We all still think it’s a good idea. Seems like some other people think so too, as Google is rumored to start its own Playrock clone :)

In the meantime I found a new job here in Israel, for a promising startup that I can’t say much about. The people there are great and the work is challenging and therefore a lot of fun.

It’s been two years now working on Playrock. We released as beta without advertising and are improving it all the time to make it better and more appealing to our users. I think Playrock is a great idea and we get very good responses from people that hear about it.

However, if Playrock doesn’t do well enough, I will be forced to look for a job. It’s not optimal, but not bad either – it will be a good time for me to explore overseas job opportunities, as I previously wanted to but never had the chance.

I traveled to see The Prodigy for the 13th time in September and had an amazing time thanks to some new friends in Belgrade, Serbia.

As for side projects: I haven’t had much time to work on those. My ideas list is growing and I might start working on one of them soon. As always, it will probably be a niche project that won’t appeal to many people, but it’ll be fun to code. I didn’t manage to find a designer for the website I built for my online will idea that I already implemented, which is a shame because I was hoping to progress with that.

My workouts are still the same and I’m relatively happy with my fitness and health.

So for the upcoming year I hope that either Playrock will be successful or for a different kind of adventure outside of Israel. Other than that… life is pretty good as is :)

That’s why I was so surprised to find a bug in GCC 4.7.2 that turned out to be real and not just a fragment of my imagination. I’m also surprised no one else reported it earlier. I guess it shows that there aren’t too many people (or companies) out there building C++11 code, yet.

So after more than 10 years of programming in C/C++, this is the one time I get to be affected by a compiler bug. From now on it’s going to be really my fault 100% of the time.

My current workouts consist of running 11+ km (in about one hour) twice a week and some simple workouts at home for the upper body, which help me avoid some lower back pain I’ve suffered from lately.

For some reason around this time of year running gets harder for me. I’m not sure if it’s weather-related or maybe DST-related, but it’s definitely there. Today’s run was relatively easy so that’s good.

I hope I can keep this routine for another year and maybe even go back to running three times a week.

If you have an Android phone and consider yourself a friend of mine :), please take the time to download Playrock from the Google Play Store by clicking this image below:

Since this is a social app, contact me by email and I’ll add you to one of my “virtual spaces” so I can show you what it does. There is a small learning curve needed to use the app, but I believe it will be worth it. Also, any feedback would be appreciated. Write me to amit@blenture.com (or any address you have of mine) with your thoughts.

Here’s Ace kneading on a relaxed Saturday afternoon. If you listen carefully (or turn up the volume) you can hear her purring as well.

With me were two new Serbian friends who took very good care of me and made a great night even greater. The Serbian crowd was ecstatic, there were multiple mosh pits throughout the entire show and the adrenalin was flowing at least as much as the beer.

I only have a few pictures from Belgrade. I don’t take too many pictures any more, which is probably a shame. But maybe that will change next time.

And here’s Omen Reprise/Invaders Must Die from the show. It’s one of my favorite parts where the crowd goes from listening to clapping hands to jumping in less than a minute:

העבר קן
מלא בחרטות.
ההווה תוצאה
של הרבה טעויות.
העתיד עבודה
שנשאר לעשות.
החלום הוא במקרה הטוב
עיוות של כל השאר.

אני אשכח אותך
בסופו של דבר.