The Lifelong Learner         by Stanley Kubasek | About Me |

Interesting... Is America behind?

My goal this year is to read/listen to 10-20 non technical books (and 10-15 technical books). Last year, I was able to listen to 13 books, My 2006 Book List. I don't have too much time to actually read non-technical books so I use most of my commute time to listen to audio books. It's a great use of down time. Use it as the learning time. :-)

What do I want to read/listen this year? I love autobiographies, so I'll probably listen to couple of those. I also like a motivation book from time to time. History books? Yes, I actually like them. I learned a lot about how America was founded by listening to autobiographies of the founding fathers. Good stuff.

What are the best books I listened to last year? There are three that stand out: Authentic Leadership, Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton.

As I said before, I don't buy audio books any more. I rent them from my local library for free.

I love to learn and reading is a great way to learn.

Rajesh Setty, author of Beyond Code (book I recommend for programmers), has some good points about blogging. It's not as easy as it seems. :-) I agree with Rajesh.

1. It's easy to start but hard to maintain.

In fact, it is VERY hard to maintain. Since most bloggers are not depending on blogging for their living, it is walking an extra mile almost everyday. Plus, how do you motivate yourself to do something that does not have a short-term return?

2. People expect consistently good content or quality readers walk away.

You can write something stupid and get away for a while. People may even link to it and you may see an upsurge in traffic but that traffic is not what you want. Quality readers don't have time to hunt for stupidity. If you don't post good content consistently for a LONG time, there is no loyalty from quality readers. Ultimately it is not who reads your blog

Reference
10 things they didn't tell you about blogging

This is cool stuff. I always wanted to know how popular a particular name has been. Now, I need to more than ever. Why? My wife is eight months pregnant! It's exciting. We still have not settled on a name, though. We both like Jacob (or Jakub), but I think it's just too common. It was number one in 1995, according to the chart. I like the name Fabian and I'm trying to convince my wife to go with it. It's a unique name, but it's usage, looks like, has spiked in recent years.

Anyway, a fun tool to play with. Especially when you are in a stage you need to pick a name. :-)

The Baby Name Wizard

If you've never seen, like me, what North Korea looks like, take a look. Great stuff.

North Korea - Military Photos
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=82755

After some thinking, I'm going to change my web strategy.

I realized, after reading some good books lately, that I am a Lifelong Learner and that's what I want to be remembered as. I also realized that my blogs need more focus, more to-the-point. Plus, I feel like a change is needed.

Thus, the first change, I'm going to rename this blog to "Lifelong Learner." I'm going to concentrate on the "things I learn" and things I want to learn. It's going to be a learning blog. For that, I'm going to borrow and feed from entries from My Learning Log, which I started writing to everyday before I go to sleep (5-10 mins).

The second change: I'm renaming all of my blogs. I'm going to rename my second, software blog, to "Pragmatic Craftsman." I think that's who I am, or at least that's what I want to be (come). More than anything I want to keep learning, keep getting better. I want to be a learning, pragmatic professional. Maybe I should call it "Learning Craftsman." Maybe, but that's too much "learning," :-). I registered PragmaticCraftsman.com and that's the direction I want to go. I'm renaming my investing blog to "Programmer's Investing Notebook," and my polish blog (have to practice it so I don't forget :-)) to "Polska z Ameryki," which means "Poland from America." :-)

Third change is a structural one. One the main page, I'm going to aggregate all of my blogs and show excerpts from the top entries. I think that will enable you to take a "peek" at my other entries and see whether you're interested in reading it in more detail.

Quite a few changes. More than anything, I feel that's what I want to do.

If you have a website, make sure you don't commit these usability mistakes. These come from Jakob Nielsen, the expert in the field.

I don't think I commit any of these:
1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don't Say Where They Go
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

I still have to work on the following:
5. Classic Hits are Buried
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics

Reference
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 17, 2005

Related
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005, Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 3, 2005

If you liked the above article, you will find more valuable info from Jakob at his Alertbox Columns

Wow! That's all I have to say. Amazing.

