs it's so pour and there are no important sport events in this period, I watch mostly international TV stations in the limited time that I turn on the TV. Here the advertisement mix is different, as they don't try to sell you prepaid mobile phones and meat spreads (aka pate) on CNN International, but you can still find some nice music though. Here

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-23529201825031950532011-10-25T09:09:00.000+03:002011-10-25T09:09:16.662+03:00

Cover power is show on VH1 that plays the original version of a song and then a cover of it. Sometimes a cover is decent, sometimes is lame and rarely is very good. But what I discovered a few days ago starting from a song I heard on the radio is totally unexpected: two different covers of a song from a different league. Here it is the original style (I couldn't find the actual original which I

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-28412364296159424452011-10-22T13:24:00.000+03:002011-10-22T13:24:14.717+03:00

Ok, I know that physics, computer science, economics are hard to digest even in blog posts, so I will postpone the post I planned to write today about mathematics in the economics science. I will also skip the analysis of the depressing theater play Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? that I saw recently (it's a nice performance the one at Comedy Theater though, don't miss it if you are in Bucharest)

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-69985534140923636772011-10-21T03:17:00.000+03:002011-10-21T03:17:17.066+03:00

For the fall semester I enrolled in an online class of artificial intelligence taught in parallel with the live class offered at Stanford University. I have about 170.000 classmates and some 46.000 of them are even doing homework and taking exams. So far it's fine, as they don't just put online video recordings of the live class, but prepare special videos and quizzes in an effort to make it

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-82345232799659998542011-10-15T00:57:00.000+03:002011-10-15T00:57:52.382+03:00

In my opinion, consumerism is one of the main factors which took us in the double crisis where we stand today: economical and environmental. Did you ever hear about a company which told you that you should buy their stuff only if you really need it?! And that takes a pledge to design and manufacture their products so that they last for a long time (as opposed to those who design products so that

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-91732675962703994372011-10-14T10:34:00.000+03:002011-10-14T10:34:20.941+03:00

Mi-a povestit ieri un coleg ca a auzit urmatorul concurs la Radio Zu. Cat fac zero impartit la trei? Primul ascultator: zero B&M: gresit Al doilea ascultator: zero B&M: gresit Al treilea ascultator: aceasta operatie e imposibil de facut! B&M: corect, ai castigat! Intr-adevar, zero nu se poate imparti la trei... prosti :)

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-80123700230522475112011-10-10T23:21:00.001+03:002011-10-10T23:21:11.084+03:00

Ca tot am vorbit in postarea anterioare de publicitate si cover-uri, iata un altfel de cover pe care l-am vazut recent la turneul de tenis Bucuresti Open: Macar asta e ceva mai distractiv fata de "maximienii" cu care ne toaca Vodafone de luni si luni de zile. Aveti aici si originalul pentru comparatie si aducere aminte: Nu ca m-am intersectat eu prea mult cu maestrul Toma (pot sa spun ca am

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-5961532004486877062011-10-09T23:38:00.000+03:002011-10-09T23:40:40.351+03:00

Movie trailers are just another type of advertising. Here's a nice one that I saw today, with an incredible cover of Immigrant Song of Led Zeppelin. I thought first that this was a teaser for the next Bond, since Daniel Craig is starring, but in the end it's another movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo: P.S. Even with a good advertising, I won't necessarily buy the product, let's see the IMDB

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-36654675561551341712011-10-06T10:18:00.000+03:002011-10-06T12:29:35.320+03:00

What can be beautiful in can of silicon and wires and which also usually contains lots of bugs? Knuth entitled his famous books "The Art of Computer Programming" because he considered that computer programming cannot be considered yet a science, but it's rather a craftsmanship. All software licensees have a part where it is stated that the particular software is not "fit for a particular purpose"

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-63715247799561518322011-10-04T01:01:00.000+03:002011-10-04T09:00:00.136+03:00

Although I participated in physics contests in secondary school, I was not really into it until I started high-school where, at physics, Mr. Bararu was the best professor I ever had. He was funny, but also inspiring and his teaching methods (e.g. open books exams, grading by the Gaussian curve) were revolutionary at that time. He tried hard to lure us into physics, as there was already a

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-70728999315995791472011-10-01T10:47:00.001+03:002011-10-01T10:48:15.394+03:00

