Survived Christmas

...survived the family, which caught up with me for my Graduation and Birthday and for Sinterklaas and Christmas. All of them having completely the wrong idea about what I'm doing as somehow they can't think beyond fixed, narrowly defined static jobs, such as analysing blood samples, if I'm to name the most scientific example. No hints or queries as to whether there's some girl I'm after, maybe the need to keep my private life private to my family is declining somewhat. Or maybe they think I'm gay and are too afraid of that to ask. I've stopped answering most questions that ask anything other than what I do in 'school' or what the colour of my curtains is, after growing tired of the relentless commentaries and strings of 'advice' that never seemed to really be presented as 'advice'. Family can be nice, in a way, as long as they let you be.
Though, with TV volumes drowning out my discman music (at a reasonable volume level), my retreat was soon a fact. In the kitchen there's a second TV, on which I watched CSI, which was accompanied by the music from 'Traumschiff' (German 'Love Boat' series) coming through the walls. Ah, nice romantic music when they find the bodies...
No real content, sorry, just abusing the blog to dump off some ironies. Nah, can't do that... Here's something: New Year has been postponed. By a whole second. Yes, it's time for another leap second!

Just a 'quick' thought

When talking about measures to prevent crises, there are a lot aspects to look at. Yesterday there was a lecture on models of how an influenza pandemic would progress and how there could be a chance to stop one, if a number of conditions are satisfied (want more info? let me know). What struck me is that a number of measures that can help cost a lot of money, whilst an equal number of measures that don't help, don't cost that much and may also, seperate from monetary issues, be more emotionally appealing. With modern politics, money is always a tricky one. Aparently (I don't have a reliable source) the Dutch government isn't stockpiling vaccines as there is a fair chance that it would be the wrong one (these viruses mutate, recombine, etc., possibly rendering vaccines useless). It should be noted, however, that even a poorly matched vaccine can already lead to a great enough benefit, if more people get the vaccine. The latter is more likely, as a matched vaccine will take almost to long to develop, and definitely to long to produce and immunise enough people. Anyway, my point is:
With modern politics the goal increasingly seems to be to take measures that have a direct and visible (and hence usually short term, worry about the future later) effect. In the case of averting crisis, there is no visible effect - that's the whole point, take action to avoid nasty effects of something. So crisis avertion is an expensive item with no visible effect. Not so popular with some governments I would imagine. They want visible effect, and they can get it this way - crisis happens, and is a visible effect.

Oh, and how does Bush want to tackle the problem? By using the military of course! Noboby is entirely sure what he has in mind (hints that sound nearly convincing on CNN), but let's hope we don't have to find out. (Congress squashed the request anyhow).

Mad Science (ah, well, part III then)

I seem to remember (no access to the previous post from where I am now) that I mentioned something about physics in the original post, but I can't really be sure. Anyway, whilst figuring out some biology stuff, I just had to stuble upon particle physics at some point, inevitable, as the subjects are so very closely related... Anyway, I guess the only field where the following naming is used, should be physics. The following content has been taken from the wikipedia article on flavour (particle physics), for convenuence's sake:

Flavour (or flavor) is a quantum number of elementary particles related to their weak interactions. In the electroweak theory this symmetry is gauged, and flavour changing processes exist. In quantum chromodynamics, on the other hand, flavour is a global symmetry.
The term "flavour" was first coined for use in the quark model of hadrons in 1968. A name for the set of quantum numbers related to isospin, hypercharge and strangeness is said to have been found on the way to lunch by Murray Gell-Mann and Harald Fritzsch when they passed a Baskin-Robbins advertising 31 flavours.

And of course, where the interesting names come in:

Quarks have the following flavour quantum numbers —

• Isospin which has value Iz=1/2 for the up quark and value Iz=-1/2 for the down quark.
• Strangeness (S): a quantum number introduced by Murray Gell-Mann. The strange antiquark is defined to have strangeness +1. This is a down-type quark.
• Charm (C) number which is +1 for the charm quark. This is an up-type quark.
• Bottom (also called beauty) quantum number, B': which is +1 for the down-type bottom antiquark.
• Top (sometimes called truth) quantum number, T: +1 for the up-type top quark.

Anyway, back to figuring out my microwave. I get the gist of how it should be used, sometimes the book uses the same language as I sometimes do, in other cases it beats me at screwing up my Dutch:

Doen niet toelaten dat het energie koord contact maken met enig warmte of scherp oppervlakte, zoals het warmte luchtgat gebied bovenaan achter van het oond.

Mad Science (Revisited)

A while back I posted a list of 'interesting' protein and gene names. I missed one that is getting a few scientists into trouble: POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene, also known as Pokemon gene. Seeing as it has role in cancer, a number of blogs etc. came up with the headline 'Pokemon causes cancer'. In other words: Nintendo is suing. (Just google it, the report shows up on a number of places, from Nature (source) to gaming sites).
The second bit of interesting applications of science, links back to the Mona Lisa. Is it smiling? Is it happy? Well, aparently it's 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry, or so a computer used for emotion recognition 'thinks'. Reported in New Scientist, and the a spin off by the BBC. And don't go blaming those damn foreigners for that one, it's been done at the University of Amsterdam.

That could have been worse

Quick trip to the lab, you're heading back, nice quite streets, no traffic chaos. Perfect moment to hit a pedestrian at speed. Somehow, I'm wondering how the guy managed not to see me. First he walks through a red light, then he somehow fails to see me and two other cyclists (all of us had lights on) and steps onto the bikelane right in front of me. Okay, so I managed to stop, with combination of brakes and hitting the guy full on, and lo and behold, the guy just walks on. Is the town being invaded by Zombies? Oh well, at least that slight rattle that I've been hearing when I bike seems to be gone...

A General Sense of Direction

...or maybe not. I'm still debating whether I should be worried about that exam that's coming up. For some reason my brain keeps on planning around it. Planning: Before: workdiscussion, final lab work for the week. After: (immediately) host borrel, (immediately) department Christmas dinner. Friday: Lab cleaning. Saturday and Sunday: getting health insurance - as my current insurance ends January 1st, my current insurance company will close it's doors and the company they're transfering their members to isn't going to make me an offer. That makes me one of the 'lucky' few in this country who now has two weeks to figure out what all this mess is about. Everybody gets an offer from their current insurer... yeah right.
There's a blog that I read sometimes lately. It's very calming and is entitled 'Dagboek van een gek' (guess what, it's in Dutch). Basically that's all it is, or, as he describes in the about section: "Dit zijn de belevenissen van Hans, geboren in 1942. Eerst even voorstellen ik ben Hans en woon al jaren in een psychiatrische woonvorm. Verder ben ik invalide en beweeg ik mij voort in een rolstoel."
By the way: Always wanted your own fake office, but too lazy to photshop the sign on an existing office? This site does it for you: Atomsmasher's Office Sign Generator. [Advert] This came with an advert for T-Shirt Hell: also nice to look around for evil t-shirts. Current tagline: "All orders placed this week will arive after December 25th. But a late present from us, still beats a crappy present on time". [/Advert] Sorry, don't know what came over me there. Atomsmasher also has generators for other signs and error messages ('windows has detected that you have moved your mouse. Please reboot now.'), scroll down on the office generator page for the links.
And for more joy: what used to be the best image archive for 19th century (and also a little late - mainly symbolist and pre-Raphaelite artists) until it closed, is slowly re-opening it's doors. I should add the site, ArtMagick to the links section soon...

And direction in general (magnetic) North is wherever it chooses to be today, or so it seems: BBC news.

