Dreams Unlimited©

Diary

archives

A list of recent thoughts, things I saw or things I spotted on the Net, things that excite me (Uuh, baby!) or upset me, stuff I hate or love or in any other way find worth the trouble of blogging right here for your entertainment or interest and my archive. ;)

	Wednesday, May 31 Blogfish - natural selection for your memes #Posted by Dreams on 09:53 Blogfish - natural selection for your memes This is interesting... :) It makes your blog, your thoughts, your you "live" among other users. And depending on what you think, do or say, you'll survive or not. Confused!? Me too. ;)
	Saturday, May 27 Honda Gets Human Brain Waves to Move Robot Hand #Posted by Dreams on 22:09 Japanese automaker Honda has developed technology that uses brain signals to control a robot's moves, hoping to someday link a person's thoughts with machines in everyday life. Using an MRI scanner, the brain "image" of a test person was linked to a robothand. When the person made a fist, seconds later the robot also made a fist. Woooow! That is so cool! Of course, the military will jump on this and turn robots into killing machines. Or the police will get a Robocop, but wegamers will finally get MechWarrior! W00t! ;) Source: FOXNews.com
	Thursday, May 25 Awakenings in Westergasfabriek #Posted by Dreams on 16:31 While at Awakenings, the summum of techno parties, in the Westergasfabriek, I not only took tons of photos of their world-famous lasershows, but I also decided to try my IXUS 55's video camera mode. You can see the results in a 65 MB AVI movie.
	Drum Scans - Scanning at 10,000 dpi #Posted by Dreams on 16:22 Having said that about the large format (digital) cameras, you can do without these high-priced professional digital backs and simply scan your negative after processing. This results in an almost digital workflow but without the expensive all-digital equipment. Of course, a scanner that can scan a 10x15cm negative doesn't come cheap either... And if you are so professional that you also produce 60x80cm prints regularly, you'll need a Drum Scanner. Sadly, these dpi monsters cost as much as a medium-sized car! :jaw drop: So the question that comes to mind is: "why did I decide to not buy that 40 Mpx Phase One digital back again...?" LOL
	Measuring MegaPixels #Posted by Dreams on 16:13 Luminous Landscapes has done a rare review in photography land: they compared high-end DSLRs and digital backs. Comparing a Canon 1Ds, 5D, Linhof, Hasselblad H1 and Mamiya 645 cameras and the Phase One P25, P30 and P45 digital backs. :respect: Their goal was to compare all these modern digital monsters and decide on pros, cons and which lens was the best for a certain camera. The group of four professional photographers set out on a weekend trip to shoot raw metarial and then came back into the studio to do still-life test shots. However, the best thing about this test is not their results and findings, but that you can order a DVD with the actual test images as well as a trial version of Phase One's Capture One professional image software for Mac and Windows, so you yourself can import and judge their material on your own system and screen. Coool!
	A State of Trance - Live from ASTA #Posted by Dreams on 15:27 Woohoo, today Armin van Buuren will be airing his 250th radio show of "A State of Trance" from club ASTA in The Hague. That's almost around the corner from me! :) It even listed on di.fm, world's best dance/trance/techno internet radio station. And best of all, they have the schedule online too, something the club won't tell you... LOL I'll be there.
	Wednesday, May 24 Cracking WEP and WPA Wireless Networks #Posted by Dreams on 14:07 I may have posted this before, but people, all people, should know about this: WEP but also WPA encrypted WiFi networks are easily cracked! SO beware. WPA is a bit more difficult and with a few steps you can make it less worthwhile for anyone to try. Of course, if you want to keep something secret, don't write it down. If you write it down, don't write it on a computer. If you write it on a computer, don't save it. If you save it, don't put the PC on a network. If you put the PC on a network, don't put it on internet. If you connect the pc to internet, by god don't add WiFi! If you add WiFi... forget it, all bets are off! LOL
	Monday, May 22 Happy birthday Isabelle #Posted by Dreams on 18:10 Happy birthday to my sister, Isabelle! :)
	Sunday, May 21 Parkpop 2006 : Zuiderpark : Den Haag #Posted by Dreams on 13:38 This year, Parkpop 2006 will be held on June 25th in Den Haag. In the Zuiderpark, as always. Go to any train station and ask a bus or tram driver, they'll know. Or follow the flow of ther crowd. :) The program seems fine this year. In 2003, the Year Of The Great Summer, it was amazing! So hopefully, the weather helps again a little. We'll lie down on a blanket, listen to the music, watch the crowd and just generally chill and relax. (y) Always good...
