tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-193525772024-03-13T16:28:37.463+01:00In the electricspaceelectricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-8144166787506882742010-02-28T01:33:00.004+01:002010-02-28T02:01:55.899+01:00My first Bollywood movieAfter listening to dozens of Bollywood sound tracks I just had to see a 70s Bollywood movie. I chose for "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" because its status as a classic Bollywood movie, I really liked Asha Bhosle's song "Dum Maro Dum" and the link to the hippie culture in India (hence the title of the movie). Roughly said the movie is a sort of Indian take on "Hair".<br /><br />The camera techniques were sometimes very awkward, acting was poor and the fighting scenes were amateuristic at best. But that just made it more funny. But the movie sometimes wasn't funny at all. I don't want to spoil it, but it doesn't have a happy ending and it even left me a bit depressed.<br /><br />Here you can see the trailer and the movie itself online:<a href="http://www.jaman.com/movie/Hare-Rama-Hare-Krishna/0VwwklT_Qd8Q/"> http://www.jaman.com/movie/Hare-Rama-Hare-Krishna/0VwwklT_Qd8Q/</a><br />The movie has English subtitles, but in some scenes they talk faster than I can read, so I sometimes had to pauze regularly to read.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-78328155009580502522010-02-11T20:23:00.003+01:002010-02-11T22:13:41.498+01:00White noise on the internetThis article is for all those wikipedia-fans that still believe that the internet will sort out the correct information automatically. I'll give a quick hint: it won't in many cases.<br /><br />My wife posts regularly lyric snippets on <a href="http://twitter.com/lyricsbylenny">twitter.com/lyricsbylenny</a>. She always links to the full lyrics online. But it's sometimes hard to find a website with the <span style="font-style: italic;">correct</span> lyrics. And that was the problem with "All of my life". Everywhere she looked she got the same error over and over again: "<span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">star and flair". But if she listens to the song, she hears "</span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">style and flair</span></span><span class="status-body"><span class="entry-content">".<br /><br />It seems like one website website or service spreaded the wrong lyric and everybody copied it. Because that's what we all do: copy. Sadly we don't have the time to check the data we receive. In this case it's a small benign error, but it's easy to see that such errors easily end up in the history books. It then will take a researcher to find out that something isn't true just because everybody repeats each other.<br /><br />Lyrics websites are a nuisance anyhow, by the way. Many times I find content that's just dead wrong and full of incorrect spelling. I say: tear those sites down!<br /></span></span>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-5807070008178517472010-02-02T20:35:00.001+01:002010-02-02T20:39:30.945+01:00Another approach :)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/S2h-4O_RkJI/AAAAAAAAAFw/v5DT48iawQM/s1600-h/0,1020,1389996,00.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/S2h-4O_RkJI/AAAAAAAAAFw/v5DT48iawQM/s400/0,1020,1389996,00.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433732454983766162" border="0" /></a>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-78508596416046966442010-01-30T21:37:00.003+01:002010-01-31T00:05:27.527+01:00The Dixie CupsLast month I had much fun with The Dixie Cups. Classic bubblegum pop or in Dutch: bakvissenmuziek. They are most famous for their hit "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8BzBPsVkXk">Chapel of Love</a>". Is it already getting spring or what? :)<br /><br />I already knew that song and it was that song that lured me in to find a compilation of The Dixie Cups. I found some nice songs that are a bit quicker than Chapel of Love, but the lyrics stay sugar coated sweet most of the time. Check out:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXJCjVJZvH0&feature=related">I'm Gonna Get You Yet</a> (great original 60s tv performance)</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/All-Grown-Up/dp/B001B8H1KW">All Grown Up</a> (Link to Amazon, press the button "Preview" to listen)</li><li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001B8IL7E/ref=dm_dp_trk10">Ain't That Nice</a> (Link to Amazon, press the button "Preview" to listen)</li><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGCvGb13dnY">Gee Baby Gee</a></li></ul>Some extra's:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl-blKLdAms&feature=related">You should have seen the way he looked at me</a> (not a great song, but it is a original 60s tv performance)</li><li>A weird one: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kwuJH4I9ZU">the ABC-song of The Dixie Cups</a><br /></li></ul>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-51476669207424935052010-01-24T09:29:00.008+01:002010-01-24T20:10:59.904+01:00Compilation: collector items Vol. 3<a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?zyjh35zgyyi"><span style="font-size:180%;">Download Collector Items Volume 3</span> (from mediafire)<br /></a><br />Another year, another compilation. Each year I try to make a compilation of the best songs that I came across in the previous year. This year I couldn't keep it that short that it could fit on a audio cd. It's now 2 hours of music.