Cogs can think.

So, Jesus the iPhone has finally landed. God, am I happy we got that over with. I’ve never seen so much hype surrounding a glorified PDA. Things like this really remind you how stupid we people really are.

From reviews so far, it becomes pretty obvious the iPhone has the usual completely inexplicable Apple bugs features. It doesn’t do copy/paste. You can’t approach the filesystem. You can’t attach photos from within MobileMail.app. You can’t use it as a modem. The keyboard can’t be used in landscape mode. There’s no IM. The headphone jack is proprietary. It costs a kidney or two.

Can we now please return to sanity, everyone? I’m sure aliens who were planning to invade us saw the iPhone madness and thought, “ah fcuk that shit”.

Just a list of my favourite TV series. As you all know, one of them is high above all the others: my favourite TV series of all time, unapproachable, untouchable: Dead Like Me. Some will probably think that’s all I watch, every day, every second, but that’s not true. I do think about Dead Like Me every other second, but hey. Anyway:

A few weeks ago, I decided to give contact lenses another try. It’s been working out just fine, in case you’re wondering. To me, my image in the mirror seems more natural now, as I never got used to wearing glasses; I only got them when I was 15 or 16. I knew I needed glasses long before that, but I tried to hide that fact. I succeeded just fine, until the school doctor found out I couldn’t read a darn thing.

My left eye was so bad, it should’ve been detected when I was 3 or 4, but no one discovered it back then. I had what they call a ‘lazy eye’; my left eye was much worse than my right eye (now, it’s -5.75 vs. -2.25), so my brain only actively used the information from the right eye. The good eye should’ve been ‘patched’ off, so that the lazy eye could develop and get better.

This has left me with one cool trick, though. I can see just fine with only the right eye’s lens in use. My brain goes back to the lazy eye mode it’s been accustomed to for 16 years, without a problem.

Weird.

Zojuist bereikte het trieste nieuws mij dat Majoor Bosshardt is overleden. Ik wil bij deze een diepe, diepe buiging maken voor de Grootste Nederlander Aller Tijden, een voorbeeld voor ons allemaal. Diep, diep respect voor deze vrouw.

Ik ben in dienst van God om mensen te dienen. Niet mij, maar Hem komt alle eer toe.

The sad news has just reached me that Majoor Bosshardt, the Greatest Dutchwoman of All Time, has passed away, at age 94. Majoor Bosshardt is the Mother Theresa of the low countries; in 1934, she started working in an orphanage, for the Salvation Army. When the Army was prohibited by the Nazi occupiers during the war, she continued her work for the Army undercover, helping mostly Jewish children who were brought to the Orphanage. However, a traitor reported her to the Nazis, and she was captured. Luckily, they forgot to close the door so she could escape; she continued her work, collecting food for the children during the Hungerwinter of 1944-1945.

After the war, she was stationed at the Salvation Army’s headquarters in Amsterdam. While there, she noticed the Army did little to no work in the Red Light District; as a consequence, she set up the Army’s presence in the District, taking care of the prostitutes and celebrating Christmas with them. During this time, she gave then-princess Beatrix (now my Queen) a guided tour in the Red Light District. The princess was undercover as a Salvation Army person.

She continued her work for the Salvation Army even after she retired in 1978. She continued to spread the Army’s newspaper, she visited the sick, held lectures, until 2005. She was widely known by now, and appeared on television numerous times. She has received many official decorations from the Crown. She always remained in celibacy, she never got married, and did all her good work as a volunteer. She was an extremely funny, sharp, and charming human being; she dedicated her life to serving those less fortunate. Drug addicts, prostitutes, the homeless; they were all people to her. She saw the people behind the misfortune.

One of her most famous quotes, one that shows how humble she always remained about her activities:

I am but a servant of God to serve people. All honour goes not to me, but to Him.

I bow in deep respect for this womam, one of the few people in the world who are truly good, in heart, mind, and soul. My country is in deep sorrow.