A building boom in the emirate has led to a whole host of chart breakers, in categories including highest apartment, biggest mall, and one of the world's most unique resorts.

Take a look at what's cooking at the world's oil giant, Dubai's World-Beating Buildings slide show.

The expression "Web 2.0" has been floating a lot lately. What does it mean? Paul Graham, one of my favorite authors, has an interesting article about it. He explains what "Web 2.0" is, what application use it; what successful applications are out there that are using it, and more.

In addition to the excellent explanation, I was able to discover some of the popular community sites: Reddit, and digg. He mentions others, which you might not be aware of but that are "hot."

Very interesting and valuable read. I recommend it.

Reference
Web 2.0 by Paul Graham

I've received the following email several times. At first, I was "almost" ready to sign up. It sounds good and credible, doesn't it? The catch? There is a sign up fee of $25, and after a week or so, they lower it to $10. I almost signed up. Almost, because I did a Google search and found out it was a scam. Don't fall for it. I tell you, if it sounds to good to be true, it is. And because of search engines, we're able to find out about them very soon. That's great.

It's free now. :-) I tried it, and it will be my secondary browser after Firefox. I like it. Here are some good things that I like about Opera: 1) It looks great. 2) It feels fast. 3) It remembers the tabs that you closed your browser with. 4) It's standards compliant (I think). 5) It remembers passwords for almost all of the sites (Firefox does not always do it).

Take a look and try it for yourself. Just remember, it was not free until today. Competition is good -- for all!

http://www.opera.com/

... something goes bad. Wow, this is an interesting story. Yeah, I don't understand how companies like Dell (and bigger companies in general) like to waste money. Procedures. Procedures. Procedures.

Reference
Direct from Dell from Virtual Pragmatics blog

This is the best definition of wealth I heard.

The Definition Of Wealth By: Brian Tracy

If you want to be wealthy, you must understand what wealth is. Here is the best definition of wealth you will ever find. Wealth is "Cash flow from other sources."

Make Your Money Work For You
What this means is that, you are not wealthy just because you earn a lot of money. You are only wealthy when your money works for you. To become wealthy, your main job is to acquire money and then put it to work making more money for you.

Add Value Continually
The key to creating wealth is simple. It is called "adding value." Successful people are those who are always looking for ways to add value in some way to a person, a company, a product or a service.

I received some very cool pictures via email. From somebody I don't know. :-)

Thanks Rafik B!

Oh, Europe, old Europe, look at yourself, where are going? Stop blaming others, look at your own chronic problems, and go to work!

Some people say that Europe is the next big thing. They say that US is losing its edge, and that Europe is THE future. Not so fast, I think. Until they resolve their huge problems -- inflexibility in the work force, hard-line unions, high costs -- companies are going to move out, rather than move in.

Read this article from NY Times, Thomas L. Friedman: 35-hour week? 35-hour day!. Friedman is not afraid to speak loudly. Interesting read, though.

Those are words coming from Harry S Truman. How true are they? The situation in Russia looks very worrisome. The president of Russia, Putin, is silencing the opposition (the governement just took control over the most popular, liberal news company), and puts more power into the government's hands (oil industry). Next thing you know, as Truman said, the people in Russia are terrified (companies are already feeling it). Not a good situation. I just hope democracy wins, that people of Russia win. Win over Putin's authoritative rule.

You probably heard about the new food pyramid, haven't you? The old pyramid is gone, and in place they put several different pyramids. One size does not fit all -- that's what they say. I agree. So if you're an athlete, you're going to have a different pyramid than a guy who sits on his butt all day -- me :-). But that's how it should be, because an athlete needs more energy, more food than I do.

You can find the new pyramid at MyPyramid.org.

But if you look closely, and this article, New Pyramid Gets Personal, did a nice job, it boils down to the following recommendations, below.