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">So, what's on it?</span><br />In 2009 I found some great music in the following genres:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Soul.</span> The compilations of the label <a href="http://www.numerogroup.com/">Numero Group</a> proved to be a goldmine. Many songs are found through these compilations. They are full of good-but-not-so-famous vintage soul. Through the label I found great songs like these:<br />- Helene Smith - Thrills and Chills<br />- Shirley Ann Lee - There's a Light<br />- Young Deciples - Bang Bang Bang<br />- The Rolles - Knockin at the Wrong Door<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">American music before 1950.</span> Through the year I found some good blues & country. One of the compilations that proved to be a nice source of good old music was "<a href="http://electricspace.blogspot.com/2009/12/pop-music-early-years-1890-1950.html">Pop music: The early years 1890-1950</a>". You can find a lot of old stuff on my compilation:<br />- Little Richard<br />- Hasil Adkins<br />- Aunt Jemina<br />- Gene Greene (+-1910!)<br />- Bayless Rose<br />- Danny Kaye and the, oh dear, Andrew Sisters.<br />- Nugrape Twins<br />- 22<br />- Roy Brown<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Non-western music.</span> This year I made a point in finding world music that did not let you feel like a tourist. Cream of the crops is the Ethiopian <span style="font-style: italic;">Seyoum Gebreyes & the Wallias Band with the song Muziqa Muziqa</span>. Ok, you clearly hear the influences of western music in the form of funk and jazz, but it's also clearly not made by westerners. And it rocks! Other songs are from:<br />- Lord Astor<br />- Lucho Bermudez<br />- King Fighter<br />- Abdel Hadi Halo And The El Gusto Orchestra Of Algiers<br />- Tefera Kassa & Imperial Bodyguard Band (also ethiopian)<br />- Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble (real russian folk before the sovjets replaced it with balalaika).</li></ul>2009 was a good year to diversify my music collection even more and I hope you can hear that.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?zyjh35zgyyi"><span style="font-size:180%;">Download Collector Items Volume 3</span> (from mediafire</a>)electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-51207342534342314132010-01-10T21:16:00.003+01:002010-01-10T21:27:36.390+01:00Blog redesignIt's not finished yet, but since it's in FireFox and Safari already better than before, I decided to put it online.<br /><br /><a href="http://electricspace.blogspot.com/">electricspace.blogspot.com</a>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-905285149870353882010-01-10T09:18:00.003+01:002010-01-10T10:05:08.768+01:00Pulling the plug and back to the music store?A friend of mine told me he did something special last year: he deleted his complete mp3-collection. Say what? Yes, deleted <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> his music on his computer. He told me he was fed up with all the crappy encoded mp3's. The quality of music on cd/dvd is good and consistent.<br /><br />Another thing that bugged him was the sheer amount of music that is available on the internet, both legal and illegal. I must agree on that point. Before the internet you bought each month just one or two albums at most. You had something to look forward to. And you listened the complete album. Even if it was mediocre. You paid for it!<br /><br />But internet changed the scene. Even with zero budget there is more to listen to than you can handle. It certainly changed <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> way of listening to music. In the pre-internet age I only listened to complete albums. Now because of the sheer abundance of music, the value and appreciation of a song is so much lower that I cannot listen to a complete album. I just want to save those few songs that I really like and go on to the next album to pick out the good songs.<br /><br />Although I like the abundance of music, I must admit that I think I'm acting like a spoiled brat. I just don't have the patience anymore to listen to songs that aren't good enough. So I can understand that you want to turn back the time. Although it sounds temping, I'm not going to pull the plug. I like to stay in abundance for as long is it will stay that way.<br /><br />Sound quality by the way isn't such a problem for me. The spirit of a song is much more important than the sound quality.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-59075178664122925552010-01-01T20:13:00.001+01:002010-01-01T20:15:28.456+01:00What pictures does a 3-year old makeIsabel has her own camera now. So if you ever wanted to know what kind of pictures a 3-year old makes, you just have to see <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45362730@N05/show/">Isabel's Flickr page</a>.