Cogs can think.

And so it seems that we may see an end to the US control over the internet. I find this a hugely positive development, and I hope that the control over the internet will become a super-national matter. There is no logical reasoning anywhere that explains why the control over the internet should be in the hands of any country– especially not the United States. If there is one country’s government on this planet thar nor I, nor many others, trust, it’s the US one. Democratic or Republican.

These proposals are still in their infancy, so we’ll have to wait and see how they turn out. OSNews’ comment section is gonna be royally fcuked :). The jokes are easy though… ICANN’ed, ICANN’t.. Just too easy ;).

I’m fairly confident when saying this: James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful is by far the best song of 2005. I don’t see anyone topping this absolute gem.

My life is brilliant
My love is pure
I saw an angel
Of that I’m sure
She smiled at me on the subway
She was with another man
But I won’t lose no sleep on that
‘Cause I’ve got a plan

You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful, it’s true
I saw your face in a crowded place
And I don’t know what to do
‘Cause I’ll never be with you

Yeah, she caught my eye
As we walked on by
She could see from my face that I was
Fucking high*
And I don’t think that I’ll see her again
But we shared a moment that will last till the end

You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful, it’s true
I saw your face in a crowded place
And I don’t know what to do
‘Cause I’ll never be with you

You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful, it’s true
There must be an angel with a smile on her face
When she thought up that I should be with you

But it’s time to face the truth
I will never be with you

Just… Speechless. Anyone who travels by public transport regurlarly perfectly knows this feeling…

(*) This “high” does not refer to drugs, it refers to the fact that the lady made him ‘high’

We all know the term “blockbuster”. Movies like Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, Spartacus, Independence Day, and so many more. Blockbuster’s a film term.

However, one can also apply this term to music. Some songs are of such greatness, almost pompus, monumental; a band’s or artist’s masterpiece, something they will never be able to topple. I today made a quick list of my favourite blockbuster songs. In no particular order:

Now that the dust surrounding Mass.’ switch to OpenDocument is settling, it’s time for me to voice my opinion about this. And the OSS zealots ain’t gonna like it.

I find that a government should serve its citizens, instead of the other way round. It should present its information and content in such a way that most of the people can access it. And whether all the OSS zealots like it or not– that means presenting information in formats that Windows users can access with the least amount of hassle.

Now that Mass. has switch to OpenDocument, all Mass. citizens are forced into downloading a new piece of software. That in itself is bad enough, but there’s something far worse: there is no piece of software available for Windows users yet that can read/write OpenDocument! OO.o2 seems to be in perpetual beta (not to mention the lack of developers), StarOffice 8.0 isn’t available yet and isn’t free, and Koffice doesn’t run on Windows yet (all we get is “soon!”). AbiWord is nice, but not half as full-featured as either MS Office or Star/OpenOffice.

So, then, do I support governments that cater only to Windows/MS Office users? No, of course not. What governments and institutions should do is simply supply their information in multiple formats. What’s wrong with supplying information in .pdf? As far as I know, there is a .pdf reader for just about anything that has a chip in it, so it’s accessible to everyone. Now. Not tomorrow, not in beta, but now.

Another advantage of using .pdf is that most people, Linux, Windows, OSX, or whatever, already have a reader. So, you won’t be forcing people to download unstable, untested pieces of software. It’s also rather awkward for companies, who now have to spend extra cash on buying StarOffice. Bad effect on the economy.

In conjuction, governments should release information in other formats too; MS Office formats, OpenDocument, etc. Converting documents isn’t exactly rocket science these days, so this should not pose any problems.

This switch is gonna bite Mass. back in the ass, I’m sure of it. Making descisions based on empty promises of open-nes and freedom is a stupid idea. You should base your descisions on what’s practical.

I felt like ass this morning. Really.

As is usual now, I had to get up at 6 in the morning. That in itself is reason enough to feel like ass, but it was made worse by the fact that I really, and then I mean really was in no mood for university. Since my bus connection to Big City Alkmaar is simply too unreliable to count on (I have a gap of about 2 minutes between arriving at Alkmaar Central Station and the Intercity to Amsterdam departing), I now use my car to get to Alkmaar Noord and hop on the Intercity there. However, there were way too many people on the train today, so I couldn’t sit on a normal chair. I hate that.

Anyway, first thing I did when I arrived at Amsterdam Sloterdijk Station, was to buy me a coffee-to-go– I was in desperate need for caffeine to start me up. As I walked off with the steaming hot coffee in my hands, a line from Daniel Powter’s Bad Day popped into my mind: “You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go“. And that really was true.

At that point.

