Cogs can think.

I just want to express my condolences to the family of the the man who performed the attack. They are in just as much pain as the families of the victims, but we often seem to forget that, because it’s convenient to do so.

Let us please remember that we are not savages.

Karst Tates, the man who performed the attack yesterday, has died in the hospital last night.

We will never know exactly what drove him to commit such an act of horror.

Worse yet, justice won’t be served. He got away scot-free.

Slowly, really, really slowly, the events of today start sinking in. The dust settles, and the time arrives to start processing the things that happened.

The Queen addressed the people later during the day, in a speech that was totally unlike Queen Beatrix. She’s a perfectionist, and not very comfortable with talking directly to a camera - which is usually why her TV speeches are practiced and teleprompted to death. During the speech today, we didn’t get to see our Queen in the way we know her - statuesque, strong, proud, efficient - but someone resembling an old grandmother, visibly shaking and very emotional. She was talking straight from her heart. Very touching.

The events of today could mean the end of Queen’s Day as we know it. Queen’s Day is an holiday of the people, where the entire Royal Family visits a town, and they get so close to the people you can talk to them, touch them. In the past, we’ve seen people kiss the Queen, we’ve seen a woman jumping on the back of Prince Claus’ bike, riding along for a while. The Royals honestly enjoy this day every year, laughing, dancing, and talking to people.

During the day, the entire nation is holding parties, markets, and other activities. These events are planned months and sometimes even years in advance, especially in the town the Royal Family is visiting. I’m just so angry that all those people who have worked so hard to make today a special day, people who’ve been looking forward to this day all year long, had to see it end in such a gruesome way.

The image that will stick with me forever is that of a 4 year old girl. Two ponytails, rosy cheeks, happy orange clothing. She was looking around in despair, tears rolling down her face. She’d probably been looking forward to this day for a long time, her mother promised her that she’d see real princesses! Not the Disney nonsense that the rest of the world has to settle for, but real ones! I can see her all excited in the morning, impatiently asking her mother every five minutes when the princesses would be here. Would they be wearing princess dresses? Will there be horses?

And for her, the day ended in tears, literally.

What kind of monster would do such a thing?

Update: Death toll raised to 4. 17 Injured, 5 severe.

—

I’m still in shock.

Today, during the Queen’s Day festivities in Apeldoorn, an attempt at the lives of the Royal Family was attempted. A car drove straight through the cheering audience, attempting to hit the open bus carrying the members of the Royal Family. It missed the bus by a small distance, and sped on to hit a monument a few yards down the road. The purpetrator actually hit the gas when driving through the audience. Two people have been killed, 21 are injured, 6 of them severe.

Queen’s Day is a national holiday where everyone goes out and celebrates the Queen’s birthday. It’s a day where society becomes one, and boundaries based on nationality, colour, or religion vanish. Everyone is happy, even those that do not support the Monarchy. The country becomes one.

Everything was broadcast live on TV, and I saw it all happen. The imagery, both still and moving, are absolutely horrifying, so I advise people with a weak stomach and children to not follow the next few links or watch the embedded video.

Post-attack photos, post-attack video.

One thing I want to say is that I am EXTREMELY proud of the police, paramedics, and fire departments. The efficiency with which the attack has been handled by the authorities is mind-blowing. Paramedics were on the scene basically instantly, the massive crowds were guided away, screens wee put in place to block everything from view, and so on. Hats off to all those people who were involved in taking care of the wounded and dead.

If you’re not Dutch, then it’s really hard to grasp just how much of a shock this is. Queen’s Day is a day of the people, and we set all our differences aside and have fun together. This is not just an attack against the Royal Family, but against everyone with Dutch blood running through their veins. The perpetrator was not a muslim (yes, we have to state that these days, it’s sad, I know), and we have no idea on the why of this attack.

About 100m from my house, on the other side of a park, are two mobile homes. Last night one of those houses was robbed, with the inhabitants tied down and threatened with a gun. Because someone noted the numberplate of the car the perpetrators drove off in, the police was able to apprehend them a number of towns down south. They shot and injured two, but caught them all after a (for Dutch standards) wild car chase.

And now my little insignificant hometown is plastered all over the news.