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-17194844703001444142009-12-26T00:36:00.002+01:002009-12-26T00:38:56.930+01:00Musical heritageWhile busy with my annual compilation I came across music I found on <a href="http://musical-heritage.blogspot.com">musical-heritage.blogspot.com</a> (as always: found through <a href="http://www.weirdomusic.com">www.weirdomusic.com</a>). It's a great weblog about world music with many downloads. So here you have my tip of the day :)electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-55053315164708042002009-12-24T21:11:00.002+01:002009-12-24T21:33:37.615+01:00Pop Music: The Early Years 1890-1950A few weeks back I had much fun with the 2-disc compilation <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pop Music: The Early Years 1890-1950</span> that I found on <a href="http://bravojuju.blogspot.com/">Bravo Juju</a>. The title of the compilation pretty much explains it all. Disc 1 starts with the "Washington Post March", which may scare you off because of it's poor recording quality and because, well, it's a march. But stay in there. The second song "King of the Bungaloos" already sounds a lot better.<br /><br />Other favorites are:<br /><ul><li>How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm? - Nora Bayes</li><li>Black and Blue - Ethel Waters</li><li>Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man - Aunt Jemima</li><li>Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition! - Kay Kyser & His Orchestra (who doesn't love a song with a title like that? :) )</li></ul>Download from Rapidshare:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://rapidshare.com/files/273111490/Pop_Music__The_Early_Years_1890-1950__Disc_1_.zip">Disc 1</a></li><li><a href="http://rapidshare.com/files/273120167/Pop_Music__The_Early_Years_1890-1950__Disc_2_.zip">Disc 2</a><br /></li></ul>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-87019470234208107832009-12-24T20:53:00.002+01:002009-12-24T21:11:42.392+01:00I'm backThe last few years I gathered a multitude of accounts on social networks such as blogspot, last.fm, hyves, facebook and even twitter (just to name a few). Because with each social network account comes a blog, I had to a post for each and every social network. What a drag. Now I managed to collate hyves, facebook and twitter to my blog on blogspot.com.<br /><br />To make a long story short: I saved myself some work so it's fun to start blogging again. I'm going to use my blog to post my latest discoveries in music, so be prepared :)electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-66989695063342598702009-09-12T21:11:00.002+02:002009-09-12T21:17:05.147+02:00Shirley Ann LeeI found a great weblog called World Music (<a href="http://musical-heritage.blogspot.com%29/" target="_blank">http://musical-heritage.blogspot.com)</a> to find, well, all kinds of world music. There I came across an album called "Local Customs: Downriver revival". On the album I found a few songs of Shirley Ann Lee. It were simple, but beautiful gospel songs. <a href="http://www.qthemusic.com/cgi-bin/q50/track.pl?id=1255#q50flashplayer" target="_blank"><strong>Listen here to There's A Light by Shirley Ann Lee</strong></a>.<br /><br />There was not much information about this Shirley Ann Lee. The artist page on Last.fm was intriguingly empty. Lucky for me some <a href="http://mog.com/Michael_Goldberg/blog/1209432" target="_blank">Michael Goldberg wrote some something about Shirley on his blog</a>. There should be much more songs of Shirley Ann Lee, but have all been forgotten.<br /><br />Until now. A label called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Numero_Group" target="_blank">The Numero Group</a> is looking for great stuff to re-release and came across old recordings of a label. So 40 years after Shirley Ann Lee sang her songs in the studio, people come to her door to show her her own music on cd.<br /><br />Her songs were not only saved from being lost in oblivion, she could also hear her own songs after decades. But they had to listen to it in a car, because she did not have a cd player in her home. It resulted in a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcsumBc4Zns" target="_blank">cute youtube movie</a>.<br /><br />You'll probably thinking what's so interesting about it. There is much more in the world than <em>that</em>. Well, this is just a small story, but somehow it's very heart-warming to find that there are people that try to save music from oblivion. And the internet is full of interesting little stories. It's a good that I have children and a job. Otherwise I could easily fill my days with tracking down these little musical pearls and the stories behind it (and blogging about it).electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-12622090472817694692009-05-04T23:21:00.001+02:002009-05-04T23:21:41.897+02:00three mattresses and a babyThe extra mattress has arrived! That does not seem like a great deal, but this makes our co-sleeping very official: the whole Bos family sleeps in one great bed and had to buy another mattress since we are now with the four of us.<br /><br />The extra space is especially handy with Isabel. Often when I wanted to go to bed I found her on my part of the family bed. If not, she would take at least as much width of the bed as possible. But to be frank: I hope they will stay in the family bed for a long time.