Another day

And we're off to a flying start. Articles to read, protein names to dread (erm... X-box associated protein? I choose to believe that that has nothing to do with certain electronic devices), powerpoints to study, etc. etc.
Well, with the added 'fun' of having two girls of about my own age at the door asking how much thought I gave the future and more importantly, god's role in it. Scary stuff: I don't handle people with very strong beliefs that well. Especially not the ones that come to spread the faith in a fairly multicultural neighbourhood. I wonder if they'll run into that psychic...
Though, maybe divine inspiration did come, as I figured out why I can't send any mail from outlook: my ISP is blocking access to port 25, which is used for SMTP transactions. Solution: figuring out that one of my outbound servers accepts connections at a different port, and route all accounts through that server. Yay quick response e-mailing again. That took a my while of not thinking about the problem to figure it out.
No I just wait for all the bio knowledge that I need to appear in my head, along with a repaired sense of languages and a stable memory for people and things, for I'm mixing up all the names that I should know again.

Back to that chemistry again.

Bio Exam!

Yes, one week to go and already trying (not succeding) to remember stuff. Though I have to say that Depeche Mode, the remixes 81-04 is working brilliantly (or was, it did increase my attention span). The other conclusion: learning this stuff is bad for your health (or maybe that was because I was already a little under the weather). Also, your language skills don't improve too much. Then again, some of the tact (lack thereof) and skill in writing English letters (ditto) displayed by an (associate) professor at the department is very inspiring. In the sense that it shows you that you can still get far if you don't fully grasp your grammar, keyboard and social skills. In other words: I could lock myself up in the lab for 16 hours a day and devote my life to science and still have the impression that I'm damn important and that I'm the only one who has any sense at all. Though I would need to shrink my own little private world quite a bit more to achieve the latter - shouldn't be too difficult if you don't see real sunshine or non lab-people for a couple of years. Nope, I think I'll skip - My own little universe is already sufficient - it's small enough to overcome agoraphobia and I don't want to take things further.

As there's no point to this post at all, I'll just paste the last list I got over MSN. Antilian proverbs. Have fun, take care, remember that there's a whole world out there.

P.S: Firefox really blocks that pop-up...

Climate Change

There's nothing so depressing as a climate conference. A few of the very good reasons why are outlined in a blog by Amanda Haag over at Nature.com. Also, in another article, another look at the US is taken. Of course, it would be surprising if something positive would be said - but that isn't likely to happen. Instead, when talking about methyl bromide (insecticide, but also one of the large major ozone-damaging chemicals out there, the last to be phased out) the following pops up:

• North America uses more of the substance than any other part of the world
• Exemptions for the US of the cut-backs imposed are more than the exemptions of all other countries combined for 2005
• "But representatives of the farming industry counter that the huge value of the crops, and the efficiency of methyl bromide as a pesticide, means that its continued use is reasonable." Okay, the fact that if we don't act now, we won't have a climate to grow strawberries (main use of the chemical) in in a few decades, doesn't seem important. We'll cross that bridge... when we all live underground wondering what wrong?!
• Under the exemptions, which would lead to less reduction of the usage, the US has requested to use more methyl bromide than it actually used in 2003. What part of reduction don't they get?
• Europe requested to use 4400 tonnes in 2005. Reports indicate that the actual figure will be 3000 tonnes. The US request for 2007 is 6500 tonnes. Funny that, as even in 2000, Europe had 730 million inhabitants, and the US 282 million. More is less, I guess.
  

Quick sources: Nature.com article and GeoHive.

In short, as the Nature blog mentions:

"At one point, the chairman even said, "Saudi Arabia is on the phone, so let me go to the UK."
So much for saving the world."

100th post

So that's 100 posts in about 11 months. Could be worse I guess.

I'll spare you the rants, I'll try and link to a few things, I'm brining up the wishlist that I promised a while back, even though it'll be January by the time I get round to celebrating my birthday.
Anyway: there's yet another breakout clone available in flash - to waste your precious time in exam week. So is this game, once you get the hang of it: N-Game.
Once again - back to the female drivers aspect. Just ignoring the fact that there is a perhaps greater amount of male stupidity videos out there. This one is how not to exit the garage. With apologies for the adverts on the page. I'm using IE now to search for media, as I'm running a firefox beta and not all plugs are functional. Turns out that one of the pages that I monitor for content is now more of a porn gallery than anything else. Well - at least it proves that Firefox with Adblock works miracles...

Okay...

...First of all, I'm erasing yesterday from my memory, so nobody go there, please. Second of all, most of this post will be in Dutch, as the masterpiece that came in the post is just too good (and I'm too lazy to translate). If you don't do Dutch, you can opt to watch some budgies singing about chocolate. For the rest, this an actual advert that came in today:

[Quote starts]

Mr. HAYDA
Groot helderziende en medium
Helpt u bij uw moeilijke problemen, Familie, financiën, de liefde, geluk in zaken, brengt de partner weer terug, evenals bescherming tegen slechte invloeden en trouw tussen gehuwden en vrienden, genezing van fysieke en geestelijke problemen, wat je nodig hebt als partner weg is, je verlorene terugwinnen.
Onmiddelijk resultaat, snelle en doeltreffende afhandeling.
Werkt serieus en geheim. Goed resultaat en maak je geen zorgen, aarzel nooit naar mij toe te komen.

[Phone numbers (local and mobile) omitted]

Find happines and protect yourself from evil. The world today is cruel.
Resultaat in 4 dagen.

[Quote ends]

So, what exactly are 'makkelijke problemen'?, and does 'Helpt u bij uw [...] familie' mean that he'll 'take care' of them, or take care of them 'thuiszorg'-style? I can already see the guy dragging your partner back from some forlorn place (or in such a mood) hard-handedly. Why he wants to protect against fidelity between partners is a bit of a puzzler, unless I'm seeing the 'what you need when your partner's away' in the wrong context...

Mad Science

If you thought that all the nerds do physics, think again. I'm preparing a presentation for my masters' course; it's about a paper about some research about drosophila (a.k.a. fruit-fly). Now all the clinically insane people in life science hang out in cell biology, or so it seems, whilst the nerds do drosophila stuff (more whole-organism and more likely to be developmental biology related work). Symptoms? Protein names, including such brilliant examples as:

• Bazooka (have a hole both dorsally and ventrally)
  
• Hedgehog, and even better, in humans: Sonic Hedgehog (mutant Dros. larvae look a bit like hedgehogs)
  
• Gherkin (no clue)
  
• Klingon (again, no clue)
  
• Scott of the Antartic (mutants have one defective pole in their mitotic spindle)
  
• Ken and Barbie (mutants have no external genitalia)
  
• Lost in Space (mutation leads to abnormal axonal projection of nerve cells)
  
• British Rail (disrupts the 'always early' gene)
• Cheap Date (higher alcohol sensitivity)
• Ring (Really Interesting New Gene - as nobody initially knew what it did)
• Son of Sevenless (and also Daughter of Sevenless and Bride of Sevenless; don't know what they do though)
  
• Sunday driver (problems with neuronal molecule transport)
  

Right, where am I again?

Alright, alright, I'm back in this country, where 'this' is the Netherlands. Why I left the UK is still a bit of a question, but let's not go there. Currently I'm on through to Woerden for one night, trying to organise a drink for my masters' programme, trying to pay people, trying to get coursework done and generally not really succeding in those things I'm trying. In general the lesson of the week is that leaving a country isn't the problem, but having left it is. Entering the country really isn't the problem - 10 minutes after scheduled arrival time I was on the train station platform with a ticket and my baggage in my hands (the baggage actually making it to the belt at the same time as I did - I have to say those handling priority stickers actually do make a difference).
So in short: I'm back, reluctantly, but too swamped for time to do much. Next weekend I plan to fix this template and fire up some support pages - we'll see if I manage. If people want to distract me in my room this weekend, send me an e-mail.