Today, it’s exactly 60 years ago that the first edition of Anne Frank’s diary was published. If you haven’t read the most famous diary in the world, shame on you. There is absolutely no excuse, whatsoever, for not having read it. It’s a vital part of your education. It ought to be mandatory reading material for every person on this planet.

In addition, it also ought to be mandatory for anyone with the financial reserves to do so to visit a concentration camp. I have been to Theresienstadt myself, and to this very day, it almost brings tears to my eyes even thinking about this visit. It has made such a huge impact on me, I can’t even put it into words. I’ll try anyway.

There are two very, very distinct graphical images in my mind. The first is seeing my mother walk through the gates; she was walking a few metres ahead of my father & brothers and I. Passing through the gate is a very disturbing moment; suddenly, you don’t hear the birds anymore, you don’t hear the wind ruffle the leaves, you don’t feel the sun shine on your skin. The air seems dryer, almost bitter, as soon as you pass through the gates. The grass seems less green, the gravel on the ground seems less noisy. It’s as if you have passed into another reality, where there is no time, no senses, nothing. And then, all of a sudden, it dawns on you.

33000 People died here, 88000 more were deported to Auschwitz. People.

I really cannot remember if I cried. The overwhelming reality of it all creates a sort of emotional void. I really can’t describe it. That specific feeling makes you feel so guilty sorry and powerless for the worst crime in human history. It is this very feeling that makes you realise you will never be able to fully comprehend it all.

The second distinct image. We are all standing in one of the dorm rooms, with those bed-sized wooden structures. For minutes on end, in dead silence, we stare at the beds. “They’re still pretty large…” I hear my middle brother say. He had a point.

“They slept sideways on it, Kai,” my father replies, “10 On one ‘bed’.”

I was 8 or 9.

Today, the European leaders agreed upon a new treaty, to replace the shot-down constitution. In The Netherlands, where we voted against the original treaty in a referendum, this has been a major discussion point for months now. The big question is whether or not our government will issue another referendum; if they don’t, they lose face, if they do, it will be shot down again.

Anyway, if we get to vote, I will again vote “no”. There are two major reasons for this.

1. The treaty does not speak of the ridiculous situation where the European Parliament is seated in both Strassbourg and Brussels/Bruxelles. This is a money-wasting and bureaucratic nightmare, and should have never been allowed to become a reality in the first place. The European capitol is Brussels/Bruxelles, and that’s the end of it.
2. The official internal language of the EU should be English. Currently, a whole army of translators are needed to translate all the proceedings, live, so that all countries’ representatives can speak their native language. This is a ridiculously expensive situation. I’m as much a nationalist as the next guy, but there’s a limit to everything. Come on lazy French, time to learn English, goddamnit.

I will vote “no” against any referendum concerning the EU as long as these two situations are not addressed. These are relics form the past, and the apparent inability to address them tells me that the EU is not at all ready to move on into the future.

I switched my Ubuntu installation over to Kubuntu. I see more future in KDE4 than I see in GNOME (as I have said many times before). If I don’t see someone from the GNOME community stand up to bring GNOME to the next level, I don’t see why I should invest time in using it and reporting bugs on it. As a user, I expect my platform of choice to have (what I consider) a viable future, and at this point, I just don’t see a viable future in GNOME (and no, some bug fixes and minor changes to the 2.x tree do not count as a viable future).

Sure, KDE3 lacks polish here and there, but at least KDE has set out a path for the future. And it has Kopete and Konqueror, which kick GAIM Pidgin and Firefox’ asses any day.

Mr. Geert Wilders,

Today, I have been listening to your speech in the Lower House concerning the government’s new plans for the country. While these new plans certainly are up for scrutiny, and while I appreciate the fact that you, as elected official, exercise your right of opposition, I would like to explain something to you.

This country we live, this wonderful glorified swamp we built with our bare hands, has had a long and and intricate history. Some of the pages in our history book are as black as black can be. We were the most vicious slave traders of the colonial times, much worse than many of the other colonial powers. We have abused our colonies in extremely violent ways, exploited the native populations, and have forcefully tried to impose Christianity upon them. More recently, during WWII, many of our countrymen were quick to work with the Nazis, adding yet another dark, dark, extremely dark black page to our history book.

