April 2002

Tonight is Beltane, which is "the last of the three spring fertility festivals, the others being Imbolc and Ostara. Beltane is the second principal Celtic festival (the other being Samhain). Celebrated approximately halfway between Vernal (spring) equinox and the midsummer (Summer Solstice). Beltane traditionally marked the arrival of summer in ancient times." Blessed Beltane to you and yours!

I've just seen Sexy Beast [IMDb] on DVD, which I'd rented earlier today. Quite macabre. Excellent. Unbelievable to think that the evil gangster Don Logan is played by Ben Kingsley, who also played not quite so evil Ghandi ten years ago. My compliments.

Duyfken is back home. "The Duyfken replica is sailing in the wake of her original predecessor on her way to The Netherlands for the 2002 VOC Celebrations. [...] This year the Netherlands will commemorate the fact that the 'Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie', better known as VOC (United East India Company) was founded 400 years ago. In the 17th and 18th centuries the VOC was the largest commercial enterprise in the world, with a fleet of more than a hundred ships, with thousands of employees, dozens of offices in Asia and six establishments in the Netherlands."

Not a lot going on this weekend. My parents have gone to Berlin for a few days, so we're just taking it easy. Renting a video, cooking some ribs for dinner. I've got another 2 days of hanging aroung the house, since tuesday is a national holiday (“koninginnedag”) and I've taken monday off from work. Wonderful. And now I'm just doing some stuff for my site. I've added statistics for this blog, to see where people are coming from. And I've made a new style, à la Blue Robot.

There's an article on kuro5hin.org about "Developing a Basic Numerical Metric for Web Usability". It does make sense, but I'm not sure if it can be done. I think usability is more than the sum of a set of rules. Or atleast, it should be. Anyhow, the heavens have opened and what promised to become a sunny day has turned into a rainfest. Shame. And ofcourse I didn't bring my umbrella. Sigh.

It's taken me the better part of the afternoon, but I finally got the new scrollscript for the e-Vision website working! On most platforms that is. Sigh. Internet Explorer on the Mac doesn't seem to like it, and neither does Netscape Navigator 4. But Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer (for the PC, that is) seem to be doing just fine. I haven't had a chance to check out Konquerer though. So if you are running it, would you please let me know if it looks horrible. Thanks.

My weblog, The Hermitage, is exactly one year old today! Hurah! Can't believe a year has past already. And it's funny to see my style has changes quite a lot in such a relatively short time. I was to broadspoaken in the beginning, quoting entire paragraphs. Maybe I can clean it up a bit in the time to come. And so much for the happy news, because unfortunately yesterdays post was wrong, my order of DVDs has not yet arrived. The postman left a note, saying he came 'round, but found nobody home. He'll try again tonight. So I'll have to remain patient for one more day. Sigh.

PHP and COM » "[...] In addition to the Java extension, PHP comes with a very neat little appendage in the form of a COM (that's Component Object Model) extension. A reusable component-based architecture developed by Microsoft, COM makes it possible to do all kinds of cool OO-type things on the Microsoft platform."

I just found out that the PHP Manual has been expaning, with among other stuff a beginning for .NET functions. And I'm delving deeper into the world of CSS Selectors. Very cool stuff. Speaking of cool stuff, if you're thinking of buying me a present, why not try the Cappuccino CG-1 Mini-PC. I would be eternally grateful. ;-)

I just received a text message on my phone from my mom that my DVD's have arrived! Hurah!! Now I have to wait another 2½ hours before I'll be able to open it, because I'm still at work. Sigh. I wish I had one of those cool magic features to influence time. But I don't.

I have lived 8,442 days and according to the Life Expectancy Calculator, I have another 23,897 days left to live. I'll die on Tuesday September 27, 2067 at 10:09:23 AM. Just so you know.

Version 4.2.0 of PHP has been released, with EXPERIMENTAL support for the new Apache (version 2). And then there's Convert-me.com, which is an "interactive measurements calculator, weights and measures / metric conversion". Could come in handy someday. Kookymojo has a link to me, might aswell return the favor. And Eurodifussie is keeping track of the flow of Euros in The Netherlands.

The CSS Anarchist's Cookbook » "I come to you with news of weapons of great destruction. Using common browsers and a little ingenuity, we can erode and explode look-and-feel as we know it. The Web will never look the same again. How will we unleash this awesome force? Simple user stylesheets." Meanwhile, the article Using CSS as a Diagnostic Tool is a lot less evil, but still very cool.

Sad news for this otherwise pleasent sunday evening. Alice in Chains singer died of natural causes or overdose. Sigh. This saddens me deeply. I love Alice In Chains and was still hoping to see them perform live someday. Very sad news. There's a tribute on AliceInChains.net in case you want to share your thoughts. Other bits of info can be found on the MTV website.