England!

After losing count of the amount of times my passport was needed at Schiphol, two metal detector securtity searches and a eventually a one hour flight, I got off the plane and was welcomed to England by, of all things typically associated with the place, drizzle. Nevertheless, by the time I had my luggage (checked, checked and checked again, just everything and everybody else in the baggage claim area by the most hyperactive and happy sniffer dog I've ever seen) the weather had stopt being silly and actually provided some nice sunshine. From there on I caught a train running perfectly on time, speeding me from Bristol to Exeter. Service is very good around here, with at least one attendant on every platform and one at the arrivals / departures notices to help people out. Yes, NS, that's customer service. And, if booked in advance, it doesn't even cost too much (GBP 7.50 for a 100km stretch, takes 59 minutes with three stops). As a disclaimer for those who know my extensive rants on trains in the South East: this is the South West, things do work here (though the smaller places are a bit more difficult).
Exeter is a lot better in sunshine, as compared to gery skies and rain, which is how I saw the place last time around. The festive lights are about to come on (official ceremony on the 17th), which makes them festive lights and not winter lights, which is what the Dutch seem to be turning them into.
Anyway, there's not really that much to update on - I'll be moving around a bit, and I'll be back late on Sunday. I should be able to post before christmas. I think. Possibly.

In Flanders' Fields

In Flanders' Fields the Poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though Poppies grow
In Flanders' Fields.

John McCrae, 1915
[more info]

At least, that's the first thought I had upon opening my mailbox. Apart from the majority of e-mails concerning the next Friday meal (soon, very soon, I can see the uni spam-filter starting to protest), there's one from the programme coordinator, In which he says that from a reliable source he knows that me and a girl form the programme would be willing to organise at least one borrel (and effectively become the student commission). Somehow, I've become primed to respond with a 'oh-no, here we go again' type of reaction, and this flashback to a number of ASIC meetings. Oh well, I'll just go right ahead and fall for it again.
Also in the mailbox, more UC mail. They still haven't learnt some of the basics: the 'high urgency' field is NOT just for adding a nice little red exclamation mark to your mails - especially if they're about an upcoming event a week away that half of the people aren't interested in. Also, attachements, and with that I mean images, larger than, let's be generous, 200kb, aren't necessary in most mails, as people only view this on-screen at 72dpi at a max resolution of 1024*768 without noticing jpeg artifacts. It is, however, despite gmail, still interesting to see how fast your mailbox can fill up. One word: downsampling - I'll be caught dead before sending my 4.5 Mb 3000*2000 pixel pictures just to have a funky background. Okay, that didn't go wrong in the last backgroundy e-mail. And oh yeah, if you do start editing images: remeber that jpeg is lossy compression - meaning the more often you save the file, the worse it gets. Anyway - I'm ranting a little too much.

For the geeks amongst us: Reading solis mail with Lynx is possible. In some ways it's even better than expected. (Yep, the dual boot with gentoo is working, even wireless networking is up).

In the lab my protein gels are turning into artwork (well, at least one) - and with that I don't mean that they're so perfect. The comment 'It's never done that before' just about covers it. The other one was normal.

Time to link out.
First up: back to cow tipping. Aparently there are a number of hitches, as outlined here.
Actually, that's all I have time for...

Weapon

The following lyrics of a Matthew Good song are not being used as a statement reflecting me personally. I do, however believe that another person wil find that it may very accurately reflect his/her situation if seen in the correct light. In the odd-chance that you may read this - I hope it somehow helps. Apologies to the rest for not posting properly - this has priority.

Here by my side, an angel
Here by my side, the devil
Never turn your back on me
Never turn your back on me, again
Here by my side, it's Heaven

Here by my side, you are destruction
Here by my side, a new colour to paint the world
Never turn your back on it
Never turn your back on it, again
Here by my side, it's Heaven

Careful, you be careful
This is where the world drops off
Careful, you be careful

And you breathe in and you breathe out for it
Ain't it so weird how it makes you a weapon
And you give in and you give out for it
Ain't it so weird how it makes you a weapon
Never turn your back on it
Never turn your back on it again

Careful, you be careful

Update for the sake of updating

First of all: my apologies to those people that I should be mailing (K., A., and the rest of the world). I'm just not finding enough time.
The same goes for finding links - I'm running one of the Beta versions of firefox, and I'm too lazy to get things like flash working, so I'm using IE and paying the price. I'm finding out how many commercials there are on the web, and also how many of them seem to involve scantily dressed people. Oh, and my other machine is running Gentoo with Enlightenment as a window manager. The in-use one is now a dual boot WinXP / Gentoo (only basics at the moment).

Ah, yes, the lab update: Current lab opinions include: I can bake cake; We're nearly out of bad luck, but we don't need to re-order that; Zis iz Boolshzit (let's not go there).

Oh, alright, I'll just through in a random link (category: what the...): Clouds.
And the stupid action of the week award goes to the company that has very nice product pictures online: There's a picture of everything that comes with the graphics card they're selling, including all the CDs. The latter also involving a copy of a well-known action game, which requires an installation key to be installed. This key is printed on the CD. And yes, it's clearly legible on the picture... Good news for everyone with an illegal copy...

Oh, and Sabrine's blog is active again (see comments previous post)

Moving around...

So, off to the lab to do, well, not much. Yesterday I started some work (took 1.5 hours, accompanied by a high pitch wail from one of the access verification points stuck in access denied mode, a broken waterbath and nobody to help resolve these issues as it was Sunday) which required another hour of work today, so enough time to go to the accountants and arrange matters. Apparently I'm now chairman of this whole building thingy. Wonderful. My other remaining housemate has the other function.
Some hectic driving and creative interpretation of the instructions later we reached Hilversum (via Doorn, for logic's sake). The less said about that the better.
Tim's house was next up - it's a brilliant place to live, I must say. I could even feel at home there, even though it lacks slanted roofs.

On the other side of things: Nobody is ever interested, I know this is an extreme case, but come on: Parking officer 'distressed' at dead man's fine.

Unix, Linux, etc.

My other machine is a...
Actually, I'm letting it go through a couple of identity crises at the moment. Though it's old(er) and unreliable I can say that testing different OS's and distributions are fun. So far:

• Windows ME. Final verdict: Absolute ****. Probably the worst version of Windows out there. Has something against Internet Explorer and is the main reason that I ditched that and went to Mozilla and later Firefox.
• Windows 2k. Final verdicht: n/a. Installer hangs due to hardware conflict. In general 2k isn't too bad. Really.
• freeBSD. Final verdict: Very decent. Free, stable and fast. As it's less standard, getting things to run can be a bit more of a problem. Flash in firefox is doable, so is getting support for realplayer. Nvidia drivers are available, and it runs freevo. The ports collection is brilliant.
• Ubuntu (based on debian). Final verdict: Nice if you want an instant workstation. Somehow confusing if you want anything else though. Don't have the patience to figure this one out.
• Next up: Gentoo. We'll see.
  

Minor Updates

The list of blogs linked in the sidebar has increased somewhat. If I'm missing anyone, please feel free to tell me.

As my birthday (Uhm, still need to plan the party, this may once again become a UC gig, though), St. Nick, etc. etc. is coming up, I may link to a wishlist as well soon. Though I need to think of things to put on it... Maybe I'll just set up a different blog (not monitored) and let everyone fight things out via comments.

