Cogs can think.

The guys at KMac have just uploaded their latest podcast– featuring me as the interviewee, in my role as managing editor at OSNews :). It was really cool to take part, and I hope I’ll feature there again in the future. It’s a really good and funny Mac/Apple related podcast, all in Dutch, so it’s not really of use to non-Dutch speakers.

Just sumbled upon this… Priceless! This must be the best quote:

Where KDE policy is “if you find an empty space during one second, add an useless feature or something very very irritating. The icon must be shiny and rotating”, the Gnome policy is trully the opposite : “if you find a feature, it’s not user friendly so remove it”.

Following this policy, Gnome is the only piece of software with less feature every release.

They do a really good KDE item too:

In the beginning there was a freak keyboard malfunction, from excessive typing of the word cool resulting in damage to the to the letter ‘c’. On the third day it was proclaimed henceforth the letter ‘k’ would forever be used instead.

And they even have an item on OSNews!!

OSNews is a collaborative effort (much like a Wiki) in which operating system fans congregate to wage war on any other computing technology. Having started in the 1950s in Slashdot, OSNews pioneered the idea that the widget styles of KDE and Gnome could be worthy of a 500-comment discussion.

Truth can hurt, guys and gals.

“An astute observation by John Ousby has left plenty of people scratching their heads. Ousby has spotted the uncanny resemblance between the now defunct iPod Mini, and a transistor radio that made its debut over 50 years ago.”

Look:

Astonoshing, ain’t it??

Update: Check this out :).

Okay, it must be said.

I’m old-fashioned.

I’ve been using my mp3 player the last few weeks each day, and I’m getting tired of the thing. I miss all the features and benefits my MD player had… Annoyences of my mp3 player:

I listen to music on a per album basis– my mp3 player refuses to play all the songs of a certain album in the correct order, insisting on playing them alphabetically. It doesn’t even help to put track numbers in the id3 tag, or in the filename!;

It’s too small;

It’s slow as fcuk, especially when skipping through songs.

Look, I’m not out to diss my mp3 player in perticular; I diss them all.

Now, it is no secret, at least not to the the people that know me in Real Life™, that I’ve always been a huge supporter of the Minidisc. As far as I’m concerned, it’s superior to any other portable music medium. And now with HiMD, the competition is eating dust. Let me compare HiMD to portable mp3 players:

They weigh less;

Can record from any source, anytime;

One 5$ HiMD disk holds 1 GB of storage, any storage that is;

MD disks are resiliant, and due to their hard plastic casing virtually scratch-proof;

The internal MD mechanics are much less sensitive to dropping it on the floor etc. than HDDs are. My portable MD recorder fell down stairs numerous times; it got bathed in Cola (don’t ask me how), and it still works. Try that with an mp3 player;

All old MD/NetMD/MDLP disks are automatically reformatted in HiMD format to drastically increase capacity (backwards compatibility).

Expandable: capacity is unlimited because you can always buy new disks;

“Open”: any operating system with USB mass storage drivers is supported by HiMD.

Cheaper!

Can play songs in the order that I want them to. Goddamnit.

As far as I’m concerned, portable mp3 players, both HDD and flash-based, are ridicoulously overrated; Apple’s PR machine is largely in debt for that.

Recently, Sony released their latest portable HiMD recorder: the MZ-RH10. I want one. I need one. I’m gonna buy one. ASAP. Postponing all other purchases.

Okay, as far as I can see for now, the transition from Blogspot to Wordpress/Blogsome is completed.

Most of the work has gone into personalizing all this; the new header background (to fit the Cogs theme), red link color, font modification (Trebuchet MS, as always), and more. I’d like to thank Eugenia for helping me on all the technical stuff– wouldn’t have been able to get it like this without her help.

Another change is that contrary to Blogspot, Wordpress/Blogsome has categories. As you’ve seen by now, underneath each blog entry you can find the categor(y)(ies) into which that entry has been filed. The list of available categories can be found in the sidebar. This is very handy, as you can now easily see all posts related to i.e. OSNews.

Other than that, it satisfies my obsessive compulsion with keeping things organized and tidy :).

I’ve also put a syndication with Geenstijl.nl in the sidebar; this is a Dutch website that presents us with news about all sorts of subject in a rather humerous and ironic manner. This is obviously only of use to the Dutch readers.

All in all, I’m quite satisfied. My blog has its own face, all the things I want– superb.

“Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down Nazi war criminals following World War II and spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice, has died aged 96.”

Let me take this moment to express my deepest of respects for this man. I find it extraordinary that this war victim said he didn’t hate Germans, he was hunting Nazis.

R.I.P.

Quite a borin’ day at university. I had hoped t’ see Nancy, but she didn’t show up for t’ class we had this mornin’ (probably due t’ t’ fact that it was a) early, arr, and b) only 45 minutes). I did go because after that short class, I had a ‘real’ class (English Grammar, nay ain’t Pirate’s Grammar, arr!). I hope she’ll be thar tomorrow. For t’ rest absolutely nothin’ t’ report, other than that it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day today!

Ah do got somethin’ t’ report, me maties! Just set a date with Guenievre, meetin’ up with ‘r next week, arr!

Now playin’: “The Rising”, Bruce Springsteen

As yer all mighty fine aware of, lads, tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, arr! If ye be interested in learnin’ t’ talk like a pirate, then learn t’ basics here. Don’t have time t’ learn? Use this translator! Arr!

Shiver me timbers!

Had a good evening yesterday. We went to Big City Alkmaar, in a very cool and extremely fast Peugeot 206 GTi. To give you an idea: that’s a 1050 kg car with a 2.0l 138hp engine, with 17″ stylish rims, and sport seats and all that. Very thrilling, good car, good handling, and did I already say it was ridicolously fast?

We went to the Notaris, spent a few minutes in the Joey’s (I’ve grown out of the latter, really). You always know when you’re in the Joey’s; you can’t see your feet anymore, and no matter where you are, no matter in what tiny corner, you’re always in the middle of the walking path. Very odd, someone ought to study that.

Anyway, it was a fun evening.

—

I’m thinking of doing a review of SharpE for OSNews; it’s definitely a product that deserves some attention. And to please our zealous readers, it’s lgpl too.