Even a country with 1.3 billion of people can face workers shortage. Really? Yeah. And that's what's happening in China right now. Because of the shortage, the pay is rising (the minimum wage rose by 30%, last year) and workers are starting to demand more. Some companies are even moving to different countries, like Vietnam, where pay is cheaper. Is China losing its dominance? Read this article on IHT.com. I think it's very good.

Paul Graham wrote an excellent article, How to Start a Startup. One thing about Paul Graham: there only a few that can write as well as him.

I'm going to extract couple things that I marked with double stars. However, go read the article as it was a joy to read. Highly recommended.

You might not start a startup right away, but you'll learn what it takes and the whole process of creating a successful tech startup.

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.

Ideas for a startup?

look at something people are trying to do, and figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't suck.

If you want ideas for startups, one of the most valuable things you could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a couple weeks just watching what they do with computers.

People

We could bear any amount of nerdiness if someone was truly smart. What we couldn't stand were people with a lot of attitude. But most of those weren't truly smart.

So as a rule you can recognize genuinely smart people by their ability to say things like "I don't know," "Maybe you're right," and "I don't understand x well enough."

Understand Users

If you can't understand users, however, you should either learn how or find a co-founder who can. That is the single most important issue for technology startups, and the rock that sinks more of them than anything else.

What Customers Want

In nearly every failed startup, the real problem was that customers didn't want the product.

The only way to make something customers want is to get a prototype in front of them and refine it based on their reactions.

It's worth trying very, very hard to make technology easy to use.

If you build the simple, inexpensive option, you'll not only find it easier to sell at first, but you'll also be in the best position to conquer the rest of the market.

Raising Money

[What] most investors expect is a brief description of what you plan to do and how you're going to make money from it, and the resumes of the founders. If you just sit down and write out what you've been saying to one another, that should be fine.

Type 45+12 into Google. What do you get? Well, you're just going
to see a listing of sites that contain that term. Wrong. Google is
smart enough to invoke its calculator when you type a mathematical
expression. So the result you get is 45+12=57. Neat.

Can't find something on a website but you're pretty sure it's somewhere
on it? Type the term you're looking for and follow it with site:thesite.com.
For instance, if you want to find out all the sites on this domain
that I mention my wife (please don't do this :-), type
marta site:kubasek.com.
I'm going to get killed...

Another cool thing is safesearch. Let's say you need to search for sex
education but you're not interested in all of the porn sites. Type
safesearch: sex education. This will filter out the adult sites from
your search.

This and couple more that you might find useful are on
Google Help: Google Cheat Sheet.

I like Marbury from the NY Knicks as a player. He averages 20+ points per game. He gets 8+ assists per game. What's not to like? However, he's not a leader. He's not a great point guard (as he proclaimed himself). Point guards need to be great leaders. Point guards need to make other guys play better. Marbury fails in both of those categories.

Jason Kidd from the Nets is the true leader that every team would love to have. He makes everyone around him better (just look at Vince Carter). Kidd makes everyone on the team work harder. He's a team-first player. He's not a selfish player, as Marbury is. Plus, he's humble. To me, he's the best point guard in the NBA (along with Steve Nash). There is no question about it.

Marbury, you're not even the same league as Kidd is. That's why I'm no longer a Knicks fan. I'm a Nets fan right now. I just cannot watch anymore the leader-less team as the Knicks have become. (Isiah Thomas gave up a lot to get him, just as I thought they were getting better. I think Isiah needs to go.) Marbury makes the team worse, not better.

A look at some major events in 2004 -- a slide show on IHT.com.

Did you know that the number of foreign students taking the GRE test plunged 50% after 9/11? Did you know that China wants to create 100 top-notch universities? Well, now you know. I learned about that by reading this article on IHT, U.S. slips in luring world痴 brightest, and in couple other places. One thing is for sure: U.S. schools will have increased competition to bring in the best foreign students. Interesting article.