The State of Things

The Lab: Okay, I have inserts in the plasmids. My comment last week was: lets wait for the sequencing - there's still enough that can go wrong. Like a skipped base pair in the beginning of the sequence. So the short of it is - most of the sequences are useless for expression.

The Street: The main shopping street, right round the corner, has seasonal decorative lighting spanning accross the road for the entire length. Awh, how cute!

The House: Groundfloor neighbour is moving out. Anyone need a 41 sqm room in Utrecht and has enough cash to buy it?

The Room: Moving the furniture around a bit, figuring out where the posters will go and how they'll get there. Amazingly enough, I can pack a double bed, a 205x80cm desk, a dining table, a two person couch, A large, medium and small cupboard, a kitchen unit, a bathroom with toilet, shower, washbasin and washing machine, more than 5 metres of shelves, two bedstands and a lot of junk into a 20 sqm. room and still have enough space to move the furniture around. And I also can still walk around without running into things.

The blog: Getting a bit dull. Random links:
Learn to dance with Napoleon Dynamite (well, if even K. is sending me a link...). And, no...
Also ran into TISM's music vid again. The bunny is still brilliant. And also, music out of windows sounds.
For those who have a holiday and are bored: go plant a garden. Though I once planned to hang window sill baskets on the baggage carrier of my bike and grow geraniums, I doubt that anyone else is up for that, so here's the virtual garden (game).
Meanwhile, on the Ad front: A big add (Also large file size, nearly 7Mb).

Back to that rotating view

A short history of the file you can see (two posts ago): As said, I went to the Kröller Muller museum some time ago. They recently opened a work by Krijn Giezen, called 'Kijk uit'. The museum site isn't very helpful, or well designed for that matter, but the sponsor has a bit more information in Dutch here. From the top of the stairs I took a series of 20 pictures that I then sent through automatic processing. The software is in demo and can be found here. There is no commercial end-user license yet, but products can be used as long as the use of the software is acknowledged. After some cropping and resizing I had a base image that I then imported into Flash MX 2004 (yes, I have Studio MX under student license, one of those side effects of taking a multimedia course). Currently the only steps there are setting up a single motion tween (10 minutes of work to tweak it). I'm hoping to find time and inspiration to use it as the base for something new.

About those commercials...

I promised a few people to link to the new commercials of a well-known soup brand. I checked the times (clock is visible when a cup is handed over). (5.11 Mb MPEG-1 each).

16:01 Nuclear Powerplant
16:02 Airport

The End of the Stairway

I'll have some fun with this later. Apologies to those without flash. Loading sometimes takes a while (100kb).

A day at the Kröller part II

As for actual paintings, the following are two that I actually took the effort to take a picture for. The first one is a van Gogh, which is strange in my case, as I'm usually not such a fan of Vincent.
The painting is actually hung in a reasonably modern frame (not shown) which actually works well with it. In general, a frame seems to be able to complement a painting, or absolutely ruin it, even if you're not looking at it directly. I'm not too sure about the colour of the walls - that is, the extent to which they can influence the opinion one forms of the paintings hung on the wall. In the case of the Kröller Muller museum, this a vague kind of bleached purple (which gives a lot of noise in digital pictures when shooting at a boosted ISO value of 1600). The Groninger museum had quite brightly coloured walls in the exhibition I visited last time, this actually worked quite well too.

Anyway, the other painting, which is more my style is by Jan Toorop and is entitled Fatalism. It's a very dark picture (hence the large amount of noise that I can't filter without losing detail). Somehow Charley Toorop (same family) is better known, but personally, once again, I tend to go for Jan Toorop's work.

As for the pictures taken outside, here's a little explanation. The whole day had misty weather and sunshine only came late in the day. This weather, in my opinion, works brilliantly for black and white pictures, but it doesn't stop me from throwing in some colour, if I want to see what happens. The other advantage is that light becomes a bit more visable in the haze.

A day at the Kröller

Now, the reason I had a camera on me last time I was at UC was not because of Hermans' farewell do, but rather because I was heading home and a day at the Kröller was planned. It is a shame that the museum is being renovated, but was still nice to go there. The really good thing about the Kröller is that photography is allowed (as long as you don't use flash), so I can post two pictures later on (those need heavy editing, the museum knows perfectly well that it's very difficult to get a decent photo of most items). In the meantime, I've been fooling around with the pictures taken in the park and the museum garden. Some of the better ones are included in the post.
The new thing at the Museum is a climbable work entitled something along the lines of 'watch out', and it's basically a really long stairway that goes up and continues above a hill. The pictures of this are also still in the 'to edit' folder...

Still a sausage

No, I'm not turning this into a cooking blog. Just wondering why anyone, especially a certain brand of meat-free protein source, would call a product a roll (even in Dutch), when it's still clearly a sausage. Okay, most veggie sausages are awfull - but has this lead to a widespread trauma amongst vegetarians?

P.S. Actually, come to think of it, the product description in itself would be a bit dubious under certain circumstances.

Soup?

Sometimes I have the feeling that I have just as much sense of what's going on as I have sense of what's in my soup at the UMC. Which is worrying. For the soup, that is.
In the meantime, posting here seems to be somewhat more limited. Maybe its just the fact that I don't have much time to find interesting things (though I guess I never really had that). The labwork is not that interesting to write about, nor are my pathetic attempts to set up a freevo installation in freeBSD (audio is working, video should, but doesn't list the directories that I specified and the CDs don't seem to work).
My room has seen a few upgrades. I'm only missing one cupboard and some small solutions. Nothing new there - people are still invited to try to figure out when I'm in and drop by. Which won't be this Saturday as there's a guest from England at my parents.

That Hermans goob-bye drink is tomorrow, let's see if I can do a literature meeting and 80 mini-preps in 75% of a day, and navigate around one other borrel, a graduation of someone I barely know and all the other random stuff (I don't know, the incubator blowing up?*). There goes the lunch break...

I'll try and remember to write something that makes more sense soon...


*Actually, breakdowns haven't happened too much: It only rained in the hallway once (and that washing-up bowl didn't quite manage to catch the water), the power has failed twice and someone 'replaced the blue toner', which involved taking out the black toner and trying to put a blue one back in. All in all, that's a very decent score, especially considering the recent evacuation in Went and the fire in Kruyt.

Rules, Regulations, Evacuations and Failure

Rules and Regulations:

• Apperently, according to the small letters on one of the many random forms that I have, my large internship needs to take place within the faculty of Biology. Regardles, I just received a letter (misspelt address, misspelt supervisor name) saying that it had been approved (as an 'external subject' i.e. not part of the faculty of Biology), so at long last bureaucracy is not taking things into a stranglehold. That would be the last straw though, if it wouldn't be possible to do all the aspects of the Masters programme because although it's a joint effort, it is subdivided into parts.
• Mobile phones are not allowed in the lab. For those who had the idea that it was (one or two people accidentally showed the fact that they had a phone) some new signs have been posted on all (even the reasonably hidden back passage) entries to the lab. And the scary thing: lab management doesn't seem to be behind this, so who is?

Evacuations:

• Went is a funny place. My course their got moved to Kruyt because they had evacuated the building after a power failure followed by a ventilation failure. Okay, so it's right above a couple of chemistry lab, so maybe it isn't even that unnecessary.

Failure:

• That transformation doesn't want to go my way. Right now I am, let me see, exactly where I started three weeks ago. So guess what I'm doing next week!

Link out, animations again:

• Weeble and Bob are back with the Industrial Revolution. And if you think that's weird, don't try their guide on dating.
• Magical trevor is back. Not as good as episodes 1 and 2, but ow well, here's Magical Trevor 3.
• Also in Episode 3, and also not as good as the preceding episodes: Tiny Plaid Ninjas 3. The end is kind of decent though.

