The pen is mightier than the sword.
This is not Mohammed!
Solaris (2002)
This weekend I watched George Clooney in Solaris. Good movie, slow but interesting. And I have to say Clooney is more of an actor than I expected.
Music swappers fined
On the BBC news website.
High Court judges ordered two men to pay the British Phonographic Industry between £1,500 and £5,000 for making thousands of songs available online.
(link)
What they did was wrong, but mabe the industry should also look at all the taxes we pay to compensate the music ‘theft’. We pay tax on cassettes, blank CD’s, blank DVD’s, recording equipment, VCR tapes, there was a proposal for a tax on mp3 players, when we walkinto a store with background music, etc. Somehow I get the feeling I’m paying more than once for my music.
eStarling Wi-Fi Gmail / Flickr Enabled LCD Frame
Vista features on your XP desktop
You can find some nifty new Vista tools on the web. Two of them I will mention here; sidebar and a Photo organizer/editing tool (Microsoft Max). You can find Microsoft Max at this site where you can download a version. It reminds me a bit off Picasa. The free Google tool (link). I personally use Adobe Photoshop Elements and I like it very much.
The other thing I would like to point you too is Sidebars. Usefull if you have a big screen, not if you work on a laptop of tablet PC (like I do). (Link)
Networked high definition DVD and media player
Is tumbled across this truly nice device; Kiss DP-600 (link here).
On its website it says;
First release of a new generation of Networked DVD and Media Players, the DP-600 will seduce you by its quality and its ability to playback video in High Definition. Its Ethernet and Wi-Fi Network Connectivity will amaze you, giving you ability to subscribe and stream Video-On-Demand and IP-Television Services. KiSS Online will change the way you look at your television, you can now check what’s on TV today, listen to WebRadio, view the weather forecast, see the latest stock indices and play games. Connect your PC to the KiSS DP-600 and play all your Multimedia files directly to your television with KiSS PC-Link. And of course, the DP-600 will also play all your DVDs, DivX, Windows Media 9, Nero Digital, MP3 and the majority of the file format available.
The specs are really inpressive. Move over Microsoft Media player!
Apple sets Intel chip set free?
Apple sets the Intel free? I think the other way around is more precise.
Apple can finally catch-up with the ‘Windows’ platform on speed and price. Although, speed Yes, price No. You are still paying way to much for an Apple like a MacBook Pro.
Afganisthan and the Dutch politics
Current hot topic in Dutch politics is whether we should send troops to Afghanistan. As you might have read in the newspapers, the USA has requested NATO to take over some of its activities in that region as its resources are stretched.
The Netherlands, as a loyal member of NATO, has been asked whether we could send some 1.100 men to the province of Uruzgan. The Dutch government has more or less said yes, only after getting reassurances from other the NATO partners like the UK and Canada that they would assist if our troops would get into trouble. This is of course a two way agreement. The UK and Canada are also providing troops in that region and want assistance from the Dutch if they get into trouble.
The topic became hot when the Dutch government didn’t say; yes we as a member of NATO we help, but said; yes – maybe, but we first have to ask our parliament. Dutch government is a coalition of three political parties; Liberals, Christian Democrats and some other Democratic fraction. Representatives of that last party immediately said they would block that request if the question came before Parliament. So if Parliament says ‘No’, the only thing the Government can do is go home. A crisis is imminent.
By the way, we are already in Afghanistan.
This crisis is of course wonderful material for the opposition in Parliament. One of the opposition members, Jan Marijnissen, writes on his blog (link);
‘On the one hand you would like to free the Afghan people from the Americans. They are not the best PR representatives of the Western world. On the other hand, the Americans were the ones who invaded Afghanistan. The same America who has squandered its respect it had with the Afghan people. America which now has such a high deficit that even they will have to cut cost. The country is not very interesting for George Bush as there are no valuable natural resources in Afghanistan. It would be very convenient if we were going to pay for it. Especially if we were going to pay it with our lives as George cannot afford additional deaths anymore’.
He goes on to say that the Americans should leave and that the EU should support Afghanistan financially and ‘keep an eye on it’ but we should send any troops.
I don’t know where he get’s it from! Just the idea; if you support them financially all problems will go away. Especially as we know how unstable Afghanistan is. Furthermore, after 9-11 the NATO agreed to support the US as it was it was an attack on one of the members of NATO. I agree that was in 2001 and it 2006 now. But we also promised the Afghans to rebuild there country and bring them democracy as it was the best medicine against oppression and terrorism. We said that it would take at least ten years before we would see some results. We are five years further and the country is still not stable enough and far from rebuild. So please, let us send troops, engineers, medical people, teachers, materials and other stuff they need.
Intel and Apple
The first Intel based Apple is out; MacBook Pro.
If it only ran Windows, I would almost think of getting one.
Health care in the Netherlands
One of the blogs I read on a regular basis is Dooce by Heather B. Armstrong. She and her husband are writing, on their individual blogs, about their problems with getting healthcare coverage now that they are not working for ‘the boss’ anymore. It is scary to read how people are being denied access to a service which should be basic for everybody, especially in ‘the greatest nation on earth, the USA’. It makes you think whether this could happen in the Netherlands as well. As we restructured our system this year and became more dependent on the private health insurance companies, this question has become more apparent than ever.
The healthcare system in the Netherlands has always had a complicated structure. By the first of Jan of this year, after 30 years of discussion, it has been restructured. We use to have a two way system; partly government and partly private. If your income was below a certain amount you were automatically covered by the government system (ziekenfonds as we called it). If you earned to much you went into to private system but you still had to pay for the government system. The solidarity principle as we called it.
In the new system everybody is eligible for a basic health coverage package (which is controlled by the government) which you can get from all the insurance firms. They say that you cannot be refused for basic coverage. You can only be refused for additional insurance coverage (like mental health service or a dental plan). As there is already talk of razing the insurance premium for next year, the next thing could be kicking people out who are too expensive.
As the famous Dutch soccer player Johan Cruijff always said; ‘Every disadvantage has it’s advantages’. The new health system has an advantage especially for the people who are their own boss. For instance all bloggers can form an organisation, and that organisation can make health coverage deals with the insurance companies including rebates. There is an example of groups of active Catholics who have form an organisation and have closed a deal with one of the insurers.
Greece moved closer toward Africa
As a result of a recent earthquake Greece moved 6 meters closer towards Africa. Normally the Greece plate moves 4 centimetres south every year. Because of the quake the displacement was extra large.
The quake which took place in the south of Greece lasted 30 seconds and was also felt in Athens.