Cogs can think.

Conversation between me and Feliesje, who was studying Philosophy during this IM conversation. We were discussing a TV show where famous people dance on ice (I kid you not, this nonsense is gripping the nation).

Thom: I don’t like all those people on that show
Thom: They’re all C celebrities
Felicia: Haha
Felicia: ‘Hell is other people’
Felicia: :P
Felicia: That’s what Sartre himself says
Thom: Hell is other people?
Felicia: Yes
Felicia: Nevermind
Felicia: I’m just talking out of my ass
Thom: No, Sartre was talking out of his ass
Felicia: Haha
Thom: …says Thom Holwerda, a nobody, about a world famous philosopher
Thom: What do you mean ‘humble’

You know, I really love this country.

Currently, the formation process (for a government) is taking place; talks are between the Christian Democrats, the Labour party, and the Christian Union.

The Christian Democrats, even though Christians, are not ‘extreme’ Christians; they currently support gay marriage and abortion, for instance, which obviously is a good thing. The Labour party have always supported things like this. The Christian Union, however, is much different.

They are fairly left-wing, but obviously with a definitive Christian touch. Its members oppose the already mentioned things; they still believe god intended marriage to be between a man and a woman, while also believing in the holiness of life (and hence oppose euthanasia and abortion). Still, they are in talks with those other two parties to form a government.

And now why I love this country: instead of lots of fighting and mud slinging between gay rights groups and abortion clinics on one side, and the Christian Union on the other side, they actually went into talks with each other. Several gay rights groups were even invited to the CU’s headquarters (the lion’s den for homosexuals, basically) to discuss these matters! One gay rights activist just explained on TV that the talks were about how to increase acceptance of homosexuals, and how to settle the differences in thinking between both sides. When was the last time this happened in America? Have homosexuals ever been invited into the Republican Party’s HQ to try to settle their differences?

That is why I love this country. Instead of sworn enemies (like die-hard Christians and homosexuals) putting their heals into the sand, shouting all sorts of nasty stuff at one another, they actually come together, to discuss their differences, to find compromises.

That is what has made this country great, since as early as the middle ages. Since we started make dry land out of the sea and lakes, Dutch people were forced to compromise, because they had to work together in order to keep their land dry. Sure, they could annoy their neighbours, but if your neighbours are the ones with the pumps, that’s not very wise, now, is it?

I am thankful for living here. I am nor a homosexual, nor a woman in need of abortion, but the fact that we can all tolerate one another and accept each other for what we are, makes me all proud to be Dutch.

APCMag has published ‘Ten Reasons Not to Get Vista‘, but it seems as if the author has never truly tried out Vista himself. I have been using it for months (years, even) and I thoroughly disagree with many of the ten reasons.

Vista doesn’t do anything you can’t already do with XP.

Can I change the volume on a per-application basis in Windows XP? Do I have integrated system-wide search in Windows XP? Can I set the language on a per-user basis in Windows XP? Does Windows XP have per-file emails and contacts? Does Windows XP have a photo organiser application (the fact that it sucks compared to iPhoto and especially Picasa2 is irrelevant)? Does Windows XP have an up-to-date, modern look? Does Windows XP have all those under-the-hood improvements like address space layout randomisation, a new networking stack, and so on?

I could go on for hours.

You already have XP, and alternatives like Linux are free.

Good point. However, 95% of the world will get Vista not by retail, but via OEM. And when it comes via OEM, people don’t experience it as “paying for” (even though they obviously do).

It’s outrageously overpriced

Yes, no doubt about it. However, as said above, most people will get Vista via OEM.

XP was demanding at release, but Vista more so.

Vista most certainly is demanding. However, on my hardware (two computers), Vista with Aero performs better than i.e. Ubuntu or OpenSUSE with Beryl. On top of that, Aero is a hell of a lot more stable than Beryl. The only operating system which (so far) has done very well on older hardware is Mac OS X. Too bad that you actually need to buy a new computer anyway if you want to upgrade from Windows XP to Mac OS X.

This is a typical ‘your mileage may vary’. Vista is demanding on resources, no doubt, but not as bad as some make it out to be.

Key hardware like video and sound is crippled at the moment.

Yes. This is usually the case when an operating system has seen massive internal restructuring, like new frameworks for graphics and audio.

There’s been plenty of coverage about applications that won’t work without a vendor update.

Yet, other than Nero, I have not yet encountered a single application that refused to work on Windows Vista. Obviously there are some that will break, but again, when you massively restructure your platform, this is to be expected.

If you use Windows for mission critical environments (dot dot dot), you should wait until SP1 or maybe even SP2 anyway. That’s called common sense.

