As I haven’t produced any predictions at the beginning of this year, we don’t have to settle anything. But I have to admit I was wrong about Wikipedia. I’ve written with at least some scepticism about the online encyclopedia – and all open directory systems – but in 2006 I’ve been converted: Wikipedia has become my favourite website. If you haven’t discovered the online encyclopedia yourself: find out the differences yourself. Go Google, enter a keyword that has anything to do with what you’re searching, and start searching. And start searching all over again, within the results produced by Google.… >> Lees verder . . . >>
Where does Santa live?
Every Dutch kid knows where Sinterklaas is living, but where does Santa Claus reside? Your answer doesn’t have to be the right one, because there are quite a number of different Santa’s and Xmas cultures. In the US the most given answers will be that Santa lives in Alaska or on the North Pole, but in Finland they know better. Thanks to a worldwide, very secret society of postmen, who forward every letter addressed to Santa Claus, to Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. All letters that have a return to address on the back, are answered by Santa Claus, written by… >> Lees verder . . . >>
The biggest rubes, boobs, and noobs of 2006
The year 2006 is almost history, so this is the time for awards. I like this one, presented yesterday by one Robert X. Cringely in Cringeville: The MOONies, honoring the most Morally Obtuse, Offensive, and Noxious behavior in high tech. This year’s MOONie winners will receive a handsome statuette of Steve Ballmer bending over and dropping his trousers, affectionately known around Redmond as The Google Salute. Along the way a few tips of the Cringely fedora to deserving folks who made the tech world a better place. So without further ado …: The biggest rubes, boobs, and noobs of 2006,… >> Lees verder . . . >>
Was it The Fool, speaking Dutch?
Real (Dutch) Beatles fans know the answer to the question: in which song, written and recorded by The Beatles a sentence is spoken in Dutch? The answer is ‘I Am The Walrus’, where someone says ‘Dat zouden ze wel willen’ in the dying seconds of the song. In English that would haven been ‘they should (have) want(ed) that’, or something similar. Play a bit with the settings of you favorite MP3 player and you will find it. In Dutch at @ DutchCowboys As far as I ‘m concerned the complete text of I Am The Walrus might as well be… >> Lees verder . . . >>
Leo 50 (!) (leeftijd, niet slaggemiddelde :-)
Nu de rook om mijn hoofd weer een beetje verdwenen is, zijn de foto’s en de video van het mooie feest in Cafe D’n Inval in Raamsdonskveer naar het web verhuisd.Kijk, lees, luister, huiver en geniet: Leo 50! (zijn leeftijd, niet zijn slaggemiddelde)Allemaal bedankt voor het lachen en graag tot de volgende keer:Foto’s: Leo 50!
WiFi as The New Danger
A little more than a year ago, I wrote a column (‘Stralingsangst‘), for the newspaper I’m working at, about Fear of Elector Magnetic Fields. Publication resulted in a number of angry letters to the editor. Written by those readers who are very busy with all kinds of sickness and disease, te result of EMF caused by GSM, GPR and UMTS networks in The Netherlands. In Dutch at @ DutchCowboys In the discussion aftermath, I repeated a prediction I’d made earlier, when Google started to build its WiFi networks in Mountain View and San Francisco. My prevision was: ‘So far we… >> Lees verder . . . >>
iPod in Space
PHOTO NASA If you look carefully at the large version of this image you will see an iPod attached to a Belkin external battery pack on the equipment rack directly in front of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter. According to Sydney Morning Herald: the iPod doesn’t appear to be used as part of the experiment – it’s more likely that it’s used for recreational purposes. SMH: Also pictured near the iPod are two IBM laptops, a Sony television and numerous Nikon cameras. The iPod was first spotted by the spaceref.com website. The photo was posted on the NASA website… >> Lees verder . . . >>
@ The Market Place
During the renovation (initially a one year project, for a number of reasons finished in 3 years and 3 months), and after moving back into our little 1895 house we’ve become fanatic Marktplaatsers. Marktplaats means MarketPlace, it’s the original Dutch eBay, as a matter of fact taken over by eBay, but still running on the original platform, same layout, same name, even while eBay operates in Dutch at eBay.nl. We found our moving boxes at Marktplaats, sixty good boxes for thirty Euros (‘only one time used’), en we’ve sold three quarters of them for the same amount after the removal,… >> Lees verder . . . >>
Phones for sale
I’m gonna say bye bye to my collection of old black phones. Until 1997, when ISDN arrived, followed by ADSL a few years later, five or six of them were still working in our little old house. A telecom guy who walked in once shook his head and said that it was impossible to hook more than two of them one standard line as they were dragging to much energy, but they were always working. But that was, and this is now: for sale, twenty different old black phones, most of them black bakelite, some white, a white Ericofoon. Desktop… >> Lees verder . . . >>
Fifty percent of Google users do not scroll
Almost half of all users of Google in The Netherlands rather enter a new search word than bother to scroll. Google hits and ads that don’t show up in the very first result screen are becoming futile. That is, according top the results of a survey presented by Ronald Verschueren from NetMarketing at a meeting for members of NIMA (Nederlands Instituut voor Marketing) in Baarn. In Dutch at @ DutchCowboys The effect of less scrolling: ads getting more expensive. ‘The trend is less scrolling, and we’re expecting to see more and more of less scrolling’. It’s something also happening on… >> Lees verder . . . >>
How to handle Internet Errata?
How to handle errors published on a website? I’d never thought about it until 1995, when an evident error caught my eye, while reading The Daily Planet, then still King in the Land of the Blind Men, those who’d not seen the Internet light yet. I mailed the webmaster, listening to the remarkable name of Francisco van Jole, and I remember I was very surprised when a reply arrived in the very same minute I’d send my remarks. Not only the webmaster, but even the man really existed, in that tenderly awakening digital world! In Dutch at @ DutchCowboys His… >> Lees verder . . . >>