Firefox brought back the browser wars! It's not only IE now. It's Firefox vs IE. We'll see what happens, but Firefox will be my main browser in the near future. I love it. It looks like Firefox is really getting popular. They recently had a 2-page ad in NY Times. Today, there is a great article about Firefox in the paper (you might have to create an account, but it's free). It's very well written. I recommend reading it.

Where is AT&T Wireless? Where is Sprint? Where is Nextel? Well, enter the age of consolidation in the wireless industry. Recently, two big mergers took place. Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless, and Spring and Nextel merged, forming Spring Nextel. Is it a good thing. I don't really know. But I think it will be, as the acquisitions give the combined companies more muscle. More strength to compete. More money to improve their networks. That what I hope for. But what we are left with, is three big companies (oligarchy ???), and a small one, bound to be acquired by somebody. The risk here is that they might all raise prices. Hopefully that will not happen too soon.

Here is the breakdown of the current status.

When I cast my vote on Tuesday, it wasn't for president re-elect Bush. I voted for John Kerry. However, now that the elections are over, I don't like to despair. I support Bush whole heartedly. So should you!

President Bush has a lot of wide-ranging flaws. President Bush is not a good speaker. President Bush makes mistakes. But Bush is our president. Bush will be our president for the next four years. Bush is a human being with good intentions. Bush is going to do a good job.

Bush's plan for the next four years is very ambitious. He does not want to sit and relax. Like him or not, president Bush gets a lot of things done. He wants to reform Tax Code, Social Security, reform schools (especially high schools), plus other things. Those are extremely difficult issues.

I don't despair. I support president Bush.

When you open a PDF file, does it take a considerable amount of time? If there is a lag, and you would like speed that up (i.e, like opening a browser window), read on. I'll give you a tip that will speed up opening PDF files drastically. The tip was published in the latest PC Magazine.

It's very simple. What you do is remove all of the unnecessary plug-ins and only leave three. How do you do it? Go to c:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat n\Reader folder (where n is the Reader version). Backup Plug_ins directory (copy and paste should do). Remove all of the files from the Plug_ins except the following three: EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api.

Restart and see the difference!

Since I use PDF files a lot (read and write), I'll be a big beneficiary.

If you're into politics and you did not hear last night's speech, you should check out this article from Economist.com -- I did it my way�and I�ll do it again. What did I think about the speech? I think it was not as strong as Kerry's speech. I think Bush had some good ideas, such as Tax Simplification, some of his plans for education reforms, and couple other ideas. He also had some bad ideas: about Social Security, about outsourcing, and about couple others. I didn't like his lack of details. Plus, as much as I like or don't like the President (I think he's doing a good job for now), he cannot sell his ideas. He's just a bad speaker.

Who am I going to vote for? I don't have a final decision yet, but it's Kerry for now, and it will probably be Kerry. I like Kerry's ideas about Health Care, about outsourcing, about technology investments, and about couple other things. I just have a feeling that he needs to be given a chance. Plus, Kerry knows how to talk. To make up my mind for sure, I'm waiting to see a head-to-head debate, Bush vs Kerry, and I'll make my decision then.

That's a dose of politics for this week. Watch out, though, for the next two months, for a very heated, negative battle. Just don't listen to everybody and to everything because I think a lot of people are biased and don't give you the objective information that matters.

This is a great article comparing Microsoft to the old IBM, and how Microsoft is starting to lose its shine. It is producing buggy applications filled with security holes and it is trying to integrate everything together. Companies are starting to see that and they don't want to be connected to only one company. They want choices. They want open standards (not necessarily open source -- two different things). They want security. Does Microsoft give them that? I don't think so. I've always said that competition is the best thing for innovation. Microsoft, with its monopolistic tacticts doesn't have that. And that's starting to hurt. Anyway, those are my views, but you should read what Espen Andersen has to say about IBM and Microsoft in the latest Ubiquity issue.

