Problems...

So okay, my laptop was sent in for repairs. Estimate: 'I have no Idea, but at least 3-4 weeks' to be read as 3^2-4^2= 9-16 weeks. Will I be blogging? I'll try. Problem is: I forgot my password. And my username. Someone now has 3 password reminders. Basically I can't access my Blog (ehm, how did I get here.... In the process of trying to retrieve my password, this page popped up, without giving me the chance to change my password. Basically, I all of a sudden have a random accesspoint for one post.), so until I get this one fixed, I'll just go back to being feeling stoopid.

So what else is up? Immunology group project. Standard group size: 4, I'm in a 3 person group, out of which one is away. We need a topic, and I suck at thinking of those. So, if anyone still has an unaswered question in Immunology Signalling, feel free to drop a comment below.

In other news: I'm looking at a room in Lombok, as I'm probably going to stick around in Utrecht for at least 2 years. More news as soon as it is relevant.

Bored? Hoping to find a link here? All I can offer is this one, which is a creative flash sound music thingy. It can be viewed here, but note that it takes long to load.

And on it goes...

Everything is seemingly continuing at its normal pace:

Dutch politics: There's an agreement between the coalition partners (though D66 still needs to consult the party members). In short: if at first you don't succeed, then try and try again. Aparently the plans will be adapted and resubmitted in 2010 (so we can do the whole thing over and over again). For good measure, reformation of the voting system, dutch state broadcasting services and some other issues have been thrown in. The whole list (in Dutch) is here.

In the meantime; my laptop has started overheating again (I'm currently running realplayer, Firefox and MSN, which normally would't require much cooling: average CPU load 5% - but the fan is on full and the temperature is only 6 degrees below critical. As this is the diagnostic run, the next will be back-ups and a system clean before another test and send in for repairs within the warranty period). In short - I'll probably be without computer soon for the rest of the semester, which will make the multimedia assignments, other course work, council work and communication so much easier.

Speaking of multimedia, someone asked on MSN what I ended up scoring on the exam. I was the one outlier in positive sense: I got an A. Let's hope that I can pull up a grade like that on the Immunology exam...

In other, random news: Entertainment weekly, a US magazine, compiled a list of the top-20 Monty Python sketches. Their (american!) list can be found here.

Happy Easter, by the way!

Now There's a Surprise

The multimedia grades have been silently posted on the Multimedia webspace. I can see why: the average comes at about 2.5, though only one person managed to score below a C-. Quite surprising, as most people were fairly positive about the exam immediately afterwards - and half of the people scored in the C range.

Now, what isn't a surprise: Dutch politics: Balkenende is still positive, according to him negotiations are going quite well. But then again, half of the people I can easily imagine wanting to hold on to their reasonably well-paid jobs. On the other hand, there is no agreement yet, and according to a Maurice de Hond poll, two-thirds of the population wants to have new elections.

What can I say?

Dutch politics: Minister de Graaf has resigned from his post ('bestuurlijke vernieuwing') yesterday evening as the result of the failure of the plans for elected mayors. This has opened up the way for renewed negotiations regarding the agreements between the coalition parties. Other D66 (de Graaf's party) cabinet members have the opinion that there should be a substantially good outcome for the party if they are to stay on. Around the time of posting (late afternoon) the negotiations have begun. So in short: here we go, again.
As a final note: de Graaf's reasons for quiting are entirely honourable (at least in the way that he phrases them). For the dutch-reading amoung us: NOS-Nieuws.

Meanwhile in other news: The US Supreme Court has just refused an appeal by the parents of brain-damaged woman Terri Schiavo to order her feeding tube reinserted. Without wanting to tread on anybody's toes - finally a decision that seems sensible.

Moving deeper into science news:
Why some see colours in numbers
US scientists say they can explain why some people 'see' colours when they look at numbers and letters.

And yes, it is quiz-time again. For those of you wanting to know where they'll end up in hell - there is a test over here.
You can also get tested on which personality disorders you could have. They also link through to a site called tickle.com. The tests there are about as accurate as a blind-folded drunken monkey with an orange hat can be at hitting a small target at a distance of several kilometers with a hand held catapult. Whilst riding a unicycle. In my humble opinion, that is. But, they're 'PhD certified' so I guess I'm a very spontaneous, extraverted person with a large repetoire of facts... Even though most people would have a somewhat different (read: opposite) opinion. In other words: not worth the effort (if you do, make sure you have a spam address ready - you need to register to view the results, and need to ignore the 'click here to order your 15 page report' messages).

Music Tag!

Though doomed to die here, I'll answer the questions that were tagged to me by Hedwig, but I fear that I have no likely candidates to tag at present. Anyways, here goes:

What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
Now, In the tried and tested section there are 890 files, (including random recordings of some local bands that I don't really listen to anymore, comedy quotes and copies of all the CDs I own). The total is 1109, including any files that are listed as mp3.

What was the last CD you bought?
It was probably (bad memory) K's Choice: 1993-2003 Ten Years of... *clickety* make that The Tragically Hip: In Violet Light (though I only placed an order, that I still need to pick up and pay for at the shop).

What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?
The system indicates that it could very well have been New Order: True Faith.

Write down five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:
Not in any specific order, and also please note that this list varies wildly throughout time:

St. Lawrence River
David Usher
Morning Orbit: At least, I own this album and the track is on my version - it isn't listed on the official site! There you would need to look up Little Songs.