Some pages of our history book are bright; we have produced the world’s finest painters, writers and poets, scientists, and so on. We explored the world, and our constitution served as the very base on which the US constitution was built. We were one of the first countries in the world to embrace religious freedom; as a consequence, many people who were considered different in other countries, sought refuge in our swamp.

And this last fact, Mr Wilders, is something you seem to forget with your endless diatribes against the Islam. You speak of “tsunami of Islamification”, you speak of how headscarfs and burkas are “destroying your view”, and more of these things. Today, you said that many Muslims living in The Netherlands are “not worthy of their passport”.

In fact, Mr Wilders, it is you who is not worthy of carrying the Dutch passport. It is you who has not understood at all what my country stands for. My country stands for openness, freedom, tolerance, respect; you do not own any of these values. You do not understand what it truly means to be Dutch.

I am ashamed that you dare to abuse our good name, our heritage, all that we have fought for over the centuries, to spout your hatred towards newcomers, people who have a god given right to set foot in our swamp. People who have fled their own country in danger of being persecuted, just like the Huguenots centuries ago.

You, Mr Wilders, do not have proper Dutch blood running through your veins. You not represent our country, and what we stand for. You are an abomination to all that we Dutch stand for.

If I could, I would invoice your passport, and burn it before your very eyes. You are not worthy of our passport, our national anthem, or our flag.

Kind regards,

Thom Holwerda

The 2nd attempt at assignment #6 was not good enough, he said. I’m giving him one more chance to reason, and if not, I will write an official complaint to the exam commission.

Dear XXXX,

With all due respect, I find this a highly dubious course of events. We hand in our work and 2nd attempts on time, we hear nothing from you the past 6 months, and all of a sudden we receive an email which states we only have a few days to redo assignment #6 - which essentially means I have to relearn the entire course and book, because after 6 months I sure know nothing of it anymore.

You should have contacted us sooner regarding assignment #6. We handed it in 22nd December 2006, so there was enough time to do so.

At this point I am not exactly sure what to do with this. Statistics has long been a done deal for me.

Kind regards,

Thom Holwerda

God, I hate teachers. Seriously, I really hate teachers.

First, a few days ago, we have a teacher of mine who insists I hand in a paper copy of one of my reports, despite the fact she already has that report in electronic format and all she has to do is press that goddamn print button. This means that I have to travel for two hours (by car, it’d be even worse (3-4hrs) via public transport) just to hand in a damn paper copy.

And to make matters even worse, I just got an email from my statistics professor, addressed to me and the girl I cooperated with during the course. The statistics course ended on 23rd December, 2006. I passed the exam with a high grade, and that girl and I finished all our assignments on time. We had to redo two of the assignments, which we did, again, on time. After the course, we heard nothing from the professor. We assumed that everything was okay since he didn’t contact us in any way.

Until today, almost half a year later. He just sent an email in which he stated that we still had to redo assignment #6. I was flabbergasted. Apart from the fact that we had already redone that assignment on 22nd of December 2006, he dares to contact us six months later saying we have less than a week to do the assignment!

Seriously. The guy can suck my big fat cock. There is no chance in hell that I am going to dive back into statistics again, six months after having closed that book (and especially not with that girl). I politely returned his email, pointing him to the 2nd version of our assignment, which has been sitting in the digital drop box for six months. If he returns that email saying the 2nd attempt was not good enough either, and that we have to redo it again, I will contact the exam commission. He should have contacted us in a timely fashion, a few weeks after, at worst.

This is exactly why I fcuking hate teachers. They have the authority to demand all sorts of unreasonable stuff from their students, they are almost always inflexible and unforgiving, but when it comes to their own tasks and duties, they just don’t give two shits. And as a student, you haven’t a fcuking leg to stand on.

Together with criminals and people working for local and central governments, teachers are at the very bottom of the social pyramid, if you ask me. I have such a deep disdain for those people.