<br /><br />For those who are interested (or shocked) by co-sleeping some links from Ester:<br /><ul><li><a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://www.natuurlijkouderschap.org/wat-zijn-de-effecten-van-samen-slapen-op-de-lange-termijn-voor-mijn-baby/" target="_blank">http://www.natuurlijkouderschap.org/wat-zijn-de-effecten-van-samen-slapen-op-de-lange-termijn-voor-mijn-baby/</a></li><li><a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://www.natuurlijkouderschap.org/wat-zijn-de-voordelen-van-samen-slapen-met-de-baby/" target="_blank">http://www.natuurlijkouderschap.org/wat-zijn-de-voordelen-van-samen-slapen-met-de-baby/</a></li><li><a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp" target="_blank">http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000.asp</a></li></ul>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-68362713450302164802009-03-25T21:58:00.001+01:002009-03-25T21:58:32.222+01:00Short tongue-tieWe found out that Otis has a short tongue-tie. So we decided to cut it. This will be done tomorrow. Although we had taken a day to think it over and our doctor opposed to it, it wasn't that hard to come to a decision. What would now be a simple cut, would be a operation when Otis would be 11 years old.<br /><br />Although it wasn't that hard to make a decision it won't be fun for Otis, so it will be a big day for us tomorrow. We hope that he'll be able to drink better after the cut. That would give Ester some more night rest. Although Otis had once slept 5 hours in a row, he didn't repeat that afterwards.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-12794899187497341862009-03-15T21:51:00.000+01:002009-03-15T21:52:10.959+01:00EsterThursday evening Ester en Otis were back home. Ester is still physically and mentally tired of the child birth. Monday I will go to work for a few days, maybe a week. After that I'll take more vacation to support Ester.<br /><br />For those who want to visit us: when everything is setteld we will choose a few days for visits, so our agenda won't be full of visits for the rest of 2009.<br /><br />What I forgot to mention about Otis: There's also a company called Otis. It was named after the inventor of a safety device for elevators and founder of the company. It's the largest elevator company in the world. So if you are going to step in an elevator or a escalator there's a big chance you might see the name of our son.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-91086616741593692552009-03-15T10:51:00.001+01:002009-03-15T11:12:42.297+01:00Otis is bornHello y'all. Here's a quick post to tell you all that we've got a son. The delivery was long and harder than with Isabel. Unfortunately it ended with a Cesarian, just like the first time. Ester will be in hospital with Otis until friday. Otis was born on monday 17:08 and weight 3965 grams and really a cute little thing.<br /><br />Now for the name. As you all now we always have fun coming up with a few names. His full name is Otis Nemo Atreyu. We came with Otis after watching a documentary about soul music. So a you guessed, we got the name from <a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Otis+Redding" target="_blank">Otis Redding</a>. Nemo does not refer to that fish or captain Nemo of Jule Verne, but to <a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_in_Slumberland" target="_blank">Little Nemo in Slumberland</a>, a very old comic from the early 1900s. It's about a boy that had the wildest dreams and it made a lasting impression on me. Atreyu is the hero in the book/movie <a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_%28film%29" target="_blank">The NeverEnding Story</a>, which Ester read and watched. So Otis second and third name are from youthful heroes from our youth.<br /><br /><a href="http://electricspace.hyves.nl/album/37892468/Otis/5akywDbW/">Pictures of Otis on Hyves.nl</a>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-69157502841491750072009-02-14T23:07:00.011+01:002009-11-16T21:43:49.297+01:00Pixel 2 em calculator<img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 142px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SZrPb4VXIvI/AAAAAAAAAFI/bCmoBGDwRLs/s400/pixel2emCalculator.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303779589067580146" border="0" />Every website that I've built for the last months have been in em's instead of pixels. Well, not completely, just the font size and line height. The advantage is working with em sizes is that your font sizes are scalable in Internet Explorer. On top of that it's much easier to offer a website in another font size by changing the base font size of the body-tag.<br /><br />There's only one problem. If you have to work with a design in Photoshop, everything is measured in pixels. You have to do some math to convert those pixels to em's. Now you have scary <a href="http://jontangerine.com/silo/css/pixels-to-ems/">pixel/em tables</a>, but that won't work for me. So I decided to use my ASP.NET knowledge to create a Windows .NET application. It's my first app (so be gentle with me) but it does the job. I wrote the program just for me, but since there are a lot more who make web sites in em's I decided to throw it on the web. So here it is:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://www.bososs.nl/electricspace/px2emCalc/Pixel%202%20em%20calculator.exe">Download Pixel 2 Em Calculator.exe</a></li><li><a href="http://www.bososs.nl/electricspace/px2emCalc/px2emCalc.rar">Download the Visual Studio project</a></li></ul><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >Update: <a href="http://www.thebrightlines.com/2009/11/16/pixem-pixel-to-em-converter/">Version 1.1 of this tool is published on The Bright Lines</a>.