I've changed some things on my site. I've reorganized my style change page. There was just to much crap there. I have left only the styles I'm pleased with. And I've changed the weblog page. Added a header feature to my blog template, because I didn't have that before and now I do. I'm not entirely happy with the date header, so that might still change. But overall, I think it's an improvement.

"Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved See my heart I decorate it like a grave You don't understand who they Thought I was supposed to be Look at me now a man Who won't let himself be

Down in a hole, losin' my soul
Down in a hole, losin' control
I'd like to fly,
But my wings have been so denied"

» Alice In Chains - Down in a Hole «

I found an article, entitled Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!, via Slashdot. Makes an interesting read. And in one of the posts I found a link to an RFC Archive, which I wanted to include. And here's evidence of what happens when office supplies attack. LOL.

Though I did wake up at 7:30 (which is when my alarm goes off on 'normal' days), I did manage to fall asleep again after that. So I'm doing much better now. Don't have any plans for today. Think I'll just chill out some more. I did wanted to mention that Thor Heyerdahl died yesterday. In case you don't know him, check out info on his expeditions. Most famous is probably The Kon-Tiki, where Thor proved that the islands in Polynesia were within the range of prehistoric South American vessels.

PC invaders camp out in hard drives » Did you read Kazaa's "terms of service" contract?

What Do I Know is pretty. I also like emptybottle.org. And this is one hell of a cool The Big Lebowski feature. And now I've pretty much had it for this week. I've taken tomorrow off, since I'm constantly tired and need to sleep. Oh, and I'd better hurry up if I want to get to the busstop in time. Bye.

An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a wall in the slums and watches what happens. Check out the results for this Hole-in-the-Wall experiment. (via Slashdot ofcourse)

"A-Prompt Project (Accessibility Prompt) is a software tool designed to improve the usability of HTML documents by evaluating Web pages for accessibility barriers and then providing developers with a fast and easy way to make the necessary repairs."

Apache 2.0 Beats IIS at Its Own Game. Hurah for Apache! Now if only we'd switch here at my work. That would help so much, security and performance wise. Sigh. Anyhoo, here's a link for Playing with Fire, which contains tutorials for Macromedia Fireworks.

<!img src="http://www.streea-davis.com/spirit.jpg" class="rechts">Want To Know Which Element You Are? » "Truly a rare breed, you're calm and thoughtful but still know how to live life. Things are taken slowly but your large list of experiences (yours as well as others) can help you adapt to new situations with little trouble or people being hurt. Unfortunately, you're the most likely to ignore yourself over other people. Emotions rule you, and though you are quick to kindness, your anger could scare the fiercest of creatures. Learn to relax a bit and live your own life.

Best Match: Fire, they'll pull you out of your shell and teach you plenty of things in life.

Worst Match: Water, they're too intent on their emotions to notice yours."

Kabinet Kok gevallen! Zie Volkskrant of Nu.nl (English info on CNN) » crisis in Holland? If you've always wanted to know if Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon' equals 'The Wizard Of Oz'? You can find out at Dark Side of Oz. And if you're nobility you might be a candidate for adoption, since Count Dracula is looking for new blood.

Oh, and if you're dealing with some anger problems, why not play god? And you may also like to visit Dubya Goes to War! Flash can be cool.

A few samples of Gary Larson's Cartoons. And here are a few more.

CFLib.org » Common Function Library Project, which is an open source library of user-defined function (UDF) libraries for ColdFusion 5.0. Why didn't I find this sooner? By the way, here's an introduction to UDF's, by Ben Forta. Or check out What's So Great About User Defined Functions? over at Allaire Macromedia. And last but not least, Making more of UDF's.

I just realized I have over 12.000 hours of Seti@home. Wow. Apparently I have completed "more work units than 90.552% of the other users", which makes a total CPU time of 1.389 years. Anyhow, I just wanted to share this link for free handwriting fonts with you. It's one of my addictions, you see. Oh, and I'm hereby predicting Bloglet will be the next hype in Blogcountry.

Normally it's against my principles to shop at the Free Record Shop (because they're rip-offs), but they're were having a sale. Shame on me, but I ordered the DVD's for Magnolia, Natural Born Killers, Ravenous and Leaving Las Vegas. Can't wait for them to arrive. I'm torn.

My site du jour » Tutorials @ W3C via the latest at A List Apart, called "Fixing Your Site With the Right DOCTYPE".

We (a few of my colleagues and I) were enjoying a bag of candy bananas and were wondering what the E-104 mentioned on the wrapper was. So here's an overview of additives in food. The above mentioned E-104 is advised not to be given to hyperactive children. Hmm. Good thing it's friday, so we can bounce of the walls in the privacy of our own homes. ;-)

In case you're bored...

I've finished my re-reading of Marion Bradley's novel 'Firebrand'. I've chosen The eagle and the raven by Pauline Gedge as my next undertaking.