Here are two excerpts from the article:

What are the top regions in the U.S. for hiring over the next few years? According to Business 2.0 magazine, here are America's 20 hottest job markets:

1. Raleigh-Durham, NC
2. San Jose, CA
3. Washington, DC
4. Austin, TX
5. Atlanta, GA
6. West Palm Beach, FL
7. San Francisco-Oakland, CA
8. Middlesex-Somerset, NJ
9. Seattle, WA
10. Boston, MA
11. Sacramento, CA
12. Phoenix, AZ
13. Minneapolis, MN
14. Denver, CO
15. New Haven-Stamford, CT
16. Baltimore, MD
17. San Diego, CA
18. Dallas, TX
19. Charlotte, NC
20. Philadelphia, PA

Interesting. Middlesex-Somerset NJ is number 8, so I guess NJ will do OK. Austin, TX is number 4? I've never been in Texas but I've been hearing some good things about Austin. One of these years I will have to travel to Texas and see the Western side of U.S. Should be interesting. :-)

I think there is a new level of excitement about Soccer in the U.S. lately. Why? I think the reason number 1 is a teen sensation Freddy Adu, who, at the age of 14, signed up for the highest contract in the MLS, and who had higher offers from big clubs in Europe. And you know what, after seeing couple of flashes of this kid (some compare him, in talent, to Pele), he can play! He has an unbelievable dribbling ability (oh, man, is he fun to watch). Also, what's in favor for him is that he's a team player first. He will bring MLS, and soccer in U.S., to another level. In fact, that's already happening (read: Adu will do for MLS what LeBrown is doing for NBA).

Adu is already putting a lot of people into the stadium (read: selling out stadiums) and putting people behind their television (rankings are highest they've ever been in MLS 9 years of existence).

Are you not excited yet? Then stay tuned, as I think soccer in U.S. will get more and more popular.

MLSnet.com -- home of Major League Soccer
Read a great introduction to MLS by Eric Wynalda: Ten Reasons to Watch

If you're into basketball and like the New Jersey Nets, you've got to love their new coach, Lawrence Frank. He's done an unbelievable job for the Nets. He made them a lot better. There is no question about it: The Nets are a better team with Frank than with Scott. I think that the Nets's GM, Rod Thorn, made a wise decision to go with Frank. The Nets are an exciting team to watch! That's for sure.

Read a great article on ESPN.com about the little guy, Lawrence Frank, the coach of the Nets.

BTW, I'm still holding my prediction for the NBA-finals match-up: Dallas Mavericks vs New Jersey Nets. And yeah, the Nets win it all.

It's still fairly cold in Northern New Jersey, so to heat things up make sure you check out the SI.com - Sports Illustrated - 2004 Swimsuit Edition! You'll feel the heat. Thumbnails of each girl are shown in the middle. If you find a girl you like, click on the thumbnails to the side. Enjoy.

Some useful information about Cellular Service: Who's has fewest customer complaints? Who's the biggest?

Complaints. According to Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which tracks complaints, AT&T had the highest complain rate ( 6.4 complaints per 100,000 customers); Verizon had the fewest (1.5 per 100,000 customers).

The full stats:

AT&T Wireless: 6.4 complaints / 100,000 customers
Sprint PCS: 4.0/100,000
T-Mobile: 3.5/100,000
Cingular Wireless: 3.2/100,000
Nextel: 2.0/100,000
Verizon Wireless: 1.5/100,000

(I have T-Mobile, but I might switch soon.)

Number of Customers. Who's the biggest? Verizon Wireless, at 36 million customers; Cingular has 23.4 million; AT&T Wireless has 23.3 million; Sprint PCS has 19.3 million; Nextel has 12.3 million; and T-Mobile has 12.1 million subscribers.

: Seems like Verizon is your best bet, but I'm waiting to see if Cingular will change for the better (it might merge with AT&T; plus a lot of ongoing improvements). Verizon phones are not that good and they're not very cheap, either :-(

Is there such a domain name? You bet, a high schooler Mike Rowe owns it. What's interesting, though, is that Microsoft is trying to force him to give it up: they offered him $10 for the domain -- they must be out of their minds. This is a funny story. Must read.