<br /><br /></span>If you want to read more about using about using em instead of pixels, I recommend the following articles:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://jontangerine.com/log/2007/09/the-incredible-em-and-elastic-layouts-with-css" target="_blank">The Incredible Em & Elastic Layouts with CSS</a></li><li><a href="http://www.alistapart.com/articles/howtosizetextincss" target="_blank">How to Size Text in CSS (a list apart)</a><br /></li></ul>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-59447466140997738442008-09-09T20:17:00.001+02:002008-09-09T20:17:50.441+02:00Pfffff!Sometimes it just not your week. I've got mine now, although it's a long week. About one and a half week ago my computer decided it wasn't compatible with a Windows update (well, that's at leas my conclusion) and kept the CPU at 50% at least. No chance to uninstall the update. After some research I decided to once again (3rd time this year!) to re-install my Windows.<br /><br />After got over that, it was time for the whole family to get sick. Bweeech! Monday I did nothing but sleeping or watching Teletubbies, Tweenies or In The Night Garden with Isabel. I'm getting slightly better now, at least good enough to work and I hope I'm rolling at full steam next day from tomorrow.<br /><br />Isabel is getting cuter everyday. Since her 2nd birthday she even lets us hug her. Victory!electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-48516325497396783542008-06-06T22:04:00.006+02:002008-06-06T22:18:01.513+02:00IKEA stainless steel scissors part 2I just had to laugh my ass off after I've seen a search result that had a link to my article about <a href="http://electricspace.blogspot.com/2008/05/ikea-stainless-steel-scissors-yeah.html">IKEA stainless steel scissors</a> on the top! Funny what a little bit of search engine optimization can do sometimes :)<br /><br />And you know what's so funny about it? If <span style="font-style:italic;">you</span> make a link from your website to <a href="http://electricspace.blogspot.com/2008/05/ikea-stainless-steel-scissors-yeah.html">this article about the IKEA scissors</a>, you make it rank even better. Your link becomes a vote of some sorts.<br /><br />Results on Google.com:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SEmY2XwFnhI/AAAAAAAAADs/k3798udRIHc/s1600-h/stainless2.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SEmY2XwFnhI/AAAAAAAAADs/k3798udRIHc/s400/stainless2.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208862503886757394" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Results on Google.nl:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SEmYu2jOQmI/AAAAAAAAADk/JsIf0Z_NucQ/s1600-h/stainless1.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SEmYu2jOQmI/AAAAAAAAADk/JsIf0Z_NucQ/s400/stainless1.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208862374715343458" border="0" /></a>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-23550972160475910852008-05-31T23:41:00.003+02:002008-05-31T23:51:26.640+02:00Graffiti or not?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2006-09/moose-reverse-graffiti.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2006-09/moose-reverse-graffiti.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />I keep a close eye on the <a href="http://r1cardo.stumbleupon.com/" target="_blank">StumbleUpon blog of Ricardo</a>, a friend of mine. A just had to laugh about this picture. It looks like graffiti, right. Well, it isn't. At least not in the traditional way. He's cleaning! Apparently the police don't know if it's a crime or not.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-19694843745944361572008-05-26T23:00:00.005+02:002008-05-26T23:04:13.909+02:00IKEA stainless steel scissors (yeah, right!)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SDslEkhXGRI/AAAAAAAAADc/d3XLqV9nqcg/s1600-h/IKEA.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vWKfTO3LI4g/SDslEkhXGRI/AAAAAAAAADc/d3XLqV9nqcg/s400/IKEA.jpg" alt="IKEA stainless steel scissors stained" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204794554810046738" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I think these scissors are barely a month in my possession...electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-84742795099713009602008-05-18T14:59:00.007+02:002008-05-18T15:21:51.788+02:00I'm on a galactic conquest (multiple times)With all the large 3d-games out there, you forget it's all in how the game is set up, not always how it looks like. Take the game <a href="http://www.imitationpickles.org/galcon/index.html" target="_blank">Galcon</a> (short for Galactic Conquest) for example. The graphics are simple, even the whole game concept is simple. But that's perfect for me. I don't have much time, so i can dive into a multi-player game quickly without having the commitment to be online for at least an hour. Perfect.