And that's all. For now.

Two weeks on...

Time flies! Seeing as I'm off to the lab between 08:15 and 19:00 (approx., inlcuding transit and shopping) and I'm doing reading outside of those hours, I'm not here that often. I've also been located in Amsterdam for some of the remaining time, but as my reason to be there just moved to Exeter, that'll no longer be the case. Que planning to leave for England (again). Maybe I should also start to plan to leave permenantly.
But before I start to do that, I'll at least hole up here for at least two years. Along those lines, I'm also finalising the furniture in the room. The latest addition are two identical bedstands on wheels, that sit beneath the table and are used to store my pots and pans. I still need a cabinet for up against the wall to store my plates and glasses. On the next-week list is hanging up some mini shelves above the kitchen and possibly increasing shelf space in the rooms by utilising some unused space (yes, I still had some). Also unused: the staircase, undoubtedly I'll find something creative to use it for.
For those asking about the research: I've been working op copying small parts of the DNA encoding for a protein and getting bacteria to express what's encoded on that DNA. This involves putting it in a vector. As there were weird results (probably because the supply of vector was contaminated) and part of the copying also didn't give results (probably a primer problem), I'm starting over.
As for Blog maintenance etc.: I'm low on time in that direction. I just accidentally wrecked my freeBSD install (turning it into a media server linked to my TV and Stereo), so that's restoring in the background. I'm looking into using Skype (via my MSN Messenger e-mail address) to dial out (need a field test of PC to PC first). The blog is next on the computer priorities list...
Links? Ow well, I'll dig something out.

• This I don't get. Is it because I'm a guy, or is there really no point? Walk
• Probably at least the 1st repost, yet here's one of the examples that good flash animation is still possible: Beatles - I feel fine
• Revenge on snail mail spam: Revenge

Well, that's it for now...

That's one day, 169 to go...

Don't get me wrong, it was quite nice. Filled in a form, and another form, and another form and [...] and figured out I'm not VMT certified (soon to be solved), got a badge [that needs to be worn in sight whilst on the premises], a locker, etc. etc. The first PCR has been done, I've got a bench spot and a reading spot, I know where to find stuff and I even have half a shelf in the freezer. Now I actually need to do the 'fun' part - which is actually registering for this whole thing. The card is handy though - I can now access the bikeshed also after 18:00, and seeing as I left 15 min later than said time... Anyway, enough of that for now. There are a few mindless games on the net, but I find them to dull to link. Maybe next time.

Whoops, lost the linebreaks!

I changed around a setting by accident which basically removed all the linebreaks in all posts, making some of them a bit annoying to read. The setting is back to what it should be, but some of the more recent posts may have become broken as a result. Apologies to all those digging in the archives.

Evening view from the back window

I quite like the big church that I can see from my room. They're nearly done restoring it to it's former glory (look carefully and you can just make out the scaffolding). It features more in the view than the picture would suggest - in the way my room was made to look larger on that panorama picture, I took this picture in a manner which made the church seem smaller. For good measure, to bring out the sky a bit better, I ran it through fireworks. Now it looks a little more like I remember it. (Yes, clicking it brings up the large version, larger versions available on request)

...and practice will follow.

Or, at least, that is what they say. So far, in just about every internship related thing I've heard that line (comes into play when discussing a UC background ). As long as the theory is fine (note)(hide) [Given the fact that up until now people are explaining fairly basic things as if they may be a bit difficult, that shouldn't be the problem. At least the last guy that I spoke to asked if I understood the concept and the use of PCR, rather than spending (in the case of a specific 300-level course) half an hour to explain it], then the practical aspects of, in this case biomolecular research, will follow quite easily. Now I only need to actually put that theory itself into practice. At least I now have an internship (despite being late for both meetings (note)(hide) [First time round, I arrived on time, but then had trouble finding the exact location as there were no room numbers posted and I had the wrong room number anyway. Second time, I get to the station early, only to find that the whole station is filled with buses and people, as there had been an accident at the entry to the station. This was solved by hurrying back to my room, and grabbing my bike instead.]) - the thing at the cell biology department did come through. The good thing about it is that it consists of some widely applicable techniques - which allows me to get a feel for labwork, and might even allow me to figure out a few things (note)(hide) [This includes:

• Figuring out what I think I'm doing
• Figuring out what I am doing
• Figuring out what I should be doing
• Optional: Figuring out what I want to be doing
• Figuring out what I what to do when the internship is over
• Figuring out what to do about some old issues that I managed to keep buried for some time

The last one being one of the reasons why I need to do the others.]
in the meantime (9 month should be enough, I hope (note)(hide) [Something tells me that I won't have that much time left anyway, and that besides that I know there's no acceptable end to it all.]).
Moving on to house related issues - house warming party. I don't think I'll be having one, even though if I move the couch and the table, there would be space, I'd still rather not have too many people up here in one go (and besides, I still only have seating for four). Everyone is still welcome though, even though I'll be running around quite a lot (intro starts tomorrow, internship straight afterwards (next Monday) , so let me know. I know everyone has impossible schedules etc., so I can understand if it takes some time before people have time.
Also in this post: It's the 75th post. Hurray to you for still reading this after going through 74 other posts in the past. That being said, time to dump in a few links, just like in the olden days:

• Biased reporting? Using New Orleans flood coverage as an example.
• Goodie Bag TV: Agent Rod Brickman, Copyright protection. Sharman Networks, who own Kazaa, lost a legal battle and has been ordered to 'modify the system to prevent further piracy'. Not that there aren't dozens of alternatives, but maybe things will one day come to scenes such as those in the clip.
• Chat to the whole internet. Ask the internet anything. If you're bored.

Inside / Site maintenance

And a very distorted view of the room. It looks about 5 times larger than it actually is.
The site is under limited maintenance - I'm changing the linked blogs section. Any additions? Let me know! Maybe I'll also weed out some code artifacts, or maybe I'll re-implement them. Anyway, I've got to run...

First picture...

Of the view from one of the windows. There are three recognisable objects, so triangulation should work. If you get lost whilst trying to find the house, it won't do you much good though, as those buildings aren't visible from streetlevel around here. Pictures of the inside will follow as soon as I can get rid of the big pile of boxes. Good luck to all the UC people starting again tomorrow!

Change of luck?

Internet is working, my freeBSD install seems to be going quite well, even though I'm routing the internet connection via the Windows machine, so maybe my luck is changing (*knocks on wood*). Also haven't seen any threatening notes from the electricity company (*again*). Tomorrow another interview - I'll see what happens...
I'm slowly starting to browse for fun as well - so links as soon as I find something worthwile. For now, only the 'sports' update: New champion for bog snorkellers.

Progress (though hidden)

One thing that did happen: I moved to Utrecht. My room is still one big mess, and I'm in Woerden now, but things are getting there. Main motivation to go to Woerden: to sort out the things that are going wrong. The shortlist:

• There's a very interesting lab with a very interesting research question that could use a masters student. Unfortunately though, they're just setting up and need someone with hands-on experience. Though I can still choose to accept (after which some more talks will be held with my summercourse supervisor), I think I may have to accept that this is perhaps not the best place to go.
• Internet still isn't working - which means that I can't solve issues as easily - hence I'm back in Woerden doing some reading into other internship possibilities etc. etc.
• I also can't get the the sound signal to work for cable TV - even though it worked fine at UC (this is, however, a minor annoyance). So basically my only news source is currently the radio, which does work.
• Major annoyance: the bills we've been forwarding to the people that take care of them haven't been paid apparently, as we've had a note that the electricity company came by to collect. This is linked to another minor annoyance: the doorbel doesn't always work.

