ArnoJansen.com

The Microsoft Kinect proofed to be a great depth camera...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:19:39 +0100

The Microsoft Kinect proofed to be a great depth camera platform, and inspired many (gesture) hacks. Microsoft is taking it to the next level with a kinect-style depth camera, combined with a Samsung transparent OLED screen. Minority Report style computer control just came one step closer to being reality.

I have posted here before on the subject of positive psychology...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:52:03 +0100

I have posted here before on the subject of positive psychology and happiness. And this week I came across this video that I saw a few months ago. It tells the story about what motivates people at work and in life. It is beautifully animated to explain the concepts discussed, but the content is even more interesting and beautiful than the drawings.

It also touches on a subject that has regularly been discussed in coffeecorners in many companies: contrary to popular believe, money is not a great motivator for people to do and enjoy their work. At least not as much as “common sense” would expect.

If more money is not the way to intrinsically motivate you, then what is? This video can help answer that question; what is it that makes you tick?

What's in a noun?

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:51:00 +0100

Recently I received this in my inbox, source unknown. Now, I am not going to put up all kinds of office-humour mails here (I do that in dutch at zegdanwat.nl). However, I do enjoy the intricasies of languages; hence this post.

The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

We are all familiar with:
a Herd of cows
a Flock of chickens
a School of fish
a Gaggle of geese.

However, less widely known is:
a Pride of lions
a Murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens)
an Exaltation of doves (Larks too)
a Parliament of owls

Now consider a group of Baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates.
And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?
Believe it or not …….it is a Congress!

I guess that pretty much explains the things!

In the past few months I have become increasingly interested in...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:05:27 +0100

In the past few months I have become increasingly interested in the science of positive psychology. Today, I saw a short video on the TED.com website. It’s a talk by Graham Hill on how less is more: less stuff and baggage means more happiness. I somehow find this very appealing…

After watching it, it made me remember this YouTube movie about an architect in Hong Kong who turned his tiny appartment space into a multi-room transforming house. Awesome!

I have seen this video about a dozen times and whenever I see it...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:22:48 +0100

I have seen this video about a dozen times and whenever I see it again, it gets me to think about what to focus on in order to become a happy person. This lecture is a must see, all 76 minutes of it!

In 2009, I switched from IBM to Thales to work on their new...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:01:00 +0200

In 2009, I switched from IBM to Thales to work on their new Integrated Mast products. The i-mast products are a very innovative way combining many, if not all of the radar and optical surveillance systems on a ship in a all-in-one solution.

As a test engineer I was fortunate enough to work on various parts of the radars inside the mast.

The included video is a promotional video I found on YouTube, explaining some of the key features of the integrated mast productline.

After gaining experience on the Schiphol Airport baggage...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:24:49 +0200

After gaining experience on the Schiphol Airport baggage handling system, I spent some time in Veghel to work with Vanderlande Industries on the new baggage handling system that was to be built for Heathrow Terminal 5. At the time one of the largest construction projects in the UK and to date the largest freestanding building in the UK.

In may of 2008 I moved to London to work on testing and integrating various IBM-built systems with the Vanderlande-built baggage handling equipment to create a state-of-the-art baggage handling system underneath the enormous terminal building. The attached video shares a look inside the system, unfortunately there is no sound, but you’l be able to get the idea.

The Discovery Channel ran a series Big, Bigger, Biggest in which one of the episodes showed the construction and inner workings of the new terminal and the baggage system in particular. Unfortunately, it is not available online freely to watch for everyone, hence no link.

In addition to the previous post, I found this 14 minute...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:19:30 +0200

In addition to the previous post, I found this 14 minute documentary about the baggage handling processes and systems at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It may be a bit long for your taste, but it sure gives a good insight in the processes invisible to passengers to make sure their trip is as smooth as possible.

To continue the previous “Past Pleasures” post:...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:57:02 +0200

To continue the previous “Past Pleasures” post: here’s a video of the baggage handling system at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. I have worked as a developer first, later on as a test engineer on this system. I think my former (indirect) managers (the IBM people in the video, Remco Sierat and Hans Deijkers) are able to explain the thinking behind this awesome project well. (although I am also painfully aware that their english could be improved).

Working on such large-scale automated systems is ridiculously interesting. The complexity and scale of an airport wide, electro-mechanical system, means that you can never just shut-down something for maintenance or testing. Everything is connected all the time. I learned so much here. And more importantly, it gave me (and many of my friends and co-workers) the foundation to go onto building a brand new, even more complex system at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5. More about that in a future post.

Past Pleasures: My articles on 4GuysFromRolla.com

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:45:32 +0200

As the first post about the things I did in the past, how better to start with the oldest stuff I can still link to? In 2000 I was working in an internet startup in Santa Rosa, California. For that company I wrote a browser-based content creation tool. Very meta, eh? Using your browser to create pages that someone else can see in their browser. Nowadays, everybody is doing that. However, at the time it was an innovative idea. Sales reps could login on their own system and create pages branded with client logo’s, text and images tailored to their needs, etc.

The content of the created pages (text and images, video was nowhere to be found on the net then) was stored in XML files, while the layout was stored in XSL stylesheets.

As we found out how to store and edit XML and XSL files from within the browser (using JavaScript), I wrote up the process we went through, to display the data. Those articles got published on 4guysFromRolla.com a website on (web) development. At the time one of the primary sources of ASP (Active Server Pages) knowledge, at least for me.

The articles I wrote can be found here:
“Online content creation using ASP, XML and XSL” - part 1, part 2
“Using XSL Stylesheets to translate XML into HTML” - part 1, part 2

Besides those I wrote a handful of articles in ASP magazine. A print-magazine which is no longer around unfortunately, I do have a couple of hardcopies still though.

A fresh start

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:26:36 +0200

If you have visited my site before, you know it looked differently before. The layout was nice, but it looked like a magazine blog, but without the proper content. That’s why I have decided to have a fresh restart with the site. Simpler, cleaner layout the puts the focus on the content. Now, I will still not update this every day, or maybe even every week, but visitors will be able to quickly see the last thing I posted and be able to search.

But, since some of the pages on the old site functioned as a sort-of portfolio/resume, I want to add some of the info here for sake of being able to refer to it when speaking to other people, projects or employers.

So, the next few posts will contain some of that historic stuff I had here before.

Happy reading, and feel free to leave a response or drop me a line.

Arno

Steve Jobs passed away today. May he rest in peace. And this...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:24:53 +0200

Steve Jobs passed away today. May he rest in peace. And this video has been shared so many times already; and I share it here once more. Why? Because for me it is one of those things that touches me on a fundamental level and it does so for many more people. I already found it inspirational for the past years, but in light of his death this just hits home even more.

I like tea!

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:01:13 +0200

I like tea!

"The mind is like a parachute; it only functions when open!"

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:27:00 +0100

“The mind is like a parachute; it only functions when open!”