<br /><br />Screenshot of Galcon:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.imitationpickles.org/galcon/content/36.png"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.imitationpickles.org/galcon/content/36.png" alt="" border="0" /></a>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-29423917196453759182008-05-12T22:47:00.003+02:002008-05-12T22:51:03.407+02:00Blog redesignThe blog is undergoing a redesign. As of now it's still unfinished but you should already get an idea of how the blog is going to look like.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-33232817637788122652008-05-06T20:39:00.003+02:002008-05-11T22:57:49.567+02:00Anime weekendWell, I'm back from a whole weekend watching anime (=Japanese animation) in Almelo. I should say up front that I'm not an anime expert. I mostly tag along with a friend of mine who is much more knowledgeable in that genre.<br /><br />Anyways: it was fun. Not in the least because of all the cosplayers (costumed player); visitors that dress themselves as an anime characters. You can see some cosplayers if you follow the link at the bottom of this post.<br /><br />The best anime series I have seen was Dennou Coil. A summary from Wikipedia:<br /><blockquote>Dennou Coil is a Japanese animation science fiction series depicting a near future where augmented reality (AR) technology has just begun to enter the mainstream. AR is combining the real, physical world with the digital world. In the series this is combined with special glasses. The series takes place in the fictional city of Daikoku, a hotbed of AR development with an emerging city-wide virtual infrastructure. It follows a group of children as they use AR visors to unravel the mysteries of the half real, half Internet city, using a variety of illegal software tools, techniques, and virtual pets to manipulate the digital landscape.</blockquote><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Nc-Dvgqn4" target="_blank">Example of Dennou Coil on Youtube</a><br /><br />It show some interesting UI (user interface) stuff like virtual displays emerging out of thin air or pet dogs with status bars.<br /><br />Another one was Lucky Star, although that was particularly hard to comprehend because of the speedy conversations. A summary from Anime News Network:<br /><blockquote>Portrays the lives of several school girls attending a Japanese high school with a very loose humor tone. The main heroine is Konata Izumi, an athletic and intelligent girl who, despite these attributes, is not in a sports club, and her grades remain low. Her laziness at school is due to her love for anime and video games, and she is not interested in much else.</blockquote>I had much fun when they <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWACr5W3lko" target="_blank">discussed eating techniques</a> in Lucky Star. Well, the whole audience in fact :-)<br /><br />And finally: <a href="http://electricspace.hyves.nl/album/26383682/Animecon_2008/eMUT/" target="_blank">the pictures I took on Animecon 2008</a>.electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19352577.post-89453580591367389632008-04-20T00:55:00.002+02:002008-04-20T00:58:32.041+02:00Three cheers for the IntermediairYes, the good things in life <em>are</em> for free. Like the magazine Intermediair. It is free because it solely lives on advertisement space with vacancies for higher educated people. And although it's free it still has quality. The journalists over there have something I like: they don't let themselves get carried away by the "fast news". And by "fast news", I mean news that isn't interpreted, but only reported. I associate that with copy-paste articles from news agencies, hypes and interviews with "the man on the street".<br /><br />Take for example the Tibet-issue that's in the news lately. You could call it a hype, but that's not the right word for it, because Tibet deserves to be in the picture. The only thing that bothers me is the good-bad, white-black, German-allies kind of reporting. The Intermediair didn't spend much words on it, but it pointed to some not that known facts:<br /><br />- Tibet was between 1720 and 1911 an autonomous region of China. The Dalai Lama was relatively free in his decisions, but every Dalai Lama had to be approved by the Chinese government<br />- After the fall of the last Chinese emperor, Tibet one-sidedly declared itself independent.<br />- The Dalai Lama ruled as a god slash king. Most Tibetans were more or less <em>owned</em> by one of the many monasteries in the country.<br /><br />Bet you didn't hear that in the media, right? Does it shed at least a bit of a different light on the Tibetan issue? With that being said: I still think the Tibetans should like any group of people have the right of autonomy. But please, don't make the Dalai Lama a saint or the Chinese devils. Life is more sophisticated than that.<br /><br />By the way: you <em>do</em> know that <a class="personal_link personal_link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_War#Concentration_camps" target="_blank">concentration camps aren't a German invention, but British, right?</a>electricspacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14207320019073144605noreply@blogger.com0