It’s a big fat target - with a new and untested in the global wild architecture

This one is kind of weird, as the author claims Vista has nothing to offer over XP - yet he does recognise it has a ‘new and untested’ architecture. Contradictio?

The point he makes is valid, though. But as with the above, mission critical environments should wait anyway.

UAC - Oh yes, the Microsoft solution for an operating system where mutli-user was an afterthought.

Multiuser an afterthought in Windows NT? Does the author even have the slightest understanding of what NT is and where it came from? NT has been designed from the ground up with multiuser in mind, and I do not think Dave Cuttler would like it that NT’s multiuser was called an ‘afterthought’. Statements like this seriously hurt the author’s credibility. On the 9x series- yes, multiuser was an afterthought there- but on NT?

As for UAC, it’s not even half as annoying as some make it out to be. I do not find it any more annoying than sudo, and it is more advanced than Mac OS X’ version. Security comes at a price.

DRM

I have never come into contact with DRM (in a way that it hindered me, in any case), because I use a - how old-fashioned - CD player and a record player to play my music (I actually buy albums in a real store, and I have a huge collection of vinyl albums as well) and I play my DVDs on my stand-alone DVD player.

The problem is definitely there, though, and in all honesty I have too little experience with it to talk about it.

The draconian license

In this section, the author spreads some misinformation (like the license transfer he mentions, which has been changed by Microsoft months ago), so it is pretty difficult to correctly rebut it. Microsoft has some darn restrictive licenses, and I do not think Vista is an exception.

The author has failed to mention the real weaknesses of Windows Vista, such as the idiotic amount of different editions or the simple fact that Microsoft’s obsession with backwards compatibility is hindering its development.

Instead, the author decided to just rehash the average anti-MS zealot’s points, without actually trying out Vista himself.

First dead insects in my meat, and now this.

One guy submitted an irrelevant entry on my blog to Digg.com, and three people actually digged dugged dugg it?

Is it national weirdness day or something?

What the hell just happened?

In Tuitjenhorn, where the hardware store I work is located, there is this supermarket. Usually, on Saturdays, after work, I do my weekly groceries there; even though the store lacks more specialised things (like my favourite candy, salmiak ‘balls’), it’s en route to home, and after a long day’s work, I’m too lazy to go to a supermarket farther away.

Anyway, there I was, strolling through the aisles, disorganised as always (I jump from aisle to aisle, no structure at all; very weird if you know how obsessive-compulsive I am); after getting two sachets of cheese sauce (you gotta try the Maggi cheese sauces; sadly Typical Dutch Stuff doesn’t sell them), I needed to get some cut chicken blocks (to complement the cheese sauce). I pushed my shopping trolley to the meat department, and I pick up one of the two remaining packets of chicken blocks. And that’s when I saw it.

Rigth there, underneath the packet of chicken, I saw a dead insect. Right there. In the cooled meat department.

I was stunned. Besides all my rugged man traits (love of cars, idolisation of Al Bundy, my Rammstein albums, you know), one of my less-manly traits is total disgust and intrinsic physical aversion against anything that’s not either a lizard, bird, or mammal. And right there, it lay dead, tits up. It freaked me out like fcuk.

I threw the packet back where it came from, and decided never ever to go shopping there ever again. Never. I did buy the stuff already in my trolley, but that will be the last ever things I’ve bought there.

Ok, so you say it was dead, what harm does it do? Well, usually, dead things don’t exactly move all that much, and hence this dead piece of inferiority had to crawl its way up there. Over my packets of frozen meat. So, I repeat…

What the hell just happened?

Having a cat is pretty much fun.

Despite what many cat lovers will tell you, they are fairly stupid, and desire little to nothing (with little being food, sleep, and in case of my Lucifer, some vital arteries to severe). When your cat is not my Twiek Lucifer Damien, you can teach it stuff in a very simple, yet effective way: whenever it does something it shouldn’t, just give them a hard but gentle (what?) tap on the head, and soon enough, the creature will lower its ears in fear whenever you raise your hand, promptly stopping whatever it is doing.

Crude, but effective. I raised three cats well with this technique, and Twiek will be the fourth. Sort of. Twiek is a special case; he’s possessed, and I’m still waiting for his little head to start doing 360s while miauwing Marilyn Manson’s “Posthuman” (“God is just a statistic”, that sort of stuff). It will take a while before Twiek realises that when I am in the house, he’ll get a tap on the head whenever he is doing stuff I don’t want him to. Of course, he can do whatever he wants when I’m not there (you know, tree falling in the forest, nobody heard it, did it fall?).

