Cogs can think.

After reading Eugenia’s blog, I felt the urge to post my own opinion on aliens and the whole UFO crap.

Do I believe life exists outside of our planet? Oh yes. Why do I believe that? Simple numbers, people. The current dominant scientific standpoint is that the universe is infinite. This means that there’s an infinite amount of galaxies. That, in turn, means there’s an infinite amount of stars; infinite amount of solar systems; infinite amount of planets; and thus, an infinite amount of planets with the right circumstances for life. Hence, there is life outside of our planet.

That was simple, wasn’t it?

Now, do these lifeforms come to earth? No. A definite, big, and firm, NO. Even though my above explanation for the existance of life also implies that there is an infite amount of lifeforms similar to ourselves, they won’t be visiting us. Again, the explanation is remarkably simple: if these lifeforms are as advanced, technology-wise, as us, then they can’t visit us. Same goes for if they are less advanced as us. If they are more advanced than us, then they have no reason whatsoever to visit us; seeing there’s an infinite amount of lifeforms in the universe, why would they bother visiting a lifeform from which they’ve got nothing to learn, while there are so many other lifeforms out there much more interesting?

So there. They do exist, but don’t come here. All achieved via simple logic.

There was a time when I gamed on my computers. At that time, I played Age Of Empires, the first part, untill my eyes became watery, and my body wouldn’t function properly anymore. The longest game I’ve played was close to 8 hours in length. I almost exclusively played archer war. I ranked among the top100 Age Of Empires players online.

But people grow up. Gaming doesn’t really interest me anymore; the industry is pretty much dead anyway. They’re all regurgitating old ideas and concepts, but the mindless gamers of today eat those games like I eat croissants in the morning. The focus is all graphics now; these days, good graphics equals a good game. And that sucks ass. All the good games appear to have been already made; The 7th Guest, Wolfenstein 3D, the Keen series, Tetris, you name it.

The only company willing to take the risk to bring something new into the arena is Nintendo (see the DS). But even Nintendo is slowly starting to fail to innovate. On the Gamecube (the only console with the NES I ever bought), most games are mere regurgitations of old ones (Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc.), with maybe Pikmin I/II as an exception that confirms the rule.

But anyway, today I acquired Age Of Empires III. Part II sucked beyond recognition, so I was anxious to try out vIII. And I must say, I like it. My poor old AMD Athlon XP 1600+/512 MBRAM/Ati Radeon 9000 128MB is sweating its ass off making the game run, but with most of the fancy shmancy stuff off, it works quite well.

And I like it.

If Microsoft is putting as much thought into Vista as they’ve been putting in the new Office 12 UI, than the competition is screwed. Seriously screwed.

Office 12’s new UI is awesome. Now that I’ve used… Err, read about it, it is awesome. I can tell you that. It may look odd at first sight, but wait until you’ve used… Err, read more about it. OpenOffice: be afraid. Be very afraid.

Ah, the dead horse that is called the Natalee Holloway case still keeps on getting beaten [Dutch]. Today, it is revealed that an interview, performed by a researcher of Dr. Phill’s, of one of Joran van der Sloot’s mates, has been tampered with in order to make it seem as if that mate had admitted to having had sex with Natalee.

Experts of the Dutch Forensic Institute have concluded [Dutch] that the video material has been manipulated. They have requested that the FBI also investigate the tapes in order to confirm the findings.

Jesus, even American psychologists are manipulative. Isn’t it proven beyond enough reasonable doubt now that the US is completely fcuked up (well, parts of it, there are enough normal Americans too, obviously) ?

Because of my recent adventures on the graveyard, I felt it quite fitting to post an old piece of PixelArt I made:

Kind of odd, isn’t it? That I made that? Almost prophetic. The only things missing are a high wall and a drunken boy and girl.

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And on a sidenote: it’s gonna storm like fcuk tonight in my country. The Royal Dutch Metreological Institute has measured the largest drop in air pressure since 1971. I love it when it storms in my country. Makes it look beautiful.

Two seemingly unrelated events in the news today. Firstly, British newspapers are reporting that Bush wanted to bomb the Al Jazeera headquarters in Qatar, a tiny state in the gulf region which has good ties with the US and the west in general. The US wanted to bomb an allied, independent nation because they are the home of an international news network that dared to criticize the United States.

The only reason that the US didn’t attack this country is because the British prime-minister Tony Blair asked Bush not to do so. The secret documents that revealed this got leaked. Downing Street has warned the media not to report on this, as, according to Downing St., it would be violation of the law. So basically, downing St. has now confirmed the story.

The second news item I wanted to talk about is what happened in Israel today (Dutch). The Israeli army has invaded Palestine yet again; this time the city of Jenin on the westbank. They are hunting for one of the leaders of the Islamic-extremist Jihad organization, Iyad Abu Rob. A spokesman of the army said the army had occupied a large building that supposedly was the hideout of Iyad Abu Rob– as a result they destroyed the building. The Israeli army went in with hundreds of soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles. They were greeted by Palestinians throwing stones– as a result, the Israeli army started shooting at the Palestinians, and as a result of which one died.

It’s like David and Goliath– only now Goliath has armored vehicles.

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Now, why are these two news items related? Well, they both clearly show how wrong the US and Israel are. They are nations only out for one thing: war. Nothing more, nothing less. They must be stopped. Israel is a nazi state with apartheid, whereas the US are a bunch of Christian-extremists with lots of weapons.