Blogger changed its interface and templates and when I tried to migrate I lost some of the settings I had on the old one, so I decided to use a new template. The new one it's a tribute to the good old days when we did computer science on paper. You just had to think carefully on the algorithm, write it down on paper, run it in your head again and then eventually get your turn to work on a

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-40433184242273752552011-09-27T23:54:00.000+03:002011-10-01T10:48:32.524+03:00

...ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines, flexibility to changing priorities, be able to learn new technologies (like every other month), ability to express ideas in technical and non-technical terms, most unpaid overtime than almost any other profession... Pouvre, pouvre developers :)

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-8685844358097550632011-09-27T02:38:00.000+03:002011-09-27T02:38:55.273+03:00

I wrote a while ago here about a paper with various proposals to put a cost on CO2 emissions and how I like the idea of a carbon added tax. This evening I read the first complete endorsement of a carbon tax in The Economist. The blog post dismantles various arguments against such a tax and explains the incentives it will bring about. It's worth reading it on Free Exchange. So if most economists

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-29949311172226639352011-09-23T14:47:00.000+03:002011-09-23T14:47:44.212+03:00

Apparently, not only that God plays dices (in the game called quantum mechanics), but he is also speeding. In an experiment performed at CERN it appears that neutrinos travel at a speed greater that the speed of light which is the theoretical ultimate speed limit postulated by Einstein in his relativity theory. The results are still up for review, the researchers say they want to eliminate every

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-25070829895134031212011-09-12T09:51:00.000+03:002011-09-12T09:51:30.883+03:00

Midnight in Paris is a magic movie about a magic city. Of all the cities I visited, I remember Paris as having the best atmosphere on its streets. Summer is not terribly hot, winter is not very harsh, so the coffee shops are always there, everywhere, inviting you to sit and relax, and watch the time passing by. That probably attracted all those artists in the early 20th century, cause they were

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-7892215965522823292011-09-03T17:16:00.002+03:002011-09-05T16:07:23.949+03:00

Eram la vanatoare de melodii si asta m-a sedus :)

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-79681976815108871122011-08-23T23:50:00.000+03:002011-08-23T23:50:50.028+03:00

This story goes back to the years when I studied at UMD. One day one of my housemates passed by the open door of my room and saw me laying in bed and staring at the ceiling. He asked me if I'm ok cause he felt I had a strange look fixing that wall. In fact I was doing my homework for advanced algorithms class, but he found it hard to believe that this was a proper way of doing a homework. Staring

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-21732179348356524022011-08-15T19:40:00.000+03:002011-08-15T19:40:29.056+03:00

In a recent interview Nouriel Roubini (also known as the prophet of the crisis) said that capitalism could auto-destroy itself when too much capital accumulation takes place and the agregate demand becomes in turn very weak. The original declaration can be seen here: First I'd like to note that in general any system involving human beings can self-destroy by simply commiting suicide. If

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-78672738676500208812011-08-03T10:21:00.000+03:002011-08-03T10:21:58.983+03:00

I bought this book (the original title is "Stories of Your Life: And Others") a few weeks ago because I liked its name with mathematical connotations and I read on the back cover that two of the stories were awarded Nebula Award (it's like an Oscar for SciFi literature). The interesting fact is that this is the whole opera of this author so far (two awards out of eight stories is an impressive

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-71634034005939529062011-07-24T12:48:00.002+03:002011-07-24T12:48:37.799+03:00

"I don't ever wanna drink again, I just need a fried", so sad she didn't find one...

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-37132715684277003672011-07-18T23:50:00.001+03:002011-07-18T23:55:10.971+03:00

Australian government proposed a carbon tax that will be paid by all companies emitting CO2. If this will be devised this kind of tax has the potential to drive a "green" behaviour from all sides, since a reduction of VAT is also proposed in order to offset the total amount of collected taxes. For example, let's say a KW of energy costs 10 dollars, the VAT will be reduced by 1 dollar, but the

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-49653768527422037992011-07-12T09:33:00.003+03:002011-07-14T08:28:31.466+03:00

I'm reading "Funky Business" a book written around 2000 that tries to describe the new business model that will take over all of us as the use of technology continues to rise. I have some mixed feelings about this book: on one hand I totally agree with their vision of empowered individuals that will challenge more and more all sorts of institutions of our society. The description of internet use

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-17112804226380743292011-07-11T17:46:00.000+03:002011-10-01T10:49:18.925+03:00

