Zimbabwe introduces $50 billion note

Zimbabwe’s central bank will introduce a $50 billion note — enough to buy just two loaves of bread — as a way of fighting cash shortages amid spiraling inflation.

source: CNN

Fly like an eagle

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

Yahoo Maps in Indonesia and Viet Nam

Yahoo has turned out to be the first of the big-three online mapping sites (Yahoo, Google and Microsoft) to have detailed road-maps of Indonesia and Viet Nam.

So now you can finally figure out how to drive from Bogor to Yogyakarta.

Source: Yahoo Geo Technologies Blog.

Comparing Obama and Bush’s victory speeches

It’s quite a stark comparison to compare Obama’s Nov. 2008 presidential victory speech against George W. Bush’s 2004 victory speech.

Bush in 2004:

(source: http://www.spike.com/video/bushs-victory-speech/2655088)

Obama in 2008 (note: YouTube playlist has 3 videos):

Google Earth for the IPhone

I know that we don’t need yet another reason to get an iPhone, but Google has just added a great reason – Google Earth is now available for the iPhone.

Palin’s foreign credentials tested

In response to Palin’s comments about her foreign policy experience based on being able to see Russia from Alaska, Michael Koswowsky has set up a special map using his “HeyWhatsThat” tools. Looks like there are only 4 very hard to reach spots where you can see Russia in Alaska.

GPX2SHP – Win32 with C# source code

I have been searching for some time for a simple GPX to SHP file converter. Both of these file formats are used extensively in geospatial applications, but for some reason no one has created a converter between these two files.

So, being a programmer, I decided to remedy this situation.

Download GPX2SHP Binary- for Win32

the binary version requires the .Net 2.0 framework to be installed on your computer. You can download the framework here.

Currently only waypoints are converted – tracks will be added in the future.

If you’re a programmer, you can download the Visual Studio .Net 2005 C# Source Code for this project here.

If this program works for you (or if it doesn’t), you can email me at jsuwala@gmail.com.

May 17 2010 update: the download links above are now working (again)!

Microsoft Re-Designs the IPod Packaging

Bad Design

Two good websites that talk about bad design:

Bad Human Factors Design: http://www.baddesigns.com/

Interface Hall of Shame: http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm

New Truck

Our old ’91 Pathfinder needed too much work on it, so we decided to upgrade to a 2002 Nissan Xterra. This truck is definitely a serious off-road vehicle, and one week was long enough keeping it in the city. Here’s our new truck outside of Squamish.