Hope [no lyrics]
Apocalyptica
Cult

While we were hunting rabbits
Matthew Good
Avalanche

Bobcaygeon
Tragically Hip
Phantom Power

Zombie
The Cranberries
No Need to Argue

It = Over

Okay, the last midterm is over; one exam to go until graduation (at least, as far as I can see now, German is still a little hazy). I still refuse to comment on the midterms though. Anyway: only a nice round of Multimedia pratical to go. Project 3: Animation. Using Flash MX 2004. Or maybe not as the usual ring of computers used, give you a nice 'Your 30-day trial period has expired' message. As usually sysadmin has been notified a few weeks ago, and they have put on a brilliant display of doing absolutely nothing at all about the problem in true sysadmin style. That is, if the problem ever really got beyond the helldesk, though invading Guus' office usually speeds things up a little.
Anyway, I'll stop rambling, and on the brink of break list a few serious and less serious links:
World Jump Day
Changing the earth's orbit by getting 600,000,000 people to jump at the same time. Proves that everything we always though to know about physicists is absolutely true. =]
Female chromosome has X factor
Battle of the sexes continues on a molecular biology level.
Bart's chalkboard gags
The whole list of them.
The Virtual Toilet Paper Museum
Something stinks though.

Forget About Not Posting...

...Multimedia came and went, as expected. No nasty surprises. Nasty and not surprising is what remains: Immunology. Not nasty, yet still surprising... nope, nothing yet. Anyway, as said I'm dumping in the pictures of both the vase that I made and the snow ring. The vase also shows how to cheat in glas painting - Use a whiteboard marker on the inside of the object. The end-product still has some lines, yet these are the result of applying a thicker line of paint, and therefore will have a darker appearance (etc, etc, etc.). As for the snow ring - guess.

'Midterms'... Kind of Rings a Bell...

...so my next post will most likely be Friday or Saturday (though we do have the open day that day). Todays post will also be short and boring. I have got scans of the snow ring (vertical) that I made and of the glass painting, but I don't feel like resizing and uploading right now. Speaking of graphics: the multimedia course (exam tomorrow) pratcical work (due April 5th) is on graphics. Assignment 1: remove the (copyright) watermark text from this image. Ethical, very ethical.
Anyway - I'm working on an alternative to prom. Yes, it *is* possible to go to antwerp (€12 return ticket from Roosendaal, €14 for the hostel) for a price less than prom. Even Brugge is nearly possible (the hostel is the same price, but the train is €26.20, topping budget by €5.20). At the moment the idea is a small party-ish thing at my place, with someone suggesting one of those murder mystery parties (if you feel the urge to comment, there's a comment option on every post). The brilliant thing is though, that I now have parties on the 29th of March, 2nd of April and 5th of April... The 5th not even being the ASIC after-election party which someone will undoubtedly come up with. Sorry ppl, already have an obligation!
Anyway, I'll cease rambling on, and leave you with the rather sad report of why justice can be too damn slow: Heaven Can Wait, Court Tells Dying Man.

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie!

For those interested, the trailers are out. (for some time now, but ow well). The official site can be found here, the trailers can be found here, and the die-hards can right-click-save-as the following links: Trailer and Teaser (Ultra-Res QuickTime, 51.9MB and 27.2MB respectively)

Unrelated: I may have the pictures of the FnF and some of the snow scenes on Friday. The night shots will take a while, I'm currently on 17/36 exposures, and it's my last roll, so I'm keeping it in for a while. Scanning them will take a while - I don't buy the foto CD's, for 3 euro's I'm willing to sit next to the scanner for 20 min to scan the few pictures that I want in digital format. The fact that I don't own a scanner does, however, complicate matters a little.

For Those not in the Netherlands...

...and for those that don't look out of the window: Weather update! It seems that the winter madness is soon to be over. The -20.7C new dutch March record has been set. In Utrecht we only got down to -16C; cold nevertheless. We've had a 9cm snow pack locally officially (KNMI, Bilt) and a further 3 have just fallen. In Drenthe there is more than 40cm. The chaos is less than expected: only one count of not using machinery to make roads accesible: the machines couldn't stay on the road themselves! In the meantime, the South-East of England does have all the chaos - schools are apperently closed again. It was fun more than a decade ago, I wonder if it still is...

And Now, for a Little Art (Part II)

This time, short look at two of the essential Art Nouveau artists.

Gustav Klimt is a favourite of mine. He was part of the Viennese Seccession and is descibed as 'a leader of the Symbolist and Art Nouveau movements. Usually when discussing Klimt, Egon Schiele soon pops up. Personally I don't like Schiele that much, but if you're interested, googling the name brings up results. Anyway, if you want to browse pictures, there's a nice flash site here and another site here.

Another must is Alphonse Mucha. He worked in Paris for a long time, but returned to his Slav roots later, and faught for his cause via art. His posters are well known, his paintings somewhat less, though they deserve more credit than they often get. At artrenewal there is a reasonable database of his work. It can be found here.

First Day of March - and There's Snow

New Month, more of the same weather. Though finally it's put in a decent effort to blanket campus in a nice layer of snow, with even the grass not showing much above it. Let's see if it will finally last.
Anyway, there's the backlog of a few links. All of them are commercials. Not that much elso on at the moment, but I just felt like posting anway.
3M Security Glass Add
Nice idea, works well in this street add.
Shiseido commercial
Now this is painting...
LiveVault: Back-up trauma
Geek alert! (It's long, but kind of funny)