If you ever got bored while studying sorting algorithms, this is a fun way to do it: Now in order to evaluate complexity you need to see how tired the dancers are in the worst case scenario :)

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-45560118582102024192011-06-29T09:59:00.001+03:002011-07-01T13:51:15.983+03:00

I have few memories with my grandfather from my father's side, as he died when I was 8 years old, but one I remember clear is when he took me and my cousin to plant a walnut tree in front of his house. Years after, in the freedom induced madness from Romania people starting cutting down the trees in the streets. I don't know the exact reason, maybe they were making room for parking their cars, or

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-39460474475003318502011-06-13T22:41:00.000+03:002011-06-13T22:41:53.786+03:00

This time it was the other way around: I heard a very nice song (see below) on the radio that sounded so familiar that made me think I heard it before somewhere else. One of the obvious places to look for was in the latest Orange commercials. While searching on YouTube for the commercials from this year I discovered that these guys finally decided to create an YouTube channel (Orange Romania)

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-88011426009730900082011-05-31T23:27:00.000+03:002011-05-31T23:27:12.308+03:00

Music was part of my life from the very beginning. I grew up in Mangalia and our apartment was right next to the first restaurants and hotels from Saturn resort. So all the summer you would here the music from the restaurant across the street. I was so used to it, that I couldn't fall asleep without that music. My mom told me that I woke up one night after the restaurant closed and I was very

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-19466457875506491732011-05-17T00:31:00.000+03:002011-05-17T00:31:53.810+03:00

We now for some time what androids may dream of electric sheep from Philip K. Dick, but did you ever know what physicists dream about? Well, at least the ones specializing in particle physics (like Steven Weinberg) apparently dream of a final theory that will explain all that happens in our universe. He tells a history of the theories in physics (and also in natural sciences like chemistry and

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-69072638434150901502011-05-10T00:01:00.000+03:002011-05-10T00:01:14.893+03:00

According to Webster an economic cartel is "a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices". Usually a group of companies conspire to have higher prices on their products (like the recent case of detergent market in E.U., or the infamous notarial price lists from Romania) or to deter other parts to enter their market (what Vodafone

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-82033591556152479752011-05-06T09:04:00.001+03:002011-05-06T09:17:51.907+03:00

I recently listened a cover of a nice Romanian classic rock song, here it is: I wonder is the mouse, the cat, the dog, the wolf and the hunter and the man with rats read the same book, or all of them are that scary? I would say the book I read now is rather fascinating than scary, but that's for another story. However, for those who find alternative rock scary there is also the original

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-23011673986558892302011-04-27T11:02:00.000+03:002011-10-04T11:37:32.622+03:00

I first heard about autism in a computer science class, Computer Processing of Pictorial Information, that I took at UMD. It's true that the professor, Yiannis Aloimonos, was quite unconventional and was telling us lots of stories about human and computer vision, and left us to decipher the equations used there by ourselves. One of his main ideas was that in order to make progress in computer

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-34224894200213833412011-04-02T12:31:00.000+03:002011-04-02T12:31:29.791+03:00

Semantic web is basically the idea of adding some meta-information (usually tags) to the information presented on the web in order to facilitate automatic processing by hinting the computers about what that information is about. For example, the labels that I try to put to my posts that you can see of the left hand side of this blog. The big problem with this approach is the effort needed to tag

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-56784658257726652772011-03-23T19:52:00.000+02:002011-03-23T19:52:46.872+02:00

A colleague hit a problem yesterday while testing in isolation a SCA (Service Component Architecture) component. He was trying to call WSDL method from a Java SCA component using a SCA reference. In this case you actually obtain an implementation of a generic interface com.ibm.websphere.sca.Service, and on this interface you have to use a generic invoke that looks like this: java.lang.Object

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-6231279460422707602011-03-20T23:34:00.001+02:002011-03-20T23:38:09.969+02:00

I'm watching the men's final at Indian Wells masters series tournament between Nadal and Djokovic. After a disputed point the TV camera turned to a cheering spectator, Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, who happens to be the owner of the tournament since a few years ago. Is this some business intelligence in a relational database or something? :) P.S. Vamos Rafa!