	Honey Badgers #Posted by Dreams on 13:29 Watching one of the best episodes on NGC: Honey Badgers of the Kalahari... :respect: If I ever reincarnate and I get to choose, it'll be a Honey Badger!
	Thursday, May 18 Google releases AJAX framework #Posted by Dreams on 22:45 Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language. Writing dynamic web applications today is a tedious and error-prone process; you spend 90% of your time working around subtle incompatabilities between web browsers and platforms, and JavaScript's lack of modularity makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components difficult and fragile. GWT lets you avoid many of these headaches while offering your users the same dynamic, standards-compliant experience. You write your front end in the Java programming language, and the GWT compiler converts your Java classes to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML. Read more...
	Elephants Dream - the movie - is released! #Posted by Dreams on 22:36 Woohoo! Orange - the Blender project of creating world's first open source movie, has released the entire movie "Elephants Dream" online. Everything, from MPEG2 to Quicktime to huge 800 MB HD AAC 5.1 surround movies have been put online. I can't believe they actually published complete files instead of only torrents. My god, the sheer bandwidth must be mindblowing... :) Respect to you guys to living up to your promises of releasing everything. Now on to the movie... ;) (Beware that the site is overloaded now and either get the torrent - as that is actually faster now - or wait a couple of days...)
	Monday, May 15 bzflag server maps #Posted by Dreams on 16:20 It took me a long time to find these and if you've never heard of bzflag, you couldn't care less... but if you do know bzflag and like to play, I found a guy at MIT how has made and published some cool-looking bzfs maps. Woohoo! Can't wait to try them on our server at work. ;) His pages list the process of creating bzflag world maps, tips and pointers, tools and utilities to use and so on. Finally! Thank you Purple Panzer! :respect: But he also includes screenshots and images of the maps, so you get an idea of what they're like. More maps are on Dutchrai's server.
	Add watermarks to digital photos easily #Posted by Dreams on 10:37 iWatermark is a small little program that let's you easily add digital watermarks to your digital images of photos. iWatermark runs on Apple OS X and all Windows computers, so it should be available to all you photographers out there. :) The program also lets you perform some simple modifcations to the image, such as resize, change quality setting and add/create thumbnails. Sounds like a really useful tools, altough Irfanview can do all these things too. iWatermark may have a better interface, though.
	Thursday, May 11 Pepper Pad - Linux tablet computing #Posted by Dreams on 09:20 My friend Machiel sent me a link to the Pepper Pad... LOL It's a brilliant gadget for around the house and leisure computing, as I like to call it. You carry a tablet, tab or TPC for short ;), and with WiFi you access internet when and where you like. The Pepper Pad, although $800, seems a nice formfit.
	Wednesday, May 10 TestKing - helps you study and prepare #Posted by Dreams on 18:38 While on the subject of training and certification, TestKing offers cheap test exams to help you prepare for actual exams. Nice...