So in short - No internship (yet), No internet, no TV and soon possibly no electricity. Good start. Reminds my parents of when we moved to England.

No Change...

Another 40 hours of work (which is turning a bit nasty as things are starting to go wrong, with a deadline approaching fast), and more work in Utrecht. I do, however, intend to move in at the beginning of next week. Maybe then I'll have more time to do a proper update, possibly with links to a game or something like that. In the meantime, here's where I was at some point yesterday...

(360+ degree view from the cyclist bridge between Nieuwkoop and de Meije. Apologies for the quality, this is the fastest render (10% size, <70% quality) from the 18 full-size images used to make the damn thing.) (Btw: hosting is slow, patience may be required! (image size: 60k)).

Still Busy...

...getting the room fixed, and putting in another 39 hours of work. Only two more weeks to go on the job front, and by then I should be able to move into the room as well. The flooring is done, including the restoration of most of the skirting. As there is the matter of the new wall section and non-skirted sections, I'm also adding in new skirting to cover for that (as I really need to do that, as its laminate panel flooring, you need to cover the edges). The new wall has already been painted once, and will get a second coat soon. After that, most of the floor and wall (re)construction will be done. I've already got some cupboards in, so the main things that will still take time are building a desk, putting up shelves and figuring out the middlesection (long story). Once I move in, I'll probably have somewhat more time to actually blog something mildly amusing...

Busy...

There's enough to do! Apart from working (boooooks) and worrying about working on the room (some work is actually being done), there's not that much time left. I still haven't got round to sorting out those pictures - my time behind the computer has either been spent hiding away from family in Limburg (doing mindless things that no-one could possibly take interest in - headphones and winamp can turn into a life saver, especially when running in the background) or trying to figure out why none of my office 2003 applications were working (turned out that the update for kerio firewall disagrees with office 2003 - so I'm still looking for a new firewall, as I will (unfortunately) need office soon.). In the meantime I have replaced my phone, so that should solve the problem of my phone brutaly hanging up when I try to answer the phone. As I have not changed the number or the company yet, I will still have outages because the network I'm using is absolute cr*p around here.
As this isn't really going anywhere, I'm off. Hopefully a more interesting post soon...

No Real Title...

..as there isn't really going to be a central topic to this post. So I'll just sum everything up:

1. I'm back from England (well, I was Sunday, but hey...), with an insane amount of photographs of which most are not too interesting. I'll post some in a while to make up for not finding time and addresses to send postcards to. It was nice being there again and seeing people that I haven't seen in a long while.
2. I've also seen the room I should be moving into. It looks a lot better after they basically rebuilt the entire inside. I also have some pictures, but as goes for the England pictures, I haven't downloaded them from my camera (in Amsterdam as I'm only dropping by briefly here in Woerden today), so you'll have to wait to see them.
3. Along the same lines I've just completed the registration process for next year's programme and I got an e-mail telling me that the programme will start on September 6th. So now I can claim that I do study something biological (Biomolecular Sciences).
4. For the Dutch: want to know how 'beschaafd' (civilised) or 'hork' (?) you are? Zestienmiljoenmensen.nl has a test.
   

Three Days in Canterbury...

...left before I head back to my parent's place. Next Wednesday I het to check my new room, the week after I can move in. Or, more to be more exact, start work on minimally floor and walls, probably the ceiling as well. Work kicks in the Monday before, so another 5 weeks of shifting books (for cash) to be combined with decorating and... shifting books (not for cash, at UC...).

P.S.: No, I was not in London today...

England!

Greetings from England! Only this quick post as I don't have that much time (the previous attempt was brutally interupted by a thunder and golf ball size hailstone storm) - so I'm only goint to mention that I only have half of your addresses, less time to write than ever and that nevertheless, I still manage to have fun some of the time (even though I do miss Anna). I'm back somewhere late on the 10th, so don't expect updates anytime soon....

Campus pictures

The usual applies: clicking on the thumbnail brings you to the 1024*768 picture; if you need / want a better resolution then let me know. The pictures taken at night may be difficult to view, especially on laptops.

Graduation BBQ Pictures

...and the pictures of the BBQ. High quality images of all the pictures that I'm posting are available on request (3264*2448 and less JPEG compression). The thumbnails link to the batch processed 1024*768 images.

Graduation Ceremony Pictures

I'm starting to get round to getting some pictures up (for some reason I can't get the code right, so this is all in very basic code). More will come up in installments, as getting this done is rather tedious work.

Overview

Graduates

Speakers

The [Never-]Ending Book Sale Story Final Part

At long last the year's been closed off. We didn't break the record of most losses on sales, rather than that, we made the first ever (small) profit. Joy! That's the end of that, next semester I have an advisory role (but I'm sure I'll be around at the sales at some time as well). Will it ever really end? I don't know. I'm working with books for a number of weeks this summer as well...

5 Months on..

5 Months ago I started working on the blog, the first post was a day later. Today saw page load 1000 on the (invisible) counter that was added at a later time. So much for random statistics.
I'm trying to get packed, so I'm not going to dwell to long here. Just a few links for those of us that are bored:

• Urban Golf Game - so this has what to with anything?
• Poom - weird game, but hey, if you're bored... (hint: the red thingies make you bounce higher and watching the shadow helps aiming)
  
• Newbreakers - when news breaks, they bust it.

What I'm up to

Basically, I'm running around, as I always seem to be, with the difference that I actually end up at my parents somewhat more often. It'll suffice to say that I have nicked the keys to the backdoor again, as this will save approximately 20 meters on each visit (okay, that's overdone, but you get the point, I'm there a lot). With my Dad's birthday yesterday, an appointment in Hilversum today (which should end at the time the CC meeting in Utrecht started, but somehow I was only 15 min late) and most likely a trip to Groningen tomorrow; I'd rather not think about Thursday and Friday yet. Saturday I know that I should have dinner at my parent's place, as that is what is left of the 'party' for family to celebrate me graduating. Most of the family, actually all of the family, cancelled, which makes it a nice and calm day whilst at the same time nobody complain about not being invited. A few friends of the family will be attending though. The same weekend I will also move most of my stuff there as well. The weekend after will see some of the family showing up and I should go to a party as well, so I best not attempt to move that weekend. In the meantime, the renovation of my room-to-be is due to start next week as well. This means that I most likely will be able to move in on time - another problem solved. Now I just need to get registered for that Masters' programme. Qute e-mail from the UU that I need to send them the form they sent me, the one that I never received. University administration in combination with mass-mailing: joy.

Felt Like Posting

So it's a post, but it's random. Just a few articles on 'the register' that could be interesting. Or more likely bizarre:

• Belgians in cunning misspelt ID card plan
• Pointy knives can kill: official

And, finally, a car ad that is actually nearly funny:

• Car advertisement (wmv file)

More content when I find it, or think of it. I will get round to doing those pictures, I just don't know when and how I'll post them.

Link-time!

A week of no links? Well, not that much linkable showed up in that time anyway...

Snapshot photography? A number of issues show up, the most notable being that some people, when in front of a camera, act strange or always have the same smile: exhibit A (I have no Idea who this is, but that's not the point). Also, red eyes are a problem, although not as much as is the case in exhibit B. Well, my new camera is an Olympus too - does this mean undead hordes and suchlike are out to get me?

Games? Games take an awfully long time to make - good ones don't show up too often. For those that like break-out variants there's the reasonable game involving balls. For those who like weird, calm puzzles, there's balance (hint: some obects aren't allowed to be in the water). Have fun!