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-66598808298912541912011-03-20T01:25:00.000+02:002011-03-20T01:25:46.375+02:00

First it's the song of a band heard by chance on TV tonight. I looked them up on the net and here they are, TiPtiL (the case is strange even for a Java programmer :), I use camel case usually, so I would write tipTil for a variable) with a jazzy alternative rock that in a song ("Spune-mi!") reminds me even of Alexandru Andries. And two female voices that complement each other very nice in some

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-86430249174950914362011-02-27T00:17:00.000+02:002011-02-27T00:17:11.795+02:00

On last Sunday I went to the second day of AI-MAS Winter Olympics conference that took place at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. The main event on this day was a presentation of the machine learning algorithm that it used for implementing Priority Inbox feature in GMail. They basically use a neural network standard algorithm, but the challenge is keeping a separate model (which might have

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-85373490687869257732011-02-19T13:05:00.000+02:002011-02-19T13:05:47.596+02:00

During my years in the DC suburbs at University of Maryland I went one day with another Romanian fellow to the National Galery of Art. We knew they have some pieces of Brâncuşi there, but after a tour of the galery we didn't see them, so we went to the information desk and asked where to find the sculptures of Brâncuşi. The guy was puzzled, he told us he never heard about this sculptor. Now it

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-29367340129653730602011-02-01T17:56:00.002+02:002011-02-02T11:15:08.394+02:00

Ultima carte a lui Mircea Cartarescu, "Frumoasele Straine (sau cum am fost un autor de duzina)" e un colaj de povestiri din viata de scriitor roman a domnului Cartarescu. Nu are formatul unui jurnal, ci mai degraba a rememorarii unor evenimente (calatorii in special) cu largi divagatii pe cele mai traznite teme. Ceva a la Creanga, dar centrat pe aventurile scriitorului care este pus fata in fata

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-11218294131318585982010-12-31T13:25:00.000+02:002010-12-31T13:25:53.170+02:00

Since I didn't blog about it when I read it during my summer vacation I introduce this book in the special section book of the year: "Plato and Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes" by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. This is a hilarious book that present the most important philosophic concepts and schools and illustrates them using jokes. It also makes one think of

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-26828029013871933372010-12-30T15:02:00.001+02:002010-12-30T15:59:02.005+02:00

It's 1974, the year when Ceausescu grabbed all the executive powers in Romania by proclaiming himself ("being elected") chief of the state (until then he was just the chief of the communist party). A high-school student (Stelian Mihalas) wanted to protest against this and distributed a questionnaire among his classmates asking who would they choose for president and about how the country was run

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-33970974249738209302010-11-22T15:28:00.000+02:002010-11-22T15:28:36.516+02:00

You may know that most of the cats do not like very much water, except when they drink it. So they developed an original way of drinking water, much different for the one of dogs for example, in order to minimize the splash that might land on their fur. This involves the use of superficial tension force on the liquid surfaces. As the researcher (Roman Stocker from MIT) that produced this study

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-62900215198332298492010-10-24T23:13:00.002+03:002010-10-24T23:15:46.862+03:00

Bucharest was badly damaged during the communist era. Entire neighbourhoods were demolished to make room for working class apartment buildings and the likes of "House of the People". Unfortunately this trend continued after the revolution, so high office buildings were built in house areas, next to beautiful churches. Houses classified as monuments (and thus forbidden to be demolished) are left

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-40227050684466801292010-10-10T12:37:00.001+03:002010-10-10T12:38:40.624+03:00

After Paloma Faith and Mika, Orange produced a new advertisement having a very nice background song, from The Ting Tings this time: Since I have very low expectations from a mobile operator at this point (just a phone with long battery life, a universal charger (sic!) and a reasonable candy-bar design + some national minutes) I would switch from Vodafone to Orange if they promise me (in

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-7733921831824839872010-10-08T22:56:00.001+03:002010-10-10T12:39:10.663+03:00

It all started somewhere in high-school. I didn't read much at that time: I remember the Romanian language teacher asked us in the first class in ninth grade who is our favourite writer and most of us were completely puzzled, choosing in the end between Jules Vernes and Alexandre Dumas. Then a colleague passed me the Sven Hassle series and then I discovered the SF series of Asimov and Dune. But

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-59885983452950873992010-07-31T18:46:00.000+03:002010-07-31T18:46:46.020+03:00

Last week I saw Mika live at Orange Summer Party 2010 on a beach in Mamaia. Mika has a very good voice and I actually bought his first LP after liking the first three released songs, but I didn't imagine he is also such a show man. The concert was great, he connected all the time with the public and he also spoke a lot in Romanian. See below Rain live in Mamaia 2010:

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-15460040925852386412010-07-19T03:09:00.002+03:002010-08-01T13:20:21.301+03:00

Since the crisis is still here (now with the sovereign debt flavor) and nobody declared it unconstitutional yet, Romanians discovered a new domain where everybody has an opinion after football and politics: the tax system and budget deficit. So here are my two cents on this issue. The budget deficit can be reduced in two ways: by increasing the income, or by decreasing the spending. In order to

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-80134771732613602952010-07-01T14:21:00.000+03:002010-07-01T14:21:01.504+03:00

I remember I was in the eight grade when I was asked by an older friend: are you a rapper, a rocker or a depecher (yes, Depeche Mode was a distinct category at that time). I didn't know what to answer at that time, but only a couple of months later (I was already in high school) a colleague gave me the tape with the brand new Metallica LP, Metallica 91. This was the start of my "rocker career".

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-82624129622531741662010-06-23T15:29:00.000+03:002010-06-23T15:29:55.625+03:00

Commercial always try to draw your attention, to make you remember them and it's often the music from a commercial that accomplishes that. Sometimes the song is so good, that it can reach the radio's play-lists. This is what happened with Supergirl from Reamon in 2004 after a commercial for Connex (Vodafone). Or it can become a ring tone on my mobile like Brother Lee from this commercial for

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-4748564235170674472010-06-07T22:04:00.000+03:002010-06-07T22:04:18.352+03:00

Under this title there is a very entertaining book about the questions for undergraduate admission at Oxford and Cambridge universities. They are much more than simply reproducing facts and formulas from a manual. They test your combined imagination, logic and knowledge. Not to mention that you have to improvise an answer on the spot. As Pablo Picasso's quote: "Computers are useless,they can only

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-35451758332076173172010-05-26T21:58:00.000+03:002010-05-26T21:58:40.402+03:00

I must admit my relative ignorance about AC/DC until now. I knew just a few of their songs and I never listen an entire album of them. But the AC/DC concert in Bucharest really rocked. Great songs, great show, a wonderful performance. Get a taste of it here: P.S. My rock culture is centered around Led Zeppelin, so I couldn't help to notice that Back in Black somehow resembles The Ocean.

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-33650955394650407172010-05-03T02:09:00.001+03:002010-05-03T02:17:27.379+03:00

The other radio that I listen to is Radio Guerilla and I noticed a while ago that they have a tendency to promote British music. And I like it, even if it's pop or (indie) rock, Britain is still producing some quality music. Here are three samples from this year: If the first song sounds familiar, I reversed engineered it from this commercial: ...meaning that I got so hooked on it that

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-3048723050940506422010-04-26T19:52:00.001+03:002010-04-26T19:55:33.233+03:00

Yes, it's a new book and I almost finished it. I read it for a certification exam, after that I'll return to some more novels. It's not entirely new to me since I work with EJB 3.0 for one year and a half now. It's good important concepts like ORM, dependency injection and AOP are becoming part of the official JEE specification, it's bad it took them so long to react. These concepts are de facto

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-37778333986188277472010-03-31T01:26:00.002+03:002010-03-31T10:15:52.033+03:00

It seems that Dan Brown wasn't original even with his plot idea: following an ancient church secret by taking your characters in a quest around Europe. The Last Cato by Matilde Asensi, which was written before "The DaVinci Code", takes the reader into a quest to discover the "earthly paradise" as described by Dante in his "Divine Comedy". This is the initiation process to become a member of a

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-76255911271500795662010-03-30T04:06:00.001+03:002010-03-30T04:07:44.023+03:00

An education is the social movie of this year. It tells the story of a girl who is seduced out of school and into the easy life of her playboy lover. In the end she returns to the school kind of education. Nevertheless, it is worth questioning the traditional education ans seeking ways of improving it. Probably the worst part about going to school is when it is not fun. Well, the breaks might be

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-66092000403448124172010-03-29T01:07:00.000+03:002010-03-29T01:07:25.614+03:00

This year even more cities, countries and ordinary people participated at the Earth Hour event. Year after year we become more and more dependent on electricity. This year I turned off everything in the house except for the fridge. I also didn't cheated by using the laptop or mobile phone which run on batteries. A counter movement called Edison Hour (see details here) was started in order to

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-67052383985001192482010-03-10T20:54:00.000+02:002010-03-10T20:54:37.366+02:00

... and send me far, far away...