Just… Dangerous. Stop the madness that is war, people. Violence is for the weak.

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And on a happier sidenote: Andgela Merkel, the new German Bundeskanzlerin, has stated that Germany will not join NATO in the war efforts in Iraq.

A rather uneventful day at university today. I was very late getting out of bed, so I had to break a few speed limits in my Micra to get to the station in time for my train. The train itself wasn’t in a hurry though; somewhere around Koog-Bloemwijk it stopped, stating it got stuck behind a slower train. Turned out the slower train was under investigation by the police or something. Cost me 15 minutes; I barely made class in time. I hate that; doesn’t leave me with time to buy my much-deserved morning coffee.

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Here are other blog entries about The Weekend, all in Dutch:

Marloes;

Nadia;

Levi (quite, erm, short).

Also check out Nadia’s photos– About that one controversial picture: it wasn’t me.

Now playing: “Smack My Bitch Up” - The Prodigy

What a complete waste of a movie. Really. It could have been so great. But it wasn’t.

Just finished watching “War Of The Worlds” with Tom Cruise, directed by Steven Spielberg. The effects were awesome, Cruise was doing well, and the machines looked cool (but only two types?? Only two???). I also liked the entire atmosphere of the movie; it felt kind of unreal, almost Tim Burton-like magical. Especially Cruise’s house, with the bridge almost in the backyard, looked really surreal.

However, the aliens looked like ET. Really, they weren’t scary at all (like the ones in “Independence Day“); they looked rather sullen with those big eyes. And the ending of the movie was… Well, I’ve never seen an ending worse than this one. The movie didn’t really end at all. It just stopped, as if the writer of the screenplay died during writing the ending and they had no one to replace him with. And a movie with a bad ending is almost always a bad movie as a whole.

However, there was one thing, or better yet, one person, that kept me on the edge of my seat during the entire movie: Dakota Fanning. Dear lord, this girl can act! She was so good, it was just amazing. I’ve never seen an actor or actress depict total panic and fear as good as she does in this movie. Her performance alone justifies watching this movie. Really.

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And as a sidenote: I ordered “Powerpuff Girls: The Movie” today!

The first thing that pops into foreigners’ minds when thinking about my country (they insist on calling it “Holland” while my country’s named “The Netherlands”) is legalized marihuana and prostitutes.

Of course, marihuana isn’t legalized, and prostitution is only legalized within strict confines of a few designated areas. But that doesn’t matter.

Somehow foreigners also have this idea in their heads that Amsterdam, my capitol, therefor is a safe heaven for everything, that there is no police in this country, that you can do whatever the fcuk they like. This of course also isn’t true, as was experienced by two Americans visiting Amsterdam. They videoblogged them being strip-searched by the police, and they almost made a complete scene out of it. They could not believe they were actually strip-searched by the police… They apparently had already been smoking pot and doing whores all the time, and therefor thought my country has no police.

They were in a “going-out area”– this is an area with lots of bars and pubs and such, and hence the police is extra careful and on watch there. This means that the police there will take extra measures to ensure that we Dutch can go out safely in Amsterdam– and even though Amsterdam is our biggest city, I always feel safe in Amsterdam while going out, because you see police everywhere.

These two Americans were stripsearched as a *preventive* measure; that’s anything but unusual in this country in “going-out areas” in major cities. The police then kindly asked that these guys put away the camera (something the police can demand, in fact, anyone can demand not to be filmed), and with a big smile, the guy refused to do so, and hence they got stripsearched. Perfectly normal business, as far as I’m concerned. You simply listen to the police, that’s what they’re for. I don’t give a rat’s ass how things go back in Alabama, but the American law does not apply here. For instance, in my country you are obliged to bear identity papers with you– either passport or driver’s license.

If these two Americans were truly offended, they’d kindly asked the names of the officers and file a complaint, the usual way of doing these things. These two were just out for a story to put on their video blog.

I suggest these two Americans follow John Gibson’s advice, and boycott my country. Good riddance, I’d say.

Quite an odd few months the past few have been.

KDE has become my desktop of choice on Linux;

I do not hold the Bejeweled2-action record anymore;

I’m getting kicked off of Belgian graveyards;

I’m considering Firefox:Mac over Safari;

I bought a phone from a brand from which I swore never to buy one;

I do not install operating systems just for the fun of it anymore;

After months of being stubborn, I admitted I had back/shoulder problems;

I do not drink sodas/coke anymore, it’s all fruit juice for me;

I walk 15 minutes from Amstelveense Weg to university instead of taking the bus/tram;

After 3 years of being exactly the same, I upgraded not one, but two (!) parts of my desktop machine (the PSU and casing);

My favourite piece of breakfast is now French (croissants);

I call people, just for the sake of talking to them, instead of there actually being a clearly defined need (ie. “Where do we meet, at what time, etc.”) to talk to them.

Luckily, I’m still the same in various ways too:

I still need coffee to survive;

I still need to by albums a few times a month to keep me from mental degeneration;

I still seem to like women who are already involved;

I still get as giddy as a schoolgirl over pretty cars (esp. the DB9);

I still know the US is on the brink of economic collapse;

I still know China is going to be the next world power;

I still know OSNews.com is the best newssite on alternative computing on the web.

Just a selection. I’m still Thom. Maybe just new and improved.