gfdjax

three boys and a little game of Risk

2007-05-27T03:26:00.000-05:00

So Dennis proposed that we try out the site Warfish, which proposes a free correspondence Risk-like game (it emails you when it's your turn, and you play on the website). We sort of randomly fell into character, playing the game a little bit more like Diplomacy than anything else. Well, game over. We won't be telling you who won, but on this blog, we will be serialising our diplomatic communications and news broadcasts, hopefully with screenshots of the game on the side (maybe something like one post per round of turns, or one post per game year... will have to see).

Note that you can expect the writing to be awkward and for the story to be rather outlandish and silly. Do bear with us. We were making them up as we went along...

message to the americans 5 - julien

2006-03-19T06:20:00.000-05:00

Julien comments to the American people about astronomy, telescopes and the economy.

In French, English subtitles.

Note that I've copied all my Message to the... videos to its own videoblog. The idea is that I can use that blog as a platform for collaboration with other expats around the world. Anyway, any messages collected by me or any of the GFD will be cross-posted here.

darcs developers at fosdem 2006

2006-02-28T19:30:00.000-05:00

One of my recent hobbies lately has been to hack on my favourite revision control system, darcs. Last weekend at FOSDEM 2006, I actually got a meet a small handful of the developers, including David Roundy, the guy who started the project. Here we are:

slowly but surely

2006-01-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

A long overdue purchase during France's biannual sales.

One thing you need to be careful of is that American underwear words can be false friends with French ones. Well, maybe one specific word anyway, "boxers". What we call "boxers" in English are "caleçon" in French. What the French call "boxers" are these tight clingy things with only a vague resemblance to boxers. Not tighty-whities, which appear to be called "slip" in France and not very frequently white.

message aux français 1: serena et kelvin

2005-11-15T17:58:00.000-05:00

My sister in law Serena, and my brother Kelvin, speak to the people of France in the first ever message to the French. Topics addressed: Bush, Chirac and french friens. Thanks for letting me put this on the net, guys!

Ma belle soeur Serena et mon frère Kelvin parlent au peuple français dans ce tout premier message aux français. Les sujets abordés: Bush, Chirac et les frites. Merci, les gars, de m'avoir autorisé de mettre cette vidéo sur le net!

message aux français 5: mary

2005-11-15T17:27:00.000-05:00

Mary speaks to the people of France. Extracted from my interview of her in July.

Mary s'addresse au peuple français. Extrait de mon interview avec elle en juillet.

b224+ gathered to celebrate eric's birthday

2005-11-13T08:25:00.000-05:00

Yannick from b224 made a quick video during the traditional erician birthday dinner.

Merci, Yannick.

Hotel in Hawaii.

2005-11-05T22:51:00.000-05:00

So anyone that has travelled in hotels in the US know what to expect when they open the drawer next to the bed. Well I was astounded when I first showed up and found this little gem.

eric gets things done (questions answered)

2005-10-29T18:24:00.000-05:00

Dennis had mailed me some questions about implementing the techniques in Getting Things Done, so I thought that maybe I should try posting a video blog response to give a better picture of how it all works.

Click picture to watch.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, GTD is this book with a pretty handy system for taking care of all the things in your life you want or need to do. It's turned me from a disorganised mess into something leaner, meaner and much much happier. And so I've been talking to people about it and annoyingly enough, evangelising. Sigh... I hate evangelists.

Seriously though, if you are at all like me in your chronic non-on-top-of-the-ballness, you should check this book out. It's not one of these annoying habits of effective people, what is the meaning of life, I am lovable and capable deals. Rather, it is a highly useful system broken down in language that even a lazy-ass techie like me can understand.

au coiffeur? chez le coiffeur?

2005-10-29T04:46:00.000-05:00

I told the barber: "I don't like putting crap in my hair", but he didn't believe me. Then again, I also did tell him that he could whatever the heck he wanted and that I had complete confidence in his abilities.

Click picture to watch.

message to the americans 4 - Dmitry S.

2005-10-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

Dmitry from Russia, Dmitry of B224 fame delivers his message to the American people. A question he gives to reflect upon: what really is the American way? The European one?

message aux américains 3 - Djamé S.