Saturday

The last day of an absurd week. So many things have changed in many little ways that make a huge difference. Yesterday of course saw the Graduation ceremony, which marks the end of three years of milling around in college. The weather helped by being warm, though maybe a bit too warm. Most of all, however, the people around made the day one of those wonderful days. As I'm now slowly starting to shut down completely (my legs gave way about 45 minutes ago, I really like my chair now), the reflection on the day is good. I'll post pictures when I have time to do basic editing and downsizing.
This week also saw the (final 5 minutes of the) songefestival. In itself this is not something that is worth dwelling on and even watching it is not exactly the event of the year. In fact, I didn't quite follow the broadcast that well in detail at all - as other matters were far more important. What happened next (or at least the outcome) is clear to most UC people I know (and since yesterday after the ceremony my parents as well). As a note: I have mastered denial to a certain extent - it's the way I work, I build walls of assumptions and convince myself nothing is going on. When it all comes down, confusion follows - but that's okay. Anna got through and caused quite some confusion - and I couldn't be happier about it.

Taking a Break...

Though some people seem to be expecting a post (nice spike on the registered pageloads graph), it's not going to happen. Due to circumstances (including planning and such), no new posts until next Saturday at the earliest. Sorry.

And More Running Around...

As I didn't go into it in the previous posts: The Maastricht trip in short: Basically we didn't really do that much; we walked from the station via the old bridge to the Vrijthof and the two churches. From there we walked past the University College Maastricht (not that interesting) and through some random streets following signs to the caves (which are outside of town, on top of a hill). The view is nice, but not spectacular, and as we didn't really feel like the caves, we walked back down again to the Onze Lieve Vrouwen plein and church. From there another cross through to market square and after that 1.5 hours of free shopping time before heading to the station and catching the 18:30 train out. The weather was nice, so all in all a nice, but brief, town visit.
Yesterday saw the Efteling trip. more than 20 people were invited, only 7 showed up. Of course the NS made us miss the bus, which was okay as some people travelled after us late because of discount reasons. The last person actually joined us inside the park, after we had done the entire sprookjesbos, Villa Volta and Droomvlucht. Seeing as it was raining early in the morning, and rain was expected for the entire day, not that many people showed up, and the rain decided that that wasn't going to be fun to rain on, so it gave up before we reached the park and it was sunny instead. This lead to nice weather and short (max 5 min) queues. Pancakes in Den Bosch ended the day in a nice manner. It was good to get out a few times this week, even though my shoulders are protesting by being very disargreeable today. Ohwell, it'll pass.

Why Digital Cameras have Advantages...

For one thing, the results are visible as soon as you load them onto a computer (NO, that small screen on the back of the camera doesn't show you if the picture worked out okay - it only shows you whether you snapped what you were hoping for, not if the focus was okay, what the field of depth is etc...), for another it saves time scanning them (or installing a scanner - NEVER buy Philips - technology as logical as the box it comes in? don't make me laugh. It took me 2 hours to get the damn thing to work - including a very nasty crash brought on directly by the installer). Anyway, as an addition to the pictures of the snow doughnut by day, one of the evening time shots. Apologies if the colours are too dark - my laptop screen isn't optimal for previewing pictures. Higher res picture available by clicking the thumbnail.

Never a Dull Moment...

So today was the Maastricht trip. Started off with a trip to collect my pictures (they turned out really well) whilst my traveling partner went to the pharmacy. Of course, the person in front of you wants something gift-wrapped (at the kruidvat for crying out loud) whilst the other checkout is not available as someone is trying to buy half a pharmacy without really knowing what they're buying, but attempting to ask (in their opinion) intelligent questions anyway. Result: missed bus 1 by 20 seconds. Central Station saw the right train come in at the right time. Amazing. Less amazing: it reached 's Hertogenbosch 7 minutes late - we got off here to drop some stuff off, before continuing on the train exactly one hour later. With supplies picked up at the supermarket. At Eindhoven the announcement was made that this train isn't going any further and the real train will show up in a few minutes. This actually happened, the train left on time, made it outside of the station, and broke down, meaning that it was stuck within visible range of the station for just over 30 minutes. Of course, this means that come Sittard, they're not going to bother to continue on to Maastricht, so changeover to the stoptrain is the thing to do. 4 hours of random mucking about gets you there though - Getting that food was a good idea... The trip back? Eventless, as ever.

More public transport tomorrow - bring it on...

Nerd!

Okay, link-out time! Theme of this mini-post: Nerd-levels. First of all, for the Science people around: the Nerd test. (I scored 72%, which makes me a Mid-Rank Nerd).
So for those who are looking for Nerd gadgets, I think the site on telco powered products may be the thing.
Still not entirely sure what a Nerd is? Looking for info on the occurance of the Nerd in art and literature? The wikipedia entry for Nerd will help you out.

That's Solved

With only three days to go until the end of the semester, it's finally clear what happened to my Masters' programme application (for Biomolecular Sciences). Apparently I was accepted, on the condition that I manage to graduate before September 1st. Okay, short of insulting a couple of teachers, extending my stay here, dying or running into unforeseen circumstances, there is not much that I can screw up on that one. The reason why I didn't hear about it: They are having problems with the University's computer system, and hence can't register anybody for the programme (although they have been promised that it'll be fixed soon). So in short - I now as good as have a study place and a place to live.

Keep Going...

[Draft]
and the inside joke

Running Around

...In circles, not getting anywhere any more. Which is probably the consequence of the highly effective round of finishing off things earlier this week. The good thing is, that there are few things left to get at, academics-wise. Anyway, meeting in 15, so time to dump the links and run.

Revelation! 666 is not the number of the beast
And the sad thing is, that the Satanists just use it to spite the Christians...
Pizza Call
Anyone paranoid about the linking of information?
Parking: Battle of the Sexes
This post's game of the post

Coherency is so overrated

It's monday, I think. Yes, that would be it. Finished German today (except for actually bundeling everything, which I get to do in class next Monday), Multimedia exam tomorrow. Hopefully I'll finish the flash animation tomorrow as well (still need to find and add two sounds, as well as an intro message and revamping my notes into the kind of report that actually makes sense to more people than just me). But basically, after that, it's course two out of the way, leaving enough time for course 3 (immunology) and the council. Don't start complaining about how you have 5 exams next week Friday, as I know those semesters as well, and seeing as this is my last one here, let me have my fun.
Anyway, I haven't posted for a week. Why? Well, nothing important happened, and, nothing interesting got posted on those sites that I check in those 5 minute breaks. The links are therefore going to be rather dull or unimaginative, but have fun anyway.

Edited images
Worth 1000 had two, imho, quite decent Lord of the Rings out of place pictures. They're called 'Welcome to New Jersey' and 'Fellow of the Ring'.
In the news lately
The NOS ran an item on the image of The Netherlands in the US being tarnished, mainly by conservatives, who, uninhibited by any actual knowledge whatsoever, claim that babys can be euthanised here if just about anything can be labeled as being wrong with them (the example mentioned being having four fingers). The article 'Florida girl has abortion blocked' is yet another instance of where conservatism goes bad. For clarity's sake: the girl is 13.
Flash animation, but then good
An animated video clip for Cake - Comfort Eagle. Why I'm posting it, I don't really know. You might like it though.
Commercial, of dubious nature
I wonder if this is an actual add and whether it was actually allowed. Anyway, it's labeled as a Blaupunkt commercial.

Just a few links

As part of the policy to try to not turn this site into one large rant, I'm posting some more external content, even though it still is quite scarce - spring time seems to drive everone ['s hormones] off in new directions.