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-5542526227009214962010-01-16T19:48:00.000+02:002010-01-16T19:48:22.245+02:00

I finished reading "The land of green plums" ("Animalul inimii" in Romanian) by Herta Muller. It's a somber book where the meaning of the universe disintegrates under the weight of the secret police and the communist party. The humanity is squeezed out of people until they commit suicide or leave the country. But many of those who try to leave also die in fact cause borders were like a prison

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-70737759396669558762010-01-08T18:43:00.001+02:002010-01-09T13:51:31.125+02:00

While in high school I used to go about once a month to some jazz lessons. I was not passionate about jazz, but some of my friends were, so we all were attending the concerts of Harry Tavitian and Corneliu Stroe. Harry was literally jumping on the piano keyboard at moments, he was just a little man, but so alive. It all came back when I went to the last concert of "Teach me tonight" series. This

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-83169560993895998282009-12-19T01:18:00.001+02:002009-12-19T14:33:41.151+02:00

In a top of scientific discoveries of 2009 the discovery of a human-like fossil was name the science breakthrough of the year. This is a long debate and one of the arguments of non-believers in the theory of evolution: the fact that there are no species between monkeys and humans and the gap between them is too big to be explained by evolution. The scientists were looking for years for this type

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-85375004741712825322009-12-19T01:08:00.000+02:002009-12-19T01:08:38.985+02:00

I just finish reading a new book, Super-freakonomics. It is written by an economist who deviates from the mainstream themes of economics and applies the "economic method" to various other domains from prostitutes to terrorists. In fact this is a sequel, in the first book he was also writing about drug dealers. There is also a chapter about global warming and geo-engineering as a possible solution

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-47154481121008614812009-12-10T18:08:00.002+02:002010-05-08T12:24:31.622+03:00

Costi Rogozanu. Out of the blogs I read during the presidential election campaign I consider the one of Costi the most objective (detached from either contending part) and with good humor. Other contenders: Teodor Tita Alin Fumurescu Doc@Hotnews Tolo I hope that more and more people will practice critical thinking relative to what happens in our society. And maybe this type of ideas will rule

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-43449502985027449452009-11-27T21:16:00.001+02:002009-11-27T21:18:34.108+02:00

There is an election coming in Romania and the winner is uncertain yet. The electoral campaign was an hysterical one with accusations flying around and a lot of negative campaigning. I made up my mind a long time ago (I will vote again for the current president Traian Basescu), but I cannot stop wondering: where is our mind? Why is everybody hitting at their opponents, why can't they debate on

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-37861949243080032912009-11-02T16:50:00.000+02:002009-11-02T16:50:16.767+02:00

I don't like the way Patriciu made his fortune and his political actions, but I do appreciate that he is using some of his money to sponsor education related projects. One of these projects is the prizes for excellence in education that are offered each year. Last week the awards for this year were announced and I was glad to find out that Mihai Dimian, one of my friends from University of

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-9766007766359138942009-10-30T09:26:00.000+02:002009-10-30T09:26:12.434+02:00

Usually I don't like shopping, especially for cloth since I find it very hard to find something I really like. So I was happy one or two years ago when I found a chain where I could find stuff I like at reasonable prices. I got jeans, shirts and T-shirts (e.g. Run Like Hell) from Timeout, but the crisis stroke again and this retailer went out of business. All their shops in Bucharest were closed

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-65952943689232310232009-10-24T12:37:00.000+03:002009-10-24T12:37:11.531+03:00

Today we have diesel and petrol cars and a few hybrids, the most successful being Toyota Prius. As this industry is build on inoculation of the idea of having a personal vehicle, unless some catastrophic event (natural or economical) happens I don't see that many people giving up their beloved cars no matter how good the public transport will be. So what will be the future of cars? Among the

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-76753555713568890812009-10-18T19:12:00.000+03:002009-10-18T19:12:34.789+03:00

So what does an (IT) architect do, apart from designing railroads? Apparently this is a role that started to appear in IT projects around the begging of 21st century (I never heard about IT architects in Star Trek, so I guess they solved the problem of writing software meanwhile) and does something to handle complex projects. I don't see myself as an architect (at least for now), but if you

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-24824403647741948312009-10-05T17:12:00.000+03:002009-10-05T17:12:11.029+03:00

Last weekend I went to an interesting event: a horse jumping contest at Hipocan club in Corbeanca, near Bucharest. I occasionally saw this type of event at TV, but it was the first time I saw a live contest. It was very nice to see all those horses, although the weather was rather chilly. I didn't have a camera to take photos, but I found some from this event on another blog here.