Here at work, there's talk of taking the Drempelsweg accessibility course. Sounds very cool. As you may know I'm really into the whole standards thing, so this is a great development.

As more and more foreign euro coins pass through my wallet, I was getting curious about who and what was on them. Here's a link to an overview of Euro coins page. (I'm afraid it's in Dutch).

Here's some Ministry (from Jesus Built My Hotrod) »

"soon i discovered that this rock thing was true

jerry lee lewis was the devil

jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet

all of a sudden, i found myself in love with the world

so there was only one thing that i could do

was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long"

A few miscellaneous tidbits to start the week with. Linuxiso.org » Linux ISO images for your favourite distro's. Isn't this ironic? You can download a documentary on Kazaa with Kazaa. LOL! Google to Offer API » instead of parsing HTML you can soon resort to SOAP. Cool of what? Speaking of cool, the Ice Challenger project is driving from Alaska to Siberia. Across the ice. Daily CSS Fun tries to make a new CSS for the same page, every day for a month. Check out Visual Traceroute to see a geographical view of a traceroute. FindSounds.com » search the Web for Sounds and DubyaSpeak.com » "We record the damage".

It's been a good weekend for movies. I've finally seen the impressive The Green Mile on video. And I watched Magnolia on television last night. Both over 3 hours long, and so different from each other. But both really great. Oh, and if you've seen Magnolia, don't forget to check the trivia at the IMDb. There are some great ones here.

But there's more I've seen than just these two. Ofcourse I've got a new Sopranos DVD, so that means 2 more episodes (D-Girl and Full Leather Jacket) which I'll enjoy later today. And I've borrowed 2 Wallace & Gromit video's (A Grand Day Out and A Close Shave). Though I'd already seen 'em, ages ago, you can never get enough of those two! Besides renting The Green Mile, I also got What Women Want and I'd taped Chasing Amy from tv. So now you know. Propably in more detail then you'd wanted. Sorry for that.

Tech the halls: You don't need to speak geek to please one » "Here we have the wily computer geek, also known by its proper Latin name: Intellectis technopithicus dorkeae."

Studenten krijgen ruimere OV-reistijden » timing is alles. Ik heb de mijne net vorige week ingeleverd. Snik. Het verdriet is nog erg vers...

I'm browsing an XML Whitepapers overview. Some interesting stuff here. Good for a friday afternoon. The sun is out and it's already too late in the day to start something new. And it's friday, don't forget. Better do something somewhat useful with your time. Why are friday afternoons so hard to get through? Oh, I just received a link to Bullies Reunited from a colleague, who seems to be having similar concentration problems. Check it out. It's very cool.

Two cows. I wonder what the Dutch version would be...

Which HTML tag are you? » "You're the HREF tag- you need someone to lean on and take care of you. You can be shy but you shine in difficult situations."

On a different note, my W3C WAI-QuickTips, which are "memory prompt for concepts from the W3C Recommendation Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0", have arrived last week. My colleagues already know I'm zealous about my webstandards, so they weren't surprised when I handed a few out. They're great. If everybody who designs for the web gets them and hands them out and the world will be a better place. Sigh.

I'm discovering a theme here people. Check out this article, entitled "Web developers wary of AOL switch" » "Nobody I know spends a lot of time worrying about whether a site will work with Netscape", says webdeveloper X. Well, in theory you shouldn't worry about any one browser at all. You should design for the standards. When will people learn?

I'm checking my mail and in a music newsletter, I found a link to the article "Megadeth Pack It In After Nearly 20 Years » Frontman's relapse, rehab triggers decision to dissolve metal mainstay." Sad news for this sun drenched thursday. Here's the official pressrelease. Let's round off with a quote from their 1994 album Youthanasia » "A tout le monde, a tous mes amis, Je vous aime, Je dois partir."

Of course I've also been doing some browsing today. Like Annoyances.org » a collection of information assembled for and by users of Microsoft Windows. And if you're using KaZaa, here's a tutorial for uninstalling the included spyware. For a bit of humor » Lego Lord of the Rings.

Though it might be a bit heavy for this time of day, there's a somewhat interesting article on Slashdot about Globalism Post 9/11. Anyway, I'm working on a number of small jobs at the moment. One of which is making a site Mac-proof. Don't you just love the whole concept of Webstandards? Sigh. So much time is wasted with user agent sniffers and setting up different stylesheets. Such a waste.

April Fool's Day has come and gone. The only thing to watch out for now is spyware, like the stealth P2P network which hides inside Kazaa. It's tuesday again and April has begun. The sun is out, apparently it could be up to 20°C today. I bought a subscription for the bus this morning. One month for €50. I'll have to buy a few more in the coming months. Atleast untill I get my drivers license in August. Sigh. As you might have already noticed I don't really have anything interesting to say at the moment. So I'd better stop bothering you.

Computer Stupidities » anecdotes galore.