Microsoft takes on teen's site MikeRoweSoft.com

Over the next 10 to 20 years, skilled jobs will be firmly on the rise, offering opportunities to people of all ages. But some old standbys, like manufacturing and secretarial work, are in long-term decline.

Fortunately, my skills, as a software programmer/engineer and a web designer, should be in demand (that's what they say). The one thing, in all of this, is for sure (and you've probably noticed): the world is getting more and more complex, and as mentioned above, skilled, more technical jobs will be in demand -- that is, in any area. If you don't see your profession there, don't worry: just concentrate on being the best in whatever you do. Good workers are always in demand.

FAST GROWING:

Registered nurses
Physicians' assistants
Mental health workers
Health-services entrepreneurs
Biologists
Neurologists
Web designers
Marketing professionals
Advertising writers
Computer programmers, systems analysts
Financial planners, personal bankers
Assistant morticians
Television personalities
Actors and directors (movies, TV)
Athletes, coaches, umpires, referees
Gaming industry croupiers

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JOBS IN DECLINE:

Butchers
Barbers
Manufacturing workers
Agricultural workers
Secretaries
Clerks

Source: Barron's

The percentage of CEOs who have thought about quitting their jobs this year, up from 54% in 2000 -- according to BusinessWeek magazine. In addition, 86% say they have been "kept awake at night" worrying about their rivals.

I thought that was interesting. Makes you want to ask: Who wants to be a CEO (yeah, right, I'm sure almost everybody would like to be one).

Days for the spammers are limited -- I doubt it. Nevertheles, history has been made for anti-spam law: senate approved the law, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), today and should be signed by Bush early december (he said he'll sign it).

The law, basically, makes it easier to get the bad guys. Is it going to stop the spam? Most likely not. It is, nonetheles, a step in a right direction.

See the whole story on News.com here.

It's not in the US! It's in Canada, and it's Alberta's No. 1 tourist spot.

West Edmunton Mall covers 5.3 million square feet on two levels -- the equivalent of 115 footbal fiedls -- and cost about $800 million to build. The largest in US, in Bloomington, Minn., has 4.2 million square feet.

So what's in the mall? It is listed in Guiness World Records for housing the planet's largest parking lot, with 20,000 spaces. Besides its 800-plus shops, and more than 110 eateries, it also has seven major attractions, including the world's biggest indoor amusement park, and six major retail franchises.

Wow! Seems like a city in itself! Visit WestEdMall.com

Finalists have been picked. The top design, out of the eight (listed below), will be chosen by the end of the year. Take a look at pictures of the designs.

The designs by name:

1) Dual Memory -- pic

2) Gardens of Light -- pic

3) Inversion of Light -- pic

4) Lower Waters -- pic

5) Passages of Light -- pic

6) Reflecting Absence -- pic (plus the small image)

7) Suspending Memory -- pic (and the big image, above)

8) Votives in Suspension -- pic

Starting Monday, 11/24/03, when you switch your cell-phone carrier you will be allowed to keep your old phone number. Good news!

Should you rush and switch right away? No, you're better off waiting for couple of weeks, or even couple months. Why? Here are couple of good reasons (taken from WSJ.com).

1) The first few days under the new rules -- possibly even the first few weeks or months -- will likely be filled with technical glitches, long lines and confused customer-service reps.

2) The deals that carriers have been throwing at consumers to keep them from jumping ship are expected to get better once subscriber defections mount.

So, yeah, those seem to be valid points. So just wait a little before you switch (I know I will.)

11/25/03 -- Update on the switch on News.com.

What do you see on the following picture?

When I looked at it I saw 2 horse heads. Well, see for yourself -- you'll be surprised. Pretty cool!

Other ones: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

(Right click on the pic and save it to your computer, open with Picture Viewer and turn clockwise.)

Seems like the broadband war is becoming more fierce: cable companies are becoming to offer prices that are the same, or lower, than the DSL prices. At last! Comcast is promoting a deal for $19.95/m for the full first-year. Not a bad deal. Read the story on CNet.