Heineken H.E.L.L.O. Commercial
(you'll need to confirm your age first). For the advanced viewers, there is also a wallpaper and a screensaver available form the Heineken goodies page.
Darth Vader vs Hollywood
Orange phone commercial. Well, at least we know who the real dark side is. Although the site that is hosting this one does seem to think that the dark side resides in the Vatican, boasting not one, but two images to prove it.
Guess the Google
This post's game of the post.

Late Addition:
Why texting [and e-mailing] harms your IQ
At least I don't text...

Nearly there...

After having spent a day in the sun and not worrying too much about things (for a change), things fall into a limited perspective. Limited, but in perspective nonetheless. It's not that long to go until the end of the semester (see above), which I have set to May 13th, at 18:00, so that everyone will be done (and not just me).
Of course a day in the sun is done in complete Nerd style; starting with the organisation of it all through a four-way MSN conversation. After the field outside was transformed with three large blankets and a chinese rug, beanbags and pillow were added, followed by a couch and later a series of power outlets and a network hub, as work really needed to be done. Needless to say there were, unfortunately, also piles of books and notes around. Speakers eventually were added so that there was some light music. Graduation day is being planned with this set-up partially in mind. All we need is the weather.

ADD-ON: Dutch and looking for the 'stemwijzer' for the vote on the EU constitution? It's called referendumwijzer.

Reposts

Okay, so I lost some content that I also told people about. The most notable link was the a cappella rendering of a nintendo system. So, for a semi repost (with some new content as well):

Nintendo themes, a cappella (redefined)
And if you're at site any way: Chain Reaction
For the life-science people: News on the inadvertent distribution of H2N2 influenza virus

Ehm, Problem...?

That's weird, I remember posting at least one post since April 14th...
Anyway, as those were done from various locations, I cannot retrieve them. Now that I have my laptop back again (cleaned, new heatsink), I should be able to have back-ups again. Not that it really matters.

Nothing much else to say - I'm running on less than four hours of sleep, I'm still installing the programmes on the laptop (as I 'cleaned' it the hard way before sending it off - not everyone has to have access to all the council related documents for one), so not that great a chance of links.

No, hold on, there's one. For those who enjoy latin:
Handy Latin Phrases

Elections Over

...new council ahoy

Elections Tonight!

Tonight: 19:30, Auditorium, ASIC elections (a.k.a. this is the end, my friend, the end (but not quite with a little bit of thank a deity of your choice mixed in for good measure)). We now have candidates, so this should be a bit better (he said, not knowing that fate had decided that all the ballots would mysteriously change their markings to align with the abstain box).

I'm still all for mailing elections statements, but rather not UCSA style: 1 statement, 2 Mb file, just for a small picture of some guy smiling at me? Nope, I'll skip. It can be forgiven that people still haven't heard of downsampling and editing graphics outside of word, yet I know that the board has a higher degree of intelligence. Although sometimes they seem to be in denial on that issue (hey, I reserve the right to label people as being in denial - according to quite some people and a yearbook entry, I'm good at denial, although personally I would deny that.).

In other news, the contract for the room was signed yesterday, and sent back today. So if all goes well, I'll at least have accommodation next year. Now to figure out if I got in to the study programme (or not) and the postman lost the letter, or whether they can't make up their minds.

The Frustration of it All...

Okay, so Immunology is not going 100% smoothly. All of a sudden I realise why this is supposed to be a 4 person project. Enough on that topic. There isn't really that much else to say, so I'm skipping right through to the links bit.

China's break-dancing grandmother
Well, at least there is some form of reform going on.
Cube Wired
Finally some decent flash, though sometimes it takes a while to figure out where to click next. And the story isn't too brilliant, it's just nice artwork.
Respect the Mailman
Know the Livestrong and Respect 2 All wristbands?
Creative use of desktop images
Now why didn't I think of this?

Spring is in the air...

Must be spring... The first rays of sunshine hit the ground and immediately there are at least two new couples (Michaël and Joyce, Tim and Maaike) and rumours start again, though for once at least one name has changed. Of course, I wish the new couples the best of luck and nice time together.
The downside of the whole spring thing that the creative minds also tune down a bit, so there isn't that much that I can link to at the moment. One of my blog-like sources that maintains a mixed list of very mixed topics (commercials to sketches to adult entertainment), has become somewhat less mixed as of late (no guesses on what is over-represented). Thank god for icons that give fair warnings!
I can do you a quick random and less random news update: the pope died, Charles moved his marriage by a date as 'it clashed with the Pope's funeral' and Tony Blair has asked the Queen to dissolve parliament to open up the way for new elections on the 5th of May in an attempt to cash in on the 'feel good feeling' surrounding the wedding. That last fact puzzles me a bit, but anyway: Labour and the Tories are nearly tied in the polls, with Labour being ahead by a few percent (but within the margin of error, and with a month to go).
In other, UC related issues, I'm finding myself in 4 person group consisting of three people out of which one is now in hospital with a burst appendix. I and the other group member hope that our other member will get well soon. In the meantime we're working to get the full load done.
For those who also visit the council website: I apologise for the menu not being updated for about two and a half weeks now. Of course we can all understand that leaving the country without telling other people, planing other things during meetings, not showing up for more important meetings and failing to do simple tasks such as asking for a menu, providing the promised tea and cookies or sending a get-well-soon bunch of flowers, are just things that accidentally happen and have no link whatsoever with a possible lack of commitment to an elected task. Everything is back to normal.

Happy Spring everybody.

Council in crisis

Postions in the student council (based on College Council rep and College Board representative numbers required): 5. Current candidates: 2, running for 1 position. In this manner student representation at this college can no longer be maintained. Unless students finally feel some responsibility for themselves, the college and most important of all, their fellow students, this will turn into a situation where the students lose their voice in all matters that are important to them. Yes, studying also about fun, but the point of the exercise is to get an education - and ensuring that this is a good education is also in your own hands. Listening to students will give you a whole litany of complaints, yet there are few who are actually willing to do something about the situations that lead to these complaints. It is understandable that many students also have other plans, such as exchange; yet for an increasingly greater part the tendency is towards more self-centeredness and an unwillingness to make any sacrifices. Students want it all, they want it now, and above all it must be free. Actually working, or making sacrifices, is becoming a strange idea.
Am I bitter? Probably. The reason why I decided to work in the council about a year ago was that I found that this study and it's community was something that I believed in, I wouldn't have come here otherwise. I feel, to a certain (quite high) degree, involved with what happens here. The best way of giving something back to a community that I enjoy being part of, is taking a position in a council. I believed that with some of my effort, good work could be continued and problems could be solved. The fact that no-one is even interested in continuing this work, quite frankly, hurts. All we got from the promotion sessions were people looking sheepishly at us when approached, making a feeble excuse or even literally running away to hide before we even got a chance to talk to them.
I am graduating in May - if there is no new student council by then, in one way it isn't my problem. I won't feel that we've failed as a council - the worst councils often spark the most candidates as there are enough people who get so annoyed by the problems this presents that they decided to run. I just hope that students will actually realise the implications of not having representation before they actually have to do without representation for a year.
The pioneers fought for the right of representation. They worked on raising committees from the ground, they dealt with far harsher living situations and far higher course loads. Often without complaining. Now, the nagging about incosequential things is going through the roof whilst people choose not to actually do anything. We should have been selected as highly motivated and ambitious students, but aparently that motivation and ambition is becoming strongly watered down. The main focus seems to be on what to do after getting out here - the CDO is packed with information on what to do, especially if you're in social science. In the meantime the council is filled with far higher than average percentage of science majors and is in a situation in which men are greatly over represented. Some complaints and sheepish grins about this, but no-one actually changing this...

I find it sad to leave this place whilst having to fear that it will go to waste. At this rate, that is what will happen.