	VMware VCP training #Posted by Dreams on 18:36 Cool, today I'm starting a 4 day training for VMware ESX server. W00t! Very cool! It can do sooo much more than I thought (Duuh!). I hope I can get my VCP certificate this month, if the TU Delft project gives me enough time. The month of May has been a bitch, time-wise, so far... Learnt some cool utils for ESX server: vmktree, which resembles vmkusage. esxRanger and esxCharter to resp. help you make hot replicates of an ESX server's VMFS volumes and report on ESX usage (important for managed when you need an additional ESX server ;)
	Sunday, May 7 Ducati Club Races 2006 in Assen #Posted by Dreams on 23:17 Today, I went to see my boss Paul Haullussy race in the Ducati Club Races in Assen, just like last year. I took Michel and Marleen with me, as they like motorbikes too and live in Assen and let me stay at their place. :) It was a nice day, gorgeous weather, although the harsh wind blew up so much dust around the newly rearranged TT circuit, that it was tough to look into the wind at some times. Poor bikers... it must be a killer at 200 km/h! The day went along fine and my boss even was in 2nd place of his heat, when he had a hard crash in one of the corners. He crashed very very hard, although it was at the other far-end of the circuit. His suit was trashed, his helmet scrathed through to the fiberglass and his bike no longer had any handlebars. Fortunately, he only had minor injuries and a light concussion of some sort... The good news is that they stopped the race and used his last position as the finishing results, so he made 2nd place after all! Congratulations Paul! update: pictures online
	Saturday, May 6 6 hour Spinning Marathon for Stichting Buddy #Posted by Dreams on 08:50 Even though Vincent celebrates his birthday today, Petra and I are doing a 6 hours spinning marathon for a good cause: Stichting Buddy. They pair up volunteers with (mostly) very ill or disabled people who don't get many friends come over. Stichting Buddy gives them a person to talk to so they can feel wanted, welcome and needed. Often, long-lasting friendships develop between "patients" and volunteers. Our fundraiser wants to raise some money to help the foundation do their job. The event is organized by the healthclub Petra and I go to a few times a week: Jack Slagman in Den Haag. Update: I have tons of pictures online now.
	Happy birthday Vincent! #Posted by Dreams on 08:46 Today, my little nephew Vincent turns one year old! Happy Birthday!
	Wednesday, May 3 Mythbusters: walking in the rain #Posted by Dreams on 10:07 My favorite show, that I miss most of the time but catch up on internet, showed me recently whether to walk or run in the rain. It's a question I've been raising to myself ever since I was 6, 7 or 8 years old. In their experiment they showed it was better to walk, as the suits they wore had gathered less water (half!) than while running. Strangely, their result went against another test by MIT (?). So many viewers wrote in to tell them why it was a valid test. So the MythBusters revisited the myth and performed several tests outside in real rain... with the results that running in real rain will get you less wet than walking! Coool! My faith in mankind is restored. I will rest in peacce. :)
	Blog Virus infection #Posted by Dreams on 09:42
	Tuesday, May 2 Petra's "Bad Taste" birthday party #Posted by Dreams on 23:23 I uploaded tons of pictures today, while at the TU Delft. Among them the pictures of Petra's Bad Taste birthday party on April 22th. Enjoy! But beware: not for fashion and trend-aware people or wannabees! :)
	Peper party pictures #Posted by Dreams on 23:17 After several months of problems with uploading the picture to smugmug, I finally took a CD to the university and was able to upload 500+ MB of high res images with 400 KB/s! Gotta love internet and universities! woohoo! The pictures of the party in January for my parents' 65th birthday and my grandmother's 95th (!) birthday are now online. There are pictures of the lunch in Scallywags - the Restaurant and a happy hour in Rootz in Den Haag. Thanks to Petra for taking the pictures and the work in processing them. (K)
	Current Doppler radar image for Netherlands #Posted by Dreams on 16:52 Finally... someone decided it was ridiculous that (doppler) radar images of the Netherlands were too usefull to remain paid-only content. So he created Buienradar.nl. Now you can get current radar images of the weather in the Netherlands for free. Even on your mobile or PDA, or include in your website. :respect:
	Monday, May 1 TU Delft - shared ICT project #Posted by Dreams on 08:34 As of today, I work 3 days a week for the TU delft on a migration project towards a shared ICT environment. I'm responsible for making sure all the Unix/Linux workstation in the pilot can access all the (Microsoft-based and some Novell) shared services and don't loose any data during a migration. So I won't be blogging as much as usual. ;)