I use Cablevision cable and I'm fairly satisfied, except for the price: $50. I'd like the price to go down to, say, $30 or $35.

So let the war continue!

Later this month, when you switch your cell-phone provider, you will be able to take the old number and carry it with you. That's pretty good, and that's how it should be. More competition = More choices.

An article on News.com (good tech-news source).

I'm a New York Knicks fan but I think the NJ Nets are finally going to win the championship (I'd like to see them win). The Nets, with Kidd, Mourning, Martin, Jefferson, and because of the experience they gained, are my favorite to win it all.

From West?? I'll bet on Dallas Mavericks (no, I don't think the Lakers will win it; they're my 2nd favorite, though).

Nets-Dallas in the finals and Nets win? We'll see. I'll be watching!

See the NBA roundup from NY Times: East | West

As far as the Knicks are concerned, I'll be happy if they get into playoffs (if not, Chaney should be out). I'm also hopefull, that if they suck, Chaney will give some playing time to develop their rookies (I'm thinking about Maciej Lampe here).

See my pics from a preseason Nets-Knicks game that I went to recently.

Have you had the new $20 yet? I've got mine recently and I'm keeping it! It's pretty cool, and very different than the previous ones: Very colorful and containing quite a few new security-features.

Check out the presentation here on the new features and design. Impressive.

Also, check out the official banknote publisher, MoneyFactory.com

Can you find the Man's Head in the picture within 3 seconds?

According to recent medical experiments:

If you can find the Man's Head within 3 seconds, your right brain is much more highly developed than in normal people.

If you can find the Man's Head within 1 minute, your right brain is developed normally.

If you can find the Man's Head within 1-3 minutes, your right brain is slow in reacting......you should eat more meat protein.

If it takes more than 3 minutes for you to find the Man's Head, your right brain is a disaster . . . . . extremely slow in reacting.

AND YES -THERE REALLY IS A MAN IN THERE!

Concorde planes make final flights -- Three Concorde planes, the world's only supersonic airliners, will arrive at Heathrow at around 16:00BST (1500 GMT) after making their final flights on Friday, ending 27 years of supersonic travel.

I guess my dream of flying a Concorde will never happen :-). Oh, well. Hopefully, a new, super-fast jet will come alive fairly soon.

Yes, that's right! (I'm sorry to all the ladies out there -- just kidding :-))

9/20/2003: Our Wedding Day -- a day that we're going to remember forever! Everything went well! -- seemed to us that everybody (~185 people) had a lot of fun at our ceremony.

Honeymoon??? I know, but I'm working on it. I'd like to either go to Hawaii or, preferably, to Australia (if I can convince Marta :-)).

So a whole new beginning to my life!

Leading scorer on a Knicks team? I'm not sure about that... But 16 points, 2 blocks and actually, for one game at least, a leading scorer: NOT BAD! Actually, Maciej started out strong, very strong; I know it's pre-season, but still.

Hopefully, he'll get his minutes in a regular season. I'm starting to be a believer in that he'll be a good NBA-player. I'll probably go see him vs NJ Nets soon.

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[pl]

Niezly poczatek dla Macieja! W swoim pierwszym meczu i takie wyniki! Bardzo dobrze, i oby tak dalej! Chociaz nie jest jeszcze to regularny sezon, to 16 punktow i 2 bloki to bardzo dobrze.

Chyba pojde na mecz w nastepny wtorek jak Knicks beda grac z Nets: chce go zobaczyc z bliska.

Maciej Lampe, 2nd Polish guy in the NBA, signed a contract with the NY Knicks. There has been a lot of coverage about this kid. I said this before, I think this kid will develop into a pretty good player; he's got what it takes: size, talent, and most of all, determination and attitude. (I like him a lot.)

Recent articles:

1) Knicks Sign Lampe

2) New York Post Online Edition: sports
KNICKS HOPE LAMPE GLOWS BRIGHT AND LONG

-- Google News: search for entries about Lampe