I want to get my parents a digital picture frame. But at the moment I cannot. That’s because I don’t want my somewhat less-technical parents to have to fiddle with memory cards, choosing and transferring photographs or running Vista.

My ideal digital picture frame for them would be one sitting in a living room or a bedroom with new photos to delight my parents every so often.

Such a device would have to be:

• Wi-Fi capable - My parents have a wireless router and there is no point for a picture frame to sit next to the computer
• Able to pull content from private online photo account, such as Flickr or PicasaWeb, to which our extended family could push photos
• No ongoing monthly costs - subscription would make it a gift that keeps taking, rather than giving
• Controllable over the internet
• Ideally with speakers and/or some way to show video to be more future proof

I have been on a lookout for such a device for more than a year and had no luck. Obviously, digital picture frames are still a personal purchase rather than a gift one. Or maybe less technical parents is a smaller niche than I imagine.

But I have hope. Yesterday, I have received a small package that contained a Chumby! Chumby is not a digital picture frame. It is quite small (I think the website’s image is real-size). But it has features that make up for its size.

It has Wi-Fi access, including password-protected; it has no monthly costs; it is configured over the internet and comes with speakers. It also has touch sensitive screen, microphone and accelerometer (like in Wii controller).

Notice I did not say anything about pictures or videos. That’s because Chumby is a more generic device. It allows to choose what widgets run on it and a widget is a program written in Flash, the same environment that allows us to watch Flickr slide-shows and youTube videos, listen to internet radio and play casual games. It can also double as alarm clock and iPod music player.

More importantly, because anybody can develop and share a widget, I am not married to any particular way of presenting photos. Flickr widget exists already, but other photo and video service widgets are on the way.

And, if I am still unhappy, I can write my own widgets. Chumby runs Linux under the covers and Flash Lite 3 interface. And, differently from Apple’s position with iPhone, Chumby Industries encourage people to modify their software, hardware and even basic device shape. Already, there are compilation packages for python, perl and even Java (actually JamVM).

Chumby is not yet for public sale, but that should happen any day now. I was on a mailing list, so got a pre-release invite. That is good, as it means I have some time to really play with my Chumby.

And if all goes well, my Chumby will soon have a new friend or two hiding under the Christmas tree overseas.

I have seen plenty of visual illusions - both static and moving - but I have never seen a rotating human figure as an optical illusion. Took a while to even convince myself it was not a joke.

I did work it out in the end (after a hint). The secret - at least for me - was to concentrate in the bottom-right corner on the feet shadows and force my eyes to track the outer foot’s shadow the way I wanted it to go.

I have tried Tamarind before as an ingredient in dishes, but I have never actually seen the real fruit. I wasn’t even sure it was edible uncooked. So, when I saw it sold in the shop, I had to try it. It turned out to be a very educational experience. The fruit is layered with multiple inedible seeds covered by sweet and sour pulp, inside a little cage in the hard-shell pod. The fruit variety I have is from Thailand, so it is more sweet than sour.

Following are the pictures of the closed pod, the pod half peeled and the seeds left over.

Apart from eating Tamarinds out of the box, it is possible to make a drink with them. I might try that next.

I don’t swear! I find that if I use up the swear words in day-to-day situations, I will have nothing to use in the critical moments when I actually need to let the steam out. Interestingly, when I do get those moments, I still do not really swear. But I need to know that such release vent exists.

So, I was relieved (if a bit surprised) to find that a competition was held on swearing words and expressions in Esperanto with prizes for top three places and that there were enough candidates offered to need the judges. It took 6 months, but the candidates and the winners are now available. No translation into any other language was provided, but most of the words and expressions are recognizable by anybody who can read Roman alphabet.

This is of course nowhere close to the Russian language, which has a whole shadow language of swearing, but it is probably sufficient for now.

My VOIP phone company (Lingo) has just announced that they are now on MySpace. I have heard of car companies doing that, but it feels rather weird when a utility company wants to do the same.

I can see two reasons they could be doing that:

1. They are not doing too well and are getting desperate. They used to offer $25 as a referral fee and remind of it every 6 months or so. Now, it is $50 and they mention it every email they send. To me it means their cost of acquisition has gone up with more and more companies entering the VOIP provider market.
2. They want to look hip and new and differentiated from old-school telcos. It seems to work to some degree, as they already have more than 60 friends and even some comments.

One thing for sure. They now have a public forum, where they had none before. It would be interesting to see how they will handle the first negative comment about their service. If they are really getting into MySpace for community, rather than just for the image, they will learn the lessons from other companies that had to deal with public complaints.