After I got the coffee, everything started to look up. In the metro, the last stage of my rather complicated journey to university, I could sit again, and when I arrived at the Amstelveense Weg, it even had stopped raining. During class I met up with Nancy, and we both weren’t in the mood for class. It took me another two coffees to really wake up, and after that I finally had breakfast (a croissant), and I went to the record store, where I bought “The Best Of The Rolling Stones”. Great album.

As I said in an earlier post, I was supposed to meet up with Guenievre today, but she already cancelled it yesterday eve, because she didn’t feel all too well. She really didn’t like cancelling, I could hear it in her voice, so instead she said she’d see how she’d feel the next morning; she might come after all. I simply said it was no problem, we could just postpone it a week, and then she promised to make it up by calling me tomorrow afternoon.

Which she did. I just hang up, because we, as brilliant minds that go to university, came to the conclusion that using IM might be cheaper– while we were both sitting behind our computers anyway (yeah behold, the great young minds that are to be the future of this nation). We’re talking about movies now, and she’s trying to get me to read Harry Potter. I kind of already said I would– sometimes you just got to give in.

—

And finally, yesterday the Sharp Zaurus arrived that Eugenia sent me. I instantly fell for the thing, with its QWERTY keyboard, and Linux-powered environment. Really cool thing– by far not as usable as my Tungsten E2, but still really cool. Expect a review of it, although I’m not sure in which form. Thanks, Eugenia!

Yesterday evening I went to Renate’s, to play some trictrac. I won twice, she once, bringing our total score to 5-5. I came back from 4-0! I didn’t want to let the evening grow too old before going home, because I had to get up at six the next morning. So, I went home after the 5-5 was reached (didn’t want to leave being one game behind again).

When I got home, Guenievre called, and explained she might not make it tomorrow. My parents were annoyed because I was making phonecalls at 23:30, but hey, friends are friends.

—

All in all, I had a great day and evening. So, to get back to that fake smile– I’m wondering how fake it really was.

Just apt-get dist-upgraded into Breezy, and it finally works. About time. Anyway, Gnome 2.12 is really nice, Beagle is working marvellously, and as you can see, I also encountered the new Zipdisk mount error dialog! The GNOME team delivered on their promise to make the Zipdisk mount error dialog even more user-friendly and HIG-compliant. Since the previous version didn’t contain any useful info anyway, they this time decided to discard of the info alltogether.

In GNOME 2.14, the Zipdisk mount error dialog will be removed completely, and replaced by a more user-friendly and more HIG-compliant PC speaker beep, and for Topaz, they plan to replace the PC speaker beep by a mallet that comes falling from the sky on top of your head.

Okay, so it seems that Sharon has survived the vote inside the Likud party…

This is the first, and most likely the last time, you’ll hear me say this: I’m happy that Sharon remains in power.

Huh?

Yes. It is either Sharon, or Netanyahu. It’s choosing between evil and more evil, really. Sharon’s a bitch, but Netanyahu is worse. Much worse. If Netanyahu would’ve won this vote, we’d see new elections, and the chance is real that Netanyahu would’ve become the new prime-minister– which would mean that Israel would’ve again illegally occupied the Gaza-strip.

So, yes, it’s good that Sharon remains the prime-minister. Until someone comes along who is not a big fat nazi, of course.

The world is a backwards place. Eugenia blogged about this just now.

I find it appaling that a country that promotes itself as being the leader in democracy, freedom and free speech actually goes to great lengths to control whatever is thaught in public schools.

Look, if people want to believe that God created us, fine by me, it’s just as believable as a magical big bang; they both make no sense. No scientist has any decent idea on why or how the big bang actually happened; so in a sense, there is just as much proof for the big bang as their is for God-created-us-all. Personally, I ‘believe’ in the Big Bang, yet I acknowledge that that theory is anything but waterteight.

But do I want schools to stop teaching Creationism? Of course not! Creationism and Christianity is what shaped my country since the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire; it brought us to where we are today. It would be silly to discard 1500 years of our history just because in the past few centuries we came to doubt whatever the bible thought us.

I find it odd that Americans are so willing to make themselves look ridicoulous. A large part of the American people is one big contradictio in terminis; they forcefully want to put up this mask of Christian decency; they forcefully fight abortion, sex-before-marriage, condoms, and what not. My country, on the other hand, has a much more liberal policy: we legalized abortion, prosititution, we promote condoms, and we also “allow” soft-drugs (mariuhana, hash)(”allow” because they are still very much illegal). Some Republican party members even refer to my country as the “home of Satan”.

Then, Republican party members, please explain why drug abuse and drug related crimes are among the lowest in the world in my country? Why STDs are low in my country? Why the US has such high murder rates? Why the US has such high adultury rates? Such high divorce figures?