2005-10-12T15:43:00.000-05:00

Djamé S., also from the lab, speaks to the American people:

Djamé S., qui est aussi du labo, parle au peuple américain:

Edit 22 oct: Added subtitles for those who had trouble understanding Djamé's message. (Désolé, Djamé, ça m'arrive aussi)

message aux américains 2 - Yannick P.

2005-10-09T17:51:00.000-05:00

Friend and B224 colleague Yannick delivers his message to the Americans (and more seriously than the infamous Patrice D. this time). Filmed on 5 october 2005 in Nancy, France:

Edit 16 october: Slight image tweaking

in the pipeline

2005-10-06T17:01:00.000-05:00

So what are we working on over here in our four corners of the GFD world?

On the French end, I've got three messages aux américains in the pipeline from friends Yannick, Djamé and Dmitry.

Dennis? Bert? Ike?

message aux américains 1 - patrice d.

2005-09-06T15:58:00.000-05:00

Part of our on-going message to the French / message aux américains series. The first of our French messages. Patrice D., unemployed, gay, alcoholic, Communist, delivers his message to the Americans:

b224 in scotland

2005-09-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

This is supposed to go up on Thursday on our sister vlog b224, but I couldn't resist giving y'all a sneak preview:

message to the french 4: ike and jen

2005-08-31T17:22:00.000-05:00

Ike and Jen deliver their message to the French (see note below).
Ike et Jen s'addressent aux français. (voir l'explication ci-dessous).

We were all having dinner together one night, and one of the bits of discussion that came up was this amusing little British insult which consists of saying "Whatever, your mother Works in McDonalds" and forming at the same time with your hands the letters W.M.W.M (cute, huh?). A good hour later when we started filming our messages to the French, Ike had a burst of inspiration which set all of us laughing...

Un soir, pendant qu'on mangait ensemble, un des sujets de discussions était un insult brittanique qui consiste à dire "Whatever, your Mother Works in McDonalds" ("Je m'en fou, ta mere, elle travail chez McDo") et faire en même temps les lettres W.M.W.M avec ses doigts. C'est de là que Ike a eu son inspiration une heure plus tard quand on avait commencé à filmer nos messages aux français. Et c'est pour ça qu'on était tous mort de rire.
N.B. ...en fait, "je m'en fous" n'est pas une bonne traduction de 'whatever'. "n'importe quoi" non plus; donc si il y a un francophone qui veut bien m'aider...

message to the french 3: bert

2005-08-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

Bert gives his message to French.
Bert s'addresse aux français.

I don't think he likes the Académie Française very much.
Je pense qu'il n'aime pas trop l'Académie Française.

messsage to the french 2: dennis

2005-08-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

Dennis delivers his message to the French:
Dennis donne son message aux français :

Sorry for the crappy translation.
Désolé pour la traduction pourrie.

tour de france swag

2005-08-03T18:30:00.000-05:00

Paula shows off her Tour de France swag:

See also: Securité Routiere

interview with Mary

2005-07-30T07:13:00.000-05:00

My friend Mary used to help me out on my science fair projects when we were in high school, and we've kept in touch ever since. In this interview, Mary talks about her new house, life in Jacksonville, and her job as IB program director at Paxon high school:

(BTW, the "For your information, I am also from the Westside" is directed at the audience, not Mary)

First video entry

2005-07-28T11:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I WAS going to wait until Hawaii to make the first entry, but since Dennis jumped the gun I decided I would as well. I made this so you guys could see what work looks like. This was during a night shift in the control room during my group's experiment.

Video entry- In the Control Room

I apologize for the format, but I don't have a tool to convert it just yet. Actually, since you guys don't use Linux you won't mind, I suppose.

Edit by Eric: Threw in a screenshot.

Tap tap tap.

2005-07-26T17:27:00.000-05:00

Every blog needs a first post.

To start things off, we present you a little video of Dennis's cat Cauchy running into a wall.

[edit by dennis: changed link url]
[edit by eric: added screenshot]