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-53637463565869590362009-10-02T15:12:00.000+03:002009-10-02T15:12:12.471+03:00

Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-76944807905072137992009-10-01T18:19:00.000+03:002009-10-01T18:19:40.326+03:00

Ender's Game is probably the best science fiction novel I ever read. It was somewhere towards the end of high school and I liked both the science and the fiction in it. I stopped reading science fiction books in that period (more about this in another post), but recently I stumbled upon some books by the same author. On the cover of Ender's Shadow I read that it tells the same story as in the

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-81037816892301202342009-09-22T01:02:00.000+03:002009-09-22T01:02:30.861+03:00

I read two articles recently that lead me to writing this post. One by Paul Krugman who analyzes how most of the economists didn't anticipate the crisis that hit the world last year and another one (in Romanian) who criticize exactly Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz for their omnipresence in mass-media where they impose their "leftist" ideas. First I should mention that I read both books of the

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-17084080076353651562009-09-21T09:38:00.001+03:002009-09-21T09:39:41.226+03:00

In the last 50 years the space exploration changed our lives: think only about GPS and satellite communications. But what happens with the satellites that are no longer in use? Some of them (the bigger ones) are driven back towards Earth and they burn in the atmosphere. But most of them are just left orbiting around the Earth. Thus the new place where garbage accumulates is in the space around

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-12425343989877739962009-09-01T09:32:00.007+03:002009-09-10T23:05:53.939+03:00

For a long time most of the people looked at GDP as the measure of well being of a country. This is misleading from at least 2 reasons in my opinion. First, as the GDP measures what is produced inside a country it measures as positive output the work done by the firefighters after a fire, or the medication bought to cure an illness also contributes to the GDP. But the negative consequences of

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-87801415738553943272009-08-28T17:53:00.003+03:002009-09-11T10:37:36.674+03:00

The Danube river seen from Serbia Plivice National Park

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-62105653857628062582009-08-28T17:45:00.006+03:002009-09-11T10:37:51.616+03:00

Brela seen from the sea Dubrovnik Dubrovnik Baska Voda Brela - the storm is approaching

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-33783307511465901282009-08-25T09:39:00.008+03:002009-09-11T13:25:44.330+03:00

So this is not about garbage collection in Java, but in the countryside of Romania. Large parts of Romania looks still like an old style programming language where no garbage collection takes place. People in the countryside are still throwing the garbage in some improvised landfills at the end of the village, or by the local river. But the garbage that used to be mostly biodegradable tens of

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-75873775239716168562009-08-05T17:15:00.004+03:002009-09-11T13:25:56.501+03:00

For those who are craving for a vacation on a remote island (see one of the earlier posts) should also consider the Garbage Island from Pacific Ocean. It's the newest island on Earth, it's bigger than Texas, so there should be plenty of room for many people. And if you are a scientist maybe you can join the expedition to study it. More information can be found here and here.

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-11739013112760948272009-07-09T22:52:00.005+03:002009-09-11T13:25:31.080+03:00

A town in Australia has voted to ban the sale of bottled water. The issue arose after a company proposed to extract some water from an underground reservoir in the region, ship it to Sydney to be bottled and then bring it back for selling it. This shows just what a waste of resources we are doing every day. The full story is here.

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-15848900121517354522009-07-06T00:14:00.005+03:002009-09-11T10:38:07.619+03:00

Is this the reason so many people are constantly looking for the next new sensation? But if they can't feel anymore isn't this search in vain? They should look inside themselves maybe. I'm just rambling around here, in fact I'm just hooked on this song from Franz Ferdinand (the video clip is very nice too):

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-19551618242849079282009-07-02T01:14:00.004+03:002009-09-11T10:41:42.500+03:00

I read recently a kind of survey about what would various (young) people want to do in their free time if they had the means. What puzzled me was that most of the answers were in two categories: - doing some kind of extreme (or at least exotic) sport like skiing, scuba diving, horse riding, paragliding, motorcycling; - going to a more or less exotic place like Africa, South America, Asia or an

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-82878821386879769962009-07-01T23:53:00.002+03:002009-09-11T10:48:19.802+03:00