In the hope that Twiekie will ever take me off his death list (on which you’ll find things like that pretty plant my parents gave me, the couches, anything that happens to be on my desk, and of course my wrists and neck), I gave him a climbing tower covered in black pluche (vulgar alert). He is still indifferent towards it, but as soon as he finds out it has a nice little cozy hole where he can breed evil schemes to kill me, I’m sure he’ll love it.

Weblogs generally are mediocre (at best) and almost exclusively very uninteresting and uninspiring (like this one).

For the first time, I have found a weblog which is worth my precious time to follow on a daily basis. I stumbled upon Dooce.com, a weblog which seems to be like any other; however, upon closer inspection you’ll learn to appreciate the gentle but direct humour Heather B. Armstrong has. Even though prozac humour is pretty much, like, not funny anymore, she still manages to get away with it because, well, I don’t know, she just does.

The FAQ is a good starting point. Be sure to read #6.

All trains have been halted, almost all vital highways have been closed off, 414km total traffic jams, Schiphol airport only has one runway operational, two three four six people got killed, trees are falling over, glass is shattering, ships are sinking, the alarm number is (I kid you not) unreachable, parts of the country are flooding (kind of annoying when half of your country lies below sea level), you name it.

Did Al Quaida attack? Did the Rapture begin? Are ‘ze Germans’ attacking? What the hell is going on in this country?

No. A storm is sweeping across the country. Sometimes I really want to curl up in fetal position and cry and rock back and forth when I think of what will become of this country when something really serious strikes.

It all started Saturday.

At around 13:00, I got into me mum’s car, picked up a few friends, and off we went to a cheap two star hotel in Breda (without even the basic of elements of civilisation, such as hot water). Sander’s navigation system (“It’s the newest version, seriously.”) misled us big time, but in the end, we used our manly sense of direction, and we found it anyway. Marcel, who organised the weekend, was already waiting in the hotel “lobby”.

The whole reason for this weekend was for Marcel to show us the KMA, the Royal Military Academy in Breda where he lives, studies, and does army stuff. After a first drink in the hotel bar, we were ordered by him to put on old clothes… We kind of knew what was a-cumin’.

We did the storm course. He first explained each of the obstacles, and then it was our turn. Marcel actually holds the record there, so it was kind of cool to see the master at work.

We then went out for dinner at Gauchos, a chain of decent Argentinian restaurants (long live ‘all-you-can-eat’ spareribs!), after which we dove into Breda’s excellent nightlife (very friendly people everywhere). At around 4:45 we got back to our hotel.

The next day we were given a grand tour of the KMA (actually an old castle), including all sort of cool stories and legends regarding the parade square, the entry gates, the bridges; really, really cool. I am a sucker for traditions, so I felt right at home there.

After Marcel’s tour of the Academy we went to the casino; in The Netherlands nobody is allowed to run a casino except the state, and hence the state is owner of the chain of the only 14 casinos in the country. I’ve never been to a casino before, and I can say it was fun. I did not gamble though (matter of principle) but you can still have fun anyway.

I got home at around 17:00.

—

The next day, I met up with Sascha (cliche: long time no see) to go to a dinner party in honour of Renaatje’s birthday (she turned 24), in Amsterdam. I barely knew anyone there, but it did not stop me from having a great time. Renate made a wonderful table full of salads, home-made sauces, whatever; it was there. Met some cool new people, saw some really gruesome videoclips, and got to talk to Sascha again, which is never a problem.

I dropped Sascha off at her place at around 0:45, txt msg’ed Felicia back, and kept on doing that until late at night.

—

Since some of my friends from university will be going abroad for 6 months to study their language of choice there (Barcelona, Malaga, Bologna, etc.), we decided to all meet up in Cafe Weber near the Leidsche Square in Amsterdam to bid them farewell. However, many of the people going away actually left the earliest, so after kisses and farewells (many really cool people are going, like Annemarie, Sarieke, you name it), the usual die-hard group (Levi, Marco, Martin, Lot, Nadia, me, and this time Gemma as well) remained; we decided to go to Noodlanding Classic in pop temple Paradiso; as always, Noodlanding just kicks butt majorly. It’s basically one long mix of all sorts of musical styles; from reggae to hiphop, from alternative rock to techno. It’s awesome, and I can advise anyone to go to Noodlanding at least once in their lives.

After saying goodbye to Nadia (she’s also going broad, sadly) and Lot (she’s not going abroad, luckily), the ladies (that would be Marco, Levi, and Martin), me, and Gemma went to Levi’s place where we were sleeping. After Martin going mental (seriously, that was scary) I slept like a rose on my usual Amsterdam bed of garden furniture pillows and my trusty sleeping bag.

Dropped Gemma off in Zaandam, and went home. The storm today made drivig pretty much a challenge.