Welcome to the Friends of Charles Darwin. You are added to the membership list. For the latest updates, please keep an eye on our weblog: http://darwin.gruts.com/weblog/ RSS feed: http://darwin.gruts.com/weblog/rss/ While you’re still in a Darwinian mood, you might like to pop over to the Beagle Project website and learn about their plans to build a replica of HMS Beagle and recreate her 1831-36 voyage with international crews of aspiring young scientists. You could even consider making a small (or large) donation, or buying some inspirational merchandise from their online shop: Website: http://thebeagleproject.com/ Shop (UK, Europe, Japan): http://309032.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Shop Shop (USA and… >> Lees verder . . . >>

Mooi verhaal op de Wired blog van vandaag: San Francisco gegijzeld door ex-ambtenaar. Blijkt dat het complete netwerk van de stad én de gemeente gegijzeld is door een netwerkbeheerder die eerst zichzelf als super-user van de complete rambam heeft benoemd, zowel de systemen als het complete glasvezelnetwerk. Daarna heeft-ie de permissies van alle anderen onderhanden genomen, met als gevolg dat bijvoorbeeld niet alleen de burgemeester en álle abmtenaren geen mail meer kunnen lezen, maar dat ook justitie én advocatuur niet meer bij hun bestanden kunnen. De man, ene Terry Childs, die wellicht nog een appeltje te schillen had met een… >> Lees verder . . . >>

From Martin Belam on the BBC Internet Blog: Remembering myBBC The freshly redesigned BBC homepage comes complete with a swishy new interface that allows users to customise the way the page appears to them. It isn’t the first time the BBC has dabbled with personalising homepages. For some time now, users have been offered personalised weather on the BBC homepage, and BBC News has had a small panel for UK users allowing them to get their local stories straight away by entering their postcode. The BBC homepage also used to have “targeted” promotions in the early 2000s. As users visited… >> Lees verder . . . >>

After having worked with all previous releases and versions of Paint Shop Pro on Windows for for at least 12 years in a row, I’m finally out of there. For those who don’t know yet: the only reason that I was using this program on that platform: the boss buys Windows. At home it’s Mac OSX, iPhoto and PhotoShop. Anyway, tried to work with Corel Photo XI for a month now, but I give up. The file browser is totally incomprehensible, compared to the simple and fast browser in versions 8 and 9. The program is a real memory hog,… >> Lees verder . . . >>

My friend Ron owns one, so he can pass, but all iPhone junkies in The Netherlands, who can’t eat or sleep until november, go to The Hague and get a free shot of Apple juice. Director Titus Yocarini of The Museum for Communication has DHL’ed a real iPhone to Holland, which has, accordingly to Yocarini, become the first ever iPhone in a museum collection. You never know if sun and summer might make a mistake this weekend, but if they show up, and you go to the beach in Scheveningen, walk by the museum; they’ve got a paper iPhone for… >> Lees verder . . . >>

Very interesting discussion on Wired, a multi media success in the US. Wired is a magazine, a website, a blog, Wired is paper, digital and mobile content, Wired is much more than is used to be, a magazine about computers,Internet, technology. For instance; an article about sex, Is ‘Internet Normal’ the New ‘Sex Normal’? A lot of my fellow countrymen over here in The Netherlands not only think, but they know for sure that most Americans are very puritanical people. Like our Christian Historic party, that’s against most forms of too visible parts, of too much body. Dutch people don’t… >> Lees verder . . . >>

They’re the kind of discussions I always to steer away from at birthday parties or at the bar in the local pub: about the police or the lovely Rita’s (the meter maids). You know, people complaining about getting a ticket for a red light that was green, about parking tickets, whatever, and it’s never their own fault. Such a waste of time. I dislike them even more because ever so often I’m the only who says no nagging or whining please. Who says that the world would be a much better place it half the population obeyed some rules, while… >> Lees verder . . . >>

Piss off. We don’t need your hedge and the nest anymore, cause we can fly! Don’t you think that’s exactly what this young blackbird is trying to tell me? The four of them flew out this morning, and both parents were attacking my head when I shot this picture. I caught a glimpse of one of the others in the shed, ducking under some garbage, the remaining two should be around somewhere.Like last year, the crows and the magpies are searching the neighbourhood for fresh tucker, but as these youngsters are much bigger than the doomed nest from last year,… >> Lees verder . . . >>

It looks like an early spring over here in Holland. It’s april 10 and those four young blackbirds in our back garden look like they’re ready to jump out of the nest any moment. The nest is build on exactly the same spot in the hedge, like each year since we’re living here, but I doubt the first nest of the season has been this early before. Last year was a bad one, as two out of five died in the first week, and the three survivors left the nest too early, only to fell prey to the magpies.

I wonder if my biology teacher from the seventies is still alive. In his left hand holding ‘The Report To The Club Of Rome’, with his other hand slamming his desk, predicting that we would never see the daylight of January 1, 2000. Some ten years later we were daily showered with stories about acid rain en leafless woods, an now, in 2007, the climate is the hottest issue. It doesn’t make me warm or cold, but I wonder were Al Gore is lecturing these days. His own country is – even in California – struggling with the effects of… >> Lees verder . . . >>

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!

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 . . . >>