Creepy shit, but not as creepy as it could’ve been. It’s no secret that trailer camps in The Netherlands are often cesspools of drug crime, and even though those two mobile homes don’t really constitute a camp, it’s hard to shake the feeling this was something else than a mere robbery. If they wanted to rob something, the criminals could’ve just walked 20m to the left or right, since the mobile homes are embedded between a number of villas.

Luckily, the police did the right thing. I hope the injuries are severe enough for them to be in some serious pain. Keep your fcuking guns out my town, bitches.

You know what’s the whole funny thing about the situation in Palestine/Israel?

These people who believe that there can be peace between Palestine and Israel. People who believe that both sides are striving for a peaceful resolution to one of the most nonsensical conflicts in the history EVAR.

Reality check. In case you haven’t noticed, both sides of the conflict benefit immensely from being at war with each other. Hamas and other terrorist organisations need the war as leverage for their own popularity. If the conflict would die out, with Palestine becoming a viable independent state, and Palestinians had the opportunity to live their lives in peace, there would be no more need for Palestinian terrorist organisations.

The very thing Hamas & Co. is fighting for is the very thing that will eliminate their reason to exist. They flourish on the misery of Palestinian people.

On the other side of the fence wall, Israel is in more or less the same boat. If a peaceful resolution were to come to fruition, Israel would lose a large portion of the military and financial support it’s getting from - mostly - the United States, which amounts to large sums of money and goods.

The very thing Israel is fighting for is the very thing that will make them lose a pretty substantial revenue stream. They flourish on the misery of the Israeli people.

So obvious, yet so few seem to see it. Sad.

The end of the road.

That was Eugenia’s last blog post for a while. That’s not what I want to talk about, though. I want to talk about something else.

Today, right before Christmas, the 18th Dutch soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. Terrible news. Men in military uniforms informing the parents. Crying girlfriend. Friends grieving, maybe angry. No matter what you may think of the war, our men and women in the armed forces are working their behinds off trying to make this world a better place, and they deserve all the respect and admiration in the world. Having a good friend in the military really opens your eyes to just how professional, dedicated, and determined these men and women are.

As pathetic as it may sound, the Fallout series has the best way to describe war, and it seems ever so fitting in today’s world.

War. War never changes.

My sincerest condolences and sympathies to the soldier’s parents, friends, and relatives. It sure is the end of the road for them.

Sometimes, the blatant obviousness of shameless bias and lust for sensationalism in the tech media becomes so glaringly obvious, it’s almost enough to make me want to just quit this whole thing. We of course already have Windows Vista and Windows 7, where the media are too scared to say anything that does might create a state of cognitive dissonance within its readers, but the latest round of patches for various browsers really bring this to the fore front.

The whole world is all over Internet Explorer 7 for having a flaw which might lead to malicious code execution. Users who are using Windows properly and are running as limited users are less likely to be affected. Headlines o’plenty, the world is going to end, Gates eats babies, and child porn will be installed on your computer, and you will be arrested and thrown into a Thai jail cell for the rest of your life. You’ll die lonely and miserably.

In the meantime, both Opera and Firefox 2.x and 3.x suffered from not one (like IE), but several critical and severe security flaws, flaws that could also lead to the execution of malicious code without the user’s consent. These announcements didn’t receive the sensationalist headlines, didn’t get the doom and gloom news postings.

Look, IE is still a piece of shit, but so are Firefox and Opera (I prefer Chrome), but the obviousness of all this sensationalism is just seriously discouraging.

Ah, so that’s what battery acid tastes like.

A defeat has never tasted so sour. During the last 20 seconds ze German Timo Glock gave in. I was already raising my hands in the air, shouting it out in favour of Ferrari and Massa, when I - and Olav Mol, the Dutch iconic F1 commentator, realised that The Red had not won. I had a txt message reading “FORZA FERRARI!!!!” ready to be sent to Marco, but alas, I had to delete it from /concepts unsent.

You only get excitement like this once in your life. Thrilling.

We’re seven years and one day later, but the memories haven’t faded.

This, right here, is the start of a new era. I just hope that we’ll put the right people in the right place to make sure it’s not the beginning of an end, but the start of a new beginning.