A couple of days ago I read an interview with Gabriel Liiceanu. It is mostly about the state of the Romanian society and it has a part I like a lot. I will try to translate it here: Question: Do you think, Mr. Liiceanu, that the progress of this country depends in any measure on the political elite? Can we still consider that the president of this country represents a force that determines in

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-53977914870277377162009-06-29T12:15:00.004+03:002009-09-11T10:42:26.424+03:00

That was the motto on MTV over the week-end. And indeed, Michael was the idol of the MTV generation from the 80s. I remember Smooth Criminal was one of the first video clips I ever saw on a video tape that my dad copied from a friend. And I watched that video many times, cause there was no MTV to watch in Romania at that time. And M is also for the Man in the Mirror that we should try to make a

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-23882330657427567672009-06-22T13:38:00.004+03:002009-09-11T10:47:10.041+03:00

"Joi.megaJoy" by Katalin Thuroczy at Odeon Theatre A group of old people is having a party every Thursday. With all their memories and nostalgia for their lost world and friends. But they still have a hack of a party. The problem is that after about an hour I checked my watch and asked myself: is this the only idea from this play? And that was almost all, with a little interference from the

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-78223468653667657282009-06-10T16:50:00.004+03:002009-06-10T17:02:03.809+03:00

This is how Bucharest looks more and more:Can we still call it a city?, or is it just a jungle. The debate about how the architecture of Bucharest is ruined every day will take place here. And this is just about the beauty our eyes don't see, but what about the dust, the crowded places everywhere, the transport and many more? No wonder Bucharest has the lowest rating among the main cities in the

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-59552385187174063812009-06-09T16:50:00.004+03:002009-09-11T13:26:13.178+03:00

We are doing it every day: when we drive our cars, buy that stuff we don't really need, eat too much and then go to gym to keep us fit, wander around the planet to see it with our own eyes. We do it time and again until nothing will be left, or it will be too late to bring it back. Until we will make the Earth so hot, or so cold, or so dry, or so wet, or so acid that we will not be able to live

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-69549973507440953492009-06-05T09:20:00.004+03:002009-09-11T10:38:44.262+03:00

I finished reading The Seville Communion by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. This novel is a little different from other novels I read by Reverte, as the background theme is not an area such as Flemish painting, rare books or maritime life, but losing of battles. Each character in the book is losing something in the end (faith, marriage, money, dreams), and each one of them is coping differently with it. At

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-43518014653155486492009-05-22T10:48:00.002+03:002009-09-11T10:43:01.678+03:00

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-70906913563267520292009-05-22T10:34:00.003+03:002009-09-11T10:42:39.973+03:00

This site is really amazing. Try it now!

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-10180139004646767552009-05-16T12:22:00.001+03:002009-09-11T10:46:46.881+03:00

The end of theater season is approaching fast, but I'm not sleeping in my shoes, so here are the latest plays I've seen: - The Egoist - National Theater Bucharest - 15th of April 2009 - The Death of a Salesman - Bulandra Theater - 30th of April 2009 "The Egoist" features Radu Beligan and as you guessed is about an egoist, which is not that a bad person in the end. The play explores the fine line

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-46535139392334313342009-05-12T09:59:00.004+03:002009-09-11T10:40:47.533+03:00

Many software vendors have an EULA (end user license agreement) that basically says that they do not guarantee their software makes a specific thing or is fitted for a specific purpose. Also they state they are not liable for almost anything that happens as a consequence of using that software. Here is an example from the Firefox EULA: "4. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. THE PRODUCT IS PROVIDED "AS IS"

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-76360418551190679212009-05-05T16:24:00.003+03:002009-09-11T10:40:57.508+03:00

A very interesting article in The Economist about the universities in Europe in the context of the Bologna process. Apparently everybody understood and implemented what they want out of this process. The article also argues that the difference in performance between European and U.S. universities can be explained by the amount of private funding a university gets. Basically, the more private

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6811607.post-41299010186267864942009-04-09T13:52:00.002+03:002009-09-11T10:39:18.962+03:00

Each year in the period around the Oscar awards ceremony I usually talk around about the nominated movies. It's a kind of movie season. I remember one (Quintana) year when I saw almost all the important nominated movies. I saw a couple of the nominated movies this year too, and even movies that were rumored will be nominated, but in the end were not. The ones I liked most from this season are:

Bogdan Stroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07678394536625450987noreply@blogger.com0