One crazy race!

Paul Stoddart, team owner of Minardi, indicated on TV that 9 teams agreed to race if an additional chicane was placed on the track. That was rejected by Ferrari and the FIA.
Furthermore, he said that he and Jordan agreed not to race either but that his team was racing now because Jordan broke that agreement.
If Jordan an Minardi wouldn’t have raced, it would have left Ferrari to race on their own!

One crazy race!

I’m watching a crazy Formula 1 race from Indianapolis.
Crazy because six cars are driving and 14 others quit after the installation lap. The six cars are using Bridgestone tyres while the other are on Michelin. Michelin made a mistake in the compound of the tyres and couldn’t garantee the safety of the drivers. The mistake resulted in a crash in one of the training sessions, much like last years crash of Ralf Schumacher.
So, all teams with cars on Michelin decided not to race.

The future of the EU

This weekend the heads of the European states couldn’t agree on a new EU budget for 2007. The Dutch want to pay less, the UK want to keep their rebate, the Swedes are also worried, the French want their agricultural subsidies and what the Spanish want, I don’t know. They probably want to keep their subsidies as well, as they have received a lot in the last decades.

It is an interesting development because the issue is not about the budget but about in which direction the EU is going develop in next 10 – 20 years. There are those who want to develop the EU into one political and cultural integrated European state and there are those who want an integrated Europe, but only on an economical level. Up to now the development has been to move to a political and cultural integrated Europe. But decisions made in the past about the agricultural subsidies and the UK rebates are like a ball and chain and are blocking any development and discussion about this. The expansion of the EU with the Eastern European countries also raises questions whether this is the right way and whether this is feasible in this short timeframe.

Going back to the recently held referenda in France and the Netherlands you could conclude that a political integrated EU is too ambitious. I think the EU leaders should concentrate in building the EU into a lean and mean organisation focused on making the EU a strong economy.

Next generation podcasting

Podcasting is about one year old now. Pretty mature for a technology what started as a hype. It raised the question with me; ‘What would you like to see in the next generation of Podcasting’.

How do I listen to Podcasts
I started listening to Podcasts on my PC, simple because I didn’t have a MP3 player. That was alright but I didn’t like the fact that I always needed my PC. I have WiFi, I have a laptop but it didn’t give me enough flexibility.

The next step for me was to buy a player. The result was that I could walk around the house listening to a Podcast. I tried using it in the car but most of the time I’m at work in the car. I’m either busy driving it or talking on the phone. Bottom-line, I was alright but I didn’t think it was a 100% success.

The third step was when I bought a Philips Streamium SL400i. This is a device that I can connect to my audio equipment and I can play and stream audio files from the internet or from a server in the house. This is the configuration which works for me at the moment. I’ve setup a server on which I have iPodder installed which downloads the Podcasts I want al day. When I get home I switch on the streamium, look at what Podcasts have come in, select the one I want and listen to it while I do other stuff.

So what would I like to see as a next step:
– First of all Podcasting should support chapters. You should be able to skip to the section in the Podcast you want instead of FF. Linked to content of the OPML file would be great.
– Podcast should be a multimedia experience. It should be possible that in the middle of a Podcast a picture is shown of either the artist which is being played, the Senseo Adam Curry is using or just something to explain something which is talked about in the Podcast. That would be great on the Streamiun because it is linked to the TV as well.
– iPodder should have an auto clean up function. Everything older than e.g. 3 weeks should be deleted.

Maybe somebody will make this possible.

The MAC is switching to Intel

The MAC is switching to the Intel platform. In an article in the New York Times John Markoff makes a good analysis of what is really behind this move. It looks like IBM isn’t able to produce faster and less heat producing Power chips.

From now on, the MAC is just another Windows machine with a different look. I think within no time it will be able to run all the Windows applications.

Has war broken out in Europe?

With two clear “No’s” from the Netherlands and France and some unsure upcoming results in Denmark and other EU members, it seems as if war has broken out in Europe.

Recently the Netherlands went to Brussels with the message “we want to pay less”. Now the France and the UK are bickering about the EU budget as a whole. The UK is threatening to use its veto right if the discussing about the EU budget is limited to the £3bn annual rebate the UK receives. The UK only wants to discuss EU budgets and the £3bn annual rebate if the whole of the EU and its spending is discussed.

They have a point in this. Forty percent of the [EU] budget goes on CAP [the common agricultural policy’ – which has 5% of the population and less than 2% of the output of the EU.
The EU members apposing a possible change in this policy are the members receiving a lot of money from the EU, e.g. France.

Italy wants to introduce the Lira

The Italian minister of reforms, Roberto Calderole, wants to introduce a new national currency called the Lira. The currency should be linked to the dollar. Roberto is a member of a small fraction within Italy, Lega Nord.

Interesting point is that the European Committee has started a procedure against Italy because it has failed to keep its budgets deficiency below 3%.

Question: How would the EU Consititution have helped?

Medical use of marijuana banned in the USA

On Monday the American Supreme Court has declared the use of marijuana on doctors’ prescription illegal. With that decision the court rejected laws in Ten American States that allow the use of marijuana for medical reasons. Thousand American patients use the anaesthetizing means as a painkiller. Some time ago two serious ill women from California accused the then minister of Justice John Ashcroft, in an attempt to get permission of the judicial power to smoke, to grow and to buy marijuana. When they received the permission of a lower court of Law, the authorities went into appeal.

Six of the nine judges of the Supreme Court decided that opponents of the marijuana ban should address this issue at the Congress and not at court.

In 1996 Californians accepted a law that allowed men in the state to grow, to smoke and to buy marijuana if they were in the possession of a doctor’s explanation. According to the constitution, the American Congress may meddle with the economic activities of states, if these activities the cross state border. The American authorities based their case on this definition.

It is generally presumed that in the case of the two women, the marijuana was grown in California, was free of charge and was not exported to other states.

Have you seen my trophy?

A handgun that Saddam Hussein was clutching when U.S. forces captured him in a hole in Iraq last December is now kept by President Bush at the White House, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

Military officials had the pistol mounted after it was seized from Saddam near his hometown of Tikrit last year, and soldiers involved in the capture gave it to Bush in a private meeting, Time said.

The magazine quoted a visitor who had been shown the gun, which is kept in a small study off the Oval Office where Bush displays memorabilia. It is the same room where former President Bill Clinton had some of his encounters with former intern Monica Lewinsky.

So France said ‘No’, what is the Netherlands going to do?

So France said ‘No’. 45% in favour and 55% against the new EU Constitution. Will this change anything for the result of the Dutch referendum?

The Dutch politicians in favour of the EU Constitution have changed their message during the weekend. Up to the weekend they emphasised that the EU Constitution would improve our position in the EU, give us more power of control, more jobs, a bigger fist against the US and Asia, more and better. Now they have changed their tone of voice and are telling us now that a ‘No’ from us would mean that we would be isolated in Europe. Together in the corner with France and the other European countries are going to decide what to do with us. Without us being able to do anything against it!

What a bullshit!
Today polls show hardly any movement in the Dutch opinion. About 3% of the people have switched sides.
So it’s probably going to be close, I guess 53% will say ‘No’ and 47% ‘Yes’.