It’s been more than a month since I got my Nokia 770. In that time, I went through numerous spontaneous reboots, which culminated in one never ending reboot loop after an unsuccessful software install in which I lost my Mahjong best times and a collection of ideas for a project at work. I can’t make it connect to company wireless (although at home it works just fine) and built in email client is a piece of crap that barely satisfies the need to check email. There’s no good way to synchronize data (address book etc.) with other devices and I see no reason why included editor can’t handle any text file.

Yet, I absolutely love this gadget to the point, where my wife jokes about being jealous.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since I flashed the device yesterday. Why is it so alluring to me?

Gadgets are not living beings and there’s no charm in their faults. There certainly are many of them, but there’s also a lot to like. Display is fantastic and reading web pages or pdf files finally doesn’t hurt. Those two tasks were the reason I bought it in the first place, so it’s performing its main function quite well. I like the way I can transform it in a little computer with a portable bluetooth keyboard
that lets me do practically anything. I don’t play games much, but I like those available. I was fine with declared battery time and I’m
absolutely delighted my 770 like a Duracell bunny easily exceeds it. I’ve got a feeling I can make it do whatever I want, limited mostly by my practically non-existent free time.

I guess I like it so much simply because getting more than expected is good enough.

I stumbled upon a map of Europe in the middle of 17th century while reading about Jan Hus and John Wycliffe and was surprised to learn how foreign it was to me.

I’m a big fan of Google Earth (and Maps), but the thing that I don’t like is that I can only look at most recent information Google has. Normally this is what I want, but not always. I like the fact that photos of Cerknica lake were taken during one of seasonal droughts, since it makes it easy to find streams and sinks that are gone when lake is full of water. But what will happen if new photos will be taken when lake is full?

Information I can access now will be gone and I’ll only be able to wait for a better luck in the future. Google (and other map providers) have provided good tools for moving around three dimensions, but I’d like to be able to move in fourth as well.

Wouldn’t it be nice, if you could see how a place is changing through time or how did states change through centuries?

The problem is not so much technical as it is of information gathering. Obviously it’s getting harder (even impossible) to get reliable data as you go further back in history, but that’s hardly a reason not to try at all. If you’d be interested in working on map of Europe of last couple of millennia, please let me know.

Update : Wikipedia’s atlas .

I’ll give 4th edition of Javascript, the Definitive Guide by David Flanagan to person who emails me first.

The book is in excellent condition even though it’s been in my hands a lot and I can only recommend it to anyone who wants to learn Javascript. I’d still cling to it, if I haven’t received 5th edition as Christmas gift.

Lucky recipient will be able to claim it at next Wednesday talk , whenever it will be.