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Couple of days ago I saw a link to Escape Pod science fiction podcast. At first, I didn’t pay enough attention to it, although, I still gave it a quick look. It made its way somewhere deep into my brains and didn’t show up until this evening. You might know that I’m studying English (or, perhaps, polishing it) and always looking for good opportunities to extend and improve my communication skills.

Today I’ve got an idea. Why not give it a try and combine learning with a pleasure of listening to some science fiction? So, that’s how I decided to review the site again and download some issues. I’ve downloaded two of them (#19 Implications and #24 The Death Trap of Dr. Nefario) and, now that I’ve finished listening to them, I’m definitely going to get the rest of them. It’s so wonderful and exciting that I would recommend anyone out there to give it a whirl on the off-chance. Yeah, it’s something special!

I promise, you would find it time well-spent for sure!

Wow! I’ve been given a very interesting link several nanos ago and writing pretty fast to share it with you. It’s the link to a very unusual site — The Million Dollar Homepage — where the front page is a big advertisement board. The owner of the site sells each and every pixel on this board for $1. It all started Sep 25, 2005 and by this very moment the stats say that he has sold 320,300 pixels which generated him a pretty solid revenue.

I refuse to believe that someone could earn that much in such an easy way. Heh, the price of innovation, I guess.

Eric Grohe demonstrates unbelieveable creativity. He paints unusual and extremely impressive pictures on the walls. His creations are supposed to bring more colors and space into our grayed out cubicle living, prolonging the space and time. I can swear he has much more works. Does anyone know some other locations on the net to enjoy his wonderful art?

Before:

After:

(click on the pictures to get them full-size)

Now that I’ve spent more than an hour wandering through the CiteULike — academic papers bookmarking site — I can authoritatively say that I’m in love with this web place. I know that these days everything is possible, but sometimes it’s even hard to imagine what you wish to wonder yourself with.

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This morning I was surfing around JavaLobby.org to see what’s new. I wasn’t there for a month or so (except those times when I published short announcements for my writings). I was fortunate to notice one interesting link — the link to new JavaLobby network site — JavaBlackBelt. It’s a free skills assessment community which can help you to get prepared to serious certification exams or just give you some fun during the coffee breaks.

Below are two books I recommend to pay attention to, if you are going to prepare yourself to exams.

Sun Certified … Study Guide (Exam 310-035 & 310-027) by Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates

Sun Certified … for Java X Study Guide (Certification Press) by Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates

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