All this can be explained using quite a simple analogy: if you present someone with 100 doors, and then tell him he can enter all but number 23… Then which will he eventually enter? What is better: prohibit prostitution, and spend lots of money on fighting it; or just legalize it, control it, and tax it?

PS: for all the people against abortion, listen to “What It’s Like” by Everlast. Here’s the important verse:

Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom who said he was in love
He said don’t worry about a thing baby doll I’m the man you’ve been dreamin’ of
But three months later he said he won’t date her or return her call
And she sweared god damn if I find that man I’m cuttin’ off his balls
And then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walkin’ through the doors
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner, and they call her a whore

God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose

Now you again.

After reading this, and the KMac guys asking me what I did not like about Apple, I feel compelled to make my own list of annoyences with Apple and OSX. Warning: rant ahead.

1. OS X is slow and heavy. No matter what all the Apple zealots tell you, do not, I repeat, do not believe them when they say that OS X is faster than Windows or Linux/[insert DE]. And it’s not like I have aging hardware or anything– I have an iBook G4 1.07Ghz with 512MBRAM and a Ati Radeon 9200 with 32MBRAM. Still, OSX literally takes *ages* to boot, *ages* to shutdown, and loading apps is sometimes painstakingly slow. And the speed within apps (excluding Safari) isn’t all that superb either.
2. OSX is slowly becoming very inconsistent, especially GUI-wise. We now have 7 different themes, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s 6 too many. An operating system should have *one* theme. I *detest* inconsistency. And Apple keeps introducing new themes… Some people say they are experimenting, which is all fine– but they should only seed those experiments to testers and developers, and NOT to the general public. If people are looking for a consistent interface, stick with Linux/GNOME. OSX is not longer the epitome of consistency, GUI-wise that is.
3. You cannot get rid of that annoying Google search field anymore since Safari 2.0.
4. Screen remnants are abundant in Tiger. In the image you see here, you can see one of the more abundant and annoying remnants: the scrollbar blob gets a remnant. The most annoying remnants, however, is the doubling of lines of text in text input fields, all throughout the OS. When you scroll down, for instance, certain lines get copied and you see them twice. Extremely annoying, and it looks crappy.
5. Spotlight is too slow.
6. Dashboard is useless, a memory hogger, and a big joke.
7. The dock, while looking cool, is a UI nightmare. They should make a clear distinction between taskbar and app launcher; now they are intertwined and that’s extremely confusing to some people.
8. Sometimes, Expose stops working. Better put: the screencorner function of Expose stops working, resulting in me only being able to use Expose using the keyboard. This happens at random, and is only fixable by a reboot.
9. Mail.app has no vertical peview pane, and it uses ugly buttons.
10. For a UNIX-based OS, OSX requires a lot of reboots. Install a 0.0.x release of iTunes, and *whop* reboot.
11. OSX needs a better un-installer. Contrary to what many people believe, removing an app by dragging it to the trash does *not* uninstall all parts of the app. You can test this by re-instaling the app; you’ll very often see that it remembered your settings. I want to have the ability to *completely* remove an application.
12. Since Tiger, Apple changed the way Safari handles .pdf files. Instead of opening them in Preview, with all the handy resizing & browsing functions, it now is loaded in-line in Safari, without decent and easily accesible resizing tools. You cannot jump to a certain page instantly; you can only use the scrollbar. Annoying.

That’s all that I had to say. There are probably more things, but these are the most annoying. Stay tuned for lists on Windows and Linux/GNOME.

I was just watching “Sleepy Hollow” again on TV. This is a movie by Tim Burton (”Edward Scissorhands”) starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricchi. This is a really stylish and scary horror-movie about the village Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman.

While watching this movie, it dawned on me that “The Lord Of The Rings” should have been directed by Tim Burton. Why?

Well, TLOR trilogy was really good. Really good. However, as far as I’m concerned, it lacked something. It lacked, well, a magical atmosphere. LOTR felt like, well, a historically accurate re-enactment– the fantasy equivalent of “Saving Private Ryan”. And this kinda bothered me. LOTR is *not* a historical novell. It’s a fantasy novell.

And that’s where Tim Burton would’ve fit in much better. Tim Burton is the master of creating a magical atmosphere, of taking the absurd– and make it enjoyable. Take Edward Scissorhands for example. This is a completely absurd story about a boy with sciccors as hands– but while watching the movie, you *completely* forget how absurd that actually is! And still, the movie feels so magical, so absurd, so surreal– I love it.

And a master of surrealism, absurdity and magic is what LOTR really needed. Tim Burton’s hypothetical version might not have appealed to the masses as much as Peter Jackson’s version did, but it would have been a movie that would’ve far better fit the fantasy, fairytale world.